Recoiling at first and then moving her body closer to inspect the injury, Lucy held out a tender hand and it hovered above the wreckage.
“This looks horrific,” she said. “Ethan…what happened?”
He took a breath and then launched into his story. He had gone to the airport looking for their family and encountered Darla and Teddy there. It was the boy that Ethan encountered first; the child was calm, but rattled, and Ethan wanted to get him somewhere safe. Compelled, in the absence of his siblings and his mother, to do something good amidst the disaster, Ethan convinced Darla that he could offer them shelter.
“She wasn’t convinced at first. But as soon as we got out of the airport and to a side street, this truck comes out of nowhere, barreling toward me. The driver…impaired by the virus…is—”
“Dying?” Lucy asked, interrupting, and the question drew Ethan out of his storytelling daze.
“Or dead already.”
“He hit you.”
“Pinned me to the side of another car.”
Lucy gasped and looked down at his legs, imagining her brother stuck between two vehicles, scared and facing the realization that there was no one there who could help him. “You could have died.”
“I should have. Darla…she had to pull the dead man out of the truck and put the car in reverse to get me out. But my legs were broken. Shattered, I suppose. Not like we could just call 911 and hightail it to the ER, right? And poor Teddy. Just standing there…so concerned. But so brave too. That’s a brave little dude.”
Lucy waited for him to continue.
“Good Samaritans brought me home eventually. Some couple in their forties, driving a minivan. Carting people around obstacles like some sort of taxi service. By that time, I think Darla figured she was stuck with me. She really did save my life though, by helping unpin me, flagging down the van. And then everything she did afterward to get me medicine. I was in shock. I should have died, but she just, I don’t know, made it a priority to get me better and she didn’t have to. She didn’t know me.”
“You owed her.”
“Yes.”
“And now she owes you?”
“Maybe she sees it like that, but I don’t know. It was…” Ethan paused, “it was awful out there…Lucy…everything about this. And I feel so…I felt like I couldn’t help you…” Ethan began to cry. He collapsed forward and buried his head in his hands. She had never really seen Ethan cry before and it took her by surprise. “I just keep thanking God that you’re alive,” he said after he composed himself. “After everything…Mom’s phone messages, the house…”
Lucy had put a hand on her brother’s back and was patting him gently, but she paused.
“What phone messages?” Lucy blinked.
“I have a lot to tell you,” Ethan said, his voice quieter and more alert.
Both heads turned in unison as Darla reappeared in the doorway. She had changed her clothes and she was now wearing a pair of sweatpants that belonged to Lucy’s mother and a hooded sweatshirt that belonged to Galen; she stood barefoot clad from top to bottom in gray.
“Grant?” Lucy asked, attempting to make her question sound as casual as possible.
Darla shrugged. “He’s playing with Teddy. He said if he starts to feel sick he’ll leave the room. But Teddy knows what to look for. Teddy will tell us if anything changes.”
“That’s really sad.” Lucy didn’t mean it to sound harsh, but Darla bristled.
“The world changes and you change with it,” she answered, clearly defensive. “A lot can happen in a week.” She spun a lock of her hair between her fingers.
Lucy thought of poor Teddy, only a year younger than Harper. He seemed so oblivious, so fixated on his own needs, but also so aware that things had changed. Her heart ached for the children abandoned and orphaned, lost and confused. Those who, unlike Teddy, had no parents left to protect them. It was unfair.
“Ethan’s been telling me about how you helped him,” Lucy said. “Thank you.”
“Yeah well. It worked out that way. And he’s helped with Teddy and anyone who can be so nice to my kid, well, you know.” She smiled, but it was reserved and lacking. It was difficult to get a read on her.
“Does Teddy understand any of this?” Lucy asked. And Darla took a step forward. She shoved her hands into the pouch of the hooded sweatshirt.
“Teddy? Sure. A little. He knows he’s suffered a loss. He knows that our lives feel different.”
“I’m glad he has his mom though,” Lucy tried to smile. She meant it to be comforting, but Darla’s face fell.
“He has only one Mom,” she replied and she closed her eyes. “And I haven’t come to terms yet with that…with the idea of doing this by myself. I never thought I’d have to.”
“And you know? That—”
“That she’s gone?” Darla nodded. “Yes. It happened at the airport. Right away after landing and before Ethan and I saw each other. She went so quickly. It was the three of us and it was chaos and then she slipped away and I couldn’t stop to stay…I couldn’t have Teddy see. Couldn’t have him watch his mama die. Above all, he couldn’t see that.”
Ethan sniffed. “That’s how we met,” he said.
“I asked Teddy to stay by this trashcan to wait for me while I said goodbye.” Darla looked straight at Lucy, her emotion was raw, but she didn’t break. “And when I looked back, he was gone.”
“I found him crying about thirty feet away. He was disoriented. Wandered a few feet, got pushed around, ended up down the terminal. I picked him up,” Ethan added.
“Then I saw this guy holding my kid. I just lost my wife, I was a mess, and I thought someone was kidnapping my son. So, I took a swing at him.”
Ethan smiled. “I’m glad you missed.”
Darla returned the smile and then she closed her eyes. “Teddy was bawling for his mama. Over and over…just mama, mama, mama…and I couldn’t help him. Ethan—it was Ethan. He said he had to find his sister, who was his age, and did Teddy want to help him on an adventure? It was the only way to distract him from the fact that we both just…left her there.” She stopped, overcome with emotion and then she pulled her hand out and put it up as if to say, “No more.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Lucy said and it felt so small and trivial.
“Me too.” Then Darla let out a thoughtful hum. “You never think it’ll be you who’s left behind to pick up the pieces. And then all of sudden you realize it is you and you didn’t get a choice. And maybe if you had the choice, maybe if someone had let you make the decision, you would have picked yourself to be the one to die. I mean, yes, I’m grateful to your brother.” Darla nodded toward Ethan with a smile. “What I did is no repayment. If I hadn’t decided to follow this kid around who was helping me with my son, we’d be dead. I may question how hard things are, but I can’t imagine a world without Teddy.”
Darla attempted to fill in some of the gaps of her and Ethan’s story. Like Lucy’s and Grant’s, it was one of survival against the odds. Once they got back to the house, Darla had left Ethan, with Teddy as a guardian, shivering and feverish, aching and unable to move, to raid the local super store a mile from their house. Luckily for them, the looting was just beginning and Darla’s tenacity and bullying got her right into the fray. During this Herculean task, she managed to locate heavy-duty painkillers and gauze. And she also happened to steal a wheelchair. She had marveled at the people still running out of the store with TVs and videogames, sporting equipment, clothes.
Food. Guns. Medicine. This was what people needed and those who knew what to steal were the dangerous ones. “Anyone using manpower to lug a fifty-inch plasma to his or her car was missing the point,” Darla had said.