The Last One(94)

The baby would have died anyway.

That’s what I tell myself, but it doesn’t help and I know it’s not true. Not necessarily. I could have saved him, maybe.

And then what, I’d be walking along this curving parkway with a baby strapped to my chest? An infant with no relation to me. That’s not survival, that’s selflessness, and the only person I’ve ever wanted to give the better half of anything was you.

Why was the welcome mat in the back? We’ve never washed it. Why would you wash it?

Why do I think it matters?

I don’t. I’m distracting myself. I don’t want to distract myself from you. But I have to; my tongue is dry and my stomach empty. You’d tell me to move on and I am. I am. I’m walking, I’m moving. But my feet are dragging; I can’t lift them, thinking about you. And I see Brennan trying, and I think—I think I can’t let him fail.

I came back, Miles. I’m here but you’re gone and I have to go on because I don’t want to but that’s all my body can do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I miss you and you’re gone.

I blink away asphalt and look up at the yellow-brown leaves, splashes of clinging green. I used to think autumn was beautiful.

I loved you. You’re gone. I’m sorry.

“Ad tenebras dedi.”

When I level my blurred gaze, Brennan is staring at me, his thumbs tucked under the straps of his zebra-patterned pack.

“Mae?”

I can feel my body wanting to cry, the tightness of my eyes. I think of his brother, his mother, all that he’s lost. He would have saved the baby. He saved me, when all I’d been to him was cruel.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

He’s staring at me. After a moment he replies, “I don’t know.”

A careful tone, because my voice still has tones and I have to choose one and he’s a child. Not accusing, only asking, “You don’t have a plan?”

“Just to get you out of there.” Brennan shifts his pack. “Where do you think we should go?”

Should. A judgment call I’m not qualified to make. But I do know a place, a place Brennan might like.

“It’s far,” I say, “and it’s not a farm, but there’s acreage and a well with a hand pump. A little greenhouse and a couple dozen sugar maples. There were chickens, might still be.” I’m beyond hope, but logic tells me there’s a chance, a legitimate chance, because if there is a genetic component to resistance, I had to get it from somewhere. One or the other. Though it could be recessive, an invisible, unexpressed connection that couldn’t save either of my parents and yet saved me.

“Where is it?” asks Brennan.

“Vermont.”

“Let’s go.”

That’s it: Let’s go. Because he trusts me. Despite everything I’ve done and not done, he trusts me. He keeps trying to save me. He’s trying, so hard.

I can’t let him fail.

—

Five days. I’m eating again, two meals a day, holding my spork in my clublike fist as a toddler would a crayon. My jaw still aches and everything tastes like rot. As we walk I feel my pulse in my swollen hand and wrist, and I wonder if I’ll ever heal.

We’re passing a strip mall, I think. Concrete and desolation, chain restaurants and office supply stores. Ubiquitous logos I know without seeing, that will mean nothing to the next generation, if there is a next generation.

What a waste, this landscape. Store after store after store; phones that will never be charged, games never played, drawers never opened, glasses never—

“Brennan, wait.”

“What?” he asks, pivoting toward me.

“Is that a LensCrafters?”

He looks where I’m pointing across the street, searches, and finds. “Yeah,” he says, and with the first hint of affirmation I’m crossing the street. No need to look both ways.

“You think they’ll have the glasses you need just sitting there?” asks Brennan scuttling after.

“No. But they’ll have contacts.”

He breaks the glass door and we’re in. I beeline for the back, where I find a wall of sample packs. I scour the selection, taking any within a quarter of a point of my prescription. Daily, extended wear, anything. I stuff them into my pack. It’s enough to last at least a year, I think. While I’m filling my backpack, I feel a lump in the media pocket and pull out the dead mic pack from the show. Matchbox-sized and useless. I toss it onto the floor and slip more lenses into the pocket. Afterward I scrub my hands with soap and drinking water in the exam room sink; that’s how easy it’s been to find bottled water, I can wash my hands with it now. I keep the purification drops I took from the store, though, not knowing what’s ahead. I’m almost able to unfurl the fingers of my right hand. I can hold the bottle tight enough to pour, though I have to tip my whole arm.

I think of Tyler gifting me the trash bag. Why me, I’ll never know. And I’ll probably never know if he’s alive or dead, if any of them are. If anyone should have made it, it’s the doctor, but I bet Heather’s the only one who lived. Me and Heather, the most useless of the bunch. Cooper was probably the first to go.

I drop the empty bottle and peer into the mirror above the sink. An empty, wasted face stares back. A crusty scab on her chin, the yellow mottle of old bruising on her neck. Useless, but still here. I peel open a tiny package. I’ve never put in contacts left-handed before. Even getting the lens out and positioned on my index finger is problematic, and then I keep catching it on my eyelashes. Eventually it sneaks past, makes contact with my eye—and pops out onto my cheek. Another failed attempt, and another, then finally the lens slides in and settles into place, stinging. The second lens takes only marginally less time to get in, then it folds in my eye. I almost puncture my cornea fishing it out. It’s like I’m back in sixth grade, struggling with my first pair of contact lenses, running with tears streaming from abused eyes toward the bus—