“It’s such a chickenshit thing to do!”
“I already told you there was no other way to pay the debt.”
“That’s bullshit. There’s always another way. And what if it had worked? The boys and I would be facing this terrible world with no husband to help us.”
“Obviously, I didn’t know all this would happen,” he said and took a swallow of the vodka.
It seemed Natalie would never understand the terror he had overcome to follow through with his plan. To her, his failures were nothing more than a story, a set of poor decisions she could unreservedly judge. For Seth, the gambling debt was like cancer he had tried to carve out with a knife.
“I wish you would have told me. I wish we could have gotten you some help.”
Instead of answering, since there was nothing more to say, he took another pull of vodka.
“What about now?” she asked. “I know you’re hoping all this means the debt is gone, but are you still… you know… do you still feel suicidal?”
“No. I’m here to take care of you guys no matter what happens.”
Natalie grabbed the bottle and swallowed more vodka. A long moment passed, and finally she lay her head on his shoulder.
“And we’re here to take care of you.”
Eventually the boys, with nothing else to do, came looking for them.
“We want to go outside,” whined Brandon. “Can we at least play in the back yard?”
“Not right now,” Seth said. “Not until tomorrow. We aren’t sure what’s happening and we want you to be safe.”
“But I am so bored. Ben, aren’t you bored?”
“So bored.”
“You’re going to be bored and sore in the bottom if you don’t go back to your room and give your mom and me more time to talk.”
“Fine. Ignore us. We’ll just be playing backgammon!”
When they were gone, Natalie said, “I keep thinking about you in the car. How frightened and alone you must have felt. I’m so sorry, Honey. For everything.”
Seth wanted to believe Natalie had come to understand the sacrifices he’d made. But just because they had finally confronted each other didn’t mean the pain was gone, nor did it change the external dangers they faced. If the power didn’t come back and they couldn’t find a sustainable source of food and water, his family’s odds of survival weren’t good.
Still, Seth couldn’t imagine a universe cruel enough to offer a second chance at life only to steal it back with a death as pointless as starvation.
The two of them were still on the sofa, nestled in each other’s arms, when the universe knocked on the front door and offered an answer.
ELEVEN
A few miles beyond Durant, Oklahoma, on a stretch of road empty of stalled cars and stranded drivers, Thomas stopped to study the road atlas.
“We have some options ahead,” he explained. “To avoid towns I think we should use the turnpike, but let’s make sure.”
His original intention had been to follow a route to Tulsa with the fewest number of towns. Each community they drove through meant a potential encounter with rural Americans who during the past decade had been arming themselves against a Federal government they now hoped would save them. But his chosen route, Thomas could see, would take them past an Army ammunition depot. The last thing they could afford was seizure of his car, but if they made it past the depot, it looked to be a clear and relatively fast drive to Tulsa.
When they were moving again, Skylar finally ended her self-imposed silence.
“You know why I came to see you? Why I wanted to talk about Kimberly?”
Thomas shook his head. Kimberly was the character Skylar had been set to play in The Pulse.
“Because I didn’t want her to be so fucking helpless, and that’s how you wrote her.”
“I’m not a misogynist. But in a world like this—”
“I understand why you wrote it that way. If there is no law and order, you think common decency will go out the window. A woman needs a man at her side because there’s no way she’s physically strong enough to fend off sexual predators.”
“And you don’t agree?”
“I do now!” Skylar said. “I’m scared to death and I feel exactly the way I didn’t want her to feel.”
Thomas didn’t know what to say. If the power didn’t come back on, modern life could be rolled back two centuries.
“Everyone believes the world changed with #MeToo and Times Up,” Skylar said. “And I’m so glad some of these assholes have finally paid a price for their shit. But hashtags and headlines don’t collapse a power structure that has been in place forever. Even if a man is afraid to sexually abuse you doesn’t mean he won’t fuck you over. Like if I just headlined a film that grossed a billion dollars, and I get paired in Darkest Energy with a man in his first leading role, and that guy still gets offered more money than me, what do you call that other than spite? From some pencil-dick executive who wanted to punish me for being more successful than him?”
“You’re right. He punished you with dollars. Don’t you think that kind of man will take even more advantage now?”
“Look,” said Skylar. “The Pulse was terrifying and compelling because of how plausible it was. I mean, we’re living it right now, so I would say it was pretty fucking real. And I wanted to play a powerful, resilient character who was the most a woman could be. I wanted her to be strong even if I knew, in real life—like right now—she would be at a physical disadvantage. I didn’t want to be the fantasy love interest for an insecure screenwriter who never got the girl. Because a girl is not a prize. Does that make sense?”
Thomas wondered if her questions about the reunion had been to confirm he was the insecure screenwriter she suspected. And it was true that for much of his life he had been that guy. But now?
“In an ideal world I want to play roles where women exist on their own terms, even if I acknowledge at this moment in time I’m pretty much dependent on you.”
“I understand,” Thomas said. “It just didn’t seem realistic to expect the average woman to defend herself against alpha men who could behave without consequence.”
“You’re probably right. It’s fucking depressing. But is your nonstop downward spiral really a film anyone wants to see?”
Thomas smiled gamely. This was precisely what he feared Skylar would say when she landed in Dallas—that neither she nor anyone else would be able to stomach the truth of a pulse-ravaged world. But stark reality was what he had intended to deliver. Pretending as if a technology apocalypse could be solved by a handpicked gaggle of airbrushed twentysomethings was not the story he was trying to tell.
“But I appreciate you letting me stay with you,” Skylar said. “I’d be fucked otherwise.”
They were approaching the turnpike entrance, which was adjacent to the ammunition plant. To his great relief Thomas did not see evidence of an Army presence, at least not until they had almost reached the interchange, where a lone soldier in fatigues observed the road with a pair of binoculars. As they reached the bridge, the soldier pulled one hand toward his face.
“Did you see that?” he said to Skylar. “That guy had a radio. Like a walkie-talkie.”
“So?”
“So maybe the Army does have a plan. Maybe they have equipment that still works.”
“Yay for them.”
“I’m saying maybe there’s a reason to hope after all.”
“You think?” Skylar deadpanned. “Aren’t the large transformers that run the electrical grid manufactured overseas? Doesn’t it take like a year to get a new one?”