Lost, Almost by Amy P. Knight

Author:Amy P. Knight
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938126840
Publisher: Engine Books
Published: 2017-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Angeline Brooks, 1958

His hand is under her nightgown, tugging at the elastic of her underpants.

“Stop,” she says. “Adam, stop.” He does not stop. His other hand is there now too, tugging, sliding them down her hips. His breath is hot on her neck. She hadn’t awakened when he came in, does not know what time it is. His chin is rough against her neck.

She lies still another minute as he works the fabric down to her knees, summoning her strength, then gives a great twist, all her strength focused on this one movement, to the far side of the double bed.

“At least let me get the diaphragm,” she says. She sits up. The window behind the bed is open a few inches. A breeze comes in, smelling of smoke, raising goosebumps on her arms. Somewhere not too far from here, she has heard on the radio, a fire is raging its way through the pine forests.

“You don’t need to,” he says. She gasps without meaning to, without realizing it was coming.

“We haven’t thought this through,” she says. “I’m not sure.”

He sits up beside her and snaps on a light.

They have been at the lab for a year, gotten settled into a better house. There are other young families among them, a daycare, an elementary school.

“Do you think we’re all going to still be here in a couple of years?” she says. An owl hoots somewhere out in the yard. In the dim light, she spies a cobweb high in the corner, stretching halfway down the wall.

“In New Mexico?”

“Come on, Adam. You must think about this.” She reaches down and pulls her underpants back up to her waist, then smooths the nightgown back down around her legs.

“Of course there’s a chance,” he says. She looks him straight in the face. And there they are, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes that appear when he is really worried, not about bills, or pneumonia, but about the End. She imagines she is the only one in the world who can see that sign, who knows what it means. He again extends a hand but she shrinks back, her right leg off the edge of the bed now, her foot anchored to the floor. “We really have to talk about this now?”

“I can wait,” she says. “I can wait as long as you want.”

“Listen,” he says, “I really don’t think this will be a problem. I’ve thought it through.”

“You can’t just think it through yourself and pronounce it done,” she says. “This is a decision for two people to make together. We’ve got to talk about it. We’ve got to agree.”

“Well, what do you want to know?” he says. “We’ve got nuclear weapons. The Soviets have nuclear weapons. It is within the realm of possibility that we, or they, will use them. They are massively destructive. Many, many times the power of the ones used in Japan. And we are still here on this planet orbiting the sun with lives to live.

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