After (32 page)

John kisses her forehead.

“Morning,” he whispers. Then, grin widening, still whispering, “I really need to pee.”

Eva grins and cocks an eyebrow. “Thanks for the bulletin.”

“I'm pretty naked.”

Her grin turns into a smile. With a gesture of his head and a pointed glance, John gets her to look. Hope is curled up behind her, copper tresses roping over the white pillow. Eyes closed. Breathing slow and even.

“Just hold it. I'm sure she'll wake up in an hour or two,” Eva teases.

“Cruel.”

“Just go,” she says, smiling but earnest.

“Seriously?”

“We can have the 'why not' discussion another time. Waking her just to shoo her back to her room seems a bit much. And if you're shy about her getting a look at your ass as you retreat to the bathroom, I'm guessing you don't want me to leave you naked in bed with her while I get your shorts for you.”

He goes, dipping along the way to snatch his shorts from the floor.

Later, when Hope has woken and shuffled off to her own room to dress, Eva asks John, “Do you think it would be a bad thing, letting her see you naked?”

John doesn't answer right away. “I don't know. Not necessarily, I guess.”

“I think maybe it would be good.”

“Good?”

“Not making a big production out of it. But if she sees you, now and then, and it's just normal.”

Eva drifts off, is quiet for a bit, then says,

“You know, it's kind of scary when you're about to have sex for the first time, and you're suddenly confronted with all that.” She gestures at the full height and width of John's body. And then she gestures at his crotch. “And that.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice edged with a guilty note that hasn't been there in a long time.

“It's hard to think of it now; she's such a child. I mean, of course her body, but her way of being. If she's twelve now, she's been on her own since she was eight or nine.

But sooner or later, one way or another, she'll have to...or she'll want to. . .”

“Yeah.”

“I just want to make everything as easy, god, as good, as happy for her as possible. Maybe if we don't freak out and make a huge thing out of her seeing us naked, or even fooling around, sex won't seem like such a big scary deal.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“John?”

“Hmmm?”

“You know, she'll start to get curious.” John is silent. “About sex. About men. If she ever gets curious,” she pauses, smiles, “with you. . .”

“Eva, what are you saying?”

“There aren't any boys here, kids her own age. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing if her first . . . experiments were with you.”

“Eva—“

“No, listen. I'm not saying you should instigate anything. I'm just saying, if she ever . . . does anything, you should pull back gently. Or not, even. She'll be safe with you. I mean, not just safe from being hurt.”

Eva sucks in a deep breath and lets go with a heavy sigh. “It's always been a problem. But with how things are, here, it's important she not feel like sex is dangerous; okay this way, but bad that way. You know? That kind of bullshit's poison; the situation we're in.”

“Eva.” John pulls her to him, kisses along the side of her face, kisses and nuzzles her hair, her ear, her neck. “You haven't swallowed any of that poison, have you?”

“No. I'm very careful not to swallow the water while I swim.”

* * * *

“Has the kid said anything yet?” Smith asks, gazing off toward the patch of grass where Eva and Hope are lounging under the vast and verdant canopy of an Elm. Eva is reading aloud from some novel propped on her belly.

John grins. “Not unless we've missed it, and she hums in Morse code.”

“Frustrating. So much she could probably tell us. She just reads and hums and draws those wild pictures. Like she's taunting us.”

“Come on, Smith. Think what she's probably been through. She's not fucking with your head. Just because she has working vocal cords and understands written language doesn't mean she's capable of speaking. Of telling us anything. Just because she smiles like that, it doesn't mean she's okay. Happy.”

“No. I know,” Smith says, sad or contrite. “Just, you know what it means? Her living there all this time? She's the first, of all of us, from a big city. Maybe there are others there. Maybe she knows where.”

“Maybe she wasn't there when it happened,” John says. “Maybe she just ended up there, after.”

“Maybe.” Smith heaves a sigh. “Look at them, John. Can you believe how much Eva looks like a mother? Strange. They're probably not more than five years apart, the two of them.”

“Mmm. If there was anything left of Eva the child, after the dying, we managed to kill her,” John says.

“I did, you mean.”

John meets Smith's gaze. “No, Avery. That's not what I mean.”

* * * *

“John.”

“Mmm?”

“Teach her to fight.”

“All right.” He goes on rubbing Eva's bare feet. “You never asked me to teach you.”

“Teach me after I've had the baby.”

“All right.”

“Firearms, too.”

“He'll never let you have a gun.”

“Not to hide under our pillows. But he'll arm us if we need to defend the base, the group, against someone outside.”

“Poor Eva. Do you ever stop worrying?”

She smiles. It's a big, hopeful smile.

“Honestly? I don't worry that much. Actually, these days I have a pretty bright vision of the future. But we each have to take responsibility for ourselves. I don't like it, feeling like Hope and I need to count on you and Avery to keep us safe. I want to have some faith that Hope can take care of herself. She can't talk her way in and out of everything, the way I do.”

* * * *

Riggs goes red as Eva opens the door when he shows up promptly at six-thirty for his weekly visit with her and the unborn baby.

“Hi,” she says, smiling.

“Hi,” he says, coming back from a furtive glance at Hope, reading in a corner.

“I was thinking it would be nice to be outside, tonight,” she says.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Mind if Hope tags along? She's been cooped up in here since lunch.”

Riggs just shrugs. Eva calls for Hope, and the child sets down her book and comes to the door.

“Hope, this is James.”

Hope gives Riggs her trademark smile. He tries a grin and sort of nods.

“James and I are going to go for a walk. Want to come?”

Hope smiles and puts her hand in Eva's. Almost as soon as they're outside, though, Hope dashes ahead, squatting to inspect a dandelion, its white head half torn away. Hope puckers her lips and blows, not hard enough to disperse the remaining fluff, just watching the delicate fronds bend and part under her breath. When Eva and Riggs catch up, she walks along beside them a few steps, then charges ahead again, caressing the long leaves of the low-hanging willow branches.

“Kids need time outside,” Riggs says.

“Yeah. John's been taking her with him to work, but it didn't work out, today.”

“I hear she can't talk,” he says in a whisper.

“No, she can speak. She's just a really quiet kid,” she says, even though she's never heard her.

They wander on, strolling between buildings, over hard-packed earth and patches of lawn, along concrete walkways, Hope flitting about, entertaining herself like a child used to doing so, checking every minute or so to make sure Eva is still in sight. As the light fades, the trio make their way back toward the house.

Riggs has been too embarrassed to talk to the baby while they were wandering the base, so Eva climbs to the third step toward the porch, and Riggs touches and murmurs against her big belly while Hope shuffles and twirls back and forth on the porch in an improvisational blend of ballet and moves retained from the days of music videos.

“The kid's got moves,” Riggs says, smiling the first big, easy smile Eva's ever seen from him.

“Oh yeah. She can go for a good hour or two, like that.” Then, grinning, she says to Riggs, “So, how about showing us your moves?”

Riggs goes red. “Nah.”

“No?”

“I need music.”

“Not even just few little steps? Come on, you need to stay in practice if you're gonna teach this one,” she says, patting her belly.

Riggs looks over his shoulder. Then, as if convinced by the screen of trees partitioning the house off from the rest of the base, joins Hope up on the porch, and shuffles and turns his way through a few silent measures of music. Hope ceases her twirling to watch, her eyes flitting from his feet to his hand to his hips, her smile huge.

When he stops, Hope claps, bouncing on her toes.

“Come on, James,” Eva says. “A little more?”

He goes again. Three steps in Hope scurries over, lines up beside him, and does her best to shadow him. Without stopping, Riggs goes through the same series of moves three more times, until Hope is doing the same routine by his side, not even needing to watch him. When he stops, Hope does the jig twice all on her own, then stops, joins the others in clapping for herself.

“Kid's a born dancer,” Riggs says to Eva, smiling.

Hope scurries over, catches Riggs's hand, and lines him up for round two. Going red again, Riggs pulls his hand away. But just as Hope's big smile starts to fade, he shows her a new move, and a moment later she's copying his steps and turns, smiling again. Then giggling. Bouncing and turning and watching Riggs, laughing, her voice ringing, high, sonorous, as pretty as when she hums.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Baldwyn shovels a spoonful of canned peas into his mouth. Chewing, his green eyes light on something, and one corner of his mouth comes up in a smirk.

Riggs smiles across the table. “What?”

“How'd you like to have a go at that?” Baldwyn says, his eyes fixed on something a way off. “Bet she'd be lively as anything. I can just about hear her crying, feel her writhing under me, just looking at her.”

Riggs looks back over his shoulder, then turns back to Baldwyn, his smile gone, his eyes dark.

“I ever hear you say an ugly thing like that about that little girl again, I'll beat you unconscious. And if you touch her,” he says, breathing hard, “I will fucking kill you.”

Baldwyn is pale, rattling with adrenaline as Riggs rises and stomps off.

* * * *

Hours after he and Eva have gone to bed, John wakes up. Through the walls, through the dark, the sound of crying seeps. John slips from under the covers, gets into his shorts, grabs his blackjack, and is in the hallway in seconds.

After three soft raps he calls out, “Hope, it's John. I'm going to come in.”

In the soft warm glow of her bedside lamp, Hope is sitting up, shoulders shaking, face wet with tears. With a broken, terrified look, she seems to be pleading with John.

“Is someone in here with you?” he whispers.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Hope shakes her head.

John goes to her, sits on the bed with her, touches her shoulder.

“Was someone here?”

Another no.

“What's wrong? A bad dream?” he asks, his voice soft, his eyes searching hers.

She goes on pleading with her eyes, like she's trying to pull him into her silent world. She's crying so hard she's gasping for air. Locked into each other's gazes, John's eyes are reddening, filling with tears.

“Hope, honey, I want to help you,” he says, “but I don't know what's wrong.”

From under the covers she brings forth a blood-smeared hand.

“Okay. Okay,” he says, going pale. “Let me look, okay?”

Hope watches John's face, not looking down as he pulls the covers back. His panting and her sobbing fill the room. Her white panties, the white comforter, the white sheets are all spotted and soaked with blood. Her white thighs, too, are smeared with blood.

“Oh, god,” John breathes, sounding broken.

“Oh. God,” John breathes, something near a smile bending his mouth. “No one was here?” he asks her again, hope, fragile joy, even, threading through his voice.

Again she shakes her head.

Now John really smiles. He cups her face in his hands, gets her attention all on him.

“Hope. Sweetheart. You're not sick. You're not dying.” Tears keep sliding down her cheeks. “Honey, you're okay. You just got your period. This happens to all girls. It's normal. You're not sick. You won't die.” He holds her gaze as her crazed look of terror fades. “Understand, honey? You're not sick. You're not sick.”

She stops crying. She is staring at John. He smiles. Takes her blood-smeared hand in his.

“It's a good thing, Hope. It means you're growing up. This blood, it's part of being a woman. There's nothing to be scared of.”

Hope's expression wavers, her chin dimples and smoothes, her smile flickers on and off. Little by little she calms and softens, shuddering through the aftermath of her terror. John puts his arms around her, strokes her hair, rocks her back and forth.

“It's all right,” he coos, “you're okay.”

Little by little her breathing slows and steadies.

“Okay?” he asks, pulling back to look at her.

She nods. Gives him a tentative smile.

“Okay.” He gives her a big smile.

Maybe because Eva is really sleeping for the first time in three nights, John doesn't wake her.

“Come on,” he says to Hope, “let's get you cleaned up.”

Hope nods her assent, and goes with John into the bathroom.

“You hop in the shower. I'll go check to see if Eva has some things you'll need. I'll be right back. Okay?”

Hope gives him a fragile smile and a nod. John kisses her crown and leaves her to her shower. In Eva's bathroom he finds what he's looking for. Carrying two small boxes, John returns to Hope's room. The shower has stopped. John knocks softly on the bathroom door. Waits. Slowly pushes the door open.

Hope is standing in the tub, wrapped in a towel. A trickle of blood running down one leg.

“Here.”

John sets a fresh T-shirt and panties on the counter.

“Here,” he says again, holding up the two little boxes. “I got these from Eva.

There's instructions on the boxes. I've never used these, either. So maybe I'll just let you read them. Is that okay?”