Devin’s fingers shook, too. He’d managed to get his shirt off and undo his fly, but his fingers slipped, numb and blind, over the laces on his shoes.
Joe caught Flix’s troubled gaze and tossed him Devin’s backpack. “Find him some dry clothes.” He squatted in front of Devin and nudged his hands out of the way. “Here, papi. Let me take care of you.”
Devin grumbled, but he let Joe take off the shoes and help him into dry clothes. Even when he was re-dressed and dry, his muscles were corded and tight with distress.
Joe had started rubbing them at night, easing some of the tension, distracting him from the pain, at least enough to let Devin sleep. He doubted he’d be able to do that here in Clinton’s house, no matter how friendly the man seemed. “Try to relax your jaw. Here.” He slipped a nausea pill into Devin’s mouth. For days, the pills had been the only way Devin was able to keep food down. Not for much longer; Joe was going to find help.
He knocked on the back door to the main part of the house and led the way into a neat, bright kitchen where Aria sat at a round wooden table, holding hands with a spry-looking black woman. Clinton leaned against the sink, watching the women with a faint smile on his face.
“Hello, Joe,” the woman said. “I was just getting acquainted with your wife.”
God, he was going to kill Aria. He’d pretended they were together back at the Maze-On, but that was only to try to keep the VICE-shot. It was bad enough he wouldn’t be able to be open about his relationship with Devin — he didn’t want to make it worse by having to pretend with Aria. Still, when she reached out a hand for him, he took it and let her guide him to a seat at the table. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Aria beamed at him. “So as I was saying, Miss Maribou, Joe and I set out for the north as soon as we found out I was carrying.”
Joe choked on his own saliva. He didn’t want to play house with Aria, and he definitely didn’t want to lie about having a kid. The lie was out there now, though, and Joe couldn’t think of a logical way to take it back. He squeezed Aria’s hand hard enough to hurt.
Aria didn’t even acknowledge it. “We brought along Joe’s little cousin” — she gestured in Flix’s direction — “and ran into these white boys about two weeks in. They’ve been a good help, but food’s tight.” A pat of her flat little belly. “We just want to find Joe’s daddy and make a good home for our little one.”
What a liar. Joe couldn’t decide if he was impressed or horrified. It didn’t matter. What really mattered was whether or not these people felt sorry enough for them to help them out.
First things first. “Ma’am —”
“Call me Maribou, son.”
Joe tried again. “Miss Maribou, our travel companion needs medical care.”
Maribou sat upright. “Are you contagious?”
“The big guy, Devin, he’s having vision problems and headaches. We’re all free of disease.”
Maribou glanced back at Clinton, who nodded encouragingly. She said, “Is there a way we can help?”
“No,” Aria said. “He needs a doctor.”
“Let’s eat,” Clinton said. “Nothing heals like a full belly.”
Maribou tutted over Joe’s skinny frame until he had eaten his way through a lettuce, cucumber, and tomato sandwich topped with a mound of avocado. He didn’t like all the attention called to his body — the lone benefit to Devin’s vision problems was that he hadn’t noticed Joe had been skipping meals — but the food filled a place inside that Joe had forgotten was empty and aching.
Hunger sated, Maribou herded them into the living room, where an enormous entertainment console stretched across one of the walls. The rest of the space was occupied by piles of books and two velvety purple reclining chairs. Paintings lined the other walls, landscapes and flowers and a great, gleaming lake.
“Devin has family that I’d like to contact,” Joe said. He’d thought about it all during dinner. Come to the only conclusion possible. He’d do whatever it took. “These vision problems he’s having...they may be able to help.”
“God damn it, Joe,” Devin snapped. He’d settled against one of the walls, head in his hands, but jolted and glared in Joe’s direction. “I don’t want them to see me this way.”
“Honey, you need medical care,” Maribou said. “I wouldn’t even know where to look, aside from the domes. There’s nothing and nobody way out here in the country, at least until you get to Des Moines another thirty miles on north, and we won’t get a drone delivery for at least a month yet, ’til winter’s good and over. Let your friend reach out to your family.”
“EC,” Joe said, hailing the entertainment console, “call Barbara or Jameson Carnegie-Goodknight, please.” He hadn’t talked to an EC in a long time. He vaguely remembered a time when he was five, talking to his mother’s cousin Tina back in Mexico. She’d laughed at his jumbled Spanish and called him “darling boy.” After his mother died, he didn’t have anyone to call. His father’s family had died out ages before.
The console screen switched from a bland view of a mountain to a stunningly beautiful blond woman in a room lined with shelves and shelves of books.
Joe swallowed. “Hello, my name is Joe Brady —”
“You have reached Barbara Goodknight,” the woman said. “Jameson and I will be out of contact until the fall.” She smiled, and slight wrinkles near her eyes gave the tiniest indication that she was old enough to be someone’s
