guess I am.” She stood, walked slowly over to the edge of the lake, where she stripped off her pants. She looked at Kevin, smiled, then jumped into the cold, refreshing water to wash off the blood.
Both the state and federal government stuck by their radioactive-waste story, sending in hundreds of troops and agents dressed in white contamination suits, quarantining the area and debriefing the residents with an elaborate series of physical tests and psychological examinations that Penelope assumed were supposed to brainwash the muddled, hungover citizens into thinking that what had happened had not happened.
She and Kevin knew better.
They were close after that, nearly inseparable. Kevin’s parents survived and he went back to live with them. Since lier mothers were all dead and she was too old to be adopted or become a ward of the state, she had herself declared an emancipated teenager by the court and moved into a small apartment near school. She received an allowance from her mothers’
estate, although the amount of;; the estate and its assets were still being determined by lawyers and accountants and she would probably not inherit what was left of the winery or its proceeds for several years.
Somewhere toward the end of the school year, she and| Kevin officially became a couple. He moved in with her* after graduation, but that did not last the summer, and she;; went off alone to Berkeley in. the fall.
They’d shared a lot, but perhaps they’d shared too much. Seeing each other, they were constantly reminded of what had happened, and j the wounds that should have healed into scars seemed to; be perpetually kept open.
And Dion was always between them.
But if the experience they’d gone through had tornl them apart, it also permanently linked them together Nol one else had gone through what they had and that was a bond that could not be broken. Two years later, after living lives apart, after adjusting to the post-Dionysus world in their own ways, they met again.
Penelope had transferred to UCLA, and Kevin called her up, asking if they could get together.
She agreed.
Two years later, they were married.
A year later, she became pregnant.
Penelope sat in the window seat of what was going to be the baby’s room and stared out the glass at the children playing in the street. She’d recently gotten her mothers’ money, and they both had good jobs, so the baby would not be a financial hardship. And, she supposed, she was happy. Kevin was a good husband, and she loved him.
But … But sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if Dion had lived, if she had married him and was now carrying his baby.
She loved Kevin.
But she’d trade him for Dion in a second.
Why couldn’t it have been the other way around?
Downstairs, she heard the front door open, heard Kevin toss the mail onto the hall tree. “I’m home!” he announced.
“Up here!” she called.
She waited for him, smiled as he entered the room. He hurried across the carpet toward her. “How are you today?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Fine.”
He sat down on the window seat next to her, untied his tie. He looked at the box of sesame-cheese crackers and the empty container of yogurt by her feet. “Cravings again?”
She laughed. “Yeah.”
He put a hand on her distended stomach. “Is there anything else I can get you? Pickles and ice cream? Anchovies and orange juice?”
She started to say something, then looked away, shaking her head. “No.”
“Come on.”
END.
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Dominion Page 40