Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
DANIEL
March the previous year
Outside Albany, New York
Carefully Daniel fits the key into the padlock and unlocks it, and then pulls up the roller door of the garage with a loud clatter that echoes on the still, wintry air. Inside the musty-smelling space is a Honda Civic, maybe five years old. He breathes out deeply, hardly able to believe it’s really there. It feels like a miracle, except of course it isn’t, it’s a responsibility, and one entrusted to him by a woman whose name he doesn’t know, whose very life depends on him bringing her car back to her.
Next to the car are five five-gallon jerry cans of gas. It’s enough to get to Buffalo or Flintville…but not both.
An hour earlier, Daniel made a deal with the woman gasping for breath on the sofa, her baby next to her.
“I need to get out of here, too,” he’d told her. “Not to Buffalo, though, but up north. I’ll get your car for you, but I’ll have to drive my son, and my mother-in-law along with you, at least as far as Syracuse. ”
As he said it, he didn’t know if he was being ruthless or just realistic. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask, to accompany her as far as he could? She nodded, already agreeing, but then Daniel realized that they couldn’t go that way, because both Syracuse and Rochester had been hit. The only safe way—if it was indeed safe—to get to Buffalo, would be to go south. Take Route88 all the way down toward Binghamton, maybe, and then start cutting across west, through northern Pennsylvania, before heading back up to Buffalo. It would double the mileage, at least, and it was also in the opposite direction of where he needed to go. There definitely wouldn’t be enough gas.
“Are you sure there’s a base at Buffalo?” he asked, sounding doubtful, wanting to change her mind. “It’s so far away…”
She nodded again, eagerly. “Yes, I’m sure of it. My cousin told me about it. He owns the garage I mentioned. He went a couple of weeks ago, but I was too sick. But he knew about it…it’s the only place I know to go…I’m going to meet him…I have to get there…” She trailed off, closing her eyes, clearly exhausted.
Daniel hesitated. He needed to look at the atlas again, but, if he drove this woman all the way to Buffalo, maybe he could cross into Canada at Niagara, and then make his way north and east through Ontario, avoiding Toronto, of course, but getting there steadily. It would add a lot of time to the journey, maybe even months, and he didn’t have the gas for such a long trip, but he knew he didn’t have any other options.
“Will you get the car for me?” she asked, opening her eyes and gazing at him in desperate appeal. “Please? You can ride with me. Hell, you can drive the car.” She let out a raspy laugh that ended in a rattling cough. “I’m not well enough.”
“All right,” Daniel said slowly, the word drawn from him reluctantly. He didn’t want to link his fortunes to this woman’s, but she was the one with the car. “Where’s the car exactly? And the key? ”
With halting, painful breathlessness, she told him where the keys were, both to the garage and the car, hidden in a box under her bed. The garage, she said, was at 122 County Road, tucked behind a house with a front porch with green posts.
“It’ll be abandoned, but the car should be safe. The garage is made of concrete and the door’s padlocked.”
“All right,” Daniel said again. He found the keys just where she’d said they were and pocketed both sets. Then he headed back into the living room and gazed down at the woman, who had fallen asleep, her mouth hanging open, her breath coming in slow, rasping breaths. The baby had stopped crying; her eyes were open, and for a second Daniel wondered if she was dead, but then he saw the faint rise and fall of her tiny chest.
He turned away from them both and went to get the car. It took him over an hour to find his way to County Road, and then walk along the side of it until he came to number 122. It was nearly midnight, the sky inky black, and he’d been gone for hours. He needed to get back to Sam and Jenny. He needed to get back with a car.
He walked around the clapboard farmhouse just as the woman had instructed and there was the garage, tucked behind, locked up tight and looking safe.
And now here he was, just past midnight, the garage unlocked and open, the car right in front of him and he had the keys in his hand, and it would be easy, so easy, to get in that car and drive back to Sam and never think of that woman and her baby again. He clenches the car key in his fist, so that it bites into his palm, hard enough to hurt. He welcomes the pain because part of him can’t believe he’s willing to think this way. And not just think but do.
He’s going to do it. He’s going to take— steal —this car and drive back to Sam. He’s going to condemn this woman and her innocent baby to death.
“They’d be dead anyway,” he mutters, but the words sound petulant and frightened even to his own ears. They aren’t dead now.
A shuddering breath escapes him as he loads the gas into the trunk, and then slides into the driver’s seat. He rests his hands on the steering for a few minutes and just breathes. Then, steeling himself, he puts the key into the ignition; the car starts with a cough and then the engine turns over. Daniel reverses out of the garage and heads back down County Road, toward the ranch house where he left Sam and Jenny.
He drives for a few minutes, his knuckles white on the wheel, muttering under his breath, “They’ll be dead anyway. They’ll be dead anyway.” It sounds like the worst kind of prayer.
The dilapidated ranch house where his loved ones wait comes into view. Abruptly, Daniel slams on the brakes. Without even realizing he is going to do it, he swings the car around and starts driving back to the apartment building, his face set in grimly determined lines.
He pulls the car around to the back of the building, glancing around furtively, praying no one is watching him. He needs this car to be here when he gets back. Then he locks the car and heads inside. The smell of decay seems worse as he walks through the empty, garbage-strewn halls, but maybe that’s just his imagination. On the top floor, he knocks once on the apartment door and then steps inside.
“Hello?” he calls out. There’s no answer. He walks slowly into the living room, where the woman is still lying on the sofa, but even from across the room Daniel can tell she is dead. His first, irrelevant thought is he wishes he’d thought to ask her name.
He walks over to stand next to her, staring down at her slack face, feeling a stirring of pity, but not much more. Then his gaze moves to the baby, who, he realizes, is still alive, her blue eyes open and seeming to stare straight at Daniel .
Tiffany. He knows her name, this motherless child who has no one, absolutely no one, in the world but him right now. Slowly he stoops to pick the baby up. She is far too light, her bones seeming as hollow as a bird’s, and, with a forgotten father’s instinct, he brings her to chest, his palm cradling her tiny head. She lets out a feeble cry, barely more than a breath. She is tiny, wizened, starving…and alone.
What on earth is he going to do? He glances again at the woman. Her eyes are wide open, her body motionless. She is most definitely dead.
Holding Tiffany, he goes through the apartment to find anything he can take with him—diapers, a bottle, baby clothes, something . There’s nothing but a few changes of baby clothes, all of them filthy. How long had this woman and her child been living here, alone, with nothing? Considering how empty the apartment is, it must have been a while.
He goes through the woman’s drawers, but what few clothes there are are too worn and dirty to bother with. A tangle of cheap jewelry lies on top of the dresser, worthless. There isn’t even any soap or shampoo in the tiny bathroom; everything has been used up.
All he can take with him, Daniel realizes, is the paltry stuff he found in the other apartments—and the baby.
His heart is like a lead weight inside him as he gathers the few things he found and puts them in a plastic shopping bag. The baby in his arms has gone silent and still, and for a second he wonders, half-hopes, that—but no. He can’t be the kind of monster who hopes that a baby is dead.
And yet…a baby . How on earth is he meant to care for a baby? He has no diapers, no bottle, no milk, no food…and this baby needs all of those things, fast. He considers bringing her back to Sam and Jenny, and can already imagine Sam becoming anxious, accusing. Dad, it’s a baby! We have to stay in Albany and find some milk…
Already Daniel knows that getting Jenny was most likely a mistake. If he hadn’t listened to his son, if he hadn’t felt guilty and wrong for not being willing to go all the way to Springfield, they might already be back safe at the cottage. He might not have exposed them to as much radiation as he fears he has. Yes, they rescued Jenny, but Daniel can see with his own eyes, feel it in his gut, that his mother-in-law most likely doesn’t have that long left. Hopefully long enough to make it back, but…
Was it worth it? And would it be worth it to bring this baby along, slow them all down, expose them to more radiation, danger, starvation, who knows what else? There are so many risks, and he’s not strong enough to face them all.
He leaves the apartment, the unknown woman’s burial chamber, and heads down the hall, the baby cradled in one arm. Her eyes have closed, and her breathing is shallow. She is so very light.
Daniel’s steps slow. Falter. Briefly, he closes his eyes. He thinks of Sam, of Jenny, of the four hundred miles between him and home. For a moment, he lets himself think of Alex, of Ruby and Mattie, his family, waiting for him. Are they safe? Are they alive ? He’s been gone for over three months. He needs to get back to them, to protect and care for them as he swore to do…
He glances down at the baby in his arms, now barely breathing. A choked sound escapes him and then he gently lays her down in a doorway. Her eyes flutter open, stare straight at him, and then close again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice choking, and then he walks quickly away.
He drives back to Sam and Jenny without taking any of his surroundings in. It isn’t until he comes back into the ranch house that he realizes he has been crying.
Sam, hunched on the sofa, looks up at him, startled. “Dad…what’s wrong?”
Daniel wipes his cheeks, hardens his heart. He will not let himself think of that baby now, and maybe not ever, even as he already acknowledges he will always be thinking of her. Tiffany . She is part of him, now.
No.
He wipes his cheeks, nods once. “Let’s go,” he says. “I’ve got a car.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Daniel replies without explaining, and then he turns away.
He’s sold his soul, he thinks, and he’d do it again for his family, no matter how wrong he knows that is. But it’s done now, he’s crossed that Rubicon, and the only way now is back home…to Alex.
He forces himself only to think of her as he and Sam load Jenny into the back of the car, and then they head north, to home.
“I can’t believe you got a car,” Sam marvels. “Where did you get it?”
“It was in a garage.”
Sam glances at him uncertainly. “Dad…are you okay?”
Daniel wipes his cheeks again. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He feels, with a surprising certainty, that they’re going to make it back. He will not let himself have done something so despicable as leaving a baby to die without it meaning something. He nods, makes himself turn to Sam and smile. “I’m fine, Sam,” he says, and then he sets his face toward the road, the future, bleak as it seems, and keeps driving.