Suckers Page 20

  Now smiling even harder, though with tears streaming down her cheeks, Kathy nodded. "Thank you. Me, too. I'm truly happy for you, though...and Emily's always in my heart. She will be until the day I die."

  Feeling a few tears welling in my own eyes, I gave Kathy's hand a squeeze, making her smile and cry harder, but after a few moments, she abruptly wiped her eyes with a deep sigh, leaning back in her chair.

  "Hopefully you'll never, ever have to learn what it feels like...to have your daughter just disappear...and you never even get to find out what happened to her. You never even get to find out if she's a Husker, or is at peace, dead, or if she's being held as a sex slave somewhere. You just never get to find out. I never get to find out. I'm not saying this so that you feel sorry for me, Eva, I'm just saying it because it's true. I wouldn't wish my experience on you, or anyone, ever."

  "Well, I hope none of those scenarios are true. I hope maybe Emily got away from the horde somehow, but she got lost, and later found a nice community like Helena somewhere. I hope maybe Emily's still alive somewhere happy, except maybe she always wonders what happened to her mom, and she's always looking for you."

  Wiping her eyes again, Kathy gave me a little smile. "I like that thought, and a tiny part of me will never stop hoping that scenario is true...but it's not very realistic in this new world, and I have to find a way to make peace with the scenarios that are more realistic."

  "I understand."

  A few seconds ticked by.

  Kathy turned her gaze downward, to the table, then abruptly stood, moving her chair out of the way so fast it threatened to tip. "I'm really very, very sorry for hitting you, Eva. Hitting is an outrageously horrible thing for a person to do, no matter the circumstances. I just hope you can forgive me at some point, because I'd like to be your friend. I'd like to move past hurting nearly every time I look at you."

  Eyes filling again, Kathy turned to leave.

  But, after flying up and out of my chair like she had, I caught her hand to stop her. "I forgive you, Kathy, and I'd like to be your friend, too. I'd like to make you smile sometimes and think of the good times with Emily, if I can."

  Kathy nodded, smiling while tears streamed down her cheeks once again. "Thanks. I hope you're given the same gift of forgiveness by your husbands that you just gave me...something tells me you will be."

  I was not at all sure about that. And after Kathy left, I got Eb and Jess all settled into the guest bedrooms, and then came back downstairs and cried, wondering when Nick and Blaine were going to come home. Wondering if they still loved me.

  However, when they both came in the living room around midnight, my remorse and heartache suddenly turned into irrational anger, and I flew up from the couch, wiping my eyes.

  "Well, go ahead. Let me have it. Yell at me. Tell me what I did was stupid and wrong, and a violation of your direct orders, Nick. You both can even throw things if you want, just not at me. But go ahead. Yell. I don't even know why I'm so mad all of a sudden, because I know I deserve it."

  *

  In response to my angry tirade, telling him and Blaine to just go ahead and yell at me, Nick just shook his head. "No."

  In the soft glow of a small lamp, I just looked at him for a moment. "'No,' what?"

  "No. Blaine and I aren't going to yell, or throw things, or any of that. We're both too grateful you're okay, and that your sisters are alive."

  A long moment went by before I could respond. "Well...well, that's it, then?"

  Nick moved a little closer to me, lifting his broad shoulders in a shrug. "I guess that's it. Blaine and I understand why you did what you did. We definitely wish you wouldn't have done it, but we get it. You're a brave, loving woman who saw her family members surrounded by Huskers, and so, you did what brave, loving women do. Blaine and I both needed some time to cool off before seeing you to talk about all this, but bottom line, we both forgive you."

  Again, I couldn't respond right away. "You do? You both do?"

  Nick nodded, and Blaine responded with a grunt. And soon I was in their arms, being held and cradled and kissed, experiencing one of the strongest rushes of joy I'd ever felt in my life.

  Over the next several weeks, things in the village slowly got back to normal. All the carcasses beyond the walls were burned and the remains buried. Some, though not all, of the Borderliners that had escaped the fray, including Wesley Archer, were hunted down and killed. Chris fell in love with Kevin. Jess and Eb found men of their own, two for each of them. Ten additional newcomers joined Helena after having seen the signs advertising a safe community.

  Jess and Eb's stones were removed from the memorial rock garden, and Kathy added one for Emily. She had me design it with roses around Emily's name, because roses had been Emily's favorite flower.

  Not long after, toward the end of dinner one night, Nick asked Blaine if he'd like to formally become co-leader of Helena. The question had kind of come out of nowhere, during a long pause in conversation, when I'd been finishing the last few sips of a glass of wine. Surprised, because I'd had no idea that Nick had even been thinking about what he'd asked, I set my wineglass on the table silently, covertly glancing between Nick and Blaine.

  I thought that Blaine would accept Nick's offer, especially since Nick had added that he'd be honored if Blaine would accept.

  However, surprising me yet again, Blaine just glanced up at Nick, then looked down again, pushing a few remaining cooked carrot slices around on his plate. "Thanks, brother. But I think I lead best, in my own way, when I'm not the top dog, or one of them, if that makes any sense. I feel most like myself how things are now."

  I'd never heard Blaine refer to Nick as his brother before. And I found that I kind of liked the idea of that, of the two of them being brothers, maybe in the same way that Jess, Eb, and I were sisters. I also found that I understood what Blaine had said in response to Nick. Blaine was certainly no beta male, but he wasn't as vocal as Nick.

  He seemed a bit more independent than Nick, even though he wasn't "top dog." And somehow I mentally agreed that being "co-top dog" probably wouldn't suit him. I also kind of liked things the way they were. Nick seemed fine with them, too, not directly responding to what Blaine had said, but lifting his whiskey glass in a toast "to brothers."

  About five weeks after the battle, after having tended to the flowers in the garden for several hours, I came home at about four in the afternoon to find Nick and Blaine already home. They said they had a surprise for me. Funny, I thought, because I had one for them, too. However, eager to see or hear theirs first, I let them blindfold me and lead me out to the garage, where they'd had some sort of a secret project going on for a few days.

  When Nick removed my blindfold, he gestured to a large, inflatable kiddie pool, maybe ten by ten feet, that appeared to be filled with a few inches of solid ice. "It's not Olympic ice, but it's ice. We got the idea when we found a few industrial cooling coils in a warehouse out on a supply run about a week ago. When we came across a pair of ice skates in your shoe size later that same day, we just knew we had to do it. We figured it might give you some joy just to feel ice under skate blades, even if you can't really do much on our small little rink but spin."

  After eying a pair of battered white skates tucked against the side of the "rink," I looked at Nick and Blaine with tears welling in my eyes. "It's the most beautiful rink I've ever seen."

  Soon I was skating on it, or at least spinning on it, laughing out loud while Nick and Blaine looked on, both of them grinning from ear-to-ear. Though after a while, they headed back in the house, with Nick saying that the ice wouldn't last for long, so they'd go make dinner for me in the meantime while I enjoyed it. Enjoy it I did, spinning around, and even skating backward for a bit, for at least an hour before the ice began to melt.

  When I arrived in the kitchen, cradling my new skates to my chest, Nick looked up from the stove with a smile.

  "Has it turned to slush yet?"

  I nodded, and Blaine asked
me if it had been fun while it had lasted, making me nod again.

  "Yes. It was so much fun while it lasted. I loved it. Although, even if the two of you were willing to make me another little rink at some point in the future, I guess I should probably stay off the ice for a while."

  Nick and Blaine both simultaneously asked me why, and I worked hard to maintain a straight face and not break out in a grin.

  "Oh, just because I'm pregnant. Chris told me this morning. So, I wouldn't want to wipe out and hurt the baby."

  With both of them wearing expressions of shock mixed with joy, Nick and Blaine both scooped me up and into their arms at once, and so fast that I dropped my skates, laughing.

  About eight months later, I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy the three of us named Alexander Michael Hardwick-Miller. Right away, he resembled Blaine, and not subtly, but obviously. He even grunted a lot. He was an adorable baby, and I called him my sweet angel because he really was, but he had a definite gruff, vaguely disgruntled way about him, even from day one.

  It didn't even matter that he was clearly Blaine's biological son. He was our son. Nick's, Blaine's, and mine. Nick was actually the parent he seemed to enjoy being held by most.

  It was looking like nine-year-old Emma, and baby Laurel, the only girls so far out of all the kids in the village, might have to take numerous husbands when they became adults. Jess, Eb, and three other women in the village were all currently pregnant with sons.

  However, only a few months after giving birth to Alex, I became pregnant again, and an ultrasound done by Chris a few months later revealed without a doubt that I was carrying a girl. Tracy was also pregnant by this time, after a year or so of struggling to become so, and at her first ultrasound, she learned that she was carrying not one, but two girls. Twins. Her wait to become pregnant had obviously been very well worth it.

  When I gave birth to a tiny, flaxen-haired, shrieking, six-pound girl a few weeks early, with Nick and Blaine by my side, we at first spent several minutes just marveling over her absolute perfection before I put her to my breast to nurse.

  When she latched on immediately, Chris said he thought giving her a physical exam could wait a little while, because she seemed perfectly healthy, especially considering she was just on the nearly-full-term side of preemie. "And in the meantime, would you three like me to go out in the hall and get Kathy? Or would you like to wait until you've finished nursing, Eva?"

  I said no, to please send her in right away. Kathy, who I'd grown very close to, had seen me nursing Alex many a time, and besides, I couldn't wait to find out what her answer would be to two questions I was going to ask her.

  When she came in Chris' delivery room, carrying Alex, and saw me with the new baby, who'd already fallen asleep at my breast, she burst into tears, saying how beautiful the "brand-new princess" was. "And does she have a name yet?"

  Feeling pretty near to tears myself, I glanced at Nick and Blaine before looking up at Kathy again. "No, but that's one of two questions we have to ask you. The first is if you'll be our baby girl's godmother. The second is if you'll allow us to name her Emily Rose. The three of us all just love the name, and we'd like to honor your Emily by using it. Although we totally understand if it might be too painful, or in any other way upsetting, so we've picked an alternate name, which-"

  "No. Please call her Emily Rose. I'd be so..." Voice cracking, Kathy paused to wipe her eyes. "So very honored."

  Soon, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Kathy cried, I cried, and tiny Emily Rose woke up and cried. Appearing horrified to see his spirited new baby sister, Alex just looked at her, wailing. Nick's eyes became pink and shiny. Blaine grunted a few times, clearing his throat, before wiping his eyes with a rough, hasty motion, seeming as if they were greatly irritating him.

  Over the next several months, Emily's bluish-toned newborn eyes turned a deep shade of emerald, indicating that she was likely Nick's daughter. Her facial features also greatly resembled his. Like with Alex's obvious biological parentage, this didn't even matter, though. Emily was our baby.

  One evening, after her Aunt Eb had returned her home, and after Aunt Jess had returned Alex home, Nick, Blaine, and I sat down on the couch with our sleeping baby and sleeping toddler, after having missed them a lot during dinner. Blaine cradled Emily, planting a feather-light kiss on her forehead. Nick held Alex, running a hand over his somewhat wild, wavy brown hair. Sitting between the two father-child groups, I looked from side to side with my heart swelling, realizing that happily-ever-after endings really could happen, even in the new post-apocalyptic world.

  THE END

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