He was relieved the door was unlocked. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone here.”
“Just a second,” a girl called out.
It was Sarah. Jon knew that voice as well as he knew any. Sarah’s voice.
He told himself not to be an idiot. Sarah was in Virginia. That was where he wanted her to be, safe with her powerful uncle. Protected.
But it was Sarah’s voice. And in a matter of seconds it was Sarah Jon was holding. Sarah, lost to him and now found. Sarah, whose tears and laughter he was now sharing.
“Oh, Jon,” she said. “I was so afraid for you. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why aren’t you in Virginia?”
“We never got there,” Sarah replied. “We had to wait until Matt got home, and that took almost a week. Alex drove us to New Harmony, and when I got here, I found a phone and called Daddy. He said you’d disappeared, and Lisa… Oh, Jon, I’m so sorry about Lisa.”
Jon nodded. “What else did he say?” he asked.
“To stay where I was,” she said. “It was the safest place for me to be. He’ll come here when he can get a replacement for the clinic. Did you see Gabe? Is he all right?”
“I told him about Lisa,” Jon replied. “But he doesn’t understand yet. He asked me before we left when Lisa would come. But Syl’s great with him, and when they get here, Gabe will have all his family with him.”
“He’ll love it here,” Sarah said. “I do. The only thing that was missing was you.”
“I’m here now,” he said, and kissed her to prove it. “Miranda and Alex are all right?”
“They’re fine,” Sarah said. “I’ve been staying with them. Now you will be, too. Oh, Jon. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”
Jon didn’t want their next kiss to end. But as it did, he remembered Opal, standing outside, guarding the bikes, waiting for him.
“Come with me,” he said to Sarah. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” He held her hand as they walked out the door.
“Ruby?” Sarah said, breaking away from Jon. “You brought Ruby here?”
“This is Opal,” Jon said. “Ruby’s twin. Opal, I want you to meet Sarah Goldman. Sarah, this is my friend Opal Grubb. That’s G-R-U-B-B.”
“That your Sarah?” Opal asked. “The one you’re always pining for?”
“The same,” Jon said. “She’s living here now.”
“Well, ain’t that something,” Opal said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you… Sarah. Jon talked my ear off about you from Sexton right here.”
Sarah extended her hand to shake Opal’s. For a moment Opal didn’t know what to do, but then she reached out and shook Sarah’s hand.
“I want you to know nothing happened between Jon and me,” Opal said. “I told him he’d better not try anything funny with me, and he was a perfect gentleman.”
“I think he’s perfect, too,” Sarah said. “And I’m glad he has such a good friend.”
“Opal, would you like to freshen up?” Jon asked. “Sarah, does the clinic have a bathroom?”
Sarah smiled. “With running water,” she said. “There’s a small kitchen, too, Opal, if you’d like to have a drink of water or some food.”
“Wouldn’t mind neither,” Opal said. “And I can see the two of you wouldn’t mind if I left you alone.”
“We’ll be in in a minute,” Jon said.
“Two minutes,” Sarah said.
“Take your time,” Opal said. “You’ll know where to find me.”
Sarah waited until Opal had closed the clinic door behind her. “What happened?” she asked. “How did the two of you end up together?”
“She’s my friend,” Jon replied. “Nothing more. I tricked her into coming with me, and she tricked me into thinking she was Ruby.”
“Trickery and deceit,” Sarah said. “That’s quite a basis for friendship.”
Jon laughed. “I love you,” he said. “And I can’t believe you’re here. Could we put off fighting until tomorrow?”
Sarah’s kiss was all the answer he needed.
Nothing was going to come easy. Jon knew that. Nothing had for four years.
But the sun was visible behind the ash clouds, and with its light, Jon could see a future worth fighting for.
We’ll make it work, he told himself. Together, we can make it work.
Author’s Discussion Topics
• How would things have been different for Jon if Dad had survived the trip to Sexton?
• Would Jon have felt differently about the enclave rules if he hadn’t met Sarah?
• In each of the books with Mom featured, she finds a reason to throw a party. Why do you think socializing was so important to her, even in such dire situations?
• Jon and Miranda both carry a great deal of guilt over Julie’s death. Miranda talks only to Alex about it, while Jon has told no one. How would things have been different if Jon and Miranda had shared their particular truths immediately following Julie’s death?
• The “clavers,” people who live in the Sexton enclave, feel a strong sense of entitlement because the work they do is regarded as essential for human survival. On the other hand, Ruby says she was a “grub,” in effect a manual laborer, long before the cataclysmic events that led to the enclaves being established. Jon, as a “slip,” falls somewhere between the two. Do these sorts of class distinctions exist today, in the real world, in your world? Do you think it’s possible today for grubs to become clavers, or would they, at best, feel like slips?
Author’s Note
Sometimes a writer sees a story as a whole, planning on taking a character from Point A to Point Z, in one volume, or two, or three or more.
Sometimes things just happen.
All four of my “moon” books just happened. It’s lucky for me that they did, but there’s no way I can claim I knew from the very first moment just how things would evolve.
That very first moment was a Saturday afternoon when I had nothing better to do than watch TV. I found an old sci-fi movie called Meteor, and I watched it all the way through, even though I’d seen it before and had a reasonably good idea who would live and who would die by movie’s end.
Eventually the movie did end, and I turned off the TV. That was when I had the idea that literally changed my life. I said to myself, “What would it be like to be a teenager living through a worldwide catastrophe?”
My mind began racing. By evening’s end I knew who the teenager was (a girl named Miranda, living in a small town in Pennsylvania with her mother, her big brother, Matt, and her little brother, Jonny) and what the catastrophe would be (knocking the moon closer to earth, thus strengthening its gravitational pull).
I spent three weeks doing the prewriting. Then I sat down at the computer and began what was the happiest writing experience of my life, creating the book that became Life As We Knew It.
I had decided that first evening that the book would be Miranda’s diary, since I wanted to get the readers as close to the action as possible. And writing a fictional character’s diary is a lot of fun. The story just spills out; it’s almost like taking dictation.
I worked all day long, stopping only when I became so tired I knew it would be a mistake to keep writing. Thanks to the prewriting, I knew where the story was going, but I hadn’t solved every single problem, so there was enough uncertainty that I could change things around and surprise myself on occasion.
It was more fun than work should ever be.