On the table in front of the couch was a pile of comic books. Cal thought it was a series his father had collected.
Above them was a skylight, the glass still intact, the weak dawn light streaming through. The steeple’s spire was visible through the glass.
“They put that in when they were rehabbing this place,” Micah said, gesturing above. “It used to lead to the steeple, but now you can’t access it that way. Not much forethought for authenticity, but at least it’s warm in here.”
“You’re lucky the bell’s not there anymore,” Cal said. “Someone would want to climb up to ring it.” A little boy, he thought. “You come up here a lot?” he asked.
“I do,” Micah said, sitting down, “but not as much as I’d like.” He sighed and picked up a pillow. “It’s silly, which is why it’s a secret. It means too much to me to share.”
“That’s selfish.”
Micah shrugged. “Sounds about right for me, don’t you think?”
Cal laughed and walked to the bookcase. He resisted the urge to run his finger along the spines, but he read some of the titles. The Prince. The Pleasure of the Text. The Waste Land. Bridget Jones’s Diary. A Bereavement.
“A Bereavement? Franzen’s posthumous novel?” Cal asked.
“Some are from Plank.”
“And the others?” Cal asked.
“The comics, they’re from Burke’s grandpa.” He paused. “He has no idea I took them and put them here.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Again, sounds about right.”
Cal sat next to Micah and grabbed the comic book. On its cover the superhero wore a mask and suit, its red and blue bisected with black lines, meant to look like spiderwebbing. He was climbing the side of a building.
“My dad used to read these.”
“I know, Cal. We were roommates, remember? You used to go on and on about your dad.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that you didn’t live with the guy, so of course he was godly.”
Cal put down the comic.
“Sorry,” Micah said.
It was the first time, as far as Cal could recall, that Micah had apologized. For anything.
“Micah,” Cal said. There was opportunity here to find out the whole story. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, the moment both he and Frida needed. “If Frida’s pregnant, what are we going to do? Will we be sent away?”
Micah groaned. “You and Peter…”
“Me and Peter what?”
“You won’t let up. You want to know my plan.”
“Do you have one?”
Micah raised an eyebrow. “In a way, yes. But it doesn’t have anything to do with your baby. Who may or may not exist.”
“He does.”
“‘He’?”
Cal took a deep breath. “I know the Land is opposed to expansion, to children.”
“It makes sense, you know it does.”
“Does it?”
“The Land was a mess when we first got here. There were children, but they weren’t doing that well. Almost all of them were underweight. One had a skin infection that needed to be treated. Right after I got here, one girl died of a fever. A fever, Cal. Can you imagine? Almost all of them were still too young to contribute anything, and the adults spent a lot of time looking after them, and they couldn’t get as much work done, couldn’t make preparations for their own survival. That endangered the whole community. Plus, the older ones would be teenagers in a few years, and who knows what would happen then? They might not follow rules or do their jobs. Or they might decide to leave the Land and jeopardize everything.” He paused. “Pines wanted children, and I could provide them with that. The kids are safe, and so are we. Everyone here agreed to the policy.”
“And will that policy remain? The Land’s different now.”
“What I did wasn’t an act of cruelty,” Micah said.
“You can’t send my child away.”
“You’re right, Frida wouldn’t let me.”
“I wouldn’t,” Cal said.
Micah said nothing.
“Haven’t you considered passing all this on?” Cal waved a hand through the air. He meant the room, he realized. It was everything to his friend. Even after all that had happened, Micah was his friend.
“An heir?”
“Your word, not mine,” Cal said.
Micah was trying not to smile. “You don’t understand.”
“Then make me,” Cal said. “This morning meeting is just ten minutes in. Plenty of time left for you to tell me your crackpot ideas. Just like in our salad days, right?”
Cal expected him to laugh, but Micah had turned inward. When he looked up again, there was something fierce in his eyes, and Cal saw a man who was capable of murder, of beheading, of who knew what else.
“You think I’m just a shill for Pines,” Micah said. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you thought that. I mean, we work with them, so if you wanted to put it that way, you could.”
“Do you put it that way?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”