The End of Men(93)

I don’t bother asking to sing it to Angelica directly. I wish I could speak to her. It’s been five years. I want to know what her life is like, what school is like, who her friends are, what her favorite movie is. I can’t know the answers though. They will remain unanswered questions.

“And if I sing you the lullaby, you won’t get back in touch with me again?”

“No, Rosamie, I won’t get you thrown in jail for robbing me of millions of dollars. Okay?”

I don’t comment, aware that anything I say could be used as an admission if Mrs. Tai is recording this. I clear my throat, self-conscious about singing this small song of comfort that belongs in the quiet calm of a dark bedroom with children being lulled to sleep.


Soon you’ll be in a land of dreams

And when you wake, all will seem

Bright and easy, a brand-new day

We’ll eat and jump and talk and play


No matter what, I’ll be here

Don’t you worry, dry those tears

When you wake, I’ll say good morning

And we’ll start again, a new day dawning



Mrs. Tai is silent for long, drawn-out seconds. My cheeks blush with mortification that I have just sung a song, badly, down the phone to my former employer and a woman who could ruin my life.

“Well, that explains a lot,” she finally says, with a breath that sounds like she’s heaved it out. “Why they were so devoted to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the Plague hadn’t happened when it did, I was about two weeks away from firing you.”

“You just said they were devoted to me; that makes no sense.”

Mrs. Tai makes a noise from the back of her throat, a noise of visceral annoyance and impatience that takes me back to the feeling of being her young, nervous employee so quickly I flinch.

“You acted like you were their mother.”

“I wouldn’t have needed to if you had been behaving like one.”

The words have fallen out of my mouth and into the awkward expanse between us before I can think through the consequences. Now, in a flash, the idea of police and sirens and prison makes me want to beg for forgiveness and scoop the words back up, into the dark, never to be heard again.

“Maybe you’re right,” Mrs. Tai says in a voice I can’t place. It is more resigned than I have heard her be before but it doesn’t stretch into remorse or regret. That would be asking far too much of her.

“It’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. Tai. Good-bye.”

I place the receiver back into its cradle, making a rattling sound. I hadn’t realized my fingers were shaking. In the months after the Plague, living a new, strange life in a world tipped upside down, I tormented myself every night with shame over what I had done. Not guilt, because in some odd way I felt it was right. At least, it was justified, but I was the kind of person who stole now. I was the kind of person who lied and committed crimes. As my new life took shape with a monthly paycheck, an apartment in Manila that wasn’t disgusting and even a few friends, I stopped thinking about that dark night so much.

Now, there is some peace. Mrs. Tai could always choose to turn around and accuse me but I know I have Angelica on my side. The brave, kind little girl whose parents were never there and whose brother and father died, is on my side.





ELIZABETH


Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

Day 1,696

I’m on a plane, going home. It feels so surreal, I keep looking around me as if someone will stop me and say, “I’m so sorry, Ms. Cooper, you can’t actually go back to the States. Don’t be silly.” But that doesn’t happen and Simon keeps cheerfully eating chips in the seat next to me, his wedding ring making a satisfying clink when he picks up his drink.

A big part of me always assumed I’d end up returning to the States in ignominy. As of tomorrow, I’m officially deputy director of the CDC, a job I didn’t even dare to covet. Practically everyone I worked with at the CDC is dead. So many men, gone, and if I’m really honest, often forgotten, at least by me. I knew my interview had either gone perfectly or I’d bombed because it only lasted twenty minutes.

“You’ve smashed it!” George said, when I walked into his office, a bit shell-shocked, at 3:21 p.m., having started the interview at 3 p.m. “If they thought you were terrible they’d have dragged it out a bit, so you couldn’t complain if you didn’t get the job.” As ever, he was right.

Simon wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing when I told George I was applying for the job. “You don’t understand,” I told him. We’re not like colleagues, we’re like soldiers. We’ve been through a lifetime together in a few years. He walked me down the aisle. He’s become like a father to me. I knew he would support me for the CDC job; a dream come true. He helped me with interview prep every afternoon for two weeks.

And now, I’m on a plane, which feels unbelievably exotic, going back to my old life with a new husband, a new job, a new everything. I can remember what Elizabeth Cooper was like a few years ago but it feels so distant, it’s like a childhood memory. I was lonely, far from friends and family. I’ve always been good at making acquaintances but struggled to convert them into deep friendships. It kind of makes sense my best friend is now a sixty-five-year-old male professor.