In the silence, he can feel her heartbeat in his arm as he holds her. Her heartbeat in his chest pressed to her back. It’s almost too much to bear. He wants to curse Cam for still being here between them, no matter how close they press. “So what do we owe him? Our eternal restraint?”
“No,” Risa says, “Just . . . our hesitation.”
Connor says nothing for a while. There are so many layers to his disappointment, but yet within that strata might there not be a vein of relief as well? He lets himself settle into the reality of what won’t be happening tonight, setting his hope and desire at a distance, close enough that he’s still aware of it, but far enough away so that it’s not so tormenting.
“Okay,” he tells her. “This night is for Cam. Let’s hesitate our brains out.”
She snickers gently, and they settle quietly into the night. Body heat and heartbeats until dawn.
• • •
Connor doesn’t remember his dreams, only an amnesic sense that he had them, and that they were powerful. No nightmares—he’s sure of that. They were dreams of fulfillment and empowerment, for that’s how he feels as the faint, diffused light of morning touches upon the tiny basement window behind them.
To fall asleep, and to wake up with your arm around the only girl you’ve ever truly loved . . .
To know that the two of you have in your possession a device as earthshaking as a warhead . . .
To feel invincible, if only for a fleeting moment . . .
These things are enough to stop the world in its tracks and start it spinning in a new direction. At least that’s how it feels to Connor. Until now he had been clinging to a threadbare hop
e, but now that hope feels full to bursting.
There’s never been a moment in Connor’s life that he could call perfect, but this moment, with his arm numb from being around Risa all night, and his sense of smell overwhelmed by the fragrance of her hair—this moment is the closest to perfection he’s ever known. Even the shark seems to be smiling.
Such moments, however, never last for long.
Soon all the other kids are waking up. Beau moves the bookcase that gave them some level of privacy, claiming it was blocking the path to the bathroom, and the day begins. The kids down here have become creatures of routine, going about their business, or lack thereof, as if nothing has changed. Yet it has. They just don’t know it. The world has just been turned upside down—or more accurately, it’s been turned right side up after having been capsized for so long.
In a few minutes there’s the bang of the trapdoor opening as Sonia arrives with breakfast, calling down for “some goddam help up here.”
“Why don’t you go help her,” Risa suggests gently, for she knows that nothing short of a call to duty will peel Connor away from her.
Upstairs, Sonia has groceries enough to feed an army. Between Beau, Connor, and Grace, who is aggressively helpful today, the supplies are brought down in two trips, and Connor finds himself with nothing to carry the third time he comes up the stairs.
Today the trunk has been pushed off the trapdoor at a haphazard angle, impinging on a small plastic trash can that got in its way.
That trunk has been the elephant in the room since Connor arrived, although he hasn’t dared to speak of its contents. Connor turns to see that Sonia has left to park her Suburban somewhere legal.
He’s alone with the trunk.
Unable to resist its gravity, he kneels before it. It’s a heavy, old thing. Antique to be sure. Old travel stickers adorn it, practically shellacked to the surface. Connor can’t tell whether the old steamer trunk has actually been to those places, or if the stickers are merely decorations applied once it stopped travelling and became a piece of furniture.
He doesn’t dare open it, but he knows what’s inside.
Letters.
Hundreds of them.
Each one was written by an AWOL who’d been through Sonia’s basement. Most wrote to their parents. They are missives of sorrow and disillusionment. Anger and the screaming question of “why?” Why did you? How could you? When did things go so wrong? Even the state wards, unloved but tolerated by the institution that raised them, found something to say to someone.
He wonders if Sonia ever sent his letter, or if it’s still in there, buried among the other raging voices. He wonders what he would say to his parents now, and if it’s any different from what he wrote. His letter began with how much he hated them for what they did, but by the time he reached the end, he was in tears, telling them that he loved them in spite of it. So much confusion. So much ambivalence. Just writing the letter helped him understand that—helped him to understand himself a bit more. Sonia had given him a gift that day, and the gift of the letter was in the writing, not in the sending. But still . . .
“I’d ask you to move the trunk back into place for me—but you’ve gotta be on the other side of the trapdoor before I do.” Sonia raises her cane, pointing down the steep basement steps.
“Right. I’m going—don’t use the cattle prod.”
She doesn’t whack him with her cane, but on his way down, she does tap him gently on the head with it to get his attention.