After (59 page)

Every day I think maybe I'll die. I'll shoot myself, so I don't have to wish that
anymore. But I'm so scared that when I die, I'll see you. I don't want to see how much
you hate me for what I've done to our son.

Nix looked at the drawing again. The laughing man and woman with the baby.

“Do you know the place he means? Where he took you from?” she asked.

“No. I tried to ask him a couple of times, just asking questions about my mother, where I'd been born. But he'd never talk about any of it. He'd just shrug and say something about 'back east.'”

Gareth was quiet for a long time.

Then he said, “I think I remember, when I was really little, my dad would talk about her. I don't really remember the exact things he'd say. But I grew up with this image, this idea of her. I know it came from him. This woman, the smartest person Dad had ever known, and strong. Strong-willed, I mean. But kind. I think he talked about her all the time when I was little, and then he stopped.

“I remember there were a few times I asked about her and didn't get an answer.

He'd shrug, or change the subject. And then one time,” Gareth went quiet again, then finished. “One time he said, 'She's dead. She was a just a woman. What's there to say?’”

CHAPTER THIRTY

As they went farther and farther east, deeper and deeper through autumn, the air got colder, the ground harder. Sometimes, there were flurries of snow; not enough to slow them, but it worried Gareth. The possibility that they'd get caught miles from anything, that they would freeze to death out there, that the snow would thicken under their boots and make them miss the rendezvous, that a storm would come up, and they would lose their way. But Nix was glad. When the snow kicked up, they were invisible to anyone more than fifteen or twenty feet away. And the dusting of white made everything pretty. Like the forest had been showered with diamonds. She'd seen diamonds when she was young. Her husband had some. Under the snow, even the broken old buildings and rusted out tractors and trucks looked pretty. Clean. Pure. Like there was nothing dirty or ugly anywhere on earth.

“What's that?”

Now, though the ground and the trees were dusted with fine white powder, the sky was blue and clear.

But in the distance, smoke.

They kept to the trees, watching, listening. Creeping along, camouflaging themselves under the cloak of shadows woven from denuded trees, they steered themselves wide of the smoke, their guns ready. Every time there was the crunch of snow under her boot Nix's skin went taut and her heart squeezed, but whenever Gareth glanced back she showed him a calm expression. Now and then they'd stop and listen to the silence, reassure themselves that theirs were the only footsteps in those woods.

There was something strange about the smoke. It didn't roll up in undulating billows. It wasn't an opaque column of charcoal or dove gray. It was a translucent white veil, like fog. But too concentrated in the center of that blue sky.

Gareth turned back to her and said, “It isn't smoke. It's steam.”

“From what?”

“Look over there. See that?”

Against the swoop and roll of snow-frosted hills and rocks she noticed the rigid angles. A crisscross of shadows, and above them, a bridge of faded wood. Now that they'd stopped, now that she'd fixed the point of concentration, as she strained her ear, she could make out the sound of running water.

While she watched from the cover of trees and shadows, Gareth crossed the white-dusted hills, rising, sinking, and finally disappearing beyond the higher ground.

The old anxiety slithered up the backs of her legs and got inside her, coiling around and around her gut, constricting until she thought she'd throw up the chestnuts she'd eaten that morning. Too long. He should have dipped down and risen right back up. If there were men over that hill, if they'd seen him, he'd have to talk. Answer questions. Couldn't leave right away or they'd be suspicious.

How long would he be gone? What if someone over there had seen them? What if they were keeping Gareth there with guns and rope? Maybe they were waiting, hidden, watching, to see what she would do?

She tried to beat back the idea that he'd give her up to them.

When his figure rose, dark against the impossible white of the snow under the afternoon sun, she willed her breathing back to normal, promised herself she was safe.

They were safe.

“It's a hot spring,” he said, almost looking like a little boy again. The way he had with the guitar.

Her anxiety fell away.

“The spring feeds into the lake.” He was panting, catching his breath after jogging back to her over those hills. “And there's a cave, and the spring comes up in there, too.”

His eager grin provoked her to smile.

“It feels like eighty degrees in there.”

The sun was a good two hours from setting. But they'd been making good time.

She figured they were easily a day ahead of schedule.

“Well,” she said, helpless to resist mirroring his child-like smile, “how about we call it a day.”

“What? And stay here?”

“I could stand to bathe. And I could stand for you to bathe.”

He laughed. “Just ask, and I'll scrub myself with a handful of snow.”

“Alright. Scrub yourself with a handful of snow. I'll be over there in the warm, steamy water.”

The thing she didn't like about it was the cave was a dead end. No back door escape. And the image of their footprints in the frost, a trail leading to their one door, kept prodding her belly like a blunt stick. But, god, it was so warm in there. She hadn't even known how cold she'd been all day, all the day before, until she felt that moist heat loosening her tight muscles.

Along the south wall of the cave, a pool ran for ten or more feet. Dipping a finger in to test, then submerging her hand, she found it not too hot. Even there, the lake water mixed with the subterranean waters.

“You go first,” Gareth said. “I'll take first watch.”

He settled a few feet inside the mouth of the cave, his back to her and the steaming pool. It was easy, stripping out of her clothes. Standing naked for a minute, just looking at the back of him silhouetted against the afternoon sky. He wouldn't turn around. She knew. Even if he did, it wouldn't scare her, being naked in front of him. He wouldn't be driven by the sight of her naked body to do wrong, to hurt, even to ask something of her, finally. All at once, she knew this about him. Was sure of him.

Standing at the edge, feeling the slick, damp rock with her bare feet, she closed her eyes. Wet warmth slinked up the font of her body, clinging to the fine hair on her shins, thighs, her belly and breasts and face. Sheathed in mist, she perched on the edge. The black-gray rock wasn't too rough under her bare ass, and she tentatively dipped a foot into the water, almost black in the dusk of the cave. Inch by inch she sank into that buoying heat, almost unbearable at first, then soothing.

All her taut muscles softened, her sharp alertness dulled. Gareth's silhouette was still. Only his hair ruffled and waved in the occasional breeze.

She submerged. The nerves of her scalp woke as her hair floated up. For a moment, she curled into a ball and left her body suspended, weightless in liquid space.

When she surfaced, the humid air inside the cave that had felt so warm when they'd come in felt cool. Her wet hair hung heavy, pulling on her scalp.

“Gareth.”

He twisted toward her, but kept his gaze on the ground.

“Come here.”

The backlit silhouette rose, almost blacking out the dimming sky. He came to the edge of the pool. Squatted down.

“Come in with me.”

“Alright.”

He stripped out of his clothes, then walked, naked, to the mouth of the cave, stepped out, scanned the horizon. He felt it, too. The vulnerability of the dead end. It wasn't rational, she knew that, but she'd have been more anxious if she'd been holed up in a basement with a single exit. But nature comforted. Even if it was a tactical travesty, the cave made her feel safe.

Strange.

At the point farthest from where she was perched on a submerged outcropping of rock, he lowered himself into the water. That boyish smile spread his mouth wide.

“Takes a little getting used to,” he huffed.

Strained stoicism faded into blissful calm as his body adjusted to the heat.

“Come here.”

He went to her. When she touched his shoulder, he turned his back to her, let her guide him down, until he was reclined on top of her, his head resting on her chest. So soft, his hair. Touching it, she felt that he was young and fragile. Tilting his head back, so his dark curls undulated under the water like delicate jellyfish, like the finest of waving, dancing plants rooted in the sand and reaching for the sun, she combed her fingers through his hair, circled her nails over his scalp. He sighed. Her mother had washed her hair like this, in the tub. Touching him this way, she felt like mother and child, both.

“Your touch feels so nice,” he said.

She trailed her fingers down the nape of his neck. Up and down his arms. Back into his hair. When she coaxed him up he retreated again to the far end of the pool.

He gave her a strange smile, then said, “It would be nice if we didn't have to leave here in the morning.”

She swam toward him. The pool was shallow, there. When she stood on the shelf of shale, the water just covered her shoulders.

“Hold me again. Like you did in the woods.”

“Alright.” His voice had a waver to it.

They wound their arms around each other, pulled their bodies together. It was strange to feel so much of him, the frame of his bones and the shape of his muscles, his skin, nothing between them. The rough stubble of his neck against her forehead, his chest, smooth under her cheek, his heart thumping under her ear. His cock, stiff, nestled between them, burrowing into her belly. It wasn't scary. It didn't even make her angry.

Only a little sad, maybe.

When she kissed him he sighed and kissed her back, and let her loose from the circle of his arms. His hands lit, light, gentle, at her waist, and stayed still. While they touched their lips together, nursed at each other's lips and tongues and the heat in her belly gathered mass, she wondered how it would feel. His hands on her breasts. His mouth on her nipples. His weight on her. His hips between her thighs. That hardness pressed to her belly, inside her, churning. Her eyes closed, their mouths open and hungry and seeking, she imagined those touches. His tongue seeking and touching and brushing over hers felt good. Why, when she imagined the rest, did it feel like she'd eaten a basket of unripe cherries? Like a violent, vomit-inducing cramp.

He'd stopped the kiss. His hands were off her. The only thing touching her, now, was the water, and the stone under her feet. Gareth's gray eyes were back to cool stone.

“What?” she asked.

“You were shaking.”

“I'm alright.”

“No. You're not.”

The way he was looking at her. She blanked her face. The way he had. But she knew how it had looked. That the disgust fermenting in her gut had twisted her expression.

“It's not you,” she whispered.

“I know. I'll get out. Let you have some time.”

The muscles along the backs of his arms and down his sides bulged and flexed and he hoisted himself from the pool. She'd wounded him. The stony eyes were to hide that. His ass was paler than his back. Wet prints of his feet followed him back to the mouth of the cave, and he stood there watching the slow death of day, letting the water run down his body.

It disappointed her, the comfortable warmth of the cave, even after the heat of the pool. She'd counted on the shock of cold air enveloping her steaming body to pull her from her thoughts. She wrung her hair out at the edge of the pool, and dressed. Wet or dry, they'd reach some equilibrium with the air in the cave. Dryer, wetter. It didn't matter.

When the sun abandoned them to darkness they ate, both silent. When he made up a bed, she asked if she could sleep with him, and he said yes.

For the first time, she turned her back on him. Asked him to put his arm around her. She liked it, the weight of that arm. The warmth of his body. The soft sound of his breathing. The feel of the swell and fall of his chest and belly against her back.

“I don't think I can love you,” she said.

“I don't expect you to.”

“You want me to.”

“Yes. I want to have love. I want it with you. But this friendship, walking together, sharing our memories, feeling your arms around me when I fall asleep, I didn't think I'd get a happiness like this. I don't need more. If there's happiness for you in this, with me, Nix, I'll give it to you as long as I'm alive.”

* * * *

The price they paid for their night in the humid heat of that cave was a forced march in damp gear the next morning. A heavy consequence, given the frosty temperature before the sun burned through the clouds. But they were lucky; by mid-morning they were descending rapidly, and every ten minutes seemed to earn them another degree of warmth.

That afternoon they made camp in an aluminum barn, which had endured the years better than the wooden house, half devoured by termites and sun and rain. But the bounty of the fields more than compensated for the pitiful structures. That evening they had peanuts, pears and carrots. The heartiest feast they'd enjoyed in days. The roots and nuts would keep, too. In their eagerness, they collected more than they could possibly manage to eat and carry.

They feasted mostly on the pears, which would bruise and spoil in their packs before long. Nix bit through the brown skin, into the firm white flesh, sucking the sweet tart juice over her tongue as she chewed, while Gareth sat there, running his fingertip over the fine roughness of the skin, lifting it to his nose, breathing in its scent. She laughed. He looked at her. Smiled. Then gave in to laughing, himself.

To keep warm they huddled together under a blanket, and Gareth told her the story of a man who woke one morning to find he'd become a beetle the size of a person but with all the appetites and weaknesses of an insect. This man had worked hard until the morning he'd woken up a bug, but now that he was a beetle, his family was afraid of him, ashamed of him, and all the time they fed him the rotting scraps from the table, they were wishing he would die. And finally he did die, and the family was happier without him. Nix thought it should have been a sad story, but the way Gareth told it, it was strangely funny.