Why did he have to go all the way to that store? There had to be dozens of houses on this side of the river with Christmas trees in their attics. But no, he wanted a “new” tree and it had to be artificial. Nothing that will die, he insisted.
I drew the blanket tighter around her. The night was cloudy and the wind was cold off the river. The light from the fireplace flowed through the windows behind me and lay gleaming on the boards.
Evan Walker stepped onto the porch and leaned his rifle against the railing. His eyes followed mine into the dark, across the river, scanning the bridge and the buildings on the other side.
“Still not back?” he asked.
“No.”
He glanced at me and smiled. “They’ll come.”
He saw them first, approaching the bridge, pulling the little red wagon with its green cargo behind them. He smiled. “Looks like they hit pay dirt.”
He shouldered the weapon and went back inside. The wind shifted. I could smell gunpowder. Damn it, Ben. When he came up the walk, grinning from ear to ear like a triumphant hunter dragging the kill back to the cave, I had an urge to slap him upside the head. Stupid risk for a damn plastic Christmas tree.
I stood up. He saw the look on my face and stopped. Sam hovered behind him as if he were trying to hide.
“What?” Ben asked.
“Who fired their sidearm and why?”
“Did you hear it or did you smell it?” He sighed. “Sometimes I really hate the 12th System.”
“Straight answer, Parish.”
“I love it when you call me Parish. Did I ever tell you that? So sexy.” He kisses me, then says, “It wasn’t us, and the rest is a long story. Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”
“It’s not freezing.”
“Well, it’s cold. Come on, Sullivan, let’s get this party started!”
I followed them into the house. Megan jumped up from her dolls and squealed with delight. That plastic tree touched something deep. Walker came out of the kitchen to help set it up. I stood by the door, bouncing the baby on my hip as she bawled. Ben finally noticed and abandoned the tree to take her from my arms.
“What’s up, little mayfly, huh? What’s the matter?”
She popped her tiny fist against the side of his nose, and Ben laughed. He always laughed when she swatted him or did anything that shouldn’t be encouraged, like demanding to be held every waking second. From the moment she was born, she had him wrapped around her inch-long finger.
On the other side of the room, Evan Walker flinched. Mayfly. A word that resonated, a word that would never be just a word. Sometimes I wondered if we should have left him in Canada, if returning his memories wasn’t a particular cruelty, a kind of psychological torture. The alternatives were unthinkable, though: Kill him, or empty him completely, leaving him a human shell with no memory of her at all. Both of those possibilities were painless; we opted for the pain.
Pain is necessary. Pain is life. Without pain, there can be no joy. Cassie Sullivan taught me that.
The crying went on. Even Ben with all his special Parish powers couldn’t calm her down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me, as if I knew.
I took a stab at it anyway. “You left. Broke her routine. She hates that.”
So much like her namesake: crying, punching, demanding, needing. Maybe there is something to the idea of reincarnation. Restless, never satisfied, quick to anger, stubborn, and ruthlessly curious. Cassie called it. She labeled herself long ago. I am humanity.
Sam scampered down the hall to his bedroom. I guessed he couldn’t take the wailing anymore. I was wrong. He returned with something behind his back.
“I was going to wait till tomorrow, but . . .” He shrugged.
That bear had seen better days. Missing an ear, fur that had gone from brown to a splotchy gray, patched and repatched and patched again, more sutures than Frankenstein’s monster. Messed up, beaten up, but still hanging around. Still here.
Ben took the bear from him and made it dance for Cassie. Stubby bear arms flapped. Uneven bear legs—one was shorter than the other—twisted and twirled. The baby cried for a couple more minutes, clinging to the rage and discomfort until they slipped through her fingers, as insubstantial as the wind. She reached for the toy. Gimme, gimme, I wanna, I wanna.
“Well, what do you know?” Ben said. He looked over at me, and his smile was so genuine—no calculation, no vanity, desiring nothing but expressing everything—that I couldn’t help myself and really didn’t want to.
I smiled.
EVAN WALKER
EACH NIGHT from dusk to dawn he kept watch from the porch that overlooked the river. On the half hour, he left the porch to patrol the block. Then back to the porch to watch while the others slept. His sleep was rare, usually an hour or two in the afternoons, and afterward always jerking awake, disoriented, panicky, like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water that would bear him down, the remorseless medium that would kill him.