I stop at the coat closet to get a rifle and a stash of ammo for it and for my pistol, plus stuff to clean the guns. Looks like Milo, or someone, already cleaned them all up and organized them. It’s hotter than sin, but I take a light jacket just in case. I can use it for a pillow, if nothing else.
While Alma’s all occupied out back, I get more stuff I need from the garage and kitchen. For food, I get a bag of oatmeal, another of dry beans, a shaker of salt. I fill some liter bottles with water and stuff them into the pack.
I close my eyes, I crack my neck, wishing I could feel, terrified of feeling. Finally, I carry my gear to the patio.
“Keno! You’re up!” Alma says, watching the pan she’s taking off the fire. “Did you see that the northern lights came back last night?”
Then she looks at me, at the backpack, at the rifle. “What are you—? Oh, God.” She sinks into a chair, studying my face.
I set down my gear and kneel in front of her, laying my hands on her thighs.
“I have to go find us all a safe place to live, a place with walls. Because I can never, ever do what we did again.”
“But those guys are dead now.”
I cringe. “I know it. Believe me, I know it. But they won’t be the last threats, and this place is played out. It’s not defensible. The crops and soil are fucked. The solar is dead.”
“We have a life here, Keno.”
“I don’t believe it can last.”
“But the cistern… and the chickens… and—”
I hug her. I can’t totally feel it, but I can’t argue with her. Not now.
“Nana came to me in a dream. She told me that I know what to do.”
I pull away from Alma to see her eyes grow big and round.
“And this is what you know you have to do?”
“Yes.”
She searches my face, wincing. “Then you have to go.”
I let out a deep sigh, releasing some of my fear, my fear of losing Alma. “Mom and Milo, Jack, all the other women, they’ll take care of you. I’ll be back as soon as I can get here.”
“You have to eat breakfast. I’m not letting you leave without breakfast. You haven’t eaten for a day and a half.”
I don’t want to eat breakfast, but I study her eyes and see her worry, even though emotions seem alien to me.
“I’ll eat breakfast if you sit with me in the garage while I eat it. I can’t face anyone else, and they’ll be getting up soon.”
“Baby, what happened to you?”
“You don’t want to know. I don’t want to put that shit in your head. It’s gonna take me a lifetime to get it out of mine.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“I killed Ray.”
She whisks her hand to her mouth; her eyes swim with tears. “Thank you for—”
“Please don’t thank me. I can’t accept thanks for such horrible shit.”
“God, Keno.” She runs her hands over my face, brushes hair from my eyes. “Let’s put some biscuits in your pack. Then help me take breakfast to the garage.”
But when I open the door into the garage, I’m slapped in the face with the stink of gasoline and char. Wagons and gas cans are strewn all over; memories assault me. I close the door.
“Let’s eat here in the laundry room, our make-out place.” I close us inside, then pick Alma up and sit her on the counter, keeping one hand on her while I eat with the other.
When my food is half-eaten and I can’t take another bite, I move to go, but Alma spoons more food into my mouth.
I smile at her. “Nice trick, but it’s time.”
“I’m not having this baby without you,” Alma says, and she looks determined enough to hold that baby inside no matter what kind of pressure it puts on her to get born.
“We have at least three months, don’t we? I’ll be back for that. No way I’d miss that.”
“Better plan on two months, just in case.”
She wants to cry. She will cry when I’m gone. But she’s making a mighty effort to be strong.
“Tell Milo to take the crew to get more gas for the tillers. And tell Greta to go back to that neighborhood to see if any ammo’s left.”
“You gonna leave us all instructions, or are you gonna go?”
“This is the part where we’re supposed to kiss like there’s no tomorrow and tear ourselves apart.”
“I can’t kiss you right now,” she says.
I sigh. “I can’t kiss you, either, not because I don’t love you, not because I don’t hate to leave, but because I can’t feel.”
She nods like she’s trying to understand, like maybe she can see it in me.
I hug Alma to my side and stroke her hair.
“Just know that whatever happens, I’m doing this out of my great love for you and our baby, and I will always love you more than my own life, until the end of the world and beyond.”
“I believe you,” she says with hardly any breath.
I press my face gently to her belly and our baby, then peer into her eyes one more time. I help her down from the counter, kiss my fingers, and touch them to her cheek.
Months ago, we cut the sides off the washer and dryer in here to build rain-barrel systems, so now all the insides of these non-working machines are exposed. There’s no laundry in this laundry room, just junk piled on shelves. But it was a private space for Alma and me to kiss when we couldn’t wait to get upstairs. And now life has wounded us so much that we can’t kiss goodbye.
Alma is my heart, and I’m leaving her standing alone in her fierce beauty, inside the broken, echoey laundry room, with nothing but a promise that I’ll return.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My undying gratitude to the folks at Southern Fried Karma Press for their belief in my ability to write this story and for their ongoing help and encouragement. Special thanks to publisher Steve McCondichie and to editors Pinckney Benedict, Hayley Swinson, and Mandi Jourdan, each brilliant in their individual ways and all of them sweet as pie.
Thanks also to the mega-talented Olivia Hammerman for the book cover and interior design, to Jenny Kimura for the ebook interior design, and to the marketing, administrative, and audiobook team at SFK: Alison McCondichie, Lizabeth Engelmeier, and all the others behind the scenes.
For their exceptionally good help with draft after draft of everything I write, heaps of gratitude to my critique partners Laura Creedle, Aden Polydoros, and Flor Salcedo. I am blessed to have such talented writers to advise and assist me. They’re also great at talking me through whatever life throws my way.
Special thanks to Marva Mouser, my biggest fan and cheerleader-in-chief. And thanks also to BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in Texas, for hosting my book launch event for If Darkness Takes Us, and for being the coolest bookstore ever.
So many more excellent writers to thank—Mindy McGinnis for hosting me on her blog with Sometimes Even Old Ladies Get Published; Mae Clair for her book-cover quote and for blog-hosting Living Off the Grid: My Life as Research; R.R. Campbell for hosting me on his Writescast podcast, Drama, Character, Stakes and Throughlines (winner of the 2019 Writescast Listeners Choice Award); Sarah Meckler for hosting me on the GSMC Book Review Podcast Episode 215; and Teri Polen, Denise Alicea, The Writers League of Texas, and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Alum Success Stories for fun online interviews. Guest blog posts, interviews, podcasts, and readings are all linked on my website: https://brendamariesmith.com.
Many thanks to the Writers Community on Twitter for tons of encouragement over the years and to Twitter friends who help me in ways great and small: Branwen O’Shea, Mary Holm, M.H. Reardon, Peggy Rothschild, Chris Bedell, Michelle Hauck, R. Demille, James Fuller, Michelle Hazen, Stephanie A. Higa, Abigail Taylor, Paul “Doc” Lafferty, and so many more. Thanks also to the folks at Goddess Fish Promotions for managin
g my two virtual book tours, and to all the lovely bloggers who hosted me and my books and who made me feel welcome.
Endless appreciation to all my friends, relations, and general readers who purchased, read, and reviewed the first book in this series, If Darkness Takes Us, and who showed up for my book events and listened to my online readings. Especially, thanks to my extended family who drove hundreds of miles to support me. There are far too many of you to list here, but I love and care about each of you, and I hope you enjoy this sequel.
Neither last nor least, thank you to my immediate family: our sons Aaron and J.D. Longnion; Ron, Jeremy, and Matt Goebel; their partners Damey, Elizabeth, Rebecca, John, and Lauren; our grandchildren Miles and Sophia Longnion; and our newborn grandson, Tucker Wayne Goebel.
I can never thank my husband Doug Goebel nearly enough for all the ways he loves and takes care of me year in and year out, acts as my muse, protects me from pandemics and killer freezes, and inspires me to be a better person at every turn.
And finally, thank you to my protagonist Keno Simms, who sprang to life from the ether so fully formed in the first draft that I couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with him, and who revealed layer after layer of depth the more I got to know him.
I learned about teenage boys and their transitions to manhood from our five sons and my seventeen years of raising them while they were teens. They were a handful to be sure, but they never failed to inspire me with their sincerity, heroism, and stalwart sense of justice. Plus, they were loads of fun. Seeing what fine men they have become gives me a sense of satisfaction too deep to describe.
Thank you, dear readers. Wishing all of you peace, health, and happiness in the years to come.
About the Author
BRENDA MARIE SMITH lived off the grid for many years in a farming collective where her sons were delivered by midwives. She’s been a community activist, managed student housing co-ops, produced concerts to raise money for causes, done massive quantities of bookkeeping, and raised a small herd of teenage boys. Brenda is attracted to stories where everyday characters transcend their limitations to find their inner heroism. She and her husband reside in a grid-connected, solar-powered home in South Austin, Texas. They have more grown kids and grandkids than they can count.
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