“What brought this up?”
“The international situation’s ominous, Aunt Bea. There’s going to be another world war in the near future and America won’t be safe, not this time. We’ll be in the front line and a lot of people are going to die. I want to know if there’s a heaven they can go to.”
“What a cheerful greeting! I’d have preferred a cup of hot coffee.”
“I’ll fix one for you if you’ll answer my question.”
In the living room they sat side by side on the couch, facing the dead wallscreen. After Bea had drained her cup she gave a deep sigh. “I needed that.”
“And my question?”
“Well. Yes.” She set down the cup and turned to face him. “Here goes. Humans have grappled with the idea of God, or gods, for thousands of years. It appears we’re hardwired to have faith in something, but in the end people believe what they want to believe. They worship God or sorcery or sports stars… to our shame, anything will serve. Perhaps having faith is more important than what we have faith in. The journey rather than the destination. I must say I never expected to have this conversation with you, Jack. You’ve always seemed so sure.”
“That’s down to you,” he acknowledged. “You gave me such a solid grounding nothing could shake my confidence. But now…” He hesitated, reluctant to make a revelation about his private feelings.
She took off her glasses to study his face at close range. “You’re scared, is that it?”
He was grateful to her for making it easier. “I guess I am, but not for myself.” The old grin flickered but did not hold. “Well, maybe a little for myself. I have this sense of”—he struggled to find the right word—“of foreboding.”
“Because of the Change? We’re not plastic, we’re not going to melt.”
“This isn’t about the Change, Aunt Bea. It’s like when you go into a dark room and you’re aware of danger before you turn on a light. That’s what I’m feeling now. Intuition’s always been my stock-in-trade; if a deal’s going to go sour I usually know ahead of time. I can’t tell you how often that’s saved my neck. It’s my only real talent, but it’s a good one.”
“You’re lucky, the rest of us have to rely on hindsight,” she said drily. “From the direction of this conversation I guess you’re worried about a special person?”
“Perhaps.”
Bea’s face lit up. “Does she feel the same about you?”
“I didn’t say it was a woman.”
“Don’t tease me, I know you too well. You’ve been chasing girls since middle school.”
“Since before that, Aunt Bea.”
“And this one is serious?”
“When I’m certain I’ll tell you.”
The light went out of Bea’s face. “That’s the problem: Nothing’s certain anymore.”
At the next meeting of the Wednesday Club Jack announced, “I’ve been doing a little experimenting around the house and found some materials that can replace plastic. Cork is a good one. Leather’s another. And when our high-perf tires wear out we’ll have natural rubber too.”
Marla Burdick spoke up from behind the bar, where she was stacking clean glasses. “Wool might work if it’s thickly packed.”
“How about felt?” Morris Saddlethwaite asked unexpectedly.
“I went back to RobBenn and did a little scavenging in the ruins of the laboratory before the bulldozers came in,” Gerry admitted. “I had the company ID with me; no one tried to stop me. I brought home things I thought might be useful and I’ve been doing some experimenting myself. Several of the silicates could substitute for plastic under the right conditions.”
By now Jack was grinning. “Just listen to us! If we can get this far on our own, the human race can go all the way!”
As they did almost every Sunday, Gerry and Gloria Delmonico attended the church on the corner of Pine Grove and Alcott Place, where their daughter, Danielle, recently had been baptized. Although the morning had dawned bright and clear, a low bank of dark clouds to the north held the threat of rain later. As they stepped out of the church into the sunlight they exchanged smiles with one another. In spite of the Change, their lives seemed good that day; filled with promise. By focusing on the here and now they had everything they could wish for.
That morning the headline in The Sycamore Seed referred to a foreign country where a new type of tank had been developed that would soon roll onto undefended shores. Some glanced at the paper and looked away before meaning could invade their minds. Others absorbed every word, acquiring another layer of hopelessness.
Fred Mortenson desperately wanted to kill his wife. He refused to think of it as murder. Louise was always complaining about how miserable she was, and that’s what you did, wasn’t it? Put a suffering creature out of its misery?
Killing her should be simple enough. His dry cleaning plant employed a toxic solvent called perchloroethylene that would kill in a matter of minutes, but A: How to get her to drink the vile smelling stuff? and B: Could it be traced to him?
While watching himself in the shaving mirror Mortenson thought of half a dozen other methods using items from around his house, not to mention his collection of legally held firearms. But if he shot her with a gun registered to himself Sheriff Whittaker would be all over him like ugly on an ape.
Look how quickly he’d found Dwayne Nyeberger. And taken the man back to the hospital with another breakdown.
We’re all suffering breakdowns, Mortenson thought. Innocent by reason of insanity.
He regarded himself in the mirror. Not bad; a little jowly perhaps, but not bad at all. Deserved a young, prettier woman, not someone who whined because he’d hung his shaving mirror too high for her to apply her lipstick.
Why wait? Spousal slaughter was happening all the time now. According to the Seed, murder rates were going through the roof. Okay. No time like the present. First he would get his .22 out of his rifle case and do a little target practice, just to be sure.
The locked rifle case was in the back hall. When he stepped into the hall the first thing he saw was Louise with a metal nail file in her hand and a grin on her face. Then he saw the rifle.
“Gotcha!” said Louise Mortenson.
Colin Bennett stood in the middle of his grandmother’s living room with his fists planted on his hips. “I don’t want to live in our old house again, Mom! Nothing works in it, everything’s ruined. Besides, we’d still smell the smoke from the fire.”
“You couldn’t possibly,” she asserted, “that’s just your imagination. RobBenn was miles away from our house.”
“I can smell it anyway. Why can’t we stay here with Gramma?”
“We’re too cramped here. Besides, it’s a dreadful imposition on her.”
“That’s not the reason,” the boy said. “You two fight all the time, that’s why you want to leave.”
“We don’t fight all the time, Colin, you’re exaggerating. We have differences of opinion, but that’s inevitable when people live together in close quarters.”
“So find some other place.”
“There isn’t another place available right now; don’t you think I’ve looked?”
“How about Jack? Could we move in with him?”
“Jack Reece?”
“He takes you out in his car sometimes, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but we’re just friends.”
“He’s got a super car and I’ll bet he’s got tons of money.”
Nell could not remember how it felt to love Robert Bennett, but she loved his son; she did not want Colin to become the same kind of man with the same set of values. “I don’t know if Jack has money and I don’t care.”