“I’ll be there,” I promise.
If grief gets caught in my body like it’s tangled up with burrs, the least I can do is support the people who can actually feel something. The least I can do is help the people who are helping me. That’s what it means to be good.
* * *
I don’t mean to lose the rest of the day, but as soon as my body recognizes I’m safe, it shuts down on me. No guns, no Graces, and my brain is out like a light. I barely have time to pull the curtain door of my apartment closed. If I was on the fence about trusting the ALC before, my body has made the call for me. And my body has also made the call to whisper as I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and topple onto the mattress: Thank you, God, thank you.
Before I know it, I’m waking up the next morning, disoriented and dry mouthed. There is no cross on the wall watching me sleep, no Bible waiting for me to open my eyes. The strange pattern on my sheets is penguins and polar bears. I roll onto my back and stare at bare plywood.
Penguins and polar bears. Have all the animals of Earth been doing better without us? Two years isn’t nearly enough for Earth to recover. Even late spring can be deadly hot, and I haven’t seen snow since I was really little, even though Dad told me it used to snow in Pennsylvania every year. But the world must have gotten at least a bit better, right?
What a terrible thing to wonder. That’s Mom in my head, all the Sunday school lessons, all the preachers at the pulpit, finding reasons for why the slaughter of nine billion people was God’s righteous plan.
I put on my shoes and push aside the curtain.
Outside the apartment, early-morning sun comes in through small windows at the gym ceiling. In the narrow path between rooms, I’m just someone else getting ready for the day—one of all the people stretching, leaning over the tops of their rooms to whisper to a friend, groggily wandering out to the lobby. More pride flags hang from the walls and drawings are tacked next to torn-out pages of books and other tokens, necklaces and charm bracelets and all sorts of things held up to ward off evil.
More than anything, the ALC is quiet. Good morning and wake up, asshole and go get the job before someone takes it are all whispers, from raspy to gentle and everything in between, but never loud. As if Angels are pressing their ears to the outside, waiting to strike if they hear the smallest sound.
Following a voice’s advice, I go out to the chalkboard. Forty names wait for the day’s chores, with the Watch in the corner. A boy picks up a piece of chalk from the bottom of the board and jots his name down for maintenance duty. Sarmat, he spells out and hands it to me.
I need to do something. Make up for the ALC taking me in. Or give my hands something to do to keep them from shaking, give my head something to focus on besides the rot trickling between my fingers.
I scrape my name down under cleaning duty.
Benji.
It’s the first time I’ve written it. That’s me. That’s me. I savor it until the person behind me clears their throat. I pass the chalk along.
I skip breakfast—I’m not hungry, and I don’t want to bother anyone by asking what the food protocols are here—and end up in the kitchen with a rag and a small bucket of soapy water. Gray water; no good for drinking. The kitchen is bright with glaring paint colors, trying and failing to liven up a Spartan room. A few people in the back huddle around plates of scavenged food.
By the sink, Faith makes coffee on a battery-operated heating coil. My head spins at the scent. I haven’t smelled coffee since Mom brought us to New Nazareth. It’s so sweet and strong, I can almost taste it.
I set my bucket down on the counter and lean against the sink—it’s not a sink that works, since there’s no running water, but still. Faith looks over with a start.
“Scared me for a second there,” she says, rubbing the bags under her eyes. Even though she has more muscle than most people and half a foot on me, she looks small. “You’re so quiet. Benji, right?”