Chapter 9 #2
Her hands shake as she takes the bag. This is the first burst of hope she’s had in a week. It’s impossible not to let excitement flutter in her chest. “Let’s go.”
* * *
They hear mooing before they see the farm. A couple dozen cows still dot the rolling landscape when they pull up the driveway. Emma could have heard them, too. Farm animals come with structures like barns and houses to keep them dry during storms.
Her daughter is easily frightened, but she isn’t stupid. If she saw this place, she would have stopped here, especially with no rotters on the grounds.
The only dead left are trapped inside the main house. Sometimes it feels like yesterday that things were normal, and then she’s reminded of how quickly so many people succumbed to the virus. The former occupants didn’t last long, judging by the rotten skin and broken nails scraping on the glass.
They leave the house alone for now and head toward the barns, finding the first empty except for a few chickens that make her crave scrambled eggs.
Her stomach growls while her hope starts to fade at the same time.
It was only a pipe dream that they’d come here and find Emma after she’d been gone so long.
Addison needs to accept that and stop chasing ghosts.
Stop letting Wyatt convince her there’s a happy ending around the corner when every letdown hurts worse than the last. There’s always a chance that searching could cost them both their lives.
Nothing is safe anymore when death lurks out of sight, ready to strike.
She must be an awful mother for wanting to quit, but then again, she’s never been a good mother to begin with.
She failed Emma in a multitude of ways, and she’ll fail this new baby eventually, too.
It’s part of the reason she refuses to get attached to the one growing inside her.
If she doesn’t love it, then it won’t hurt as much to lose.
They head for the second barn, the one with no doors and three cows wandering the halls. She reaches out a hand to pet each one on the face, smiling at the baby calves pestering their mothers.
“We should come back and tend to these cows,” Wyatt says quietly, mindful of scaring them. “Got some milk waiting for us. A lotta hamburgers, too.”
“Don’t say that in front of the little one,” she scolds.
“I won’t eat that one.”
She rolls her eyes, but he has a point. These cows are a good resource that they’d be foolish to leave untapped.
They’d been checking the stalls as he joked about burgers, but when she reaches the last one, a breath catches in her throat. One hand comes out to grab Wyatt’s arm and brace rather than hit the ground.
Lying quiet and still in a pile of hay is the one person she convinced herself she’d never see again.
Her daughter’s name is on the tip of her tongue, and the desire to sweep her up in her arms is overwhelming. Wyatt holds her back, pointing to the open wound on her elbow.
Addison’s heart has never broken so swiftly in all her life.
She got Emma back only to lose her again. The elation of such a quick high plummets into a soul-crushing drop.
Seeing her child bitten is a worry that kept her up at night long before she ran into the woods.
Wyatt catches her as her knees buckle, hauling her back up against his side. She wants to rage at him.
He told her that everything would be fine.
He said she wasn’t dead.
He convinced her to come out looking when she wanted to stay home and live in ignorant denial.
She shoves him away with a wet glare. It’s easier, if unfair, to be angry with Wyatt than it is to face the situation in front of her.
His own eyes water with misplaced guilt, no doubt assuming this is his fault for pushing her.
It isn’t, but in her grief-stricken state, she doesn’t care what’s fair and what’s not.
She pushes at his chest again, making him stumble backward, and instead of stopping her, he takes it. Lets her blame him when blame is the last thing anyone here deserves. Later, she’ll feel rotten about this. Right now, the only thing keeping her breathing is redirecting her efforts onto him.
Not even the promise of the new life she’s carrying is enough to keep her going. She doesn’t know this child yet, hasn’t bonded with it, hasn’t watched this baby grow up, and felt that attachment. She’s nothing but an incubator, and walking into the nearest herd has never sounded better.
But then…something pulls her back from the cliff’s edge.
“Momma?”
Addison gasps, her fingers uncurling from where they clenched Wyatt’s shirt in a hard grip.
Emma’s alive.
She’s still here.
The wall of grief in Addison’s gut collapses as she rushes forward and wraps her arms around Emma. She’s thinner and dirtier, but her heart beats strongly against her mother’s chest.
“I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m here,” she sobs.
She doesn’t think about what the bite means. Can’t. Needs to feel this relief in her bones and be grateful for just a little more time.
Not everyone gets a second chance to say goodbye.
“A dog bit me,” Emma cries. “I thought it was friendly, but it wasn’t, and I had to use the knife to make it stop. I didn’t mean to hurt him, Momma. I swear I didn’t mean to.”
Addison pulls back, the mouse in her head falling off the wheel as she processes that statement. “A dog bit you?”
“I’m sorry I hurt him, but I didn’t know what to do.”
“It wasn’t a person? One of the dead?”
“No. I’ve been hiding from them. I didn’t know how to get back home. Everything looked the same until I got to the bigger road, and then I couldn’t figure out which way to go. Dad didn’t come back yet, did he?”
“No. No, you don’t have to worry about him. You’ve been so brave, sweetheart.”
The first thing she asks isn’t for water or food, but for reassurance that Vincent hasn’t shown up. That has Addison’s emotions running even wilder than before.
This roller coaster would have her vomiting up her breakfast if she had eaten anything this morning. She’s gone from fearing her daughter lost forever to finding her and assuming her dead, only to be gifted the best news she could hope for.
Relief and adrenaline, coupled with an empty stomach, fuzzes her head until she’s woozy.
Wyatt props her up from behind so she doesn’t faint and fishes out a bottle of water from his bag to give to Emma.
Addison shoved him away before, and he’s still here catching her.
She wouldn’t be here right now hugging her daughter if Wyatt hadn’t pushed her to keep trying. When she turns her head, he’s watching her with uncertainty as if she might lash out again.
Instead, she keeps one arm around Emma and wraps the other around his neck to hug him tight. She breathes him in with a swift inhale and whispers her words into his skin. “Thank you.”
He isn’t a hugger. She already knows that. The stiffness in his body is swift the moment she connects, but she waits him out, hoping to mend a little bit of that soft heart that her actions stomped on.
It’s only when he begins to relax, melting against her like he hasn’t been hugged like this in decades, that it occurs to her she hasn’t either.
“Let’s go home,” he says, giving her a final squeeze and helping them both to their feet.
Three little words have never felt more like the promise of a brighter future.