The Release

With much love, Dad or, affectionately, Scott.

And on the bottom of the vague letter in her father’s distinct handwriting was a small quote that read: “When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”

Lucy clutched the paper to her chest and spun around the room with the flashlight once more, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. The food. The note. The vaccines. Food and water to sustain them should a virus wipe out a food and water supply. A note that pointed them to the vaccines. A note that seemed rooted in regret and apology.

A fire grew in her stomach and it seemed to want to burn her from the inside out. She didn’t know if she should scream or throw up. With one last long look around, she took a deep breath and left the room behind, back out into the fruit cellar, where Grant and Darla waited. She trained the flashlight on both of them and they startled at the sudden light. Lucy didn’t pause or hesitate; instead she shimmied out from behind the shelf and then walked straight to the wooden door, the light bobbing out in front.

“And? What did you find?” Grant asked, following on her heels. “Lucy, wait up! What was in there?”

Lucy didn’t answer as she climbed out of the fruit cellar and on to the cement basement flooring, pausing only to light the way for Darla and Grant and, after they successfully navigated the small step, she kept moving.

“Lucy,” Grant said, his voice turning breathless as he picked up his pace to catch up with her. “Lucy!”

She spun, still clutching her father’s note to her body, “I need to talk to my brother,” she answered as she reached the steps. Then she bounded up two at a time and left the others down in the darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ethan looked pale and his eyes were sunken and watery. He regarded Lucy with a thin wave and then he sunk lower into his wheelchair.

“Help me back to the couch?” he requested and Lucy pushed the chair back through the doorway and into the study, Teddy still along for the ride.

“Again!” Teddy instructed. “I like the wheelchair ride, uncle Ethan,” the young boy said as Ethan tousled his hair. “My mommy took me to Disneyland when I turned four. They had rides there and I went on a fast one that went zoom-zoom-zoom. Do you know which one?”

“Lots of them go zoom-zoom, don’t they? Disneyland is fun, huh?” Ethan replied. “I’m glad you got to go, Teddy. I’m glad. Hey buddy, you want to hop down real easy now?” He picked the child up under his armpits and lowered him to the floor. Then Lucy stepped in and snapped the side of the chair down and helped Ethan slide his body over to the couch. He winced the entire time, groaning in pain, but powering through the bumps and jolts.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Lucy asked him once he was settled. She tossed him a pillow and he shoved it behind his back.

“Tell you? Like…hey…there’s a secret room hidden next to the fruit cellar and dad left us some cryptic note from around Thanksgiving that pretty much predicted the end of the world. Oh, and, right, like there’s also a ridiculous pile of food and water there too. And some men in a van kidnapped mom and everyone else and took them to the airport. Where they clearly took off in an airplane despite the fact that all the planes were grounded.” He closed his eyes. “And I haven’t heard from them. Or dad. I’ve heard from no one. So.”

“When you say it like that,” Lucy replied and Ethan mustered up a small smile in return.

“You had to discover it like I did. You just had to.”

Darla and Grant made their way back up to the main floor and worked their way into the room. Teddy whined about a snack and Darla whisked him off to the kitchen. Grant followed her, shooting Lucy a sympathetic look as he exited.

“Okay, but what does it mean?” Lucy asked. She had an idea, but she wanted or needed Ethan to say it first. She wanted him to be the one to admit it out loud, because for her to say those words felt like an immeasurable betrayal.

“It means our dad knew.”

Her heart sank. Ethan did it. He said it and he validated the fear and uneasiness that she couldn’t shake. She wished he could take it back, say that he was kidding, that he didn’t know, but Ethan looked straight at her and kept going.

“He knew this was going to happen. And it means he didn’t do anything to stop it,” Ethan said. Lucy closed her eyes and felt the letter crinkle in her grasp. She resented how easy it was for him to speak those words to her, as if it weren’t damning their father with one big swoop. But then he added, “And worse than that…”

“Please don’t say it,” Lucy said quickly, her anger rising. “I’m not ready yet.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved her hand in front of him and made a shushing sound.

“I’m begging you,” she said and she blew air into her cheeks and then let it go slowly.

“Lucy, please, that’s the whole thing. That’s everything.” Ethan looked sad, but she could tell he was going to take it further anyway and there was nothing she could say to stop him. “You have to co

“We have some pretty big blind spots. There’s no way we have all the information. I can’t make that jump with you. I can’t!” Lucy’s voice started to increase with intensity.

“That doesn’t make me wrong.”

“Just tell me the next part,” Lucy said and held the paper out. “Tell me what he said. Where we’re supposed to go.”

Ethan looked confused. “There’s no other message. I’ve told you everything I know.”

Lucy cocked her head at him. “Dad said he was leaving something behind to help us and to do whatever we could to reach that place. Right? You honestly didn’t find the next clue?”

“The next clue?” Ethan asked and shook his head. “I honestly thought he was just talking about the food.”

Lucy took a deep breath. “He said, find this place and you’ll find me, and you thought he was talking about chicken quesadillas? This is why you were such a bad student,” she said, exasperated. Thrusting the paper out for Ethan to look at, she continued, “The message. On the bottom. It’s a clue.”

“I didn’t catch that,” Ethan said with a shrug.

She had known immediately because she had internalized that quote; it was as much a part of her childhood as playing with her American Girl dolls or watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year as a family on Christmas Eve. For a second, Lucy wondered if maybe the clue was just for her—a single nod to a shared memory. But then, she realized, that would’ve meant that her father expected her to be the one left behind and that he intended the note for her and her alone. That, she rationalized, was ridiculous.

“Wait here,” Lucy said and she flicked her flashlight back on and scooted around the observers, heading back out into the main area, through the dining room, and up the stairs. At the top of the landing, she took in a deep breath and pushed the fear of the dark aside. She bypassed her own room and scooted into Harper’s room and shined the flashlight over her sister’s books. All of Harper’s books had been inherited from her siblings and they arrived to her already dog-eared and missing pages, falling apart at the bindings, and scribbled in with crayons. The stories were unmarred, but the books themselves had seen better days before traveling down to the youngest King.

And yet their soiled appearances had not stopped Harper from devouring them just like her brothers and sister before her.