by Claire Kent
No one answers.
The house is small and basic. One main room with an old couch, a recliner, a small table with chairs, and a woodstove. In a small, separate room is the kitchen. And on one side is a bedroom with a double bed and a bathroom.
There’s no one in any of the rooms.
“That must’ve been the owner out there,” Travis mutters when we complete our tour of the house. He leans against a doorframe. I know he’s hurting from his ankle. “All the windows and that door are reinforced. We lock it, and we’ll be safe in here for the night.”
“Good. You said this place has a solar generator. You think it still works?”
“Don’t know. No reason it wouldn’t. Help me find the box.”
We find the panel on the back wall in the kitchen. Travis studies it for a minute. “Looks like it had an automatic shutoff. Must’ve been at least six months since that fella out there died since he’s already a skeleton. Maybe longer. Coulda just shut off automatically. Maybe if I just turn it back on.”
He flips a switch.
There’s a buzzing sound and a couple of lights turn on.
I clap my hands. “Power! We have power! I can’t believe it.”
Travis is almost smiling too. “Fella knew what he was doin’. Bet that propane tank out there is backup for the solar generator.” He glances over toward the bathroom. “Let’s see what he did with the water.”
The bathroom is as basic as the rest of the place with beige tiles, a small walk-in shower, a pedestal sink, and a weird-looking toilet.
Travis studies the setup and then starts to pump a metal lever connected to the sink faucet.
Water flows into the sink.
I clap my hands again and try not to dance around. “Running water! This guy was brilliant!”
“He was pretty smart. It’s all manual, so the water doesn’t rely on electricity or battery. Let’s check out the toilet.”
It takes a minute for Travis to figure it out, but eventually he shows me how to pump a lever to fill up the tank. He’s grinning as he lifts the lid of the tank and watches the water flow in as he pumps. “See? Fill up the tank before you go so you can flush. Probably just need half a tank if you pee. But fill it up all the way if you need to...”
I giggle when he trails off. “If you go Number Two.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah.”
“And what about the shower?”
Travis checks it out and ends up pumping a lever several times and then flipping a switch on a large box attached to the wall next to the shower. It sounds like something turns on.
“What’s that?”
He’s grinning uninhibitedly now. More than I’ve ever seen him before. “Water heater.”
“What?”
“Water heater. Once it heats up, there’ll be hot water.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” I’m hugging myself, bending over just a little. “You mean we can have hot showers tonight?”
“Don’t see why not.”
At this point, I don’t see how I can get any more excited than I am right now.
I DO GET MORE EXCITED.
We find a large cellar beneath the house, stocked full of food. Canned food. Dehydrated food. Years’ worth of the prepper food you used to be able to order online.
I won’t let Travis go down the ladder because of his ankle, but I bring up a couple of cans of beef stew, a sealed pack of crackers that have a shelf life of twenty-five years, a pack of brownie mix (just add water), and a bottle of beer.
I just bring up one bottle since I’m not sure I’ll even like it.
“Travis!” I glare at him as I climb up to discover him standing in the kitchen, opening cabinets. “You need to sit down and elevate your ankle.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. It’s swelling like crazy.”
“An hour or so ain’t gonna make a difference. I’ll rest it after we eat and shower.”
I start to object but give up. Travis has on his stubborn face.
“You go take your shower first,” he says. “I’ll fix us supper, and then I’ll take my shower after. We’ll need time for the water to heat up again between showers.”
I hesitate, but he’s already opening one of the cans.
He’s been grumpy today and I still have cramps, so I figure I deserve to shower first.
The water is plenty warm but not scalding hot. I don’t care. It feels so good I stand under the spray and shake with emotion.
It’s been years since I had a hot shower.
I wash my hair and scrub down my body and then stand there and enjoy it.
If I had a razor, I could even shave. I haven’t shaved since the power plant fell. Most women I know don’t either. It’s one of the luxuries that we lost with everything else.
I decide I don’t really care that much.
Having smooth legs and bare underarms was nice, but shaving was always a pain.
Travis doesn’t seem to mind the hair. He seems to like my body just fine as it is.
I don’t have a razor anyway, unless I want to try to use Travis’s straight-edge one.
I really don’t want to do that.
Mostly I’m just thrilled to feel genuinely clean.
When the water gets cooler, I turn it off and get out. I wrap up in one of the towels folded on a shelf. All my clothes are dirty, and I don’t want to put them on. So I go to look in the closet of the bedroom and find a big plaid cotton shirt worn soft from age. I button it up and glance down at myself.
It almost reaches my knees. All I need to do is roll up the sleeves and I’ll be fine in it.
I comb out my hair and leave it loose and wet as I go find Travis in the kitchen. He’s propping himself against the counter, giving the pot of stew a slow stir on the small stove.
“Smells good!”
“Tastes good too.” He turns to look at me and grows still. Something heats up in his eyes.
I glance down at myself self-consciously. “I found it in the closet. At least it was clean.”
“Yeah.” His voice is hoarse.
“Why are you looking at me that way? I’m totally covered.”
“I know you are. Don’t matter. You’re sexy as hell.”
I blush and roll my eyes at him. Then I get dishes out for our meal.
We eat at the small dining table. I don’t like the beer, so Travis drinks it all. The stew is delicious, and the crackers are a real treat. Crunchy. Salty. Bready.
We haven’t had anything like that for a long time.
The brownies are done when we finish. They’re not the same as brownies I remember, but they’re chocolate.
Chocolate.
I’m in a happy daze when we clean up and brush our teeth. Travis stays in the bathroom to take his shower.
I don’t have anything to do. I’m content and exhausted and clean and full.
So I get in bed and wait for him.
He takes a long shower just like I did, and when he returns, he’s just wearing his underwear. I’ve locked up and turned off all the lights except the lamp on the nightstand so he can come right to bed.
“Lie down and let me wrap your ankle up again,” I tell him, moving to my knees on the bed. I’m on the side by the wall, so Travis lies down on the other side with a soft groan. “You’ve done too much with it. It’s never going to get better if you don’t rest it.”
“Didn’t have much choice.” He sounds tired.
Even more tired than me.
I move down to wrap up his ankle, which is purple and swollen. “You had some choice. You could have let me do more of the work. There are ice trays in the freezer. I filled them up, so we’ll have ice tomorrow to put on it.”
“Sounds good.”
When I’m done, I get under the covers beside him, and Travis turns off the light.
He smells clean. Not really like Travis.
I lie beside him. Part of me wants to scoot over and snuggle, but that’s not what ou
r relationship has ever been like. I’m not sure how Travis would react, so I don’t risk it.
He asks, “How you feelin’?”
“What? Oh, I’m fine. Still kind of crampy, but nothing too terrible.”
“Good.” He pauses for a minute before he continues, “How d’you feel about stayin’ here for a couple of days?”
I’m so surprised I turn my head to stare at him in the dark. “What?”
“We don’t have to. But I was just thinkin’. With my ankle. Gonna be tough to keep us safe on the road. So I thought maybe we should... rest up a bit here before we start off again.”
I’m breathing heavily. I’m not even sure why. I don’t know what to say. “You think we can afford the delay?”
“Don’t know. No way of telling when that guy left or how fast the drove is moving. But won’t be any good to rush if I can’t keep us safe. This ankle needs to get better.”
“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. And Maria did say she was going to find some people to send with the message too. They might have better luck than us.”
“Right. We don’t have to,” he says again. “I know you think this road trip is already endless, so maybe you don’t want to delay—”
“I don’t mind,” I cut in, not liking something I hear in his voice. “It’s fine. We can stay here for a couple of days. We need to get your ankle better. And we’re both really... tired. We can stay here. Surely we can spare a day or two. Droves stop and pillage every town they pass. That’s got to take a lot of time.”
Travis’s body relaxes beside me. “Okay. Good. Let’s do that.”
We lie in silence for a while.
It occurs to me that Travis might want to have sex. He had that hot look in his eyes earlier. But he doesn’t make a move on me. Doesn’t even touch me. I’m comfortable right now and don’t really feel like getting hot and sweaty.
Plus cramps don’t add to a sexy feeling.
If we’re going to stay here for a couple of days, we’ll have plenty of time for sex tomorrow. Assuming my period doesn’t put him off.
“Too bad we can’t watch TV,” I say randomly after a few minutes.
“Saw a little one on a shelf in the main room, but all we’d get is fuzz. No cable or broadcasts anymore.”
“I didn’t even see any books in the house. I wonder what this guy did all by himself. It’s too bad. I wouldn’t mind having a book to read.”
“You can read your book of poems.”
“I know.” I smile and turn on my side to face him. “I’ve got most of them memorized anyway. I’ve seen you reading it a couple of times. What do you think of it?”
“It was all right.” He’s staring up at the ceiling. “Some of ’em were good. Some I couldn’t figure out. How come you like ’em so much?”
“I don’t know. I just do. I had a really good English teacher in ninth grade. Miss Jenson. She was really young—just a year or two out of school—and she made poetry come alive for me. So I guess that’s what really got me started with them.”
“I liked the one about the guy who kills his wife.”
I frown as I think through the poems in that book. “Which one? ‘Annabel Lee’?”
“No. I thought that guy just slept with her dead body.” He sounds earnest, thoughtful, like he’s really trying to figure out the poems.
I chuckle. “Yeah. I guess that’s what he does in that one.”
“Lot of creepy stuff in these poems. I mean the one with the rich guy who had the painting of her, but he’s the one who killed her. You know the one I mean?”
“Oh, yeah. ‘My Last Duchess.’ So you figured out he killed her?”
“Course he did. Guy was a total creep. Rich, heartless asshole. I liked the poem though.”
On a whim, I start to recite the poem in the dark. I’ve read it out loud so often that the words come easily.
Travis listens, huffing in amusement when I get to the best line.
I choose never to stoop.
When I’m finished, he reaches over to flick my arm gently. “You know the ‘Annabel Lee’ one?”
Of course I know it. I say it out loud, the haunting words rhythmic and eerie in the otherwise silent room.
When I finish, he lets out a long breath. “That was amazin’. You got a real good voice for poems. Never really liked ’em much until hearing you say ’em out loud.”
“Thank you.” I’m almost squirming with pleasure at the compliment.
“What’s your favorite?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ‘Lady of Shalott’?”
“That the one with the lady in the tower?”
“Yes. That’s the one.”
“Couldn’t figure out why she died. What the hell happens? She lays down in a boat and just kicks the bucket?”
I can’t seem to stop smiling. “Yep. Pretty much. I think she’s supposed to die from love or something.”
“You know that one by heart?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
I hesitate for a minute before I start to recite that one too. It’s long, and it takes a while, but I feel tension in Travis’s body as he listens.
He really listens.
Halfway through, I need to do something with my hands, so I reach over and pick up Travis’s hand from the top of the covers. I play with it, feeling his knuckles and rubbing his palm with my thumb.
He doesn’t pull his hand away.
“That’s a real pretty one,” he says when I’m done. “Reminds me of you.”
“Really? Why?”
“Don’t know. Just does.” He sounds self-conscious, so I don’t press the subject.
“When I went to London, I saw Tennyson’s grave in Westminster Abbey. I also saw Browning’s. He wrote the duchess poem. I was so excited, finding the plaques of all the poets I love there.”
“Bet you were. When did you go?”
“When I was fifteen. My grandparents took me over the summer. We went to London, Paris, and Rome.” I swallow when the reality hits me like a blow. Like a physical blow out of the blue. “They’re gone now. The cities. All three of them. Everything in them. They’re just... gone.”
My eyes burn, and I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever cry over things that are lost anymore.
Travis’s hand moves so he’s holding mine, our fingers threaded together. “Yeah. Guess so.”
My throat aches, but I speak through it. “It’s horrible when you think about what’s just gone from the world now. The Eiffel Tower. Westminster Abbey. The Sistine Chapel. I remember going to the Louvre and seeing the Mona Lisa. All of it... all of it’s just... gone forever.”
I’m crying now, and I never cry anymore. But the tears are squeezing out from my eyes, and my body shakes.
Travis reaches out and pulls me against him, wrapping his arms around me. He holds me without speaking.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble when I’ve mostly gotten control of myself. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. They’re just things. Things. Billions of people have died, and I can’t cry about them. I don’t know why I’m crying about this. About buildings. About things.”
“Nah.” Travis’s voice and his accent are thick. “They might not be people, but they’re not just things. Got an awful lot of meanin’ wrapped up in ’em. History. I dunno. Truth and beauty—like that other poem was talkin’ about. The confusin’ one about the urn. Whatever it is that makes art good.”
“Humanness,” I say, swiping away a few more tears as I land on the right word.
“Humanness.” It sounds like Travis is testing the word out. “Yeah. Somethin’ like that. Lotta humanness wrapped up in those things. Worth cryin’ over that we lost ’em.”
I do cry some more, and I don’t feel guilty about it now. I bury my face against Travis’s warm, bare chest until the emotion wears itself out.
“I wish I could cry about people too,” I whisper in the dark.
Travis strokes my hair very gently. “Maybe you will one day.
But I get it. I feel that way too. Sometimes we gotta cry ’bout the smaller things because the big things are just too big.”
I sniff and wipe my eyes with the sheet and press my cheek against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat. It’s fast and steady. Alive.
When I’ve relaxed completely, Travis murmurs, “I bet they saved the Mona Lisa.”
“What?”
“The Mona Lisa? It’s a painting, ain’t it? I never seen it, but it can’t be too big. They had a couple of months before impact. Someone must’ve thought about savin’ it. Someone must’ve been in charge of it. They wouldn’t’ve just let it burn.”
I’m smiling through a few sniffles at the graveness of his voice. “Oh. Yeah. Probably so.”
“We might’ve lost the Eiffel Tower. And the Sistine Chapel. And that place where all your poets were buried. But someone must’ve saved the Mona Lisa.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I stretch up to kiss his jaw. “I bet they did.”
“I know they did.” He nuzzles at me in the dark. “Maybe, long time from now, they’ll build the world back to what it should be. Maybe I can even go to see it one day.”
I hug him hard. “Maybe you can. I liked what you said. About truth and beauty and all that. It was really smart.”
Travis snorts. “Never said anythin’ smart about art before. Just read those poems and tried to figure ’em out. Since you like ’em so much.”
It sounds like he’s smiling.
I’m smiling too.
I feel better now. The ache in my chest has eased.
Perhaps it’s a strange, random sort of hope, but it helps me. That the Mona Lisa might have made it through the destruction of Europe. That decades from now, maybe Travis will have the chance to see it.
When you’ve lost almost everything, you take hope wherever you find it.
The salvation of the Mona Lisa.
A spark of humanness at the end of the world.
I fall asleep wondering where they might have put the painting to keep it safe.
Eight
I WAKE UP KNOWING I’VE slept long and that it’s very late. It’s bright in the room, even with the shades closed, and I don’t have that familiar heavy fatigue, the one that makes it hard to even open my eyes.