Your friendship has meant everything to me. So much so, that I wish you’d always been around. I could have used a friend like you when my mom died of cancer. Duhn-duhn-duhn. Big reveal. I know I never told you that—it’s hard to know when to bring it up with people. Especially in the face of so much loss, you know?
The fact that Grant had been carrying around the memory of his mom, not talking about her or her death, during all the time that they were together made Lucy both upset and sad. He’d been so brave, she realized. So brave and so resilient.
Cancer is this devastating thing. It rips you open. You have time to prepare for the death, but you’re never ready when it finally comes for the people you love. In some ways, I understand now what my mom must have been going through. It’s awful to know you’re going to die and know you can’t do anything to help the people you love work through it.
After that though, it’s worse for everyone else. I’m gone. You’re still here, living, dealing with that.
I know because I’ve been through it.
I guess that’s what I really want to say. I want you to be sad. I mean, be a little sad. Give it a week. You can cry and bawl and be mad for three days. Four days, tops. Then…it’s okay. I’ve told you like a million times that I’m not afraid to die. I believe my mom is waiting for me. I know…insert Lucy crying here…but it’s true.
Lucy laughed through her tears.
She wiped her chin and smiled, then let her tears continue to fall.
I’m in good company.
But I’ll miss your company.
That’s some good writing right there. I’m not trying to joke. You’re here, my mom is there—I don’t get to choose my fate, so I’ll embrace the one that was left for me.
Please just know that I care about you, and of all the people left on the planet you’re the only one whose happiness matters to me. So be happy, Lula.
Be happy for me.
Then he had signed it. Complete with a crude cartoon of a mop-headed boy giving a thumbs-up.
Your partner in crime and zombies. Grant.
Lucy looked up. She had been so absorbed in Grant’s words that she hadn’t realized her father the water was off and her father was out of the shower. She folded the letter and started walking, pushing the paper against her leg as she walked. Flinging the door open, Lucy marched into the open room and looked around. The bathroom door was open and her parents’ bedroom door was closed. Without a thought about her father’s potential level of undress, Lucy grabbed the handle and waltzed straight inside, slamming the door behind her.
Scott King stood in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt, one leg balancing as he slipped on a pair of jeans.
“Lucy, what are you doing?” Scott exclaimed and he stumbled backward toward the bed, hopping on one foot. He looked startled, but then when he saw her face, he looked confused.
“Why?” Lucy seethed. “Why couldn’t you do the right thing for once in your life? You had the whole world…the whole world…and all I asked for was one boy. What was one more to you?”
Her father dropped his pants to the floor and stepped out of them. Then he started to walk toward Lucy as she started to charge forward. She had never felt more full of rage. So murderous. As Scott put out his hands to embrace her, Lucy raised her fists and pounded his chest as hard as she could. He flinched, but did not retreat, and eventually he puffed out his chest in an attempt to absorb her blows.
“Lucy, Lucy,” Scott repeated her name, calmly and firmly. “Stop. Sit. Stop!” He raised his voice and Lucy, breathless, sunk to the ground.
“You killed him. You killed him! And you’re going to kill Ethan too? You’re nothing. You’re evil. I wish I’d never been born. That’s better than admitting that I’m your daughter.”
Her words stung him. When she saw him flinch, she couldn’t help it—she wanted to keep going. Hurt upon hurt; she relished being able to tell him what she thought.
“You’re a coward. And I hate you.”
Her father wrapped his arms around her shoulders and tucked her into his chest. His arms were still damp from the shower, his skin warm. She tried to wriggle away, but he only increased his grip; still, Lucy struggled against him. Her tears dampened his shirt and she stomped her legs, hoping to catch his toes or his shins.
“Lucy,” her father repeated. “Lucy. Stop.”
When she wouldn’t calm herself, he raised his voice.
“Stop!”
“Why? Why do you have to be so horrible?” Lucy sobbed. “Why do you have to take away everything I love?”
Her father killed Salem.
Her father killed Grant.
Her family was alive, but what did it matter?
Lucy heard the bedroom door creak open and from the corner of her eye she saw her mother standing there holding two cloth grocery bags by the handles. Her eyes traveled between Scott and Lucy and then she set her bags on the floor and walked over to them, tugging Lucy by the arm.
“I leave for twenty minutes and everything goes straight to hell,” Maxine muttered. She wedged herself between daughter and husband and went to move Lucy away, but Lucy would not be budged.
“You were strong,” Lucy seethed. “You were my role model, my hero.” She looked straight at her mother.
“Careful,” Maxine replied, her voice steeped in warning.
“You’re nothing. You let him do this. You went along willingly.”
Maxine raised her hand. “Enough,” she yelled in protest. But Lucy did not stop. She launched an even greater attack, screaming in hysterics until she saw her mother raise her hand and let her palm fly toward Lucy’s cheek.
The sharp string of betrayal landed squarely on her face. Lucy was shocked into silence. She brought her hand up and placed it over her injury; tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over her hand and her other cheek—silently rolling down. But she did not say another word, or sniff, or dare to move.
“The punishment for insubordination is the tank,” Maxine said calmly. “You’ve already been through that once before. Did you feel like once wasn’t quite enough? If you are so hungry to die, then I’d be happy to walk you down there myself.”
“I don’t want to die,” Lucy mumbled after a period of silence. “No one else should die.”
“Then learn to live. Here.” Maxine slid out from between Lucy and Scott, rubbing her right hand with her left. She then slipped the handles of the grocery bags onto her wrists and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
When Lucy was certain her mother was no longer in hearing range, she turned to her father and lowered her eyes.
“This is not a life,” she said.
“It is the only life I can offer you,” Scott replied, and he sank downward, sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.
“I don’t want to be here.”
“There is food here. Protection. An education. A hope for a better life. A plan for the future. My only other option was to let you die at the hands of a man who wanted to take that from us. Should I have let him?”
Lucy was silent for a long time and then she thought of everything that had happened in the last few weeks, and she simply nodded. “It’s never the right thing,” she said to her father. “It was selfish.” The word popped out of her mouth before she had time to self-censor.
Scott lowered his head. “It was selfish to want to save my family.” She was uncertain if he was asking her or tossing the statement out into the ether.