Outlive (The Baggers Trilogy, #1) (8 page)

             
Maggie tilted her head.
She didn’t buy the lie,
Baggs thought.

             
“Just don’t tell her, okay? I don’t want to tell her right now. I’ll tell her later.”

             
“Okay. What’s in the sacks? Is it food? Something smells good.”

             
“Run along, Maggie. Give me ten minutes, and then you’ll get a surprise if you’re patient.” He winked at her and her eyes widened. The little girl walked barefooted back into the living room, her doll hanging limply by her left hand.

             
Baggs grabbed the clean shirt he had picked out and a pair of athletic shorts before hurrying off to the bathroom, locking the door behind him, and starting the shower water. He was just in time. Soon after the door shut, he heard Tessa enter, and ask if daddy was home. Maggie said that he was, but was faithful to Baggs and didn’t tell her mother that her daddy had been bitten earlier by a K9.

             
She’s a good little liar,
Baggs thought, smirking. He felt sadness wash over him as he thought that this would be the last time he’d see her, but pushed it aside. He had work to do if he wanted tonight to be as wonderful as he hoped. He stashed his dirty clothes under the sink, so that he could get to them in the middle of the night without Tessa finding them. He hopped in the shower. There was no hot water, and their rationed amount of water would run out if he didn’t hurry. The stream was weak and frigid; Baggs vigorously cleaned himself with a bar of soap before rinsing off.

             
I hope that Tessa doesn’t know something is up.

             
This was Baggs’s plan: he wanted to spend a wonderful evening with his children and wife before stealing away in the middle of the night to go sign up for Outlive in the morning. He thought he would never see them again, and he wanted it to be a happy memory, not a sad one. He would not leave without an explanation; he had spent forty minutes sitting in an alley, writing a letter explaining what he was doing and why he was doing it to his family. But, he couldn’t stand to see them cry. He didn’t want Tessa to start sobbing and asking him to stay; it wouldn’t solve their problem and it would only make signing up for Outlive even harder.

             
Baggs turned the cold water off after it had been on for less than two minutes and stepped out of the tub. He dried his hairy body off with an old towel, and then looked down at the grocery sacks, grinning.

             
After leaving George Thurman’s he had gone by a grocery kiosk and had completely emptied out his and Tessa’s account, buying enough food for one last feast. As he dressed, he giggled to himself, thinking of how much the girls would enjoy what he had bought them. Tonight, the four of them would share 1 rotisserie chicken, French fries, pineapple slices, and, for dessert, cake.

             
Baggs wasn’t worried that the Outlive producers wouldn’t pay Tessa the 20,000 CCs after he signed up tomorrow. He had known families who had a member sign up, and they all said that the appropriate amount of money was transferred into their account promptly and without issue. So even though he had emptied their account, Tessa would have money to go grocery shopping tomorrow after Baggs signed up for Outlive.

             
When Baggs was dressed, he picked up the grocery sacks, tried not to think that this was the last time he would see his family, and opened the bathroom door. Maggie and Olive were now both on the floor, playing with the doll that Baggs had made out of old socks. Tessa was sitting at the fold-out table, reading over a book she had gotten from the library when Baggs exited the bathroom.

             
“Baggs? Is everything okay?” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were quizzical, her head tilted.

             
She knows! How does she know?

             
“Oh, yeah, honey,” he said, and he kissed the top of her head. He spent a moment taking in her smell—there was no smell like it in the world. She smelled of soap and earth, and… Baggs paused, thinking what the last thing was.
Of Tessa. She smells like Tessa. That’s the only way to describe it. It’s my favorite smell.

             
“What are those sacks? Maggie said you had something.” Tessa said.

             
“I’ve got a surprise. Girls, are you hungry?” Baggs put the sacks down atop the card table and his two girls stood up. Their knees and feet were dirty from the concrete floor. Both of them had long, wavy red hair that flowed past their elbows. Their hair was peculiar, because neither Tessa nor Baggs had red hair.

             
Must be a recessive gene or something.

             
As Baggs reached a hand inside one of the sacks, Tessa held an expression that was in between curiosity and playful distrust. Olive’s nose wiggled as the six year old sniffed the air, smelling the food like a dog would. In that moment, Baggs knew that he was doing the right thing. He would die in Outlive, but at least his little girl would be fed.

             
“A customer brought by a sack of food for Greggor today,” Baggs lied, not daring to look at Tessa who would instantly see right through him. “But Greggor is on some kind of all-liquid diet, and so he said that I could have the groceries.”

             
Olive’s little hands were clutching the side of the table and she looked up expectantly at Baggs, her green eyes sparkling. Baggs couldn’t help smiling when he thought that she was about to try cake for the first time. The happiness he felt almost brought tears to his eyes. So did the thought that this would be his last meal with them.

             
“So Greggor was just going to throw it away, but I said, I think I’ve got some little munchkins at home that will take care of that food for you.”

             
Now, Baggs felt brave enough to steal a glance at Tessa. She had her arms crossed, but was smiling.
Maybe she believes me.

             
“The first item is…” Baggs reached a hand into the sack, and pulled out a plastic container “…chicken!” The rotisserie chicken was covered in seasoned skin, and the food was still warm in his hands.

             
Olive actually drooled when Baggs put the chicken on the table.

             
One by one, Baggs presented the items as though they were courses at a five star restaurant. They might as well have been. Baggs couldn’t recall the last time they had as nice of a meal as this. As Baggs got out the food, he thought that he noticed fear in her eyes, and wondered if she had figured it out. Tessa was hard to read. She had shoulder length brown hair, and Baggs thought she was beautiful. Her eyes, though, didn’t often betray what she was thinking unless she wanted them too. They were dark, contemplative. Baggs always thought that Tessa was smarter than he was.

             
Baggs got out each item, but left the cake inside of the sack until after they had eaten the pineapple, French fries, and chicken. It was an odd combination, but Baggs had a reason for choosing the foods. Tessa loved French fries; they were her favorite food item. The girls had never had French fries, but Baggs thought that they would at the very least tolerate them. As he watched them eat, he found that they loved them. He had chosen chicken because he wanted them to get some protein; they were too skinny. Baggs had chosen pineapple because he had heard it was good, but never tried it himself. After taking his first bite of the wet, sweet fruit and feeling the flavor explode in his mouth, he had to restrain himself from eating the whole container so that the others could try it too. As the meal went on, and they talked and joked over the table, Baggs kept glancing over at Tessa. He became more and more sure that she didn’t suspect anything, and believed his story about Greggor.

             
When they had eaten all but the chicken bones, Baggs brought out the cake. Maggie literally licked her lips when she saw it. The cake was red velvet, just like the one that Baggs had seen the rich lady throw away. The dessert was moist, with generous portions of icing separating the cake into layers. They ate this with their hands, like they had the other food. They passed around the dessert and each family member took one bite at a time. Tessa and Baggs each took small bites so that their children could have more. If unchecked, Maggie and Olive would have taken the whole cake in their hands and declared that a ‘bite.’ Tessa and Baggs policed their portions, but still allowed them to get generous handfuls each time the cake came around. When there was nothing left but crumbs at the bottom, Maggie and Olive passed the plastic container back and forth, licking to make sure that they got everything. When they were done, the girls were sleepy. Baggs could not remember the last time his little girls went to sleep with full bellies.

             
The girls brushed their teeth, and then it was time to go to bed. Olive and Maggie slept on a queen-sized mattress in the living room. Baggs laid down with his daughters, kissed the tops of their red heads of hair, and read to them, as he did every night. They were making their way through the Harry Potter books, and Baggs had borrowed the fifth one from the library. Maggie seemed to like the story more than Olive. Olive snuggled up to Baggs’s chest as he read; he suspected that she just liked to hear his voice as she fell asleep.

             
Baggs read one chapter, and then was about to close the book when Maggie begged for one more. Baggs ended up reading two more. As Maggie listened to him read the story of Harry’s fifth year at Hogwarts, Baggs became teary eyed, thinking that she would have to read the rest of the series on her own. He imagined them, a few months from now, lying on the bed and Maggie reading to Olive instead of Baggs reading to them. The thought brought back the horror and sadness that had clawed at his throat while he was in the piano room that day, but he tried not to think about it. He didn’t want to ruin the perfect night with fear.

             
When he was done reading, he kissed them on their heads and pet their hair until they were asleep. He placed Olive’s head on a pillow instead of on his chest so that she wouldn’t feel his heart racing.

             
After cherishing his last moments with his girls, Baggs got up, brushed his teeth, and went into his bedroom. He was thankful to find that Tessa was half-asleep, because that meant that she wouldn’t question him. He wouldn’t have to lie to her anymore.

             
She was naked, as usual, when he came in. He lay down, and even though she didn’t open her eyes, she crawled over to him, rest her head on his shoulder, and hugged his body with one leg and one arm.

             
“Goodnight, I love you,” Baggs said.

             
“I ‘ove you too,” she said sleepily.

             
And then, Baggs lay there for three hours and was not even tempted by sleep. He tried not to move much, so that Tessa would fall into deep REM sleep as he lay there. He looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was relaxed and open; she breathed over his shirt. After thirty minutes, she twitched a little bit as she began dreaming, but that subsided after a moment.

             
Baggs lay there and thought about how much he loved Tessa—how much he needed her. He used to have a lot of social anxiety, and he believed that Tessa had cured him of that. She was much braver than him, and had shown him unconditional love like he had never known before her. Baggs remembered how scared he had been the night that he had broken his arm. He had cried that night in bed, and she had held him, comforting him.
Now,
he thought, staring at the cracked ceiling,
I’m going through something much more terrifying, and I can’t talk to her about it. She won’t hold me and she can’t comfort me. I’m all alone in this.

             
Baggs lay there, cherishing the gentle way her bare chest rose and fell against his arm. He cherished her warmth, and tried his best to perfectly capture this moment in his memory so that he could return to it in times when he was scared.

             
After two hours, he thought,
I’d better go.

             
But he just couldn’t get up. It felt so good to be in bed with Tessa, and to know that the girls were in the next room. He thought about Olive’s full belly after licking all the crumbs she could find at the bottom of the cake container and smiled. The girls each had protruding stomachs from how much they ate.

             
At three hours, Baggs looked over at Tessa and thought about dying in front of 200,000 strangers in the Colosseum, instead of here with her. The thought made his heart race, and after a moment, he thought that if he didn’t leave soon, he might start crying. He kissed her head and gently slid out of bed.

             
“Where are you ‘oing?” She croaked sleepily.

             
“Bathroom,” he said. He went over to her side and kissed her head five times. “Love you.”

             
“Love you.”

             
Baggs walked out of the bedroom, then he walked back to Tessa and kissed her again, pressing his lips to her warm forehead and enjoying the last time he would ever touch the woman he loved. “Love you,” he said again.