“I don’t think I’d put it that way, mostly ’cause I don’t know what you said.”
“What it breaks down to is, it may seem she trusts me not to harm you, but really the woman is exhausted and sleep is a biological imperative.”
“Lynn’s been known to outsmart her own body once or twice,” Lucy said. “If she didn’t want to sleep, she wouldn’t. Take heart.”
Fletcher smiled, an easy action for him, but this one was quiet and personal, and Lucy felt intrusive even watching him. “Regardless,” he said. “Her trust would be a lovely thing to have, but a man such as myself can’t ask for anything more.”
“A man like you?”
“One who’s got nothing to give.”
They were silent together for a moment as they watched the flames play across Lynn’s face, darkening the shadows under her eyes still further. Lucy broke the silence. “How did you meet your wife?”
“She was on the road, same as me. We crossed paths and it was simply serendipity. The chances of finding someone you can truly love were small, even before this dark and broken time of ours. What are the odds two people left in this vast emptiness would find each other and be soul mates?”
“It’s a long shot,” Lucy agreed.
“We found each other once. I’ll find her again.”
Though his eyes were still on Lynn, Lucy could see his thoughts were elsewhere. “What was her name?”
Fletcher was still for a while before answering, as if considering imparting a secret. “Rose,” he finally said, and she could hear the long years of loneliness embedded deep in the single syllable.
“I had someone,” Lucy said after a moment.
“You had to leave him behind, didn’t you?”
She nodded as an answer, her throat too tight for words.
“I can see it. There’s a worry that surrounds you too mature for your years.”
“Yeah, well,” Lucy said, “I got lots of worries.”
“Tell me about this boy, for starters.”
“His name was—is,” she corrected herself, “Carter.”
“And what happened? Why isn’t he traveling with you?”
“He got sick. Well, actually, he never got sick, which was the problem. Turns out he was carrying the polio that wiped out our people. Lynn said I couldn’t see him anymore, and back home he was . . .”
“Exiled?”
“He was turned out, yeah,” Lucy said softly, remembering the lost look in Carter’s eyes as he left her underneath the trees.
“That’s a hard life, when it’s not voluntary,” Fletcher said.
“He didn’t want to go,” Lucy said, lost in her own story. “But he knew it was best for everyone, best for me. I’ve seen Lynn do all kinds of brave things my whole life, but I’ve never seen anything like Carter walking out into nothing all by himself.”
“Sounds like he was a good fella.”
“Is a good fella,” Lucy insisted. “For all anyone knows, he’s still alive. I’m sticking to that, the same as you’re sticking to Rose.”
“Even though he’s back east and you’re headed west as far as the land can take you?”
“This place, Sand City, does it have doctors?”
“Some, as I recall.” Fletcher looked into the fire before continuing. “I don’t know if they were doctors in the modern sense of the word though, and I don’t want to mislead you.”
“Mislead me?”
“Meaning that I don’t want you to have Sand City set up in your head as a utopia—a place where everything is perfect,” he added before Lucy could interrupt with the question. “The folks there are kind, and life is easier, definitely. But there’s still illness and accidents, and different kinds of work to be done every day.”
“Life is work.” Lucy shrugged.
“And here I thought you had the optimism of youth.” Fletcher laughed softly to himself, then held up his hand to reassure her that he wasn’t mocking her. “No offense meant.”
“My grandma Vera is a doctor—a real one,” Lucy said. “But she didn’t know if Carter would carry the polio forever or if it kinda faded out.”
“So you’re hoping you can find someone who does know? What if you walk toward the sunset thinking you’ll find all your answers in Sand City, and they’re not there? Or shall we consider the opposite? What if someone tells you what you want to hear—that this boy is no longer infectious—yet you’re separated by all the miles you just crossed to hear those words?”
Lucy felt the pit of hopelessness opening in her stomach at such direct questions. To speak her half-made plans out loud made them sound feeble and childish, the product of a lovesick mind that had no room for logic. “If he can be rid of it, I’m going to find him. I won’t leave him for dead.”
“And how do you imagine that scenario playing out with Lynn?”
“Not well,” she admitted.
“I’d say not,” Fletcher agreed. “She crosses the country on foot to keep you safe and you do an about-face and head back?”