Chapter 8 Cora #2
"Drew. Listen to me. You are not the version of us the rain takes."
"Cora."
"You are not. The team is the version the rain takes.
The team takes turns. The team did not take a turn this time because you stood in the rain and we did not know to relieve you.
We know now. The next time the rain comes, the team takes the turn.
You will sleep when Sylvia tells you to sleep.
You will let Cruz cover the watch. You will let Renn relieve you.
You will let me bring you a coat. Are you listening. "
"Yes."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Tell me you heard me."
"I heard you."
"Tell me what I said."
"You said I am not the version the rain takes."
"What else."
"You said the team takes turns."
"What else."
"You said I will let you bring me a coat."
"Yes."
He looked at me.
The half-clinical sweep was gone. His eyes were the other look. The not-saying. Which was, now, a kind of saying. The not-saying was Drew saying I am holding this and I do not know what to do with it.
I touched his arm.
I had not touched Drew's arm in nine months. I had not touched him at all. The team had been on the road for eight days and I had not touched him. He had not touched me.
His arm was wet. The skin under the wet t-shirt was the half-Vampyren temperature, the ninety-five-degree thing, cooler than human, warmer than full Vampyren, and the cold of the storm had pulled the surface temperature down maybe four degrees beyond that. His arm was cold.
He did not flinch.
He looked at my hand on his arm.
I said: "You're cold."
"Yes."
"Come downstairs. Sylvia is going to make you tea."
"Sylvia does not make tea."
"Sylvia is going to make you tea this morning. I am going to ask her. She is going to make it. You are going to drink it. Are you listening."
"Yes."
"Are you going to drink it."
"Yes."
I took my hand off his arm. I went down the staircase. Sylvia was at the lead truck. She had been at the lead truck for the last twenty minutes, going through the post-storm vehicle check. She looked at me when I came down.
"Sylvia."
"Yes."
"Drew is coming down. He is cold. Make him tea."
"I do not have tea."
"You have the dehydrated peppermint from the salvage run last month. Sandra gave you the packet."
"I have one packet."
"Use it."
"It was for you."
"Use it on Drew."
"Cora."
"Sylvia."
She looked at me.
She nodded.
"Yes."
She went into the basement. She came back in three minutes with the tin cup and the peppermint and the small stove fuel she had been hoarding for emergencies.
She made tea. The cup was the chipped diner mug from the Mojave kitchen, the one I had brought to Drew's tent six weeks ago, the one he had washed and brought back to me empty.
She handed it to me.
I went up the staircase.
Drew was at the landing. He had not moved.
I gave him the mug.
He looked at it.
He looked at me.
He looked at the mug.
He said: "This is."
"Yes."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Six weeks."
"Six weeks."
"I did not drink it last time."
"I know."
"I."
"Drink the tea, Drew."
He drank the tea.
He drank all of it. He did not stop for breath. He did not look away. He looked at me the entire time he drank. The mug was empty in about ten seconds. He handed the mug back to me. He said:
"Thank you."
"You are welcome."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Sylvia."
"What about her."
"I owe her a thank-you. I owe her a thank-you for the medical work. I owe her a thank-you for the wrist. I owe her a thank-you for last night. I owe her a thank-you for the tea, which she made because you told her to make it, but which she made. Cora, she made it. I will thank her."
"Okay."
"I am going to thank her now."
"Okay."
He went down the staircase. I followed. He went to Sylvia. He stood in front of her. She was at the lead truck with her hand on a hood gauge. She looked up.
He said: "Sylvia."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"For the tea."
"For all of it. For the tea, for the stitches, for the wrist, for the night you came up the staircase in the rain to take the book to the cab. Thank you."
She looked at him.
She did not say anything for a long second.
Then she said:
"You are welcome."
"You are welcome is a Cora-answer."
"It is. It is also a Sylvia-answer. I learned it from her. She has been giving me Cora-answers for three years."
"Sylvia."
"Yes."
"That is a giving."
"It is."
"Cora has been giving you Cora-answers."
"Yes."
"And you have been giving them to me."
"I have been giving them to you for nine days. For nine months before that, I have been waiting to give them to you. You did not let me. Today you let me. That is what we are talking about."
Drew was quiet.
He looked at me.
He looked back at Sylvia.
He said:
"Thank you for waiting."
"You are welcome."
He walked back to the lead truck.
He climbed in.
He sat on the passenger side.
He held the empty mug.
He did not put it down for a long time.
* * *
We left the Cracker Barrel at noon.
The storm had passed. The lot drained. Cruz pumped water out of the third truck's wheel-well with a manual hand-pump.
The Steinbeck was on the cab shelf above the dashboard, dry.
The carving was on the dashboard. The Polaroid was in my chest pocket.
The chipped diner mug was in the cup-holder between Drew and me.
Drew did not put the mug back in the kitchen-tin for the rest of the trip. He kept it in the cab. Empty.
I drove.
The Missouri stretch was the part of the route that had the most uncertainty.
The Bay-aligned safe-passage relays did not reach east of Tulsa.
From here on we were on our own. Small Vampyren scout patrols, anti-Council irregulars, Lucian remnants (which Renn had been picking up scent signatures of for three days now, faint, not concentrated, the one-or-two-individual signatures that meant survivors-not-cohorts), and the road itself, which in Missouri had been broken differently than in Oklahoma.
Missouri's roads had been broken by reclaiming forest. The trees had come back.
Whole sections of I-44 were under canopy.
The convoy had to use the surface streets in some places.
We lost an hour to a deer-strike on the second truck's grille.
Cruz drove through a herd of feral deer crossing the road, took one to the bumper at fifteen miles an hour, dispatched it with the heavy, and we used the meat for the evening's camp.
Sylvia was not happy about the unscheduled stop. She accepted the meat.
By evening we were three hundred miles into Missouri.
By night we were at a small bridge over a tributary of the Mississippi that Cruz had not been to but that the maps said was structurally sound.
The bridge was structurally sound. We crossed.
We made camp on the east side of the bridge.
Drew sat with me at the back of the lead truck.
The mug was in his hand. The Steinbeck was at his feet.
He had read another chapter to me at fifty miles per hour through the afternoon.
The reading had been the Joad family's truck breaking down on Route 66.
The reading had been quiet. He had stopped at the end of the chapter.
Now he was sitting with the mug.
He said:
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Hess is two days out."
"Yes."
"You knew."
"Yes."
"You did not tell me."
"I have been telling Renn. Renn has been telling me. Hess is moving south to intercept us at Urbana. He has been tracking us for three days. He picked up the convoy signature at the Texas-Oklahoma line and he has been south-and-east since."
"Why did you not tell me."
"Because I told you twenty minutes after Renn told me. I told you at the bridge. I told you fifteen minutes ago. You were drinking the mug."
"You told me on the radio."
"I told you on the radio. The radio is open. You were on the channel. You heard me. You did not react. I assumed you had heard."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"I had heard. I just had not absorbed."
"Okay."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"You are absorbing now."
"Yes."
"What are you absorbing."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"That we are about to arrive at Urbana with Hess closing.
That you and Renn are going to fight Hess.
That Hess will not be a clean fight. That I will be the second on the fight, by the plan I agreed to four months ago and Renn confirmed on this trip.
That I will probably take a wound. That you will see the wound.
That Sylvia will treat the wound. That if the wound is bad enough, you will see me on the table in a way I have not yet let you see me.
That the seeing. Cora, the seeing is going to be a thing. The seeing is the part I am absorbing."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"You can be seen."
"Cora."
"You can. You just haven't been. The team has not seen you on the table. The team has not seen you bleeding. The team has not seen you needing. You can be seen. The seeing will be a thing. We will hold the thing."
"You will hold the thing."
"Yes."
"With your hands."
"With my hands. With Sylvia's hands. With Renn's hands. With Cruz's hands. The team. The team holds. That is what we do."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Tell me about Talia."
I went still.
"Drew."
"I know. Urbana. The bathroom. I know."
"Then."
"Tell me the part you can tell me tonight. Not the whole story. The part you can tell me now. I am about to bleed on Sylvia's table in two days. I want to be in the count when I bleed. I want to know what the count is. Tell me whatever part of the count is mine to know tonight."
I looked at him.
I looked at the bridge in the dark.
I looked at the carving on the dashboard.
I said: