If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  I dug through my closet until I found a black, hippie-style maxi-dress with colorful flowers—a dress I hadn’t worn in thirty years. I’d only kept it to show hippie history to the grandkids. But I’d forgotten about it and had never shown it to Tasha. Well, I would show her today.

  Jack knocked at my door, but I didn’t answer it; I talked to him through it. He’d found a place for Tasha’s grave—a tiny hillside, or more like an embankment, by the entrance to our subdivision.

  “Lots of bluebonnets grow there,” he said.

  “Sounds perfect. Thank you.” A perfect place to do a horrible thing.

  I dressed and propped up in bed with a notebook, leaning against the headboard to write an elegy for my granddaughter. The next thing I knew, someone was rapping at the door. As I opened my eyes, she slipped into my room. The sun glared on her face.

  “Tasha?”

  Sonja stepped from the sunlight, a catch in her breath.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Bea, but it’s getting late. It’s time for us to prepare for—”

  “The funeral?”

  “Yes. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

  “Good Lord. How long did I sleep?”

  “Many hours. It’s after two p.m. I know you were very tired.” Sonja’s eyes shone with sympathy. I sat up in bed.

  “Thank you, Sonja, for all you did for Tasha, and for all you do for my family. I’ve come to think of you as a daughter.”

  Sonja’s eyes teared up. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  I stood and hugged her to me, but I wished I hadn’t. All I could feel was that she wasn’t Tasha. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, honey.”

  As Sonja left the room, I heard murmuring voices through the opened door and was relieved when it closed. I straightened and smoothed my clothes. I brushed my hair and pulled it back into a severe knot, but I added a colorful comb for Tasha’s sake. I found the notebook I’d taken to bed with me. I hadn’t written a single word of eulogy.

  I put on a black cardigan sweater. I draped my mother’s black lace mantilla over my head and around my shoulders. I descended the stairs as the murmuring slowed to a stop

  Keno and Jack stood up when they saw me on the stairs. I nodded at Jack and went to Keno. The house was filled with neighbors milling about the entire lower floor. From the corner of my eye I saw Tasha, encased in the shroud the women had sewn for her. I could hardly look, but I noticed they’d appliqued a pretty piece of embroidery over Tasha’s chest. So sweet of them.

  “Are we ready?” I asked. Mazie ran up and grabbed my hand, burrowing her face into my side. Milo shuffled up behind Mazie, his head down, his light hair hanging past his eyes, his Aviators in his hand.

  “I cleaned up the bike cart for you, Nana,” Keno said.

  The bike cart? I hated that bike cart. It had killed my girl.

  “Honey, thank you, but I think it would be better to walk. It would be more respectful, like an old-fashioned funeral.” Or a new-fashioned one, I supposed.

  “Sure.” Keno seemed relieved. He probably hated that cart more than I did. “But can you walk that far?”

  “As long as I can sit down when I get there.”

  “We took chairs over already,” Jack said. I realized he was wearing a suit and tie. Keno and Milo also wore ties, and Mazie had on a dark velvet dress and patent-leather shoes. The kids had made themselves so beautiful, it choked me up. I couldn’t look at my neighbors. I couldn’t face them.

  Sonja made her way to the front door, gripping Cesar by the hand. She wore a smart navy suit and sensible heels, her hair in a perfect French twist. Cesar was scrubbed pink in a little gray suit, his hair trimmed and gelled.

  “You all look very nice,” I told my family—my depleted but also extended family. “Best be going.”

  Outside, we were met by several others, including Silas and Doris and the Ibanez kids. Alma’s eyes were swollen and red. She was Tasha’s old friend and must have been devastated. I’d forgotten all about those Ibanez kids. The Carlisles from down Mint Lane were there, along with Sandra something-or-other and her family, plus Phil Hendrix. Even sour Mr. Bellows showed up in a starched shirt and tie.

  I glanced back to see Kathy and Harvey Zizzo coming out of my house, along with two young couples and their children, followed by Gary and Lyla Matheson and their son Chas.

  What? Someone let Chas into my house? Did Keno know about this? They must have just come in through the back door. My blood pressure spiked, and I wobbled a bit, but Keno, who was looking down the road and not at our house, caught me on one side. Milo caught me on the other.

  “You okay, Bea?” Jack asked from behind me. He was pushing the empty wheelchair.

  “I’m not okay, but I’m not going to faint. Not today.”

  Phil, Silas, and two young men whose names I kept forgetting went inside and came out carrying Tasha, wrapped in her shroud and lying on a plank.

  FORTY-FIVE

  FRIGID STEEL HAD REPLACED my bones. My heart was ice. I wasn’t me; I was an automaton walking to the funeral of her granddaughter—her fifteen-year-old, pregnant, bled-to-death granddaughter. The only thoughts that crossed my mind were the agony Erin, Eddie, and Pete would feel about losing Tasha, and the recriminations that were bound to come at me from Jeri and Hank.

  When we reached the site—a grassy kind of knoll, except the grass was fittingly dead for the winter—I wobbled again. A grave had been dug in the sod; a pile of dirt sat beside it. Rows of chairs were set up, and flowering plants in pots surrounded the scene. I can’t do this, I thought, but I did it.

  I climbed the knoll and sat in the front row with my grandkids around me, Sonja and Cesar on one end of the row, Jack on the other. I didn’t look behind me, but I knew Chas was back there, and it hijacked my mind. My grief was too great to become coherent thought. All I felt was pain.

  Doris sang an off-key hymn, “Oh Promise Me,” I think. Jack said a few words that were heartfelt but brief. Silas played “Amazing Grace” on his guitar, and Alma sang it. She had an achingly pure voice, made more beautiful by its tremulousness and her tears.

  Mr. Bellows led us in a poignant prayer, sounding sweet and sad, and not the least bit crabby. It was just as well that I hadn’t written a eulogy. I wouldn’t have been able to read it aloud.

  We stood around the grave while men lowered Tasha into it with ropes. I thought my heart would burst. I could not leave Tasha in that hole in the ground. It would be dark down there. And cold. I couldn’t let her be so cold.

  People tossed dried wildflowers into the grave. Mazie cried so hard that I feared she’d pass out. Keno dropped a flower into the pit then sank to his knees and almost fell forward into the grave with his sister. Milo grabbed hold of Keno, Mazie latched onto his neck, and my three remaining grandchildren huddled on the ground, crying. I almost collapsed with them, but Jack scooted the wheelchair up behind me just in time.

  We cried for an interminable length of time. I wanted to ululate, like grief-stricken women I’d seen on the news, but I didn’t know how.

  A wintry wind kicked up and at last broke our anguished reverie. People started shoveling dirt into the grave. I whipped my face around to see our neighbors watching us, including Chas and those three scary-looking interlopers who’d shown up when Darla’s house exploded.

  I stood and headed straight for the smug, entitled beast who had defiled my granddaughter. Jack ran to catch up with me.

  “What are you doing?” He sounded alarmed and half-breathless. I ignored him.

  I kept my eyes on Chas, who saw me coming and wiped his red eyes. He seemed alarmed, too. I stepped in front of him, toe-to-toe. He looked down at me with a puzzled snarl on his face.

  “What do you think you’re doing here, Chas? Have some respect and leave.”

  “Bea? What the hell?” Gary said. His wife, Lyla, frowned at Gary then looked away. She knew her son was an asshole.

  “Chas knows what I’m talking about. Get the hell out of here
now, Chas!” I stood on my tiptoes and leaned toward the boy.

  Sonja stepped from behind me and slapped Chas, backhanded, across his face, cursing him in Spanish.

  “Ow! Shit!” Chas backed away, blinking and rubbing his cheek. “Leave me alone, you bitches!”

  I didn’t see Keno coming until he was already there.

  He charged full speed, head-first, straight into Chas’s chest, knocking him flat to the ground, straddling his torso and pounding his smart-aleck face with blow after blow after blow. Jack clamped a wrestling hold on Milo to keep the boy from jumping into the fray. Mazie screamed, almost with delight. Snot and blood flew out of Chas’s nose, and he bucked beneath Keno, trying to throw him off. But Keno rode that kid like a rodeo star and continued to rain jabs and uppercuts and haymakers on the killer of my granddaughter.

  Phil and Silas jumped in to pull Keno back, but I could’ve sworn they were taking their time about it. And Keno wasn’t making it easy. When burly Silas wrapped his arms around Keno from behind, then reared back to lift him off the ground, Keno kicked Chas in the mouth, surely breaking some teeth. Chas squealed in agony.

  “Keno, what the hell?” Gary shouted. “Bea, what’s going on?”

  “Shut up, Gary!” said his wife.

  “Lyla, what—”

  “I said, ‘shut up!’” Lyla glared at her husband, then turned crisply and walked down the slope toward home.

  Our friends dragged us away from Chas and down to the street. Chas remained behind, writhing and moaning on the ground with a bloody face and his bewildered father staring down at him.

  I was having an asthma attack and didn’t realize it until Jack practically forced me into the wheelchair and started pushing me home. I hadn’t brought my inhaler. I wanted to go back to check on Tasha. I wanted to put blankets and lanterns into her grave with her. I did not want to leave her alone. She would be scared.

  When we were halfway home, Keno said, “I’m going back to sit with Tasha.”

  “You should wait until Chas is gone, honey.”

  “I wanna go, too,” Milo said.

  “Well, take some coats.”

  Jack pulled off his suit jacket and put it on Keno. I gave Milo my cardigan.

  “I’ll go with them, Bea,” Silas said, “and make sure everything’s alright.” The three of them disappeared down the darkening street.

  I turned the wheelchair around and watched them until I couldn’t see them anymore, then I just kept sitting there.

  “Should we go?” Jack finally said.

  “Not yet. Let me get used to being this far from her first.”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever get used to it.”

  “I know, but still. . . .”

  When at last we reached home, our guests were leaving, thank heaven. I noticed that they’d put a big dent in the food though. Possibly they did that before the funeral, when I was sleeping. I just hoped my grandkids had eaten some fried chicken.

  Sonja heated food for us, and I actually ate a solid meal. As she prepared to go home for the night, Milo and Keno came through the front door with Silas. They smelled of wood smoke.

  “Whew. Got cold out there,” Silas said. “We started a fire, but that wind was too cold.”

  “Come in and get warm while I get your food,” said Sonja, God bless her.

  Someone had lit a fire in the hearth, and I only then noticed it. Milo and Keno slouched down onto the loveseat near the fire, and after a few minutes they returned Jack’s jacket and my sweater. They looked about as numb as I felt. Mazie had been cuddled against me for I don’t know how long before I felt the warmth and pressure of her.

  “Keno, let me see your hands, honey,” I said. He held up his red and swollen mitts. “Wiggle your fingers for me. You didn’t break any bones, did you?”

  He wiggled his fingers and said, “No.”

  “He broke Chas’s nose,” Milo said.

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause we saw him, and he said so. He talked funny, too.”

  “Well, good,” I said, and Milo laughed. Keno looked empty-eyed.

  Sonja brought damp rags. She wiped Keno’s hands with some of them and wrapped others around his palms, leaving the tips of his fingers free. “Elevate your hands,” she said, placing his hands atop his head. He kept them there obediently until Sonja brought dinner.

  “Does anyone know who those three men were, standing behind the chairs at the funeral?” I asked. The boys barely glanced toward me and shook their heads.

  “Those bikers?” Jack said. “I thought y’all knew them.”

  “I saw them when the Beldings’ house blew up. Thought they were relatives of some neighbor, or maybe they lived nearby and came to check out the explosion. Then one of them nodded to Chas, and he nodded back, like they knew each other.”

  “That’s worrisome. I don’t remember ‘em from back then.”

  “Well, I do. Don’t know why they came to Tasha’s funeral though. Seems creepy.”

  “They were ugly,” Mazie said.

  “Ugly? Honey, they can’t help how they look.”

  “Well, they scared me.”

  “Some folks have morbid fascinations,” Jack said.

  “That’s what I mean. Creepy.” I don’t know why I kept talking—to distract myself from grief, I suppose. “Silas, thank you for the music.” He nodded as he chewed. “That Alma has a beautiful voice. Don’t you think so, boys?” I wanted to see Keno’s reaction, but he and Milo went right on eating, bleary-eyed.

  I gave up on talking. It didn’t help the sadness one bit.

  The boys and Silas finished eating, and Silas departed with Sonja and Cesar close behind.

  “Kids, we should get some rest. We’ve had a horrible day.” Mazie was already asleep. Keno stood up wearily, picked Mazie up, and carried her up the stairs. Milo followed behind him, scuffing his heels on the stairs as he went.

  “I love you,” I said, but they didn’t respond. Too tired and sad. “Put your hands on a pillow to sleep, Keno. Keep them higher than your heart as much as you can.”

  Suddenly, I was alone with Jack, flickering shadows from the firelight moving across his face. This had not been part of my plan. He sat down beside me and searched my eyes.

  “Bea, I—”

  “Shhh,”

  “But—”

  “Don’t.”

  He swallowed. “Okay?”

  I sat quietly, listening to the boys murmuring in the upstairs bathroom, then going to the bedroom that had been assigned to the absent Ibanez boys, and closing the door. I guess those other kids were staying with the Barneses or with Sonja. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care.

  When we hadn’t heard footsteps or squeaking bed springs for a couple of minutes, Jack stirred as if rising to go. I grabbed that hunky man with his crooked mustache and sparkling blue eyes, and I kissed him until I couldn’t breathe. I kissed him so hard that it bruised my lips. I kept kissing him until he pretty much forced me off him.

  “Now, go home,” I said and looked away.

  He ran his hand along my cheek, he stood up, and he left my house.

  The Matheson family left our neighborhood within a week. Chas’s mouth and nose were still swollen, his face still covered with cuts and bruises, when I saw him mount a bicycle loaded with bags and follow his parents down the street.

  They couldn’t get gone fast enough for me.

  FORTY-SIX

  FIVE MONTHS since this series of catastrophes began. The rest of our family wasn’t ever coming home to us, were they?

  Over the lonely remainder of the winter, I thought spring would never arrive. But it showed up in early March, which was normal for Austin. Spring didn’t seem beautiful, though, in the way I had hoped. Nothing felt beautiful to me without Tasha in the world. I tried not to dwell on it, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Honestly, I didn’t know how much longer I could keep doing this—this carrying on and pressing forward, this raisi
ng of ragged, sun-parched children in such a dangerous world, this herding of neighbors with their problems and complaints. Most of all, I didn’t know how to hold out hope as a beacon for my grandchildren when I’d all but lost hope myself.

  Spring brought me out of the house and forced me back to organizing the neighborhood, especially the farming. Our winter crops hadn’t fared well in the unusually cold winter we’d had. The root crops at the Mint held out longest, since the hired gardener had mulched them heavily before the EMP. We needed to put much more organic matter into all our garden soils.

  It was time to plant greens and lettuces, and past time to start tomato and pepper seedlings indoors. We hadn’t ended up canning a thing from our winter crops. We’d lost the fall batches of tomatoes, peppers, and squash when we had a hard freeze in February. Fortunately, we’d harvested winter squash and stashed it in the root cellar. That squash and last season’s cabbage, onions, and sweet potatoes were the only vegetables we had to eat until we could grow new ones. If we were lucky, we’d get broccoli and greens before the other veggies ran out.

  Then, not only had we lost Tasha, we’d also lost the Mathesons. Although Chas was an ass, he was a strong one, and he’d done a lot of work building gardens. It must have been his mother who got him to work, because his dad was a clueless wimp in regard to his son. Gary was an engineering-type guy. He’d designed and overseen the construction of our outhouses and rain collection systems.

  Losing that family was hard on our group, but it did clear the air around here. There didn’t seem to be much drama going on in the neighborhood. Everyone was too emotionally exhausted to be dramatic—that was my take on it. But give them enough time, and they would surely come up with something.

  I didn’t see much of Jack. I certainly didn’t go to his house. I think I freaked him out with my breath-stealing kiss. He checked in with us now and then, and I caught him more than once regarding me with longing. He seemed to be giving me time and space to heal.

  I didn’t expect to heal, though. I was too old to get over something so horribly raw and traumatic. I just hoped to gain enough distance from it that I didn’t wake up every morning wanting to puke.