Boondocks

Chapter 50: The Dawn

WILLOW

Not all nights were peaceful.

Not even when I was a child. There were some nights, depending on where I'd been placed, where I would lay awake, blankets clutched beneath my chin, listening. Every little creak or thump would paralyze me. I was waiting then, just like now, for the unknown, for the worst, for more of the nightmare that was my existence.

But those nights were nothing compared to this. I didn't hear creaks or thumps or a foster father walking down the hall. I heard gunfire, far away. Croc was far away, and each round felt like the one. The one that stole him from me. Or the one that took Merle, leaving me an orphan once more. I pictured men scattered for miles, sacrificed in the name of something more. Something that could never be. I trembled, barely breathing, furiously wiping my tears with the thin throw wrapped around my shoulders. The children were asleep, and I was here, standing on the deck, staring off into the distance as if I were at a wake, tasked with the responsibility of staying up with the body. It felt like that. Like I was trapped in the smallest room, surrounded by the remains of everyone I loved, forced to sit and live and remember and miss.

Until the boom. It shook the Earth, and all my hope disintegrated in the fallout. A gust of wind blew through the trees, and the sky lit up with neon green northern lights. Beautiful. Absolute. I stared at them, my throat tight and dry. I couldn't draw a breath, no matter how hard I tried.

Footsteps echoed behind me, and I turned to find Ella, one of the mothers who had been hiding below deck. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders too, and a steaming mug in each hand. She handed one to me, then sipped her own, staring off in the same direction I'd been. Her husband had chosen to go with them, and false hope coated her features. As if she were clinging to his corpse, waiting for him to breathe.

I sniffed the drink then took a sip. Unsweetened tea burned my tongue and warmed the rest of me. "It's quiet," I said, though I don't know how I spoke. I didn't sound like the person I'd become since I met him, because I wasn't. He was gone. I knew. It echoed in the silence: every conversation, every kiss, every smile. I saw his boyish grin as he played Marco Polo. I watched his body move through the canal as we swam in sync. But my heart didn't dance the way it had in my memories. Instead, it rotted inside my chest, like a piece of fruit lying at the base of a tree. Not quite dead but dying. The last apple on Earth, wasted.

"Clark said they planned for an explosion," Ella whispered. "So, that's good, right?"

She looked at me, her eyes pleading for the answer she wanted to receive.

I said nothing.

She took a shuddering breath, sipped her tea, looked back off into the distance. "I wonder how long it will take them to get back."

I had no business hating her, but I did. In that moment, I hated her for being so naive. For having so much hope. For still believing everything would turn out okay when I knew damn well things never did. But, mostly, I envied her. I wanted to be her, just for a second, to have a blessed break from the shattering.

I took another drink, closed my eyes, turning inward in search of strength. I didn't have the liberty of falling apart. No matter what, I had to move forward, to keep walking, keep doing, for however long I could make it. I swallowed and studied her. We were in the same boat, both literally and figuratively. We were mothers left with the task of keeping their babies alive after their men died fighting.

"If they don't come back," I said. "Where will you go?" It was the question I'd been asking myself for weeks, and I still hadn't come up with an answer. Maybe the swamp, somewhere deeper down the canal, where we could sleep in trees and have the gators to guard us. But the thought of being there without him felt like Hell on Earth, to constantly be reminded, to know we could have gone together had I just put my foot down.