Summer of the Apocalypse

Chapter Twenty LOST AND FOUND

A stranger’s house would feel less threatening than this, Eric thought. He stepped cautiously across the threshold. Glass littered the living room carpet. A needlepoint, a gift from one of his mother’s friends, hung crookedly on the wall. It doesn’t feel like home, he thought. Nothing’s right. We’re in the wrong house.

Eric recognized titles in the hanging bookshelf above the couch, Time Life Home Repair Series: Plumbing, Finding the Lost Railroads, Birds of the Rocky Mountain West. A yellowed and water-stained newspaper lay on the carpet beside his father’s chair, its headline still readable: “Military Enforces Quarantines.”

It didn’t smell like home. Even with the picture window broken, a rotten, wet stench permeated the room. None of the familiar smells came through: Chapstick, Old Spice, toast, fingernail polish, Mr. Clean. The light was wrong. Unimpeded sunlight cut sharp shadows on the walls instead of the soft lights and darks he recalled.

None of the right sounds. No washer groaning in the utility room. No big band tune from the stereo, no vacuum cleaner. Glass crunched beneath his foot. Like an empty church or a mortuary, the noiseless air seemed expectant and patient, even brooding. The entrance into the hallway that led to the bedrooms and his dad’s office loomed like an abyss. He heard a whimper, a tiny, beat puppy thing that sounded pathetic in the empty living room. He realized he’d made the noise himself. He stepped back and bumped Leda, who caught the backs of his arms. “Steady,” she said. “What’s the smell?”

Eric tried to speak, swallowed hard, took a deep breath and said, “In the kitchen.” He walked slowly, attempting to make no sound, and he stared, fascinated, as each step revealed more of the room: first, the pantry, next the can-opener beside the bulletin board, then the cabinets and stove, and finally the refrigerator and freezer, its doors part way open. Spoiled meat oozed gray slime from the white package’s seams, and mold choked the vegetable drawers.

“Somebody’s been in the house. Front door was unlocked,” he said. “Dad always double checked before we left. He’d unplug appliances, turn the main water off, close the curtains.” Eric shut the refrigerator. Putridness wafted past him. “He was a careful man.”

Leda’s shoe squeaked on the linoleum; Eric jumped. It sounded, for an instant, like his father’s shoe. Every line in the kitchen spoke of his father. Eric could see his dad’s hand in the smudges on the cupboard handles, in the way the three plates, three cups and three sets of silverware—remnants of the last breakfast they had eaten before leaving to the mountains—rested in the sink, in the color of the walls, each barely visible brush stroke a picture of Dad painting. Dad had said, “From the top down, son. You’ll leave dribbles that way,” when they had worked together on it two summers ago. Dad’s presence smothered the room.

Leda exhaled, and Eric jumped again. “This his?” she said as she lifted a blue and black flannel shirt from a basket around the corner in the utility room.

“Sure.” He backed away until his rump hit a counter. Was Dad wearing that shirt when he left the cave?

he thought. Was he? Eric tried to picture the last moment when he’d seen Dad at the exit to the cave holding his bicycle. He saw the graffiti on the wall, the feel of the wool blanket under his hand, the shapeless hump of his dead mother under the blanket, even his dad’s last words, “I’ll be back before sunset,” but Eric couldn’t remember what Dad had worn.

“Yes,” he said, but did it mean Dad had been here? The thought brayed in his brain. Clearly he wasn’t in the house now. The broken window would be fixed; the door would be locked; the dishes put away. But had he been here? Where was he? Balanced perfectly, the feelings that this was no longer his home, and the… the… he couldn’t come up with the word to describe the emotion… the anticipation? the hope? the dread? that his father had left some sign teetered precariously within him.

“Let’s do the rest of the house,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen, not waiting to see if she followed. He looked into the rooms in order. Diffuse light filtered through glazed glass in the empty bathroom. A purple throw rug, centered exactly in front of the sink, still sported a speck of dried toothpaste from Eric’s haste to leave the house almost six weeks earlier. He tried the faucet—his throat seemed petrified with dryness—but the fixture creaked when he spun it, and nothing came out. His closed bedroom door swung open easily. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling; rock group posters covered the walls; books and knick-knacks lined the tops of the dresser, the desk and nightstand. A wadded up sheet and some dirty clothes blocked the path to the bed. Only the gaps in the bookcase that represented the comics he’d packed when they’d left the house for the cave, the dozen empty hangers in the closet and a fine layer of dust made the room any different than it had been earlier in the year. But, like the rest of the house, it felt weird, as if aliens had come and stolen everything, replacing it with this well done but not quite right duplicate. Eric couldn’t imagine himself on that bed anymore. He could barely recollect what it was like to live in this room. And still every element screamed, Dad! Dad had given him that book; Dad had hated that album; Dad had helped him with that homework; Dad criticized that pair of pants; Dad had sat on the edge of this bed late at night asking about Eric’s grades. When the door was shut, it was to keep Dad out. When the door was open, it was to invite Dad in. No part of it lived or died or moved that it wasn’t measured in some way by Dad’s inescapable scale. Eric remembered with amazement that when he’d left the cave a few days ago, it was with the thought that maybe he could rescue Dad, that Dad needed his help, but now that Eric was home again and could feel again the atmosphere of his Dad’s house, the idea seemed ludicrous. How could a son rescue a dad?

Dad lived removed and remote from the world of the son, his only connection through a thread of rules and expectations. Dad passed laws. Dad rendered judgement, then Dad moved on. Something touched his arm, and he whirled.

“Sorry,” Leda said. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”

Concern colored her features, but all Eric could think was that for the instant he’d feared it was Dad’s hand on him, that when he turned, Dad would be there. And what would he say? Would his abandonment of the cave be a mistake? Would Dad glower over him and say, “You left mother alone?” or would he, magnificently, like a god, forgive him, take him in his embrace and make it all right again?

“This is your room?” she said. “Nice models.”

“I used to do them when I was a kid.” He touched the wing tip of a bright red tri-plane above him. It turned slowly clockwise on its thread.

In the hallway, in front of his parents’ room and its closed door, Eric paused with his hand extended, not quite touching the doorknob. Leda stood beside him. A swish of drapes from the living room told him that a breeze had picked up outside. He clenched his jaw and put his fingers on the cool metal, but didn’t turn it. How many houses, he thought, have neatly closed their doors on tucked-in corpses? All the possibilities frightened him: the door opens on a covered form on the bed. Eric pulls back the blanket and finds Dad, or the door opens and Dad is sitting on the edge of the bed, or the door opens and the room is empty—Dad has left no sign. A scream circled in the back of his throat. If there was a chance that devils packed the room, he could hardly be less fearful. Trepidation filled him, like a cold, heavy metal. Finally, he turned his hand into a fist and rapped lightly on the door. “Dad?” he said. The breeze outside calmed. Nothing made a sound. Only Leda’s breathing prevented the hallway from being dead silent. He gripped the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door.

The door swung open on an empty room. Blankets were folded tidily away from the pillows. Family pictures sat on the dresser. On Dad’s nightstand, the television remote waited for someone to pick it up. Eric walked to the side of the bed feeling like a time traveler— the closed drapes belied the world outside. No evidence of change existed here: a TV Guide, slippers, a robe hanging in the open closet, an open paperback face down on his mother’s nightstand, some clean towels resting on a chair. All seemed like relics now, like a carefully designed set or a museum display. And the fear didn’t vary. His chest strained against it. His throat ached with it. Goosebumps flashed down his arms.

“No one’s here,” Eric said. It was all he could do to speak.

“Try the next room?”

“Okay.”

In the office, Eric used his finger to draw a line in the dust on the bare desk top. Then, disturbed by the messiness, he wiped the whole desk clean with a tissue that he dropped into the otherwise empty waste basket. Photographs lined the room, mostly pictures of his dad receiving various awards and commendations from work: Journalist of the Year (three of them), Colorado Editor’s Choice Award (seven of these), Denver Jaycees Community Service Award (just one), and other photographs of Dad shaking hands with or standing next to politicians or celebrities. Twenty-five or so pictures of Dad, surrounding him in the office.

But Dad wasn’t here. He knew it before, but it wasn’t until he’d opened the door that he accepted it. Dad wasn’t here, and he felt like throwing up. Blood flushed his face. He gritted his teeth, and suddenly he knew what the emotion was that had boiled up inside him, that had been building for days. It wasn’t fear; it was abandonment. Dad left. He hadn’t come back, and not only that, but he’d started leaving years ago, not just when he’d left the cave, but years earlier he’d started separating himself from Eric. He thought, how long ago did I lose him?

Eric felt small again, as if the boy within had risen and taken a place in his heart, and the boy wanted to weep, wanted to lie on the floor and wait for Mommy and Daddy to make things better. One of the pictures on the wall showed his dad, smiling, shaking a hand across his chest with some important person, and for the first time Eric really looked at the black and white photo. Clouds muted the light. Grays dominated. Dad gazed into the camera, his tie loose and off-center. In the background, unfocused and barely discernable, stood Mom. By her side, clinging to one leg, was a little boy, no more than a white smudge of a face topped with a dark smear of hair, himself, not looking at Mom, not looking at the camera, but looking at Dad, leaning a little bit toward him, frozen in the photograph in a state of yearning.

Leda said, “Wow. Did you meet any of these people? That’s the Governor, isn’t it?”

“My dad is dead,” murmured Eric. As low as he spoke, the words still filled the room. Eric dropped his head. The lone tissue in the waste basket uncrinkled while he watched.

Leda turned away for a second. Eric could tell from the lines in the side of her face that she’d squeezed her eyes shut. Then she faced him, eyes dry and open, stepped toward him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” she said. “So is mine.”

Seconds passed. Then her fingers pulled gently on him, and he moved into her arms. She held him long. He pressed his face against the top of her head, smelling her hair. Gradually, the fear… the abandonment… went away. It drained, like water. It flowed out of him until he almost felt whole. The office metamorphosed into just a room—not a monument to a harsh and distant deity. Leda’s cheek rested against his chest. She’d locked her hands behind his back. He told himself, it doesn’t matter if Dad made it home or not. Maybe I’ll never know what happened to him. He died like the millions of others, moving from one destination to another or hiding away in some unsafe place, leaving behind a lot of unfinished business. Eric tightened his grip. Leda raised her chin and met his eyes. He kissed her forehead.

“Thanks,” he said.

She gasped, like she’d been holding her breath, and then let it go. “I was afraid you hated me.” He started to release her, but she held on tighter. “After last night. I knew it was your first time.” The words rushed out. “I like you, Eric.” Her breath hitched up in her throat. “I’m alone, and I just don’t want you to hate me.”

He straightened a bit, in shock, and his first impulse was to say, “I thought you hated me” but he bit back the sentence. Her words, “I’m alone,” triggered a completely different way of looking at the last few days—it was a revelation—her way. What must it have been like for Leda? What griefs had she endured? What fears? She wasn’t hidden in some cave. People must have fallen sick all around her: her friends, her family, her neighbors. What must that have been like? When she climbed in her car that last time and started her drive across the city, where was she going? Was she seeking or fleeing? And what, he thought, have I been doing? He held her tightly, her shoulder blades pressing firmly against his forearms. Have I been seeking or fleeing?

Eyes closed, he leaned against her, and she against him, until finally he relaxed. The crisis passed. Breathing felt fine and normal and smooth. Goosebumps faded away. The sense of emergency that had harried him for days dropped off. Something else had changed too; he felt bigger, somehow—not older really, just bigger, as if the room had shrunk a little bit, as if he had grown within himself. He gave her one last hug and said, “Help me move this desk, will you?” Dad had said the key fit a drawer behind it. She let go, rubbed the back of her wrist under her eyes and took a position on one corner.

“Sure.”

Crushed between the back of the desk and the wall, a bundle of papers fell over as they pushed the heavy piece of furniture. Eric gave his side one last heave, moving it another foot, then picked up the bound sheets. Setting it on the desk, he undid the ribbon that held them together and looked at each wrinkled document: the house mortgage, a list of bank accounts and their balances, a handful of stocks, a legal looking paper with a key taped to it giving Eric the right to open the safety deposit box, and all the warranties to the major appliances in the house. Forty-two twenty dollar bills filled a new, white envelope, and at the bottom, he found a will and power of attorney naming him as the sole executor of the family’s assets.

“He must have thought that you might outlive him,” said Leda. Her hand rested on his back as they leaned over the papers. “Looks like they were dropped, then the desk was pushed up against them. Why were they on the floor?”

“Don’t know. They seem kind of useless now,” said Eric. “Let’s see what he left me in the drawer.” Eric dropped to his hands and knees behind the desk. At the bottom in one corner, he found a small knot-hole big enough for his key to fit it, and when he looked very closely, he saw the outline of the drawer in the wood, about the right size to hold the papers on the desk. The grain and finish hid it well. Only someone who suspected that the hiding place might be there would have a chance of finding it. He inserted the key and unlocked the drawer.

Inside, Eric found a single sheet of note paper. He read it, sat for a moment, reread it, then handed it to Leda.

Eric relaxed against the wall, his feet braced against the desk. Leda put the paper down. “It’s complete now,” said Eric. “No unanswered questions.”

Dad made it, thought Eric. They blew up the tunnel so he couldn’t come back to me. There were no ambulances in Golden. He saw how bad things were. There was no place to go but home, and that’s what he did.

Eric thought about the trip to see the eclipse when he was ten. Dad assumed I knew what an eclipse was. A thousand mile drive and he never once asked his ten-year-old son if he knew what an eclipse was!

Dad must have continuously assumed I knew things. Mom said Dad never shared what he thought, but there, at the end, he tried. He made it home to leave me a message, not knowing whether I’d find it or not. He died not knowing.

That knowledge hurt.

Dad left it anyway, Eric thought. At the end, he must have realized what Mom knew, that he assumed too much from me. At the end, he wanted to leave one thing, and this is what he left. It must have been the most important thing.

Eric reached up. Leda handed him the note. He read it for the third time. In shaky script—recognizable but not firm: not well—it said, “I have always loved you. Dad.”

“There’s advantages to the downfall of civilization,” said Leda as they walked out of the Littleton Target with new clothes, backpacks and supplies. She had chosen a man’s blue work shirt and had tucked them into her jeans. Eric thought the look complemented her. “I don’t need to go to work in the morning.” Eric struggled to fit the stiff, surgical tubing over the aluminum rods of the new sling-shot while at the same time carefully picking his way between the tumbled and smashed shopping carts that littered the parking lot. “No driver’s license test for me,” he said.

“No April 15th.” She led them toward the river. “We ought to find a place close to the water. Bottled stuff we can drink, but bathing could be a problem.”

“Sounds good,” said Eric. “You can forget Superbowl Sunday hype.”

“Yeah, and Christmas decorations up before Halloween.”

“Or elevator music.”

“Rock and Roll rules,” she said.

The late afternoon sun turned the river a mellow gold, and they walked south along its bank until they found an empty house with unbroken windows. After knocking loudly several times, Eric pried open the front door with a crowbar. “Useful tool,” he said. “We don’t need keys anymore.” Leda checked the bedrooms, and Eric looked into the basement. Her voice floated down the stairs. “I don’t need to remember my social security number.”

They met in the living room. “All clear,” she said. “This will do for now, but we’re going to have to do some planning. Find other survivors. Set up for the long haul.”

“The government should send help eventually.” Eric shrugged his shoulders out of his backpack, letting it drop to the carpet.

Leda seemed to contemplate that comment for a bit before saying, “Could be a while.” She crouched next to her pack and began removing canned goods, big cans in back, little ones in front, like kids for a school picture, which Eric thought amusing. He realized there was much to learn about her. He opened the drapes and windows. Having dropped below the mountains, the sun turned the clouds violet and pink. Light painted the foothills a soft blue and the plains a dusky yellow. “You know,” he said without turning from the window, “I don’t know your last name.”

She stepped beside him. An empty road between them and the river followed its contours in both directions until it was lost to sight. No traffic. Not a single, mechanical or human sound. Farther up stream, the water rushed over and around the broken cement of what once was a bridge.

“We don’t need last names anymore,” she said.

That sank in for a while. Then, he nodded in agreement.

Later that night, long after he’d drifted to sleep in a four-poster single bed decorated with beige lace, with the windows open and the river mumbling its secrets in the dark, his bed moved, jarring him awake. Leda snuggled against him, and they made love. In the midst of it all, in the heated, passionate ecstasy of it all, Eric imagined their sounds echoing among the empty buildings, the silent town, with no one to hear.