Night Light

by Terri Blackstock

  Doug couldn’t believe it. “You know why he’s doing this. The same reason that Edith woman wants them. The disbursement is next week and they want the kids’ money.”

  “Don’t worry, Doug. I’ve already talked to the judge, and he’s keeping them with you. It’ll take months to get it to court, especially with the outage and so few lawyers and judges working. By that time, some things will have shaken out, and hopefully you will have found their grandparents.”

  “But won’t a biological father have more rights than the grandparents? Couldn’t he get Sarah if he wanted to?”

  “I would say yes, if he were a fit father. But Jessie had him in court twice for failing to pay child support, and we have it on record that he denied being her father. That ought to play against him. Besides that, the court will want to keep the kids together. If the grandparents come forward to take them together, I think it’ll work out.”

  “Let’s just hope the grandparents are decent people.”

  Doug glanced toward the woods and saw Aaron peering into the trees with a dull, vacant look in his eyes. Was he thinking of his mother? Maybe bringing him here hadn’t been such a good idea.

  He went toward him. “Aaron? You all right, son?”

  Aaron jumped, as if he’d been caught in his thoughts. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Ready to go home?”

  The boy turned back to the building and looked up at the window that had been his home. Was he longing to go back to that rancid apartment? Or was he simply longing for his mother?

  Whatever the longing, Doug’s heart swelled with compassion. The child was in pain, and he didn’t know how to help him.

  Only God and time could undo the damage now.

  thirty-six

  MARK RODE HIS BIKE BY THE HOUSE FRIDAY AFTERNOON AS Deni was working in the yard. “Hey, Deni. I was just at the post office, and Mrs. Lipscomb said to tell you that you got what you were waiting for.”

  Deni dropped her shovel and almost leapt into his arms. “Really? A letter from Craig? Did you bring it?”

  He laughed. “No, she wouldn’t let me. But she said to tell you that she was delivering to Oak Hollow sometime late this afternoon.”

  “I can’t wait until then!” She dropped her shovel and started for the garage. “I’m going there now.”

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “She’s not there. She’s out delivering mail.”

  DENI FIDGETED ALL AFTERNOON, WAITING FOR THE MAIL TO come. It still hadn’t come by the time her parents were ready to go to Sandwood Place, so she convinced them to let her stay home. She waited on the front porch for the old Dodge pickup to turn into the neighborhood.

  At ten after seven, she heard it coming. She leaped off the porch as the old rattletrap rumbled into the neighborhood. She tried to wave it down, but Mrs. Lipscomb just kept driving.

  Fighting the urge to run behind the truck, Deni instead took a shortcut through the yards and got to the neighborhood gazebo before the truck pulled in.

  By the time the postmaster climbed out, there were thirty or forty people crowded around. Still wearing her baseball cap and baggy T-shirt, Mrs. Lipscomb grumbled. “Wait your turn, everybody. Never thought I’d be so popular.”

  She pulled out the first pack of letters. “Branning!”

  Deni lunged forward and took them. The woman winked. Obviously, she had put her letters on top so she would be the first to get them. Deni wanted to kiss her. “Thank you, Mrs. Lipscomb! You rock!”

  Quickly she pulled the rubber band off the stack of letters and flipped through. And there she saw it — Craig’s return address. She pulled out the letter and practically danced as she waved it in the air.

  “I got it,” she cried to anyone who would listen. “He wrote!”

  A few people applauded. Then she saw Mark leaning against the gazebo, a piece of straw in his mouth. Amusement twinkled in his eyes. “How many did you get?” he asked.

  She flipped through the rest of their mail, but there were no more. “Just one,” she said, “but I’m sure this one’s all I need.”

  She hurried home, then went into her house and ran up to her room to read by the evening light at her window. Carefully she opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

  Dear Deni,

  I got all your letters. It’s taken me almost a week to read them all. Glad to know you’ve been keeping up your journalistic skills while everything’s been down. Sorry you had so many problems at first, what with the airplane crashes and all, and I’m shocked that you had so much trouble trying to get to Washington. Too bad you didn’t make it all the way.

  She stopped reading and stared at those words again. After she’d told him of almost dying at the hands of a mad killer, could he really be this dispassionate?

  She read back over that first paragraph, trying to imagine the tone of his voice if he were talking. Was there compassion in those words? Love? Longing?

  She told herself she was being too critical. He loved her; she knew that.

  I was a little surprised you got religion on me. I thought we were of the same mind about those kinds of things. Not that I have anything against religion. It always just seemed like another crutch to me, and you know how I hate crutches. But I guess if that’s what you need to get through the outage, so be it.

  Now that I think about it, it’s probably a good thing that you didn’t make it all the way to Washington. It’s not the best time to start a marriage, if you know what I mean. Too much stress, and everything’s just too hard right now. I can’t imagine trying to set up housekeeping with no electricity and no food or water. We’d be at each other’s throats. I guess the best thing to do is postpone until things are a little better. But you’re still my fiancée‚ and I do still look forward to a future with you. I honestly don’t think I can do better.

  She paused and stared at the offhanded compliment, looking for the romance in that statement. But there wasn’t any. Was that why he was with her? Because he thought she was the best he could do?

  I’m really busy at work. We’ve got our hands full trying to put out fires … literally. Last week a group of people got up in arms about the food being brought in for the government workers, and they started a riot. Somehow they managed to set a fire at the Capitol Building, and it was a nightmare getting it put out. The fire department is voluntary now, and we all had to line up in a bucket brigade, dumping water and using fire extinguishers until the fire was out. Thankfully no one was hurt. Now we have security all over the place.

  She stopped reading and tried to imagine the scene. Desperate people screaming outside the building, fighting over food. Craig and the others holed up inside, fighting a fire with little more than squirt guns.

  No wonder he didn’t have time for romance. She sat down on her bed, feeling selfish and ungrateful.

  Important people are coming to depend on me because I’m competent and reliable. Others have thrown in the towel and gone home. If Daniel Jacobs would just leave, I might be considered for Crawford’s chief of staff. His wife is freaking out over all the violence here, and she’s begging him to take her to Ohio to be with her family. I’m egging him on. Might turn out that those crazy citizens shaking the place down will help me to climb the ladder. All of this can’t do anything but help my career when things get back to normal.

  She stopped and took that in, wondering if he meant that as coldly as it sounded. Surely not. He couldn’t interpret the suffering of desperate people and the social and economic upheaval of the Pulses as nothing but a career boost. Could he?

  Sighing, she read on.

  I’d better go for now. Hope all is well with you.

  And it was signed simply, “Craig.”

  She read it again, searching for the words I love you, but he hadn’t written them. Didn’t he know how hungry she was for them?

  Had his feelings for her changed or had he never cared that much? Maybe he’d been cold all along. Maybe she’d just been too blind to see it.
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  She wadded up the letter and tossed it into the trash. Then she got it back out, unwadded it, and read it again. She couldn’t throw it away, but it wasn’t worthy of folding neatly and putting back into its envelope. So she crushed it into a ball and shoved it into her pocket.

  She sat on the patio and stewed for over an hour, anger roiling up inside her. She deserved better than this. God had a plan and a future for her, and he certainly wouldn’t have chosen someone who was godless and mocked religion. He certainly wouldn’t have matched her with someone who placed so little value on her. There must be something more for her.

  Maybe that was why all this had happened, so she would see the error of her ways and back out of this marriage to Craig.

  Oh, right. God had rearranged the universe and changed civilization just to work in her life. How selfish of her, to think it was all about her.

  She knew it wasn’t. But could some of it be about her? Maybe God — with all the millions of things he had to do — really did care about the details of her life, the big things and the small things, the love and the losses. Maybe in her corner of the universe, she was being taken through this trial for this very thing, so that she would break up with Craig and stop dreaming about something that was not God’s best for her.

  Letting her fury drive her, she went back into the house and up the stairs and got out a piece of paper. She sat down at her desk and started writing. Then she realized that he didn’t deserve a handwritten letter. She’d type it.

  She rolled the paper into the typewriter and started hitting the keys.

  Dear Craig,

  I just got your letter and I have to say I’m disappointed at how cold it sounded. You probably don’t even realize it. You probably think it was fine. But a girl who hasn’t seen her fiancé in months needs a few reassurances. I’m not asking for poetry, just an “I love you and I miss you,” and I guess if you felt that way, you would have included that. Instead, you told me that you figured you’d hang on to me since you were pretty sure I was the best you could do. Those words didn’t exactly sweep me off my feet, Craig.

  I couldn’t be more disappointed in you. It’s been almost three months since the Pulses started and you’ve had ample time to get to me if you really cared. I’ve told you of my harrowing journey across the country to get to you and all you could say was, “Too bad you didn’t make it.” I told you that I could have died in the airplane that very first day, but that didn’t faze you, either. I guess someone of your importance doesn’t want to be bothered with details.

  I agree that our wedding shouldn’t happen in October, but things are a little clearer in my mind than they obviously are in yours. I don’t think the marriage should happen at all, and I don’t want to keep wearing your ring in the hope that no one else better comes along for you.

  So, consider me a part of your past along with electricity and cell phones and cars and computers. Just another one of those things that isn’t working for you anymore. It was fun while it lasted, Craig. Sorry it had to end this way.

  Deni

  Before she could change her mind, she ran downstairs to her father’s study, got an envelope, stuffed the letter inside, and sealed it. Affixing a thirty-nine cent stamp — since that was all she found — she got on her bike and rode to the post office. She took it inside and threw it down the hole before she could change her mind.

  Then she rode home on pure anger, her heart breaking over what she had just done.

  thirty-seven

  “I BEEN THINKING, AND I DON’T THINK IT’S RIGHT FOR YOU TO take our money.” The Brannings had been making their plans for getting to the football field early for the disbursement the next day, but Aaron’s blunt statement stopped them cold.

  Doug just looked at the boy. He’d been up since before dawn working on daily chores, then hunting for enough food to feed ten people. Then he’d spent three hours working on the garbage mounds at Sandwood Place. He was too tired to deal with this again. “Aaron, stop acting like I’m robbing you. The disbursement money is to help people survive. And since we’re feeding and caring for you, we need that money to help pay for expenses.”

  “But you said yourself you’re gonna buy stuff with it.”

  “I said I was going to invest some of it to make it grow. For instance, I’m going to invest it in the seeds we need to plant in our garden so we can grow more food. I’m going to buy some chickens so we’ll have eggs to eat and sell. And we’re going to figure out something that the family can make and sell to earn even more money. That’s not so we can bask in luxury. It’s so we won’t have to struggle quite so hard during the winter months.”

  “So you are gonna take our money?” Joey asked. “All hundred dollars of it?”

  “Yes,” Doug said. “We’ve been all through this. You can’t get the disbursement without an adult, and that’s because it’s the adult who is taking care of you.”

  “What if you find our grandparents? Are you gonna give them the money?”

  Kay spoke up. “Of course. We won’t spend it for a month after we get it. If we don’t find them by then, we will start using it, but we’ll give them what we haven’t used to take care of you.”

  Doug knew he’d never make the kids understand. To them, he was exploiting them just like the others wanted to. A hundred bucks seemed like a lot to them, when they hadn’t had a handful of pennies since May.

  But like it or not, he wasn’t going to back down. He needed the money to feed them, and that was the end of that.

  BEFORE BED THAT NIGHT, AARON ROUNDED UP HIS BROTHERS AND sister. “Sarah,” he said quietly, “I want you to say you don’t want to sleep with Deni tonight. I want you to sleep in here with us.”

  “But why? I like sleeping with Deni and Beth.”

  “Because after everybody goes to sleep, we’re gonna sneak out and go home.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows shot up. “Home? I don’t want to go. I like it here.”

  “Listen to me,” he whispered harshly. “They only want our money. If we stay, tomorrow we’ll go through that line with them and they’re gonna give us our twenty-five dollars each. And what do you think’s gonna happen to it? Mr. Doug is gonna snatch it right out of our hands and use it for what he wants.”

  “But he said he was gonna use it to buy us food,” Joey said. “Maybe we should let him have it. This is a good place, Aaron.”

  “A good place? It’s like a prison. We work like slaves.”

  “But he does too. And we have good water to drink. And Luke and Sarah are happy.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “I don’t want to go, either.”

  Aaron couldn’t believe they were turning on him this way. “What is wrong with you? Don’t you see? They don’t care about us. It’s been about money from the very beginning. From the first day, they were probably looking for a bunch of kids to keep so they could get all their money. They’re practically doubling their cash if we’re with them.”

  Joey wasn’t buying. “They found us because we robbed their house. They weren’t looking for extra kids.”

  “That’s what they want you to think.” He could feel the heat blotching his cheeks. Somehow he had to convince them. Time was running out. If they were going to leave, they had to do it tonight … before the disbursement. “Have I ever let you down before?” He looked from Joey to Luke, then to Sarah, demanding an answer. “Any of you?”

  One by one, they shook their heads.

  “Haven’t I always took care of you?”

  “But I like Miss Kay,” Sarah said. “And Deni and Beth. We’re gonna be in a play. Beth is making me a costume.”

  “I’ll make you a stupid costume, and we can have our own play.”

  “But how will we get our money?” Joey asked.

  Aaron didn’t know what had gotten into him. He’d usually gone along with whatever Aaron said. He’d never given him this much trouble before.

  “They make us have a grown-up with us,” Joey said.

 
; “We’ll go with Edith. She said she wouldn’t hassle us and try to run our lives. We can live in our own apartment.”

  “Our apartment stinks,” Joey said. “It’s even grosser than when we left it.”

  “Edith promised to have some buckets handy and some garbage bags if she can find them. She said she would help us clean out the commode. She said bleach would help kill the smell, so tomorrow, when we have money, I’ll buy some.”

  “But what if they find Grandma and Pop?” Joey asked.

  All these stupid questions. He didn’t have the time to answer them all. “It’s better if we’re gone when they find them. Mama always warned us about them. But for now, we’re gonna do this. And if the sheriff comes and tries to force us to go back to the Brannings, we’ll throw a huge fit and tell them that we love Edith and want to stay with her.”

  “But I don’t love her,” Sarah said. “I hate her. She’s mean.”

  “Not lately, she’s not. She’s been real nice lately.”

  Joey breathed a laugh. “That’s only because she wants our money too.”

  “No, she doesn’t. She told me she would let them put it directly into our hands.”

  “She’s never helped us before.”

  Aaron was getting tired of Joey’s mouth. “Look, Joey, everybody’s in this for something. You think the Brannings are all perfect and everything, but they’re not, okay? And once they get our money, they’re not gonna be all that nice, either. So this is how it’s gonna be. I’m gonna get all of you up after the Brannings are asleep, and we’ll steal two of their bikes and ride home. Edith will be waiting, and she said we could sleep in her apartment tonight.”

  All three of his siblings just stared at him with dull eyes.

  “Look, I’m doing what’s best for us, okay? I’m not letting anybody steal our money. Now we’re going to get out of here while we can, and then first thing in the morning, we’ll get up and go with Edith to collect our money. After that we’ll have our freedom and some money to buy some good stuff. Sarah, I’ll buy you a princess crown, and Luke and Joey, we’ll buy a basketball hoop to put up in the kitchen. We’ll move out that worthless refrigerator and make a basketball court out of the whole room.”