The colleges were listed in alphabetical order.
Sexton University was located in McKinley, Tennessee. It had a student enrollment of 5,500 and was best known for its agricultural and veterinary programs.
There’s something about succeeding, even at a job you don’t like, that makes you push harder. I tore out the page about Sexton University, then located a road atlas. There were five pages devoted to Tennessee, and I ripped them all out. Alex would have to find the state on his own, but once he got there, he could follow the map to McKinley.
Then, because I was all alone in a library and had already destroyed two books, I found my way to the poetry section, located an anthology of contemporary American poetry, and took it for Syl. I might even give it to her someday.
I stopped in at Dad’s on my way home. Gabriel was yelling his little baby head off.
“He’s teething,” Lisa said, like he needed an excuse to scream.
Alex, Jon, and Julie were in the parlor. Alex was giving them a world history lesson. Alex probably felt history still mattered. Julie believed Alex still mattered, and Jon believed Julie still mattered. Or maybe all three of them were actually interested.
I could have interrupted, told Alex then and there about the safe town in McKinley, Tennessee, waved good-bye as he and Julie left us forever, consoled the brokenhearted, consoled my own broken heart.
Instead I gave Alex a quick nod, returned my bike to our garage, and came up to my bedroom closet to write all this down. I’m spending so much time in here, I’m thinking about putting up curtains.
Alex told me to trust in tomorrow. Well, maybe tomorrow I’ll know what to do.
I still haven’t decided.
Instead of thinking, I scrubbed the house so clean that if decorating magazines still existed, our house would be the cover.
Chapter 16
I didn’t sleep well last night, and when I did, I had the same dream over and over, that I was alone in the house, which was our house but didn’t look like our house. It was sparkling and new and I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was, but every room I entered was empty. The more I had the dream, the more I knew the house was empty because everybody had died and I was the only person left alive.
After a while I gave up trying to sleep.
I thought about my choices. They seemed pretty simple at first. Either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex.
Then it got more complicated. I could tell Alex now or I could tell Alex next week. Or I could decide whether or not I’d tell him next week. Or next month. Or next year. Just because I didn’t tell him now didn’t mean I’d never tell him.
Of course when you can’t be really sure you’ll be alive a year from now, postponing decisions is the same as making decisions.
That got me back to either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex. Because it would take him and Julie months to get to Tennessee, and winter comes early these days. Like by the end of August. If I delayed telling him until then, he and Julie would set off anyway and have a lot harder time making it to Tennessee.
For all my talk about choices, I really didn’t have any. I’d tell Alex where the safe town was, and I’d tell him right away. He and Julie would stay through Monday. Two days from now.
They’d already stayed much longer than Alex had intended. If the convent had still been open, they’d already have been gone for more than a week. My fantasy that Alex would have stayed with me was just that, a fantasy. He’d made a deal with God. Julie in the convent, Alex in the monastery. And Miranda? Miranda was just another dream.
So I’d tell him. I’d hand him his walking papers.
Nothing lasts except fear, hunger, and darkness. Five weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to imagine what I would feel loving, truly loving, a boy. I’d had feelings. I’d had fantasies. But nothing like what I’ve felt for the past five weeks. It would have been like picturing a color you’ve never seen.
Five weeks. Maybe I’ll live five more years, or five more weeks, or only five more days. But I’ve been given the gift of those five weeks, and I shouldn’t be greedy for more.
Once I accepted that, it was a matter of waiting until morning. I’m pretty sure I fell back asleep, but the dreams were gone.
I walked over to Dad’s after breakfast. Alex and Julie were in the parlor praying. I thought, I have the answer to their prayers, but of course I don’t know what their prayers are.
When they finished, I let them know I was there. “I need to talk to you,” I said to Alex, but there was still a part of me that thought I didn’t have to tell him.
He waited for me.
“Outside,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
I didn’t give Alex a chance to ask any questions. If I hesitated, I might not have gone through with it. We weren’t ten feet from the house before I handed him the sheets of paper. “Syl says there’s a safe town there,” I said. “At Sexton University.”
Alex stared at the pages. “Has she seen it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “She heard about it from someone who was there when they turned it into one. She didn’t know where it was and I lied about why I asked. I went to town, to the library. This is what I found.”
Alex read the write-up of Sexton. Then he reached over and kissed me. “We’ll go tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s Saturday,” I said. “Wait until Tuesday.”
“I hate waiting,” he said. “If we wait much longer, Julie won’t make it.”
“It’s just a cough,” I said.
“There’s no such thing as just a cough,” he said.
I held him and we kissed again.
“You’ll come with us,” he said. There was no question in his voice, just the assurance that I would.
“Alex, I don’t know,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You have to. Now that it’s real, that Julie has a place to go, I can make plans for us.”
“I’m not a Catholic,” I said. “I can’t convert for you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I don’t love you for what you believe. I love you in spite of what you believe.”
“I believe in family,” I said. “And so do you.”
He nodded. “I thought the passes were the only thing I had of value. But you’re what I value. I’ll give Lisa two of the passes, for her and Gabriel. Julie can live with them in the safe town. Hal and you and I will live outside of town. Charlie, too, if he wants. They’re bound to need workers, people to farm and clean and keep the town running. Miranda, we can do it.”
I thought about it as much as I could think with Alex’s body so close to mine. I knew the journey would be hard, but it would be harder a month from now, a year from now, whenever the food ran out and we’d have to leave here. And I wouldn’t have Alex.
If I left now, Mom would still have Jon and Matt and Syl. She couldn’t object if I went with Dad. Even if she did object, she couldn’t stop me.
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, Alex, yes.”
It was one thing to tell Alex that I would go with him. It was a whole other thing to tell Mom.
I knew I had to. I couldn’t vanish. I’d asked Alex to hold off telling Dad and Lisa until today, but once they knew, they’d come over to talk about plans.
It would be even worse if Julie told Jon and Jon told Mom before I had.
But it was Sunday, and Mom politely declined when Syl asked if she wanted to join them for their prayer
