The Release

Lucy had put a hand on her brother’s back and was patting him gently, but she paused.

“What phone messages?” Lucy blinked.

“I have a lot to tell you,” Ethan said, his voice quieter and more alert.

Both heads turned in unison as Darla reappeared in the doorway. She had changed her clothes and she was now wearing a pair of sweatpants that belonged to Lucy’s mother and a hooded sweatshirt that belonged to Galen; she stood barefoot clad from top to bottom in gray.

“Grant?” Lucy asked, attempting to make her question sound as casual as possible.

Darla shrugged. “He’s playing with Teddy. He said if he starts to feel sick he’ll leave the room. But Teddy knows what to look for. Teddy will tell us if anything changes.”

“That’s really sad.” Lucy didn’t mean it to sound harsh, but Darla bristled.

“The world changes and you change with it,” she answered, clearly defensive. “A lot can happen in a week.” She spun a lock of her hair between her fingers.

Lucy thought of poor Teddy, only a year younger than Harper. He seemed so oblivious, so fixated on his own needs, but also so aware that things had changed. Her heart ached for the children abandoned and orphaned, lost and confused. Those who, unlike Teddy, had no parents left to protect them. It was unfair.

“Ethan’s been telling me about how you helped him,” Lucy said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah well. It worked out that way. And he’s helped with Teddy and anyone who can be so nice to my kid, well, you know.” She smiled, but it was reserved and lacking. It was difficult to get a read on her.

“Does Teddy understand any of this?” Lucy asked. And Darla took a step forward. She shoved her hands into the pouch of the hooded sweatshirt.

“Teddy? Sure. A little. He knows he’s suffered a loss. He knows that our lives feel different.”

“I’m glad he has his mom though,” Lucy tried to smile. She meant it to be comforting, but Darla’s face fell.

“He has only one Mom,” she replied and she closed her eyes. “And I haven’t come to terms yet with that…with the idea of doing this by myself. I never thought I’d have to.”

“And you know? That—”

“That she’s gone?” Darla nodded. “Yes. It happened at the airport. Right away after landing and before Ethan and I saw each other. She went so quickly. It was the three of us and it was chaos and then she slipped away and I couldn’t stop to stay…I couldn’t have Teddy see. Couldn’t have him watch his mama die. Above all, he couldn’t see that.”

Ethan sniffed. “That’s how we met,” he said.

“I asked Teddy to stay by this trashcan to wait for me while I said goodbye.” Darla looked straight at Lucy, her emotion was raw, but she didn’t break. “And when I looked back, he was gone.”

“I found him crying about thirty feet away. He was disoriented. Wandered a few feet, got pushed around, ended up down the terminal. I picked him up,” Ethan added.

“Then I saw this guy holding my kid. I just lost my wife, I was a mess, and I thought someone was kidnapping my son. So, I took a swing at him.”

Ethan smiled. “I’m glad you missed.”

Darla returned the smile and then she closed her eyes. “Teddy was bawling for his mama. Over and over…just mama, mama, mama…and I couldn’t help him. Ethan—it was Ethan. He said he had to find his sister, who was his age, and did Teddy want to help him on an adventure? It was the only way to distract him from the fact that we both just…left her there.” She stopped, overcome with emotion and then she pulled her hand out and put it up as if to say, “No more.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Lucy said and it felt so small and trivial.

“Me too.” Then Darla let out a thoughtful hum. “You never think it’ll be you who’s left behind to pick up the pieces. And then all of sudden you realize it is you and you didn’t get a choice. And maybe if you had the choice, maybe if someone had let you make the decision, you would have picked yourself to be the one to die. I mean, yes, I’m grateful to your brother.” Darla nodded toward Ethan with a smile. “What I did is no repayment. If I hadn’t decided to follow this kid around who was helping me with my son, we’d be dead. I may question how hard things are, but I can’t imagine a world without Teddy.”

Darla attempted to fill in some of the gaps of her and Ethan’s story. Like Lucy’s and Grant’s, it was one of survival against the odds. Once they got back to the house, Darla had left Ethan, with Teddy as a guardian, shivering and feverish, aching and unable to move, to raid the local super store a mile from their house. Luckily for them, the looting was just begi

Food. Guns. Medicine. This was what people needed and those who knew what to steal were the dangerous ones. “Anyone using manpower to lug a fifty-inch plasma to his or her car was missing the point,” Darla had said.

Lucy realized that, if the car had killed Ethan, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been vaccinated. From start to finish, the fact that they were alive was a testament to something larger than them. The thought reminded her of Salem’s crucifix, shoved into her pocket. She took it out and held it in her hand, then put it on and clasped it around her neck.

With the sun setting, the house slipped into darkness. Darla started a fire in the den and then yelled upstairs for Grant so they could work together to get Ethan into his wheelchair for the first time—something Darla couldn’t do on her own. He barely passed through the study door and into the living room, but out in the open he could move about freely. While Darla hunched over the fire burning brightly in the fireplace, Teddy ran matchbox cars over the hardwood floors. Between the fire and a collection of candlesticks, the room was lit in a flickering orange hue.

Everyone’s features were cast in shadow.

Grant was quiet and staring at the wall. Occasionally he’d co

Right as Lucy was about to ask him if he wanted to take a walk with her, sneak away to the darkened kitchen or the family room, Ethan cleared his throat.

“Darla,” he said and she looked up at him. “Could you get the video camera? I think it’s time to show Lucy everything.”

Following Ethan’s orders, Darla rose and went over to the bookshelf and grabbed the video camera her parents used years ago to record first steps and school outings. Handing it to Ethan, he opened up the tiny screen and handed it to Lucy and instructed her to press play.

“What am I watching?” Lucy asked. Her hand shook and she wished that she could hold it steady.

“Mom left me a message. I didn’t know if I would still be able to access my voicemail when the network went down, so I videotaped it.”

She pressed play.

The camerawork was shaky and she could hear a news report broadcasting in the background. In the video, Ethan’s phone was on the kitchen counter and he had put it on speakerphone. The Ethan holding the video camera leaned down and pressed a button to access his voicemail. Lucy deeply drew a breath as she waited anxiously to find out what she’d hear. The moment the message clicked through, she heard her mother’s voice—it filled the kitchen on the video and as Lucy held the camera, her voice filled the den as well—the first syllable was immediately recognizable as her Mama Maxine. And Lucy bit back tears. For the first time she realized that she truly believed she’d never hear her mom say another word to her again, but there was her voice, captured for her to listen to again and again.