manly and stupid and only got back in when rain began to fall.
“We’ll sleep in the van,” Dad said. “We’ll start for home in the morning.”
“How far are we?” Julie asked.
“About forty miles, I’d say,” Dad replied.
“That’s two days walking,” Alex said. “Three if the weather stays bad.”
“We can do it,” Dad said. “We’ll be home by Thursday.”
None of us said anything, but we all knew that’s two days of hard walking on no food. The longer we go without eating, the harder the walking will be.
So that’s where we are. The rain is pelting against the roof of the van. Dad’s sitting behind the wheel, staring out the front window, thinking about Lisa probably, and Mom, and how upset they’re going to be. Alex and Julie are in the back, whispering furiously in Spanish. I’d brought my diary and a flashlight pen on a just-in-case basis, so I’m in the passenger seat, writing all this down. The more I concentrate on what happened, the less I have to worry about what’s going to happen.
We’re camping out in a gas station convenience store. It’s crowded with the four of us, there’s no food (we looked everywhere), the roof leaks, and the windows have all been smashed in. But the toilet works, so I guess we’re in paradise.
We stopped before it got dark because Julie was coughing. I don’t know how much farther I could have gone anyway.
Dad says we made good progress today, and he thinks we’re about twenty miles from home. We should be home by tomorrow night.
“I want to tell you how proud I am of you,” he said. “A year ago I had three children. Now I have seven. The world is a mess, and you have every right to be angry and scared, but things will get better. You’ll make it better.”
“We’ll do our best,” Alex said.
Dad smiled. “Life’s sloppy,” he said. “You think you know how tomorrow is going to be, you’ve made your plans, everything is set in place, and then the unimaginable happens. Life catches you by surprise. It always does. But there’s good mixed in with the bad. It’s there. You just have to recognize it.”
My feet are blistered from all the unaccustomed walking. My body is shaking from cold and hunger and exhaustion. I’m frightened I’ll never see home again and almost more frightened that once I get there, I’ll never leave.
I know Dad’s right that there’s good mixed in with the bad. But I don’t know that I’ll ever have the wisdom to recognize it.
We’re still in New York, but we’re close to the border. We’re spending the night in an empty house. There are beds and pillows and blankets.
Dad and Alex went out looking for bikes or a car with some gas. I fantasized they’d find some food. But when they came back, they had nothing.
It was foggy most of the morning, and with the ash, it was like breathing mud. We had to take break after break because we were coughing too hard to move on.
I had a horrible nightmare last night, and I couldn’t shake it from my mind today.
I dreamed we were in the convenience store, Dad and Julie and me zipped in our sleeping bags. Only Alex was up. First he went to Julie and forced her to swallow two pills. Then he forced Dad to swallow two.
When he got to me, I tried to free my arms from the sleeping bag, but I was trapped. I couldn’t move my body. I felt helpless as Alex knelt beside me. He gently lifted my head, resting it in the crook of his arm. Almost in spite of myself, I felt an overwhelming hunger for him, and when he bent over and kissed me, I welcomed his lips, his mouth, the proof of his love, until I tasted the sleeping pills on his tongue.
I woke up shaking. There was enough light coming through the broken windows that I could see everyone’s faces. Even in sleep Alex looked troubled.
I love Alex. I love loving Alex. I love his touch and I love remembering his touch. For so long I thought I would never have someone to love, and now I do. Every day I’m with him is a day I never believed possible.
Tonight Alex is sleeping in the room next to mine. I want him so much. I want the wall between us to dissolve, for us to be alone, to be together, to be one.
Then my doubts would be gone. My nightmares would be gone.
All there would be is Alex and me.
Two bodies. One heart.
We’re home.
Horton is dead.
I’m crying too hard to write.
Chapter 15
I slept most of today.
Jon still refuses to come home.
Matt went to Dad’s, but Jon wouldn’t talk to him. Dad told Matt that Jon’s angry at him for bringing Syl home. Syl’s in their bedroom, so she didn’t hear, but Matt whispered everything to Mom anyway. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear either, but I did.
Syl tried to talk to me, to explain why she did it, but Mom said I was too tired to talk about anything and Syl’s explanations would have to wait.
I know I’m going to have to talk to her. We live under the same roof, and I can’t move in with Dad the way Jon has. It wouldn’t be fair to Mom or to everyone there. Alex has to figure out what he and Julie are going to do, and the way she’s been coughing, they can’t go anytime soon. That would make seven of us there, not counting Gabriel, and three here, and that’s not a good idea.
But I don’t want to talk to Syl. I don’t want to look at her.
I’m going to start crying again. I’m going to my closet to cry there.
Alex came over. I haven’t seen him since we got home two days ago. He looked haggard.
“Mrs. Evans, you have to talk to Jon,” he said. “You have to convince him to come home. It’s not good for Julie having Jon there all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “When Jon’s ready to accept what Syl did, he’ll come back.”
“Could you talk with him?” Alex asked me.
I wasn’t sure what I’d say to Jon. I couldn’t ask him to accept Syl’s decision to let Horton go so he could die peacefully in the woods. I can’t accept it, and it doesn’t help that I was angry at Matt before we left for the convent and I’m even angrier now.
But Mom won’t go over, which I refuse to think about because it scares me when I do, and Jon won’t talk to Matt, and Dad has Lisa and Gabriel and fears of his own to deal with. And Alex looked awful.
“I’ll talk with him,” I said. “But I’m not going to change his mind.”
“Just calm him down,” Alex said.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”
Jon didn’t even know what Syl had done until Thursday. Mom sent Jon to stay with Lisa Tuesday night, and
