Seth couldn’t remember where the key had come from, but he knew for sure what door it opened. Had he snuck into Thomas’ room? After Natalie had fallen asleep, had he—?
Skylar had been there. She’d been lying on her side, one leg draped over Thomas, and in the flickering candlelight Seth could see her naked ass and possibly more in the shadow between her legs. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Thomas, for nothing more than a quirk of fate, was allowed to sleep with Skylar while Seth himself was not. He wished he could run his fingers along the jutting ridge of her hip. He wished he could know what it felt like to be with a woman so sexy and lovely and admired. But he couldn’t stand there holding a candle forever. Instead he inspected the top of a dresser and a chest of drawers and the countertop in the master bath, looking for the key, but where he finally found it was in the pocket of Thomas’ shorts.
Seth vaguely remembered unlocking the door to the safe room, standing among shelves of food and water and paper plates and candles. And booze. He grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s by its neck and went back to the bedroom where Natalie lay sleeping. He climbed into bed and swallowed occasional pulls of whiskey and wondered why the world always worked against him. Like for instance the pulse. The new star had not only saved him from a suicide attempt but also, miraculously, forgave every cent of his gambling debts. But instead of becoming a hero to his wife and children, instead of protecting them from the perils of this new world, Seth was mooching off Thomas. He was not the architect of their safety but a passive observer. What seemed like a miracle had really been a curse, a component of the plot to deny his every desire and turn him into the butt of every joke.
“Why is there a bottle of whiskey on the nightstand?”
Seth opened his eyes and saw Natalie facing him, propped on one elbow. He must have fallen asleep again.
“I—”
“What key is that?”
While he grasped for an answer, Seth realized he could hear voices elsewhere in the house. Animated voices. Loud voices.
“I drank some whiskey to help me sleep,” he finally said.
“Because sex wasn’t enough?”
“Why won’t you let me read your journal?”
“Because it’s private. Everything in this world isn’t about you.”
Anger rose in him like a tide. He’d been so full of hope when Natalie came to him last night, and just look at what happened. Nothing ever turned out the way he wanted. Nothing.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s all about you, Nat.”
“So when you gambled away our fortune, when you stole from the boys’ college fund, that was for me?”
“I fucked up, Nat. People do that. They fuck up. But at least I tried to fix the problem. I was willing to give my life to make sure you would be taken care of.”
“Oh, for the love of God. You’re asking me to thank you for attempting suicide?”
Why couldn’t Natalie ever acknowledge all the good things he did? Why did she only harp on the bad? His stupid parents had been the same way, always punishing him for innocent crimes like inadvertently breaking his sister’s arm or shooting through their car windows with his BB gun, without ever recognizing his positive contributions—things which had surely been numerous even if he couldn’t at the moment recall any specific examples.
“Why did you marry me?” he asked her.
“Because I loved you.”
“I think you wanted security. You married me for what I could provide instead of for who I was. Maybe you loved me but you didn’t really like me.”
“Look, Seth. I don’t know how to tell you this. I mean, I only just realized it myself, but—”
“You don’t love me anymore?”
Natalie’s eyes blurred behind tears.
“That’s not… I mean… it’s more complicated than—”
“It’s actually not, Natalie. It’s not complicated at all. Either you love me or you don’t.”
She didn’t answer. She just stared at him. And in her eyes Seth saw, for the very first time, indifference. Pity.
“Just answer the question, Natalie.”
“You’re right, Seth. I don’t love you anymore.”
The sensation generated by this declaration was full-body numbness, as if she had submerged him in a dark pool of frigid ocean water. There was nothing in the world without Natalie and the boys. There was no other reason to exist. What did she want if not to survive this apocalypse with him?
He rolled out of bed and grabbed the bottle of whiskey.
“Seth,” Natalie said. The pity in her voice threatened to shatter him. “Don’t walk away from me. It’s not what you think.”
But he did walk away. He marched out of the room and into the hall and into an empty bathroom.
“Seth, please!”
The world turned glassy as his eyes filled with tears. How would they go forward from here? What about the boys? How was he meant to be their father in this dead world next to a wife who didn’t love him?
Seth took a pull of whiskey and then another. The soreness in his left side flared immediately into something like fire. The conundrum he couldn’t resolve was he felt like a powerless victim, yet cognitively he knew many poor outcomes had been produced by his own dumb choices. Fortunately, he was in possession of the whiskey, and after a few more pulls, a radical new idea took shape: All Seth’s problems had been inflicted upon him, while all his good fortune was a product of his own design. It was absurd to think anyone would ever choose to impose bad circumstances upon themselves. A person would only ever try to make his situation better, never worse.
Seth remembered how his father had overlooked him in favor of his brother, how his mother had overlooked him in favor of his sister. And the only reason he’d managed to win the heart of a woman like Natalie was because she’d been hurt by someone better than him. Her perfect match was a wealthy man, a confident man, a man who got noticed on the street. Seth carried too much subcutaneous fat and insecurity to be noticed on the street. He wore clothes for utility instead of appearance. The only time he ever truly felt like a man of means was when he was gambling his family’s money away. When he was playing blackjack or poker or craps, he was the man who was noticed. He was unpredictable and dangerous; he was a mistake women loved to make. Gambling had seemed like an escape from the darkness, but in the end this deception had been unsustainable. The darkness was always going to win.
Voices again. Voices outside the bathroom door.
“Seth!” someone yelled. It was maybe Thomas.
He didn’t answer. He never wanted to leave this room again.
“Open the door!”
He reached forward and turned the knob. The door opened. Thomas and Skylar and Natalie stood in the hallway.
“So it was you,” Thomas said.
“It was me what?”
“You left the door unlocked. To the safe room.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Honey,” Natalie said. “The key was next to the bottle of whiskey you took.”
“This key,” said Thomas, holding it up for everyone to see.
“I’m pretty sure I locked the door.”
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t,” said Thomas. “And you know how I know? Because men broke into the house last night and found my supplies. The safe room was unlocked and they took everything. Which means we have nothing. We don’t have a single thing to eat.”
Even though this didn’t seem like a thing that could have happened, Seth wasn’t surprised it had. Because everything he ever touched turned to shit. That’s how the world worked and the way it always would.
“Do you understand the gravity of what you’ve done? We could starve to death. Your children could starve. Do you realize that?”