“What are you doing up, sweet girl?” he asked softly. Beside him, Mary stirred.
He looked at the pyjama-clad figure again. Her dark hair was sticking out from every angle, but that didn't mean she'd already been asleep. Her eyes were wide as she stared across the room at him.
Mary had opened her eyes now, and tilted her head to see where he was looking. “Bad dream?” she asked sleepily.
“No,” came the little voice. “Just thinking.”
With just a faint grimace, she pulled herself into a sitting position and patted the side of the bed. “Come here.”
The little girl ran towards the bed, jumping into the space between the adults. After spending the requisite time arranging the mess of blankets around her, she leaned back and looked up at them.
“So. What is it?” asked Mary.
“What?” asked the girl.
“What's got you thinking?”
“I don't know,” she said with a shrug. “Can I stay in here with you?”
“No,” said Mary with a chuckle. “Sorry, hon, that's why we set up that big kid's bed in Johnny’s room.” She pulled the little girl to her, kissing her on the forehead. “There. You're okay. I will see you in the morning.” She smoothed the girl's hair. “Uncle Eric will take you back to bed.” She reached across her niece to poke him.
“Me?” he asked wearily.
“Hey, we made a deal,” she said. “Once the night time feedings are over, it's your turn.”
“I meant our kid. Not nieces and nephews and random kids we volunteer to baby-sit.” She had already rolled onto her side, and his niece was already struggling to stand up on the creaky mattress. With a faint sigh, he pulled himself out from under the covers. He reached for the little girl, wincing as her arms encircled his neck in a vice grip.
As he walked through the hallway, he paused in the doorway to his son's room. All was quiet, and he didn't want to have two wide-awake children. He proceeded to the living room, and hesitating for just a moment, went over to the armchair.
When she had been a baby, they had sat like this on many evenings. Usually at his mother's house, he'd sit with her in the rocking chair, sometimes rocking her, sometimes talking quietly, but usually in silence. The others had been amused, and a little puzzled, at how they had taken to each other. Her own parents had seen him as a lifesaver, and were grateful he'd been such a devoted uncle. They hadn't realized what she'd done for him. In those chaotic days, in which he'd worked so many hours trying to keep his fellow townspeople safe, those few moments sitting with this little person had been the only still times.
Nowadays, she was usually not so quiet. She arranged her legs on his lap, elbowed him in the stomach, and finally settled to lean back against him. He thought she might say something, as she talked non-stop during the daylight hours, but for a while they both sat in silence.
Finally, he spoke. “You thinking about your mom and dad?”
“Uh-huh,” came the answer.
He nodded gruffly. The older she got, the harder this would be. “You know they'll be back soon, right?”
“Uh-huh,” she said again.
“You know, I've seen them go away like this before. There've been times I worried. But they always came back.”
She was silent, just shifting a little on his lap. He smiled. “Seriously. Your dad had to take off a couple times in the past, and I didn't know where he was for five years once. He came back at just the right time. And there was a time your mom really scared me. I thought I'd never see her again. We all did.”
“How come?” she asked quietly.
“What's that?” he asked.
“How come you thought Mommy wasn't coming back?” she asked.
He paused in the darkness. She knew many of the stories. She was always pestering people for more stories during the day, across the dinner table, and before she went to sleep at night. His brother didn't mind telling her, or letting their friends tell her a close version of the truth. He knew she knew about her grandfather's heroic, tragic end, her father's daring flight to Texas, and her parents' first meeting on the day the world changed. As far as he knew, she didn't know the New Bern story.
“Where did she go?” she asked. He had peaked her curiosity. Now he would be hearing about it until he told her. Hopefully Jake wouldn't be too angry whenever he did get back.
“Did anyone ever tell you about how your mom went over to New Bern to build windmills?” She nodded her head against his shoulder.
“I went too. After a month or so. They came to town with the first windmill, and they said they needed ten men from Jericho to help build the rest. I was one of them, and-”
“Uncle Stanley.”
“Right. Stanley went too. We packed our bags, we said goodbye to our families, and we rode to New Bern in a couple of trucks.” He paused, listening to the quiet in the room, only faintly hoping she'd already be nodding off.
“What was it like there?” No such luck. Of course, he had hit on a subject of infinite interest for the children who were too young to have visited the neighbouring town before all the troubles started, those years ago. Only recently had the two towns begun to form a fragile relationship once again. Eric rarely ventured into New Bern himself, and no one ever brought their children there.
He thought carefully before he began, knowing there were some grisly scenes about which she should never hear. “It was very different from what we were used to here at home. Things didn't go as well for the people there after the bombs. They didn't have as much food as we did, and they didn't have very much to trade for out there, so they were hungry and afraid. When people are scared, sometimes they act different from how they would normally. I remember when we first got there, looking up and down the main street. Everything looked so bleak. The people we saw- they looked so sad. They took us to the factory, and we saw your mom there.”
“Was she sad too?”
He chuckled. “No, are you kidding, the look on her face when she saw us... I think she missed home. We were happy to see her too. To see someone we knew, in the middle of all that.” Right now, he couldn't remember the last time he'd thought about that moment, or that day. Arriving in New Bern, carrying with him the ghosts of April and Tracy, looking at his surroundings in a daze, and wondering if the whole world had become a ghostly plane. Marching towards the factory where he was sure he would begin his penance, grimly satisfied that the place in which he found himself was as dark and dreary as he deserved. He had noticed Heather's beaming face, but had stayed back when Stanley ran forward to pull her into one of his bear hugs. He had come to do his time, and he would not be a part of any of those ordinary human interactions they had all known once. He'd watched her face fall and her eyes cloud over when Stanley told her the news from home, and he'd accepted her sympathetic embrace, but he'd let the two of them do all the talking as he'd followed behind them on the way out of the factory.
“What next?” she asked.
“What did I do next? I worked at the factory, for a few weeks. When we weren't working, we had to stay at the library. They weren't using it anymore, and it was near the factory. We slept on the floor, in the reference section. It was the warmest there.”
She was giggling softly, he realized. Of course, she would find sleeping over in a library a pleasant idea. She loved books and stories, and had never had to stay overnight in an abandoned New Bern library. He was glad she couldn't see the image that room still held in his mind.
“During the day, I worked on the machines. It was hard work. Stanley told stories to make us laugh, when he could. Everyone looked forward to break time.” Except for him. He'd sit still, forcing himself to swallow the dry bread though it felt like sandpaper scraping down his throat and through his digestive system. He wouldn't hear what they were saying around him; he could sense the nervousness they were all trying to mask, the hopefulness they constantly tried to muster in themselves. “Mostly, everyone was tired. We worked all day, and we didn't get to eat a lot. Even Stanley would be too tired to do much after work except go back to the library and fall asleep.”
“And Mommy?”
“She stayed with her friend, so she didn't have to sleep on the floor with us. Did you ever hear about her friend Ted?”
“Yeah. That's how Andrew got his middle name, after Mommy's friend Ted.”
“Right. Well, Ted had a trailer, and your mom stayed there, so she got to sleep on a couch. She said it sank down pretty low when you sat on it, but she was still lucky, because it hadn't collapsed yet. She was trying to make us laugh, but I don't know if everyone else thought it was funny. The carpet at the library was really gross. There were rats living there too.”
She didn't say anything, and he hoped that Jake wouldn't be after him later for telling bedtime stories with rats and infested carpeting. “Anyway, that was how we lived, for a few weeks. It was...it was a hard time for me, honey. I had a lot of things to think about. Your aunt April had just died, and your cousin.”
“You were very sad.”
It wasn't a question, but he answered. “Yeah, I was. And I was angry, mostly at myself.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Well, most of the time, like I said, we had to work really hard, so I kept myself busy doing just that. I thought about people- April, your grandma and grandpa, your aunt Mary, even your dad, and everyone else back home. And I tried not to think about them. Then one day...” That day. It was still a mystery to him. How had it been him, and not any of the others, to wander into that part of the factory? Why him, and why had it happened the way it all had? Would he have done anything differently if he could? Would they all be better off now, or worse?
“Uncle Eric.”
He turned his head so he could see her in the darkness. “What?”
She just looked up at him, questioningly.
“That day,” he said, with a painful chuckle. “We were on our break, and everyone was talking about home. I don't really remember much- Stanley was talking about Bonnie, something funny she'd done when she was mad at him, a long time ago. Heather was laughing, so were the others, but I remember her laugh, for some reason. I didn't want it. The laughing, remembering how things used to be, back there. I took the rest of my lunch, and went out back, behind the factory.” He had tried to eat it, because he'd seen what happened when people gave up even on their lunch, but it had tasted repulsive and he'd almost gagged. He'd thrown it as far as he could, across the tall grasses in the field behind the factory.
He had passed most of his lunch breaks like he did most of his days- in a stony silence, there but not there. That day, however, he had been feeling that sharper pain that sometimes surfaced, and he decided he'd try to stay away from his friends and their reminiscing until he could reclaim that duller, determined aching he normally held close to him.
He'd gone inside, and decided to walk a different way through the factory, to pass the time before he'd have to face the others.
“I went back inside, and I had some time before lunch was over, so I walked through some hallways I'd never seen before.” There were signs everywhere directing workers about areas in which they were and were not authorized to be. From their first day on the job, the men in charge had barked stern warnings about following factory rules. The little group from Jericho had kept their heads down, drudging through their work every day, dreaming about home every night. No one had even had the energy to talk about the goings-on in New Bern: the whispers in the ration line, the jokes the other workers seemed to be making at their expense, or the stricter rules Constantino had given them, “for their own saftey”. That day, he had felt reckless. So what if the signs said 'No Entry'? There was nothing worse that could happen than what had come before him, and his days passed in anticipation of what terrible things might be coming next. He opened a door, and went down a hallway, feeling, in this small act of defiance, a little bit alive for the first time since he'd arrived in New Bern. He'd been walking through the dark corridor, almost smiling smugly to himself, when the sound of a creaking door had startled him. He'd carefully crept towards the junction in the hallway, peering around the corner. He had stared in shock at the men he saw coming out of a room, sure he recognized some of them, despite the dim lighting.
“I saw Constantino, and some men who worked for him.”
He heard her breathe in sharply. Even at her age, she knew something of the strong feelings that name held for the people of her town. She already knew, of course, his part in her grandfather's murder, though it was usually glossed over a little bit in its retelling. She didn't know yet the significance this name had in her more immediate family history.
“I had never seen them at the factory, not since the day they brought us there for the first time. I hid down a small hallway until they were gone, and I went over to the room.”
Why had he needed to know what was in that room? He had asked himself before, in his quieter moments. Had he sensed, even then, the ominous plans the other town had been making in secret? Had he realized it, in the looks the other workers gave them, the silence surrounding the eleven of them when they walked through public places? Or was it just that smug smile he wore that day that propelled him towards the door? Had he uncovered a dangerous plan only because breaking the rules had made him feel a little less like a ghost himself?
“I went inside. I found a map. It was a map of Jericho. It was divided up into sections- which of Constantino's men would control which piece of farmland. They had lists too. Lists of everything we had here.”
He paused again, wondering if she would understood what this meant. How could he explain it? “I knew that they were getting ready to do something. See, honey, they really didn't have enough of anything. They didn't have food, or even enough water. So Constantino was making a plan. He was going to attack our town, and take our food, our water, and our land.”
He braced himself for a slew of questions. She only asked one. “So that's how the fight with New Bern started?”
“Yeah, that's right,” he said. “After I found the maps, I knew I needed to do something. I was...really shocked. I couldn't believe it. I ran out of there. Right out of the factory.”
“Were you scared?”
He was slow to answer. “Yeah. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go back to work, and pretend everything was fine. I couldn't run in and tell the others- not in front of the factory workers. I walked to the edge of town. There was a checkpoint set up on the road out of town. I knew they wouldn't let me go. I found myself an old abandoned shack near a junk yard, and I sat on the floor, thinking.”
He had never told anyone about those terrible days. Too many things had happened after them that had made them seem like a restful retreat. At the time, however, he had felt like someone whose world was falling off its axis, hurtling through space. His mind had been reeling, going over the possibilities and probabilities. He ventured out that night, trying to get close to his friends. Maybe they would tell him that it was in his imagination, that he had hallucinated that room. Maybe he had been dozing at his workstation throughout lunch. Maybe he had been laughing and picturing Bonnie flushing Stanley's car magazines down the toilet like everyone else. Grief like his could do that to a person. Could make them imagine things that weren't there. Like a mayor plotting a military coup.
He had realized suddenly that it wasn't imaginary when he tried to get close to the library. Men he recognized stood in front of it, staring out at the darkness from their posts. They weren't familiar faces of his friends from home; they were Constantino's deputies. He watched throughout the night, from a safe distance. They didn't move from their places. As the darkness became dimness, he retreated back to the safety of the shack.
He fell into a hazy sleep in the shack. His whole body ached and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. His dreams were filled with violent images- some pictures from history books, or maybe scenes from a movie, fire and exploding air, battles and marching feet. Faces floated in and out- his mother's tearstained face, Jimmy Taylor shouting a command, Bonnie Richmond standing atop a pile of debris (or was it bodies?), holding a rifle.
He had awoken that night determined again to reach his friends or someone from his town. There were deputies outside the library once again, so he wandered through New Bern’s neighbourhoods, keeping himself in the shadows. He found an unlocked door to a computer store on a side street, and he went inside. He sat in the abandoned room, littered with machine parts, and he tried to go over in his head what kind of plan we could possibly formulate.
They knew he knew. That he knew something. He hadn't returned to work; they must have guessed. If only he had gone back to his station, he could have kept their suspicion down. He could have spoken to the others that night. Maybe they could have found a way to get their hands on a radio, and somehow contact someone in Jericho. They could have escaped together, found a way around the checkpoints. He wondered if that was his only chance now. He would go home, alert his father and everyone else, and they would have to find a way to rescue the others before Constantino found a way to use them for something besides factory labour.
He hated the idea of leaving them behind. He couldn't imagine anything happening to them, but he also couldn't imagine Constantino taking over their farmland. He realized the cover of night wouldn't last much longer, so he quickly made his way back to the safety of the old shack.
As daylight seeped through the cracks in the wall, he allowed himself to doze once more. Their faces filled his head again. They were accusatory this time. Stanley screamed and swore, holding something heavy in his arms, blood pouring from his hands. Jake sneered and gave him that look, that expression that reminded him that for all his clamouring, he was still not the better son. Heather laughed, triumphantly swinging something over her head. She hit the ceiling above her with a resounding metal clang.
He sat upright, ignoring his protesting limbs and the scratching of the dirt floor. Heather!
“I couldn't get to the others at the library. There were men standing guard. I realized I had to find your mom.”
He had waited all through that day, excruciatingly running plans through his head. She could pass messages on to the others. They could all meet somewhere at the end of the day. They could be back in Jericho the next night. Maybe she knew a way they could get a radio.
“I waited until night-time. ‘Til it was really late, so no one would notice me. I found the trailer park, and I went to Ted's trailer.”
He hadn't known how Ted would react. He was from New Bern, after all. Maybe he was in on it. He realized he could have thought the same about her, if he hadn't known her. Since he did, he refused to entertain that possibility.
“I went inside. I was really quiet. Heather was already asleep. I tapped her on the shoulder. She almost strangled me.”
She hadn't tried to strangle him, she'd smacked him and flailed her arms, making painful contact with his head before he managed to convince her it was him and not some intruder. Her apprehension had turned to surprised relief. She'd demanded to know what he was doing there. He'd delivered the entire story in a desperate whisper. She'd looked concerned, but not entirely convinced. He'd seen in her eyes, on her face, the same thing he'd felt at first. She didn't want to think the worst of the map, and the room.
“She didn't believe me at first. She didn't think they could do that. You know she grew up in New Bern.”
A solemn, pale face nodded at him.
“I needed her to know what we were up against. We went to the factory.”
They had stolen quickly through the night. The factory had been deserted. He had been surprised, considering the heavy guard placed on the library. They went in a back way, thankful there were no more electronic security systems. As they passed their own workstations, she had stopped. She had suggested he wait in hiding. She would search the area on her own. He hadn't liked this idea; she'd countered that they weren't looking for her, and she had a better chance playing dumb if she were caught. She'd been there longer, and she'd known some of them for years.
“Your mom went to check out the room while I hid in a bathroom. She was gone for a while. It felt like forever. When she came back, she said we had to get out of there quickly.”
She had returned out of breath, a desperate look on her face. He had followed her without question. They'd run through the waning darkness, not stopping until they'd reached the trailer park. They sunk down on the front stoop of Ted's trailer. He'd looked at her, about to ask if the map had convinced her, when she blurted out about the mortars.
“She found mortars. Weapons. The kind that can really hurt a lot of people. They were making them in the factory.”
He heard his niece gasp again. He knew there was no nice way to tell this part of the story. He would just push through it. “We knew then, that Constantino was getting ready to attack us.”
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“We talked about what we could do. We couldn't tell anyone else. We couldn't just leave.” He had expected her to argue with him. He'd expected himself to argue with her. Surprisingly, they'd both known what they wanted to do. They didn't even discuss it. They only decided how they would do it. Her face had taken on a resolve; he felt as though his had too. As the early morning light spread across the sky, she had gone inside. She had come outside again in moments, sporting an extra sweater and handing him a packet of food.
“She told Ted she'd see him at work. We left the trailer. We passed by the library, but there were still guards outside. So we went to the factory.”
These moments were hazy in his memory, though they'd been clear at the time. Nothing had ever seemed clearer then whatever it was that had kept leading him down the halls, towards the machines. She led him to a room, similar to the one in which they worked everyday. These machines were different, and although they didn't look unusual in any way, because he knew what they were making he felt sick looking at them.
Heather had set to work immediately, pulling tools out of the case she'd snagged from one of the workstations on the way. She'd directed him, and he'd followed her lead with steadier movements than he'd had his whole life.
“We snuck in again, and we tried to break the machines that made the weapons. We thought it was working- we tried to get away as soon as they overheated.”
His heart had pounded as they ran from the room. An acrid smell burned through the air and his lungs seared but he kept running. The world was crumbling around them, but still, nothing had ever been this clear. Then there had been shouts, pounding footsteps. He'd willed himself to keep going, willed her to keep going, to outrun the footsteps.
“We almost got away. But they caught us.”
She made a small squeaking sound. He looked down at her. “Am I scaring you?”
She shook her head, but wrapped both of her small arms around one of his, clinging tightly.
“Sure?”
“I want to know what happens!” she said.
“Okay,” he said, almost chuckling. Almost relieved she had pulled him out of that memory for a moment.
“Who caught you?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “Some of Constantino's men. We didn't know there'd be so many there that early. They took us to the jail at their city hall.”
That was when the clarity had vanished. He had struggled; they both had. He could hear her shouting, could hear legs and arms scuffling, connecting, as he felt himself being pushed to the ground, hands tied behind his back. They'd taken them outside.
As he walked along, squinting in the bright light that had taken over the sky, he fell silent. He couldn't hear her anymore, but jerked his head to the side and saw her being led along. They'd pushed him into the back of a sheriff's car, so roughly he'd hit his head against the seat back. The drive to the city hall was quick. His mind barely had time to race through what was happening. By the time they pulled him out of the car and he saw them taking her out of another, he'd regained his voice. “Heather!” He'd shouted her name, over and over. He didn't know what else he could say, but he'd needed to convey something to her. She had shouted back, but they'd been separated too quickly. He hadn't heard what she'd said.
He'd found himself in an interrogation room. Lights bore down on him. There had been questions. Over and over. Not about the factory. Not about her. They were about the town. He endured through it all. They fought his silence, in various ways. Things he wouldn't have imagined before two days ago. Still, he held onto that same defiance he'd had earlier, walking through the factory doors. He didn't give them anything they wanted.
Until a few hours later. It seemed like it had been hours. It could have been days, weeks, or months later. That was how time passed in that strange room. Constantino had come back in. He had carried something in his arms. A sweater. He placed it on the table. It had been blue once, when he'd seen it earlier that morning. Now, it bore large patches of another colour: a sickly dark red.
He shuddered now, in the warm spring night. The little girl on his knee moved slightly, but said nothing. He'd never spoken of this memory, beyond the basic facts. Not with his brother, not with Mary, not with Heather herself. It was a memory he cursed himself for fearing because he knew it wasn't real. There were so many more moments like that one that had come to take a place in his memory, and they were all final. None of them had been miraculously erased. No matter how many times he'd told himself it wasn't real, he'd reminded himself she was alive and lived a few streets away, or even held his niece in his arms, this one hadn't been erased either.
“They kept us in different rooms. Asked us questions; stuff about the town. I wouldn't tell them anything. So they did something they thought would make me talk. They told me your mom was dead.”
He felt bad, even now, for telling her, though he'd known from the moment this had begun that he would. He didn't say that Constantino had waved the sweater in his face. That he'd told him Heather didn't have a face anymore. That he had sat frozen, for an eternity, and that he had sunken his head on the table, unable to force back tears.
Even in thinking about that moment, he felt a hotness in his throat. The little girl shifted around and put her head against his chest. “What did you do?” she asked.
“I...” he didn't see a point in pretending he had done otherwise. “I cried.”
She nodded just slightly. “What did they do then?”
He took a deep breath. “They asked me more questions. It seemed like it went on forever. Then they took me to a jail cell, and left me in there.” He had lain on the floor, barely registering the burning pains radiating up and down his body. Another fire had already consumed the rest of him. He didn't know if he stayed awake, or if he was passing in and out of consciousness. He didn't dream. He didn't imagine rescue. He couldn't see their faces. Mercifully, he couldn't even see hers.
“So that's when. That's when you thought you'd never see her again.”
“Mm-hm,” he whispered.
“But you did,” she said in a tiny voice.
He chuckled. “You wouldn't be here otherwise.”
“Uncle Eric,” she said, in almost a scolding tone. “What happened next?”
“Well, you know the rest. She's alive. She wound up with your dad. They got you.”
“That's not the rest of the story. How did you get away from jail? Where was Mommy?”
“Good questions,” he said. It had been a relief once again, to come back to this dark living room. He knew he owed it to her, and to Heather and Jake, to finish the story.
“I didn't know how long I'd been there. I thought I would be there forever.” Until he died. He lay waiting for it to happen.
“They brought in another prisoner. Your dad.”
Another gasp. “How did he get there?”
“You know him. He came looking for me.”
He could almost see her smiling in the dark room, but he wasn't sure.
“See, they sent Stanley and the others home. When I didn't come back with them, he came looking for me.”
“And Mommy?”
He paused. He had never been sure about who his brother had really been searching for, but to appease his niece, he said, “And your mom.”
Seeing Jake appearing, like a ghost, had jolted him out of his inertia. He wondered if he was dreaming again. The other faces had stayed away, but here was one that would make him feel the full weight of his crimes. He considered shouting out to him, “Jake, I got her killed. It's my fault; all that's left is her sweater. And soon, we'll all be gone too.” He had tried to clear his throat, and had surprised himself by croaking out his brother's name. He had known in that moment that Jake was real. And that Heather was not his only victim. Now Jake had come to this dark end too, and it was because of him.
“He went to the factory, looking for us. Constantino tried to send him away. He snuck back in, and they caught him.”
“Just like you and Mommy.”
“Uh-huh. They brought him to jail too.” It had been hard, and also effortless, to tell Jake what had happened. The story had come out of his mouth as easily as a breath of air. It was easy, because it was just a story. It was so unreal, like something Grandpa Green would tell them when they were little. It was hard, because Jake's face changed through the story. It had begun urgent, determined. His features twisted, he leaned back, his eyes closed. He learned the end of the story- that he and Eric were alone.
“He didn't take it well.” He almost laughed at the absurdity of that statement. “He was sad,” he amended. “But he told me he wouldn't give up on me. You know, he wouldn't even give up on your mom. He said he wasn't sure she was dead.”
He hadn't known if Jake believed those words himself. He had held onto them, though, as tightly as he held the belief that Hawkins would help them escape. Eric had believed neither of those things.
“Was Daddy scared?”
“Everyone gets scared.”
“Daddy never does.”
“Not that he’d let anyone see.” He chuckled. “Especially his kid. Or his little brother. He took care of me, the best he could. He tried to make a plan so we could escape, but it wasn’t until some other people showed up to help that we got away.”
“Who?”
“Well, Mr. Hawkins, to begin with. He had come to town with your dad, and he was the only one who didn’t get himself caught. He caused a distraction, and then he came to town hall to get us out. And guess who showed up, driving a getaway truck?”
“Who?”
“Grandpa Green.”
“Grandpa!” If it had been light enough to see, he was sure her face would be lit up.
“Grandpa. He’d come to get us. We got away, without a moment to spare.” He’d tell her one day, if she really wanted to know, of the shoot-out with the deputies that had given her father and uncle their freedom.
“The truck ran out of gas, so we walked the rest of the way home.” He had felt numb then. The early spring air had brushed through his hair, the stars twinkling above, and though he knew he had not left the things he’d seen and done behind in the jail cell, it had felt like that moment before waking. That moment in which all the dreams have gone, but the day’s thoughts haven’t yet crowded in.
“And then the fight with New Bern?”
“That’s right.” She knew the details of this event. He waited to see if she would ask more questions. She seemed to be putting the new information together in her head. “You remember the part where the Cheyenne army came and stopped the fight?”
“Uh huh.”
“We didn’t know how they knew to come. We didn’t even think about it much at the time. That day- we were just so sad about your Grandpa, and angry with Constantino and New Bern.”
“Wait- they knew to come because of Mommy.”
“Right.”
“Because she went to Cheyenne!”
He chuckled. It was a wonder she’d never heard this part of the story, because she knew very well Heather’s part in the town’s dealings with Cheyenne. “I was in rough shape after the battle. Your dad was in charge, and he did most of the talking with General Beck and his men. A few days later, I was at my parents’ house, by myself. It was the day after my dad’s funeral.” He had sat, sprawled on the couch, a jar of Mary’s latest efforts in his hands, his face pointed towards the ceiling. He had felt as he had back in the jail cell again, wondering how it could possibly get worse, ever. Wondering how every death still surprised him, and each cut deeper into him. Glad Mary was working round the clock, so he wouldn’t have to look at her face. Glad his mother was hiding at the ranch, so he wouldn’t have to hug her.
“Your dad came in. He was smiling.” Jake had looked like an imbecile. Smiling, though the world had ended. Smiling, though their family had lost, and both towns had lost the battle.
“He said ‘Heather’s alive.’ I thought he’d gone crazy.” He really had thought so. It was plausible that Jake had finally cracked under the pressures of pretending to rebuild a town when all hope had really dried up long ago.
“What did you say, Uncle Eric?”
He closed his eyes, remembering just a little guiltily the things he’d said to his brother’s grinning face. “Well, after he convinced me it was true, I was pretty happy. We had a drink together.”
She let out a little giggle. He smiled a little himself. “She didn’t get home for a while. The government sent her to Cheyenne, and it wasn’t their main priority to drive ordinary people stuck in Wyoming back to their homes.” He still remembered that day he’d seen her for the first time. It had been at Bailey’s. He’d arrived to talk to Mary, and he’d seen her sitting at a booth. He’d rushed over and hugged her, ignoring the ketchup she got on his shirt as she hugged him back. He hadn’t noticed that day the change that had overcome her during her resurrection. She had just been Heather, the one he’d gone to with his terrible knowledge, the one who'd disappeared because of that knowledge, and the one ghost who came back.
“So, that’s the story. She came back a month later. Your Aunt Mary served her a Bailey's burger and fries.”
“But how did she get away from New Bern? How did she get to the army?”
“I don’t know. That’s her story to tell.” He knew some of the story: that Heather had been taken away by a deputy. That she’d been attacked by a road gang, and left for dead. The details of her escape he’d never heard. He thought that perhaps she’d told Jake. Maybe Mary, one of those nights she sat up at the bar after a town hall meeting. Maybe she’d never spoken of it to anyone. He would understand that. “Don’t you go bugging her about it. She’ll tell you if she wants. You know she’s a good story-teller.”
“But I want to know what she did,” she said in a quiet, but persistent voice.
He rolled his eyes, and pulled her closer. “I told you what she did. She went away, and she came back. She always does.”
There was silence.
“And he does too. Every time.”
More silence.
“Plus, this time, they’ve got each other. If they can get away from New Bern or fly to Texas on their own, what do you think they’re like as a team?” He was trying to make her laugh. He lightly poked her shoulder. She swatted his arm but didn’t laugh.
“They’re coming back.”
He leaned his head against the chair, expecting silence, but was surprised when she spoke.
“When?”
He was silent for a moment this time. “I'm sorry sweet girl, there is no way to know. You just have to keep telling yourself they will. And in the meantime, you’ll have me to tell you stories. And you can help Grandma look after Andrew, and keep cousin Johnny out of trouble. Tomorrow, I bet Aunt Mary will let you play the jukebox before she opens the bar. And we’ll both be here, all night, if you can’t sleep. We might seem grumpy in the middle of the night, but we’re always here if you need us.”
“I know,” she said, in a tone that made him think she was smiling, “but it’s not the same as…”
“I know,” he said. “But that’s all we can do, when we miss people. Work with whatever we have in front of us.”
A few moments passed as they both pondered this. He wondered how much time had gone by since he had first been woken by his niece. Letting his mind travel back had really exhausted him. Those days in New Bern had been with him, like everything else that had come before and after, but at a distance. It wasn’t often that he examined them closely.
Dropping his voice to a whisper, he leaned towards her ear. “When you have trouble sleeping, just try to picture them in your head. Imagine your mom when she told the army about New Bern, and we were saved from becoming Constantino-ville. And your dad, think about him standing up for me when we were both in jail. They’re going to do what they have to do, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do whatever it takes to come back here either.”
She shifted restlessly, grabbing his arm again. “Can you see them? In your head?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you think you can try to sleep now?”
“Yes.”
Wordlessly, he stood, swinging her up in his arms. He slowly padded down the silent hall, pausing again in his son’s doorway.
“I don’t want to wake up Johnny,” he said quietly. “So say goodnight here, okay?”
“Okay. Goodnight Uncle Eric.”
“Goodnight, sweet girl.”
A few moments later, he closed the door, satisfied that both children were quiet, if not both sleeping. He walked the steps to the end of the hall, glancing out the window on the way. The moon was nearing fullness, and he could see faint stars through the clouds. For the first time that week, he let himself wonder where they were.
As he clambered into bed, he was startled by Mary asking, “So was it a bad dream?”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” she said with a sleepy shrug. “Did you get her to fall asleep?”
“Yeah.” He pulled the blankets over his legs. He folded his arms. He wasn’t sure if he’d be sleeping any time soon, with the pictures flooding his head. “I told her a story.”
“S’nice,” she said, closing her eyes again.
He sat in the darkness, taking a few deep breaths. He tried to picture their faces- he could see Jake gripping the steering wheel as he drove to Rogue River, Heather grinning as she was swept up in Stanley’s hug, Gray addressing the town as they fearfully discussed the new war, April squeezing his hand from her hospital bed, Stanley sitting in the garage, his head in his hands, Mimi walking down the hill towards the soldiers, his father sitting across the dining room table, and all the dust-covered faces of the people awaiting rescue in the mine. These were the images that sometimes kept him awake at night, but then some nights, they helped him fall asleep.
He glanced over at Mary. She was breathing softly and evenly, her hair falling in curls around her face. Had she been awake, she would have seen him smile before snuggling further under the blankets and lying his head on the pillow beside her. Slowly, he closed his eyes.