Page 50

epilogue

Tuck

Over a year had passed since that early January day when we’d arrived back where we’d begun.

It’d taken Emily a good couple of months to recover completely from the severe concussion she’d suffered in that desert in the middle of the night not far from the place where I’d hunkered down in the darkness to rest for a few hours.

As strange as it was, in some ways, that rope the man had stretched in her path as he’d heard her zipping through the desert and seen her headlights, had been another sort of miracle. Despite that I’d been terrified out of my mind to see her lying there seemingly broken and half-alive, if she hadn’t been flung off the dirt bike right then, she might have flown right by me, and I’d never have known it was her.

I’d have continued on to San Diego, just missing her, and Emily would have attempted to make it home, perhaps encountering more danger…

Well, who knows what would have been. I had a long history of playing the what-if game, and I tried not to do much of that now. Because when I didn’t think too hard about it, when I simply let the entire journey we’d undertaken swirl in my mind as a misty memory, every twist and turn seemed fated. Each challenge and every victory had propelled us forward in some astonishing way.

Not that I had a lot of time on my hands to sit and daydream anyway. Rebuilding the world was a full-time job, or at least, rebuilding our corner of it. I stood now, stretching my back from where I’d put a newly grafted tree into the ground and patted the dirt around it.

Our orange orchard now stretched as far as the eye could see, the same as it once had. From where I was, I could just catch a glimpse of the vegetable garden and the house Emily’s father and I had built for Emily and me.

I began walking, examining the trees that had been planted last spring. They were doing well, but it would be a few years until they produced fruit. The trees that had been spared from the fires, however, were heavy with bright orange jewels. They sparkled in the sunlight and scented the air around me.

I moved a little farther into the grove, able to see our land stretched below me from this higher ground. The barnyard…the chicken coop…the garden that was continually being expanded as we were able to trade for seeds we didn’t yet have at the farmers market a few miles from here. And up the hill a little farther were my bees and the honeycomb that Emily’s mom used to make candles.

These days, I often found it necessary to simply stop and take stock of everything around me. Perhaps, in some ways, it was only now that I was fully grasping the immensity of all that had occurred. We’d been working so long and hard up to this point to create a life where we could count on continued sur vival, that sometimes I had to remind myself what the world used to look like.

My gaze moved beyond, to the outside world, and my heart gave a hollow knock like it always did when I thought about how many people had perished. Cities, that had become bastions of crime in the aftermath of the solar flare, were now empty graveyards. Criminals and predators had ruled over the wreckage for a time, but eventually, their reign of terror had ended when supplies ran dry. Then they turned on each other, their numbers diminishing further by the day.

The criminals who had managed to survive had come into the countryside to find a new set of victims, but we’d been prepared, they’d been depleted, and that battle had been over before it’d really begun.

In some places, I’d heard the military was reforming and beginning a cleanup, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, or if it was, where they’d even begin. I’d also heard that the attempt to make repairs to the grid had stalled, in part because of the roads still blocked by inoperable vehicles, and a lack of workers.

We heard a lot of things from those passing through, but none of it could be corroborated, so we didn’t worry too much about it. We had enough to concern ourselves with as it was.

Movement caught my eye, and I watched Emily step out of our house and walk in the direction of the old barn. Where are you going, Showboat?

I plucked a few oranges to drop off at our gate later for hungry people passing through. There weren’t many travelers now, and the makeshift barriers that had once been constructed were mostly unmanned these days. Once, weapons and food had been the most sought-after commodities, but now, people looking for a home bargained with skills. We’d scored a doctor a year ago, a wonderful older man with a lifetime of knowledge. Just yesterday, we’d welcomed a woman who had been a math teacher and her daughter. They had been among the many who hadn’t found safety or shelter, though they’d managed to survive. Their hollow, haunted eyes told us survival had come at a price.

We’d welcomed many such people.

Being part of our community would help. The regular meals would heal their bodies, and Emily’s music would be part of healing their souls. I’d watched it happen before, gazes hung on her as her voice soared above the campfire, the notes somehow stitching closed internal wounds and reminding those who had witnessed ugliness and horror that beauty still existed in the world and that it was worth fighting for.

She’d written a treasure trove of music with every step we took on our journey home, songs that spoke first of anger and disappointment, then of understanding and love, and finally the reuniting of souls. And I listened to each one in awe, the miles we’d traveled coming right back and socking me in the gut. And I fell back in love with her all over again.

I set the oranges in the basket in front of our gate and then made my way to the barn and slipped through the door. I knew right where she was.

I walked past the car that had become unusable in the last few months since fuel could no longer be found, moving quietly toward the ladder that led to the loft.

My head cleared the high-up floor and there she was.

Emily Mattice.

She looked over at me and smiled from where she was lying under the window. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I crawled toward her. “We’re leaving for the market in a little bit.”

I sat down beside her and lay back, gazing at the small slice of blue sky that showed through the glass. We’d made good use of this loft while our house was being built and we still lived with Emily’s parents. But now that we had our own place, and plenty of privacy, we hadn’t had reason to come up here much.

“I know,” she said. “This is probably the last time I’ll come up here for a while.” She ran her hand over her barely rounded stomach and smiled over at me. “Climbing ladders will have to be on hold temporarily.”

I smiled back and lay my hand on top of hers, that same zing of fear and joy reverberating through me that I’d felt when she’d first told me about the baby as we lay in front of our fireplace. Only now, the joy was greater than the fear. This baby was an embodiment of hope in the future, and a living symbol of everything we’d been through to get here. He or she was more precious than the trees or the land or the seeds we planted in the ground. He or she would ensure that the world went on and, as a wise prophet had once said, was proof that life longed for itself.

“Do you think Gretel will have those caramels she brought last week?” Emily asked.

I smiled. She’d eaten so many of those, she swore she was never going to look at another caramel again. “If she was able to find more sugar,” I said.

“Do you know that she brought them there in a Louis Vuitton purse?” Emily laughed. “She used it just like a brown paper bag. The purse was worthless. It was the caramels everyone was drooling over,” she said, her voice mildly incredulous.

“Things have changed,” I said with a chuckle.

She rolled toward me and propped her hands on my chest and laid her chin there. “Yes,” she agreed. “Lots has changed. But other things have stayed the same.”

She leaned up and kissed me and rubbed her nose over mine. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Come on, Mattice,” she said, as she got up. “Caramels await. And maybe we can find a few books to add to that library of yours.”

I descended the ladder first and she followed, and then we exited the barn, strolling hand in hand through the orchard. The cloudless sky stretched over the land, what, to us, was the whole wide world, our patch of heaven, and where our journey had ended, all woven together by a thread of love.

* * * * *