Since his grandfather and girlfriend had done all the cooking, Aonghas found himself exiled to the kitchen to wash the dinner dishes while his grandfather and Thuy relaxed in the living room, the radio on in the background. Aonghas was humming to himself, pleased at how well things were going, occasionally stopping to sneak the ring out of his pocket and take a look at it, when he realized Thuy was calling his name.
The urgency in her voice scared him. She said his name again, and instead of grabbing the towel, he just wiped his hands on his jeans. He hurried into the living room and came to a stop. They were just sitting there. Nothing was wrong. There had been a part of him that was sure he was going to come in and find the old man facedown on the floor, dead before he could see his grandson engaged and married, before he had a chance to see a great-granddaughter or great-grandson, the Càidh line carried on.
But both his grandfather and Thuy were up and alert. In fact, they were smiling.
Thuy stood up and walked over to him. “Is it true?” she said.
“What?”
Thuy looked at Padruig, so Aonghas looked at his grandfather as well. “Is what true?” he asked.
Padruig offered up something between a grimace and a smile. “I’m sorry, boy. It just slipped out.”
“Yes,” Thuy said to Aonghas. “Go ahead and ask me, because the answer is yes.”
Desperation, California
“Well,” Gordo said. “Waiting for the world to go boom is kind of boring.” He tried changing the television station, but it was the same news everywhere: no news. China had set off a nuke and . . . and that was it.
“Fred called.” Amy sat on his lap and put her arm around his shoulder. “He said if the world isn’t ending today, we should go over and have dinner and drinks with him and Shotgun. We can play hearts.”
Gordo sighed. “Sure.”
“What’s with the grumpy pants?” Amy tapped her finger on his lips. “You’re all pouty.”
Gordo kissed her finger. “Eh. You know. A nuke goes off and I’m thinking, okay, this is it. We’re ready. I’m ready. Let’s do it. I’m not saying I really want it to happen, but come on. I thought this was it.” He wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her tight against him. “Yeah, fuck it. Let’s go over and play some cards. Beats just sitting around waiting for the bombs to start falling.”
American University,
Washington, DC
Oh, that private bathroom. Of all the things Melanie was glad that she negotiated for—lab space, funding, administrative support, reduced teaching—a private bathroom and shower in her office was what made her most thankful. There was the obvious plus of not having to use the public restrooms, but it was the shower that was the best. She could go out for a quick run and shower off without having to head to the Jacobs Fitness Center, or, on days like today, when she hadn’t left the lab in nearly seventy hours, it meant she could take a shower and put on one of the changes of clothes she kept in her office. She could feel human again.
She tugged on her brown motorcycle boots and pulled her jeans down over them. She’d bought the boots at the same time she bought her first motorcycle, when she was eighteen, and even though she hadn’t had a bike in a decade, she kept resoling the boots. They were scarred and had a deep patina of wear. She always felt like a badass when she wore them. She buttoned up her dark-blue blouse, gave her hair a quick brush, put her diamond stud earrings back in, opened the door of her bathroom, and crashed right into a big black man in a suit.
The man was rooted like a tree. Melanie bounced back a few steps, and he reached out and caught her arm.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” he said.
He didn’t have to say anything more for Melanie to know he was Secret Service. She sighed.
“Where is he?”
“Ma’am?”
She straightened her blouse and slipped past him into her office. There was no one else in the office, though she could hear voices in the lab. “Manny. My ex-husband. Where is he?”
“He’s in the lab, ma’am, with the others.”
It was a pattern that was too familiar to her from their marriage: Manny wanted to spend time with her, she’d say she was busy, he’d show up anyway saying he hoped just to steal a few minutes, they’d fight about whether their marriage was failing because of how little time they spent together or because what little time they did spend together they spent fighting. It had been exhausting when they were married, and she didn’t want to spend any part of the day doing a postmortem on a body that had long gone cold. She’d already taken the blame, already said it was her fault, even though there was a small part of her that thought Manny could have done more. No phone could be slammed hard enough, no door closed firmly enough to keep him out when it came to garnering support for a bill or getting money for Steph’s campaigns, but he had never fought as hard for her as he had on Steph’s behalf.
“All right, Manny,” she said, pushing through the door to the lab, “I don’t have the patience for . . .”
But it wasn’t Manny.