Chapter 15 Drew
We crossed the Colorado River on day eighteen.
The river was lower than it had been when we'd come east. Three feet lower; the spring melt had peaked and was now receding.
But the bridge held. Cruz drove the third truck across first because Cruz was the heaviest vehicle in the convoy and Cruz's truck had been the variable in our weight-on-bridge calculations.
The bridge held under Cruz. We followed.
The west side of the bridge was the western edge of the Colorado plateau and the start of the Mojave high desert. Three more days to the gate.
Cora was at the wheel. Deedee was on the bench with the Polaroid.
The Polaroid had a small crease in it now from where Deedee had been holding it, and the crease was acceptable.
The carving was on the dashboard. The Steinbeck was on the cab shelf.
The mug was in the cup-holder. The stone was in my pocket.
I had been thinking for two days.
I had not yet said the thing I had been thinking.
I knew I was going to say the thing. The thing had been waiting since Cora had said it in the boiler room on day twelve.
The thing had been waiting through six days of driving.
The thing had been waiting through the Joplin cache and the Tulsa pass and the Vegas refuel and the Bay outriders' goodbye and now the Colorado crossing.
The thing was not something you blurted.
The thing was what you said when the moment was the moment.
I was waiting for the moment.
Cora knew I was waiting. She did not press. She had not pressed since I had said I will, eventually. She had not pressed because she was Cora and Cora knew the difference between waiting and refusal.
The moment came at sunset.
We had pulled the convoy off the highway about thirty miles inside the Mojave foothill range.
The same range the camp was at the far western edge of, three days' drive ahead.
Cruz wanted to rest the third truck's transmission; the climb up the Colorado plateau had pulled hard.
Sylvia had agreed. Renn had set the perimeter.
Veron had taken the southern roof of a rest-area shelter that we had stopped at; Veron and Renn had been alternating the southern roof for the whole return trip and the alternation had developed into a thing between them that I had been watching but had not been part of.
Cora was at the back of the lead truck.
I sat beside her.
Deedee was asleep on the bench inside the cab, the Polaroid on her chest.
The sun was going down.
It had been three years since Cora had been in this part of the Mojave foothill range.
Mojave from the east approach, the side Cora had not seen since her last salvage run to Bakersfield in year four.
The light at sunset on the west-facing range was the gold-and-rust light that the Mojave produced in late spring.
The light was the same light that had been on Cora's face the morning we had left the Mojave camp, twenty days ago.
I said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"I have been thinking for two days."
"I know."
"About what to say."
"I know."
"I am going to say it now."
"Okay."
I said:
"Cora. I love you."
She looked at me.
The corner of her mouth, the scar corner, moved.
She said: "Okay."
"That is your answer."
"That is my answer. Drew. You said it. I have been waiting since the boiler room. You said it. That is the thing. The answer is okay. The answer is I heard you. The answer is I am holding it. The answer is I knew it was coming and I am grateful you brought it. The answer is okay."
I sat with her on the back of the lead truck.
The sun finished going down.
The Mojave at sunset went purple and gold and the small cool-edge of night came down from the foothills west of us.
After a while she said:
"Drew."
"Yes."
"What changed."
I thought about it.
"The Colorado."
"The river."
"Yes."
"Why."
"Because the Colorado was the last big landmark on the way out.
The Colorado was where the team became a unit.
The Colorado was where Cruz and Renn started doing the body-count check on the radio.
The Colorado was where I knew, going east, that I was crossing into a place where the things I had been carrying for eleven years were going to be turned over.
I did not know what was going to happen on the east side of the river.
I knew the river was the boundary. The boundary was crossed.
The east side happened. The east side was the bridge in Missouri and the Steinbeck and the count-is-correct and Veron and the gap and Hess and the blood and the bathroom and Mara and the Polaroid and the kiss and the boiler room and the ours.
The east side was the whole book. The west side is.
Cora. The west side is where the book goes.
The west side is the next part. The west side is the part I want with you.
The west side is the part where I am the person who has crossed the east side.
I am the person who has crossed. I am crossing back now. The crossing back is the I love you."
She did not say anything.
She put her hand on mine on the truck-bed.
I let her.
I closed my hand around hers.
I had not done that before. The day in the boiler room I had put my hand on her hand. I had not closed it. I closed it now.
She closed hers around mine.
We sat for a long time.
After a while Sylvia came up. Sylvia had been at the third truck doing the transmission check with Cruz. She came to the lead truck. She saw us. She nodded once. She did not say anything. She went into the cab to check on Deedee. Deedee was sleeping. The Polaroid was steady on her chest.
Sylvia came back out.
She said: "Drew."
"Yes."
"Side."
"Healing. The pain is gone. The bandage will come off tomorrow morning."
"Good."
"Sylvia."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"For what."
"The blood."
She looked at me.
She nodded.
"You're welcome."
She walked away.
Cora said: "That was new."
"What."
"You said thank you for the blood. You have not said thank you for the blood in seven days. You have been quiet about the blood. You have been holding the blood. Tonight you said thank you for the blood out loud. That was new."
"Yes."
"What changed."
"The I love you."
"Yes."
"The I love you changed the blood. The I love you meant that the blood was not the thing I was angry about.
The I love you meant that the blood was the giving and the giving was what I had been refusing for eleven years.
The refusal was the wound. The wound is.
Cora. The wound is grief now. Not refusal.
Grief is the right shape. The refusal was the wrong shape.
The blood is in me. The blood is doing its work.
The blood is. The blood is what I am grateful for. "
"Drew."
"Yes."
"You are doing what you said you would not be okay with for a year."
"I know."
"How long has it been."
"Seven days."
"You are ahead of schedule."
"I know."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Welcome to the count."
"Yes."
We sat.
The sky went dark.
The Mojave night came on with the small bright stars and the wide quiet.
* * *
The truck cab was the cab. The back-cot was the back-cot.
Sylvia had rigged it on day six, a fold-down plywood platform that fit between the bench seat and the rear window, padded with the old sleeping bag from the supply tent and a second blanket Crystal had packed in the going-out kit at oh-six-thirty on day one.
Two people fit if neither of them moved much.
We had been sleeping on it for nine days.
Drew on one side, me on the other. Three feet of plywood.
Two blankets. The space between us had been three feet for nine nights.
Tonight was different.
I went into the cab first. I checked on Deedee.
She was on the bench, the Polaroid on her chest, breathing slow, asleep.
I tucked Crystal's lap blanket up to her shoulder.
I climbed into the back-cot. I lay on my side, facing the rear window, the way I had been facing for nine nights.
The window had the Mojave starlight through it. The starlight was the starlight.
I had been counting the stars through the rear window every night since the bridge. I had been counting because counting was what I did and the stars were the count. I had stopped at seven every night. Seven stars in the rear window's small triangle of sky.
Drew climbed in behind me.
He lay on his side. He had been lying on his side, facing the bench, for nine nights. The not-facing-me had been the way we had been sleeping. The not-facing-me had been the protocol. The protocol had been the way we had agreed to sleep without agreeing.
Tonight he turned.
His chest was against my back. His arm was over my waist. His hand was on my stomach, flat, careful, the half-Vampyren-cool of his palm against the thin shirt I had been wearing for three days.
I did not move.
He did not move.
We lay still.
His breath on the back of my neck was the slow steady half-Vampyren breath rate.
Eight breaths a minute, slower than human, the rhythm I had counted twice in the boiler room when he had been unconscious with my blood going into his veins.
I knew the rhythm. The rhythm was the count he had been letting me carry for him for seven days.
Tonight the rhythm was the count we were sharing.
I closed my eyes.
I said: "Drew."
"Yes."
"You said it on the back of the truck."
"I did."
"The I love you."
"Yes."
"You said it because the Colorado was the boundary."
"Yes."
"You said it because the east side happened."
"Yes."
"You said it because you crossed."
"Yes."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"I have been counting the stars in the rear window for nine nights."
"I know."
"You know."
"I have been counting them too. Through your back. The same seven. Seven stars in the small triangle. I have been counting the seven because you have been counting the seven."
I went still.
He had been counting with me. For nine nights. Without telling me.
I said: "How long have you been counting with me."
"Since the bridge."