For anyone else.
He held onto the rail. Acid rose up his throat, and he heaved. Nothing came out. After coughing for a minute, he stepped up to the top, cupping his hand around his eyes, diverting them away from the dead body. But the image had already seared into his memory. He squeezed around the banister toward the master bedroom.
Molly was exiting as he came into the hallway. They rushed toward one another, embracing, kissing, both of them crying, Andrew stroking her hair, pulling her closer. He pressed the tips of his fingers along her spine, massaging her tense muscles.
“God, I didn’t know what was going to happen to you,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you okay? Do you feel all right? How’s the—”
“I’m okay.
“What about your finger?”
“It’s fine, Andrew. It was just a cut.”
“He was going to chop your finger off.”
“It’s not the worst thing that happened today.”
He stared at the closed door to the master bedroom, a muffled sobbing coming from behind it. He held Molly tighter. “What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
The air felt heavier, colder. Molly sucked in her bottom lip and kept a strong face for him. “What happened downstairs?”
“They made us load up their truck.”
“And they got away?”
He nodded.
“How much did they get?”
Andrew sighed. “The generator. A lot of food.”
Molly covered her mouth. “How much?”
Andrew said nothing.
A tear formed on the edges of her eyes. “We need to tell him,” she whispered.
“Not right now.”
“He needs to know. Everyone does.”
“This isn’t the right time.”
“We can’t hide it for much longer.”
“You don’t understand—you, you just don’t understand.”
“I can’t keep pretending it’s not happening.”
“What’s not happening?” a voice said from down the hall.
Molly looked past her boyfriend, and tears rushed out of her eyes. “Daddy,” she said and bolted to him.
Sean lifted his daughter up in his arms and held her close. She cried awful, terrible sobs. Sean shut his eyes briefly and then centered them on Andrew, those eyes burning like a fire stoked, hot and ready to burn down everything in their path. And Andrew couldn’t stand the heat.
“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” Sean told her, turning his attention back to her.
But Andrew knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t going to be okay. Nothing could ever be okay again.
Chapter 23
MICHAEL WATCHED KELLY spend her days in silence. She didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, recoiled when he tried to comfort her. He encouraged her—pleaded for her—to eat more, offered her food from his plate every night, but she told him she wasn’t hungry. But she was hungry. He could see the bones in her jaw growing more defined, her cheekbones popping out a little more each day. He almost asked her once whether she didn’t eat because she wanted to die but stopped himself. There were questions he didn’t want answers to.
He had heard what happened to Kelly from Elise, but Kelly never spoke of it. And after a while nobody wanted to talk about it. Sometimes, if he was honest, that was okay with him. Because talking about it meant speaking of why those men had come in the first place, how they had gotten into the house with no one knowing, why he had never slept with the damn shotgun next to him like Sean had asked, why he had let his sister drug Sean. Even though nobody discussed it out loud, his inner voice wouldn’t stop repeating: They raped your wife, and it’s your fault.
He didn’t sleep much anymore. Most of them didn’t. Two weeks after the invasion and four or so months after it all started—Michael wasn’t sure exactly, time blurring together—each person had little dark circles under their eyes that hadn’t been there before. The corridors of the home reverberated distant and indistinct sobbing. Much to Michael’s surprise, Aidan seemed the least affected, maybe because he was brave, maybe because he didn’t fully understand the situation. Kelly’s withdrawal hit him hard though. He loved his aunt and just wanted to make her feel better. When he asked why she was feeling so sad, Michael told him that she was sick and left it at that.
Elise and Sean barely talked. The dynamic added unneeded tension in the home. Meals, now cooked over the fireplace, were torturous. Where there used to be conversation, now there was just the crackle of fire, teeth chewing and gnawing, and silverware clanking on dishes.
With the entire house now being pummeled with cold and only the living room fireplace to repel its assault, everyone spent most of their time there. Not that anyone could go anywhere else for long. The upstairs still had graphic splatters of dried blood they couldn’t expunge. Nobody wanted to see it. Or remember what happened along with it. And the other rooms were freezing cold. Michael spent his time pacing around, walking through the kitchen and then back to the living room, pulling at his beard, trying to kill time any way he could. And there was a lot of time to kill.
He walked back into the living room after taking a brief walk to find the kids playing a speed card game. Molly was dominating. Her hands flew across the coffee table and thumped a card down into a pile while Aidan and Andrew scrambled to keep up. He smiled, just a little, but it faded when he saw his wife curled under a blanket across the room, staring into the fire.
He looked away, sat on the floor, and watched the kids rapidly discard and pull cards from different decks. The back and forth, the laughter. Rare sounds. Molly slammed a card down and threw her hands into the air. “That’s game,” she said.
“You cheated,” Aidan said, though not the least bit upset.
“Losers weepers,” she said with a laugh.
Michael smiled at her. She had always been a pretty girl, but for some reason she had an aura about her, a glow to her skin, a composure, some secret well of courage the invaders hadn’t stolen from her like they had from everyone else. A confidence that an end would come to this disaster and that their last, dreary scraps of life would not be lived inside the surrounding walls.
“Okay, deal again,” Aidan said, slapping his knees.
“You want to lose again?” Molly said.
“Just do it.”
Everyone smiled, and Molly shuffled the cards. Michael put a hand on her shoulder. “How’ve you been holding up?”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” She paused and whispered. “I haven’t gotten Kelly to talk yet.”
Michael forced a smile. “She’ll get there.”
She nodded, and for a moment—just for a moment—he saw that confidence disappear. She shuffled the cards in a smooth motion. “Hey, Uncle Mike, I have something I want your advice on,” she said, lowering her voice even more and not meeting his eye.
“Sure.”
“About my dad.”
Andrew grew rigid. He reached under the table and grabbed her leg. She shot a glance over to him, and they shared a silent conversation. She looked back toward her uncle and smiled. “We can talk about it later, if that’s okay.”