The Wounded

I kissed Pelo lightly on the cheek, and stood, handing Orry back to Joseph so he could carry him back to the top of this dark amphitheater. As we climbed, my father’s thin frame sunk behind the smoke of the dying fire. He was smiling, his hands clasped in front of him, looking to the sky through meters of rock.

*****

Joseph laid Orry gently down in our bed and tucked him in tightly. I reached down to smooth his hair from his face.

“Once there was a way to get back homeward…” I sung the Beatles song Addy had taught me quietly, like a rough whisper. “Once there was a way to get back home. Sleep pretty darling, do not cry,” my hand shook a little, “and I will sing a lullaby.” Joseph’s arms curled around my shoulder. “Golden slumbers fill your eyes. Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep pretty darling, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby.” I wiped the tear before it even had a chance to creep out of the corner of my eye.

We both stared down at him as the candle flickered, casting our wobbly shadows on the inky walls. Any minute now, he’d disappear like a puff of smoke.

This was too hard.

Joseph mirrored my thoughts, standing back and ru

Sadness pulled you in different directions. Love pulled you straight into another. For me, desire was pulling all those strands together and tying them in a knot, holding me together. Even if it was temporary.

But everything felt like a last…

Joseph pulling me along a tu

The atmosphere opening up like a hole-ridden blanket had been tossed across the sky, pricks of light drilling holes into the ground as we ran into the trees.

The slip of fabric ru

The cold as the air hit my skin.

The warm as his skin met mine.

The feeling of being lifted, wet leaves pressing into my back as I reached up to meet him.

We were together.

Everything was cold until every part of me was warm and shaking. Winter being pulled back, with the retreating mist at our bare feet.

We woke drowsy. Sleep didn’t find us until early morning, and it still clung to the sides of my eyes like the sheet that was glued to my damp face. Joseph’s lips met mine and the sun rose in my chest. But then Orry kicked me in the back.

“Mama,” he said, impatiently pulling my hair.

Lasts.

I tried unsuccessfully to push down the grief that scraped its way up through my body. Joseph’s hand clamped around my stick-like arm, and I could feel the unhappiness ru

“Right, breakfast,” I said, going about the normal things.

A tail curled and snapped under the heavy blanket strung up in the entrance to our hovel. “Munk ee,” Orry shouted excitedly, like he had the hiccups.

“Clever boy,” Joseph said, swinging him into his arms for a hug. Our eyes co

We fed Orry his breakfast, and I was reminded why we were doing this. Somewhere, another child was eating something that may have only contained the tiniest traces of fava beans, and that child would probably die. I closed my eyes but my eyelids flashed with visions of Orry seizing, and I clutched my chest, reminding my heart to beat.

I could see Matthew’s pacing feet brushing the sides of the curtain. The standard white sneakers draped to the ankles with rough cargo pants.

“You can come in, Matthew,” I said.

He seemed flustered, but then we were all a bit u

“Okay.” I waved him off.

I looked to Joseph. “Do we say something to Orry?” I asked, unsure.

He shrugged but held Orry so they were facing each other. “Your parents are going away for a while. Pietre, Careen, and Alexei will look after you while we’re gone. And you’ll have Hessa to play with.” Joseph swiped his hand across his eyes. “Damn it.”

I kneeled down and looked into Orry’s eyes, my eyes. So strange, but so beautiful framed by his blond curls and sloping nose. “I love you,” I said. “Don’t miss me.” I pushed my finger lightly into his belly, and he giggled. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Orry leaned in and planted a sloppy kiss on my eyebrow. I felt like the ground might swallow me, like the whole earth was angry with me and might trap me beneath the real world forever.

I looked up at the ceiling, fighting with myself. Don’t let this be the last time I see my son.

I lifted him to my hip. Joseph carried our small backpacks over one shoulder. We were quiet as we fell into line with the others. Thousands of people poured like lava, up into the light, away from this place. Into a fight.

*****

I hugged and kissed him a thousand times, as he sat clinging to Careen’s waist like a bear in a tree.

“Promise me you’ll keep him safe,” I said, gripping her shoulders kind of desperately.

She grimaced from the pressure my fingers were putting on her collarbone, but tipped her delicate chin. “Listen to me, I will keep him safe. I promise. Just promise you’ll do the same.” She flicked her hair and blinked. “You know, for yourself that is. Keep yourself safe.”

I laughed nervously. “Okay.”

There were eighteen of us leaving in cars. Some I knew, some I didn’t, but as we climbed into the four cars, we held the possibility of a different future for everyone. This could change everything.

I jumped into the driver’s seat and Rash, Gus, and Pelo slid into the backseat, throwing their packs and equipment over the top of the sloshing fuel cans in the boot. I wound down the window and shut the door, feeling my heart and my body tearing open like flimsy fabric. I was nothing but a tattered scrap in the wind. I don’t know how to leave him.

Joseph’s hand slid over mine as it paused on the handbrake. He clicked it in and eased it down. He lifted my hand to the gear stick, keeping it steady as I changed gears.

I let the tears fall freely, my mouth set hard. My eyes on the road ahead. The car shuddered to life, and we rolled forward.

“Well, that was intense,” Rash exclaimed, while I glared at his flash-white grin and inappropriate expression in the rearview mirror.

“Shut up, Rash!” Pelo snapped uncharacteristically.

Gus grunted.

Joseph brought his handheld to his face, ignoring the men in the backseat. “Turn left here,” he said. I slammed on the brakes and turned the corner hard, watching the men’s shoulders bash in to each other like toppling tenpins, shutting them all up.

My lap handheld glowed in my lap like my own heart-aching sun, splitting and guiding me at the same time. Its screen showed a different destination. A blinking red light we were getting further and further away from. Orry.

We were to follow the M53, an old highway used back when there were cars everywhere, hugging bumper to bumper, and polluting the earth. I shook my head sharply at the old Class words remerging in my head like a poisoned lecture.

Rash played with one of the retrieved projection discs from the Woodlands and banged the side of his head on the window like a child. “I miss Essie,” he moaned.

“We’ve only been driving for ten minutes! Get over yourself, Rash!” I snapped, darting around a bicycle planted right in the middle of the road.