“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Shelby willed her face not to blush. “Max and I have known each other—”
“Yeah. I know, but he does like you, Mom, more than like. You know what I mean, and he asked us to go with him.”
They’d nearly reached Main Street. Shelby automatically stopped at the light, and then she realized there was no reason to—no cars were on the street. Everyone was saving their fuel for an emergency. “Is that what you want, Carter? To go with him?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to leave my friends.”
“Or Kaitlyn, who I would like to meet sometime.”
Carter grinned and resumed walking. “I guess we’ll be fine staying in Abney.”
“Of course we will be.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a continuous, low rumble. Peering down the street, Shelby saw a military jeep pulling onto Main, followed by another and another after that. A long line of transports, medical aid vehicles, fuel supply trucks, and even a few tanks.
They stood there watching, mouths gaping, as others joined them.
“Maybe they’re here to help,” someone said.
“Nah. They’re not even going to stop.”
After that, no one said anything. They all stood there, a small group of Abney citizens, watching the long line of military vehicles roll past. Did it mean the federal government was once again in control? Did it mean help had arrived? Was there at least a plan for dealing with the effects of the flare?
As far as Shelby could tell, it didn’t mean any of those things. The vehicles trundled out of sight. No doubt, the commander had told Perkins to open up the roadblocks to allow for their passage. And why wouldn’t she? Who was going to stand up to a tank?
When the street was again empty, they resumed walking toward home. They were still a few blocks away, when Carter peeled off to the left. “Going to see Kaitlyn,” he explained.
As Shelby continued toward home, she thought of Carter and Kaitlyn and groceries and Max. When she glanced up, she saw a man crouched in front of the front door at the corner house.
“Mr. Smitty?”
He looked her way and raised a hand in greeting.
Shelby hurried over to where he was working. “What are you doing here?”
He wiped a hand across his brow. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m a master locksmith.”
“You are?”
Had it been only a week ago that they had picked this man up off the side of the road? Now he and his wife were living in Abney, and he was working on locks. She thought her life had changed dramatically since the flare, but in that moment she realized that other people had endured more—had endured worse.
“I was. I retired a few years ago.”
“But you’re back on the job now?”
“I am. Fortunately, the hardware store still has a good supply of dead bolts, and since Mrs. Franklin here was robbed, she thought—”
“Robbed?” The word came out louder than she’d intended. She forced her voice lower and said, “When was she robbed? What did they take? Is she okay?”
He took off the baseball cap he was wearing, swiped at the perspiration beading on his forehead, and resettled the cap. “She’s fine, wasn’t even home when it happened. But she came back around noon, found the lock jimmied and her best silver gone.”
“Silver?”
“I suppose it’s good for trading.”
“So she wants a dead bolt.”
“She does. Because she already had a garden planted before this thing happened, she’s willing to trade me a bag of tomatoes, squash, and green beans to install the lock. Joyce will be real happy with that. She makes the best vegetable stew—”
“Wait. I thought you were staying at the church?”
“We were. The pastor found us a place to stay with Maxine Welch. Do you know her?”
“I do.”
“Nice lady. Widow. She had that big old house and was afraid to stay alone. She and Joyce are getting on nicely. Eases my mind, since I’m busy installing new locks for the folks who have been robbed.”
“There’s more than one?” Shelby reached a hand out to the porch railing.
“I’d say half a dozen in the last day or so.”
“And you think locks will stop them?”
“I don’t know about that. In my experience, if folks want in badly enough, they’ll just break a window. Although, if they see a good sturdy lock, they might pass on to an easier target.”
“How is this happening? The roads are blocked. Strangers can’t even get into Abney.”
“Which means it’s not strangers.” His expression softened, and he said, “I wouldn’t worry. You live next door to Max. No one is going to mess with you.”
Except that Max was leaving, and then she’d be alone with Carter.
What if someone had already broken into her house?
What if the three bins were gone?
She said goodbye and practically jogged home. She unlocked the door—a flimsy door handle lock, not a dead bolt like Dale Smitty had been installing for Mrs. Franklin. One look at her living room and she nearly melted in relief. The three bins were right where she had left them.
She stacked them near the front door and hurried to the storage room. Somewhere in there she had a collapsible two-wheel dolly cart. The thing was old and flimsy, but it might just work. Hurrying back to the living room, she fought the panic clawing at her throat. She had to hide the bins, put them somewhere no one would look.
She readjusted the backpack straps. It seemed she only took the thing off to eat. But she couldn’t carry three bins’ worth of goods on her back. Instead, she unfolded the dolly and stacked the bins on it, one on top of the other. She opened the front door and backed slowly out. When she reached forward to lock and shut the door, the dolly and the bins teetered.
Suddenly Max was beside her, steadying the load and looking down on her with something akin to pity.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to… have to take these somewhere.”
“Why?”
“Because there are thieves, Max! Here in Abney.” She glanced around him as if a cat burglar might be lurking in the bushes.
“Slow down.” He placed one hand on each of her shoulders.
“I don’t have time—”
“Just take a deep breath, Shelby. One more. Good. Now, tell me why you’re doing this.”
So she told him about Dale Smitty and Mrs. Franklin and the recent string of robberies.
“I heard something about that at City Hall today.”
“You’re leaving! It doesn’t matter to you.”
“Of course it matters.” The change in his tone was like a slap in her face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did. But that’s okay.” Max pulled her over to the front porch rockers, dropped his cowboy hat on the table, and insisted she sit. “You’re worried about whatever is in those bins. You’re worried because—”
“Most of the day no one is here. And all we have is that flimsy lock!”
“Do you want a dead bolt? We might be able to trade—”
“No! I need anything I can trade.”
“All right.” They were both silent for a moment, studying the stack of bins. Finally, Max slapped the arm of his rocker and said, “What you need is to leave these with someone who is home all day. Right? These burglars, these cowardly thieves, they’re hitting empty homes.”
“I guess—”
“So who do we know that is home all the time?”
Shelby’s panic had finally receded. Her head had begun to clear, and she knew in that moment who Max meant.
“Do you think she’ll take them?”
“Of course. Has Bianca ever told you no?”
“And she’s home all day—”
“To sit with her father.” He stood, grabbed his cowboy hat off the table, and grinned. “Come on. I’ll carry
one, and you should be able to pull two on that contraption.”
“It’s a two-wheel dolly.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I paid a lot of money for it. Because it’s collapsible.”
He didn’t respond to that, but he helped her stack two of the crates and fasten a bungee cord around them. He picked up the entire thing and carried it down the stairs, and then he went back for the third bin.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
She should have thought of Bianca herself. It was the perfect solution. She and Max walked side by side down the sidewalk, shadows lengthening in front of them.
“Max.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Thank you.”
He stopped, stared at her for a minute, and Shelby thought of what Carter had said. He does like you—more than like.
Max grinned as if he could read her thoughts. As they walked down the streets of Abney toward her best friend’s house, he began to whistle.
SIXTY-NINE
Shelby wasn’t surprised when she stepped out the front door of Green Acres and saw Max standing outside waiting for her. It was a straight shot home—five blocks west on Fourth Street, followed by a left turn onto Kaufman. Several hours of daylight remained. She appreciated his concern, but she thought he was being a tad paranoid.
“You don’t have to walk me home.”
“So you want to deny me one of the few pleasures left in my life?”
“Pleasures, huh?”
“Video games—gone.”
“You were terrible at video games.”
“Television—a distant memory.”
“You only watched sports.”
“Pizza.”
She shook her head in mock despair. “Why did you bring that up? Do you know what I’d give for a piece of stuffed pepperoni at this moment?”
“Which brings me back to the few remaining pleasures in my life.”
“Oh good grief.”
“Seeing your smiling face and the way your hair…” He cocked his head and walked around her slowly. “How does your hair do that?” he asked, coming to stop in front of her again. He reached out to touch it. “It’s like a halo, like a wreath growing around your head. It’s like—”
“That’s quite enough.” Shelby slapped his hand away, hitched the backpack up higher on her shoulders, and started down the sidewalk. “If we’re going to talk about my hair, I’d rather we just walk in silence.”
“I don’t remember you ever being silent.”
Instead of defending herself, Shelby changed the subject. “What has put you in such a fine mood today?”
“Am I?”
“You certainly seem to be.”
They walked to the end of the parking area and turned right onto Fourth Street. Her watch said six thirty, and the homes they passed reflected that. Children played in front yards, from those barely toddling up through teenagers. Two middle school boys lay on the grass, a chessboard positioned between them. A teenage girl fed a bottle to an infant as she sat in a rocker on the front porch. In other yards, moms were setting dinner out on picnic tables or blankets. It was simply too hot to eat inside the house.
It all looked so picturesque, so 1950s American. A time traveler from the past might think it was the perfect life. Shelby could almost blot out recent memories and believe it herself.
If she hadn’t lived in Abney the last week…
If she didn’t know the people who had died…
If she hadn’t fought fires or manned a barricade…
But she had, and Shelby understood it wasn’t the perfect domestic scene she was walking past. It was just people, trying their best to get by. How would they survive July? And what of August when most days topped one hundred degrees? How many of her patients—and they were her patients now, though she was only a lowly orderly—were not physically strong enough to withstand the heat?
Max interrupted her morose thoughts with a bump of his shoulder against hers.
“Bhatti delivered a baby today.”
“A baby?”
“One of the families staying at the hotel, the wife was pregnant with her first.”
“I remember seeing them at the town meeting. Alejandro and Maria—”
“Mendoza. Alejandro and Maria Mendoza, and now there is an Eleanor Mendoza, named after Alejandro’s mom. They’re going to call her Ellie.”
“She’s… she’s all right?”
“She’s fine, Nurse Sparks. Has all her fingers and toes, and Farhan says she scored on the top of the Apgar scale.”
“That is good news.”
“Pastor Tony is trying to find them a home.”
“There are at least twenty empty homes in this town.”
“And more than twenty families who need them.”
“Why don’t we just move people in? If the homeowners return we can always move them back out.”
“First of all, it’s against the law.”
“Those laws don’t make sense anymore.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Shelby, but our laws are in place for a reason. We can’t just operate in opposition to them because our feelings have changed.”
“More has changed than our feelings, Max, and you know it. The truth is, your legalistic brain hasn’t gibed with the new world we live in now.”
“I won’t deny that.”
“Your house would be perfect for the Mendoza family. If you’re… if you’re still going.”
“I’ll leave at first light.” Max hesitated.
Shelby knew that he was about to ask her again. He wanted her and Carter with him at High Fields because he wanted to protect them—but he didn’t understand that she had to put Carter’s needs first. Their future lay in the opposite direction. She hadn’t shared that with Max, didn’t dare bring it up. He would try to talk her out of it, and he would present reasonable points against her plan. She could always count on Max to be reasonable and persuasive.
He shrugged and bypassed their usual argument. “I would be happy to loan my house to the Mendozas, but Farhan is living there at the moment.”
“One man versus a family.”
“You still don’t trust him?”
“No, I don’t.”
“He’s done everything we’ve asked,” Max reminded her. “We need him—Abney needs him. I’d hate for him to catch a ride on the next vehicle that’s headed out of town.”
“There are fewer and fewer of those.”
Shelby was surprised to see they were nearly home. A vigorous argument with Max could do that to her—make time stand still and help her to forget how much her legs ached. Working as an orderly was certainly more physically demanding than hammering out ten to twenty pages of a romance novel on her computer.
As they turned the corner onto Kaufman, she saw Carter straddling his bike in the driveway of their house. He was talking to a pretty young woman wearing a Market T-shirt.
Shelby reached out and pulled Max to a stop. There was something about watching the scene unfold in front of them—something so natural and good and ordinary—that calmed her soul.
The girl laughed at whatever Carter said.
“Kaitlyn?” Shelby asked Max.
“I believe it is.”
“I still haven’t had the chance to meet her.”
Carter saw them. He waved, and Kaitlyn looked up and smiled, pulling her straight blond hair back and away from her face. In that moment the two teenagers reminded her so much of herself and Max that regret resonated all the way to her bones.
She mourned the past that was between them and all that might have been. She mourned the future and the things this new generation would never experience—a normal passage to adulthood, dating, college.
And underneath both of those thoughts was the pulse of her pain—the knowledge that Max was leaving.
Carter must have said goodbye. With a wave, he turned his bike toward them at the end of the street. Kaitlyn watched him for a f
ew seconds, and then she crossed the street, picked up a bicycle, and turned away in the opposite direction, toward the south.
In the next breath, an explosion erupted from the house in front of Kaitlyn.
Shelby instinctively shielded her eyes against the blast. Fear swelled inside her, overwhelmed her, and then she was falling. The last thing she saw was the structure engulfed in flames, and the houses on either side collapsing, like dominoes falling one upon another.
SEVENTY
Max threw Shelby to the ground and covered her with his body, the backpack she always wore between them. From the corner of his eye, he saw Carter catapult off his bike, tumble toward them, and land in a heap in the middle of the street.
There might have been screams. There must have been. He could only hear ringing in his ears.
Shelby fought him wildly—her arms and legs pushing against him. He couldn’t hear her cries as much as he felt them, deep inside his heart. When he was sure the explosions had ceased, he raised up, afraid he was crushing her.
“Are you okay?” he shouted.
But she wasn’t listening. She was on her feet, running toward Carter, who now sat in the middle of the road, a dazed look on his face. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye. His legs were splayed out in front of him, and he swiveled his head left and right, as if he could make sense of the scene in front of him.
Someone ran up to Max, grabbing him by the shoulders and asking questions that he couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears.
“Gas line exploded!” Max shouted, though to himself it sounded as if his voice came from some distant cave. He began to jog toward the house that had collapsed when Carter jumped up, stumbled, pushed his mother away, and ran down the street.
When Carter dropped to the ground, Max understood and raced toward him. Shelby was only steps behind.
Kaitlyn lay on the sidewalk, broken and lifeless.
Carter had drawn the girl into his arms, tears streaming down his face.
Suddenly Max’s ears popped, and he could easily make out Carter saying, “No, Kaitlyn, please. Please wake up. Please, Kaitlyn.”
“Honey, she’s gone.” Shelby knelt beside him.
“I have to wake her up. Kaitlyn, wake up.” Carter pushed her hair away from her face, cradled her head in the crook of his arm. He touched her cheeks and lips, and then ran his fingers down her arm.
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