World of Trouble (The Last Policeman #3)(34)

The old man clears his throat, opens his eyes to say “Amen,” and the room comes to life again. Happy small conversations, the muted clink of silverware, the rustle of napkins. Though my body hurts, though I struggle to swallow, every bite is delicious, warm and savory. And then at last the old man settles his silverware carefully beside his plate and looks at me with unnerving frankness. “We thank the good Lord God for you, friend. We are glad you are here and you are welcome.” I mutter “Thank you,” nodding carefully. He left me to starve. He deposited me hooded and fearful into the barn and tied me up to die.

He stares evenly back at me, challenging, calm—as if daring me to call him out: who would they believe?

“No one has used the south barn for many months, since the beginning of the trouble,” says someone from the far end of the table, a matronly middle-aged woman with dark hair, one of the daughters or daughters-in-law. “And Father has kept it locked.”

The black-bearded old man nods at the detail. The south barn, I’m thinking. The trouble, I’m thinking. They mean this illusory plague, they mean a different kind of trouble than everyone else. The title “Father,” I’m gathering, is as much honorific as literal. The man who shot at me on the path is the respected patriarch, the elder sage of this family or gathering of families. The others bow their heads slightly when he speaks, not as if in worship but as a mark of deference.

“You, friend,” he says now, turning to me, speaking slowly and evenly. “We wonder, did you climb up into the south barn through its window and light a match for a cigarette or for light and put the match down carelessly? Is that what happened?”

The same challenging expression, cold and clear.

I take a sip from my water glass, clear my throat. “Yes, sir,” I say, giving it back to him, striking a truce. “That’s what happened. I lit a match so I could see and put the match down carelessly.”

Father nods. A murmur passes across the table, the men whispering to each other, nodding. The children at their separate tables have mostly lost interest, they’re eating and chattering idly to one another. The only decoration in the room is a wall calendar, spread open to September, a line drawing of a mostly bare oak, the last leaves tumbling to Earth.

“And if we may ask, sir, you are fleeing from the pandemic?” This from one of the younger men, a sturdy character with a beard and face to match his father’s.

I answer him tentatively. “That’s right. Yes. I have traveled from my home to escape it.”

“God’s will,” he murmurs, and the rest of them say it too, look down at their plates, “God’s will.”

Father stands now, draws up to full height, and places his hand on the shoulders of one of the children. “It is through God’s grace that Ruth saw the fire from her bedroom window, way off in the distance, and awoke the house.”

All eyes turn to the girl whom I saw cheating during the prayer. Her cheeks go from rosy red to bright pink. A couple of the smaller children giggle.

“Thank you, young lady,” I tell her, and I mean it, but the girl doesn’t respond, she keeps her eyes trained on her plate of stewed vegetables. “Answer our guest, Ruthie,” says her grandmother gently, nodding to the girl. “Our guest said thank you.”

“Thanks be to God,” says Ruthie, and the others nod their approval, the men and the women and even the littlest kids, murmuring in uneven chorus, “Thanks be to God.” I have nailed down the number of people in the room at thirty-five: six adult men and seven women, plus twenty-two children ranging from toddler to late adolescence. They don’t know. I look at the old man, I look around the room at this silent happy family, and I know that they don’t know. These people don’t know about the asteroid at all.

You mustn’t say those words, he told me. When I said that I had to save my sister before the end of the world, he said you mustn’t say those words.

They don’t know and you can see it on their peaceful Amish faces, that bloom of happiness you just don’t see anymore. Because of course a pandemic would be an absolute calamity, some deadly virus stalking the land, and you would huddle up with your family and shut out the world until it ended, but then it would—it would have an ending. A pandemic runs its course and then the world recovers. These people in this room don’t know that the world will not be recovering, and I can see it, as they finish their lunch and say more prayers and rise, laughing, to clear the plates. I can feel it, a feeling I never had occasion to notice until it disappeared, the odorless colorless presence of the future.

“I would speak with our guest alone,” says the old man abruptly. “We will walk the property.”

“Atlee,” says his wife, the old woman. “He is tired. He is wounded. Let him eat and return to bed.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m feeling just fine.”

That’s not true; I feel like I’ve been hit by a garbage truck. My side hurts each time I swallow or take a full breath, and my hands, within the last ten or fifteen minutes, have begun to burn again beneath their bandages. But I want information, and speaking alone with this man Atlee is the only way to get it. “Thank you, though, for supper, and for everything, Mrs. Joy.”

The old woman’s eyes pop open with surprise, and a bright wave of laughter ripples through the room.