Kent Kelly - And the Ashes

Lacie would not let go. She was shaking so hard it was as if she were having a seizure, or locked in the throes of nightmare. No, Sophie thought. Locked away so far from me, and now released. Oh, my daughter. Sophie carried her into the front hall, followed by Mitch. She could not stop babbling, about the H4, the supplies, the military, and Silas.

Silas!

Sophie carried her daughter to the Hummer, limping through the ash. Mitch reached out and steadied Sophie from behind. She opened the passenger door, and gasped as Silas’ skeletal arm jumbled off the seat and dangled there, stretching knobby fingers toward her face. Lacie whispered, “Is that a man?” And Silas’ eyes opened, lunar white, glowing with blood-haloed cusps of silver-blue.

“Shh,” said Sophie. She tried to hand Lacie over to Mitch, but Lacie struggled until Sophie relented and put her daughter’s feet upon the ground. At once Lacie stood on tiptoe, peering into the Hummer’s darkness, and pushing Mitch’s hand away as she crawled into the back seat under Sophie’s grasp. She wanted to see this stranger mommy trusted so, to know.

Sophie moved in. She gently lifted Silas’ head, tried not to cry out in misery as he vainly strove to focus on her face. His mouth moved, he was parched. Mitch unzipped his outer mitts and managed to give Silas most of a dribbling bottle of water. Lacie had poised herself in upon the center console, her hands upon her knees, marveling at Silas and the tenderness of her mother’s ministrations.

“Don’t move, Silas,” Sophie whispered. “You’ve protected me long enough, you’ve been the strong one forever on. Rest. Now let me hold you.”

Silas, spitting a little water, tried again to speak. He said, “Who?”

“I’m right here,” said Sophie. “And Uncle Mitch is here. And Lacie.”

“Cie?” Silas murmured. He reached out a hand, tapped Sophie’s cheek, and Sophie gently moved his searching fingers down to Lacie’s knee. Lacie took up the withered hand in both her own in reverence, without any hesitation, moving as if she were carrying the burden of a feather. She brought the old man’s fingertips to her chin.

“Thank you,” said Lacie. “Thank you, mister, for saving my mommy.” She lowered her face, her expression lost in a fall of hair of gold, and kissed Silas upon the brow.

She lifted her head and Silas took in a ragged breath. A sap-thick string of blood fell from the corner of his mouth.

Mitch tried to reach in for Lacie, he was saying, “Go, go back inside, honey.” But Lacie would not move.

Silas whispered, “Oh, little angel. It was all for you. So, so worth it all of gold, song of gentle and here you are. Mabelie, turn that down. Jenny, do you see? Look who is come, look who is come to us. Lacie of Sophie, just look at you.”

He never saw anything again, he never beheld her. But he believed that he did, the absolute conviction and wonderment in his voice made Sophie know that this was true. And for Mitch and Sophie and especially for Lacie, the fact that Silas believed he could see the child’s beauty was enough.

“Just look at you.”

Sophie lifted Silas’ head higher into her lap. She kissed him, very gently, upon the mouth. And he died there in her arms.

Lacie cried for her mother, because her mother could not cry for herself. Sophie had no more tears. Daughter and mother cared for one another that deep night, kisses and laughter and touching hands of simple awe, while Mitch worked to dig Silas’ grave beside that of grandmamma Brockaway in the ash-loam dune still building behind the house.

When he was done, he poured pure water over the grave, so that it would seal itself from scavengers, from memory, from sorrow. Sophie would later see that Mitch had pushed Silas’ blackthorn fox-head cane into the petrifying earth, and its glinting eyes marked where the sacred grave of the One would be until the end of time.

The blanket- and tarp-lined cellar was filled with fumes, the glow of lantern light, dripping water from three survivors’ exhaled moisture. Taking advantage of heating and rising air, Sophie and Mitch took turns fanning fresher air down from the pipe-holes which crossed into the dining room. Lacie slept in the converted coal bin behind the enormous furnace, at peace for the first time in many weeks. Despite her sobbing for Silas, now, she was at ease. She was even smiling in her sleep.

“He saved me,” Sophie whispered when she had finished her tale. She couldn’t sleep, she didn’t want to. Mitch had had to guide her gently down the stairs because she had insisted on starting the unpacking, and he didn’t want her to see the cleanup he had done to the Hummer’s stained back seat.

“I…” Mitch didn’t know what to do with his folded hands. Sophie took them both in one of her own, gripped them. “I know,” he said. “I understand.” He coughed a little, balling his fist to muffle the sound so as not to awaken Lacie. “Ingri… Sophie… you need to sleep. You can bathe if you want. The cistern, there’s so much water down here. And I’ve barrels. The upstairs, the Geiger counter, after the storm? Most of the ash is gone. It’s almost safe. The lead curtains you brought, I could…”

“No,” Sophie said. “Thank you. So, so very much Mitchell, for everything. Everything. But not tonight. I don’t want her to leave my sight.”

Mitch smiled. Sophie stopped fanning. She brought his hands up to her cheeks, pressed her face into them in wonder. Tom’s brother, until now an affectionate acquaintance of many years, he was here . Alive. He had saved her daughter, and now he would do anything for her.

A miracle. She tried not to think of Silas, but she thought with a serene tinge of adoration, Yeah, that Mitchell, funny lookin’ much like me, but he’s a good man, already now. Me? I am knowing that for sure. Woah-damn. And she smiled. Don’t cry. Never again, don’t cry for sorrow. You have too many reasons not to, now. She looked up at Mitch, he had caught the pure reflection of her smile and mirrored it, shared it. But he did not understand it.

Sophie let his hands go, turning to fan the pipe hollows once again, and she said, “I don’t know how I’m going to live without him.”

“Hey, hey. You have us, now.” Mitch scratched at his silver-and-strawberry bearded chin. She had forgotten that about him. Always scratching. Lacie loved to call you Uncle Itchy. Truly shared emotion to him was an enchanting riddle, worthy of veneration, because of the way he and his brother Tom had been raised and shared with in decades of long ago. But he did not understand his awe of others’ love. He shared it, if only from a fretful distance. But it still clearly made him uncomfortable. “Ingri,” he said, “Sophie, I’m so sorry he—”

“No, I know,” said Sophie. She tapped her cheek, palmed a smile. She was remembering, repositioning the fragments of another life whose darkest moments now seemed like twilit reflections of some unrecoverable and ancient earthly paradise. Mitch, you’d never believe this because you two were such black-and-white reversals of one another, she thought. But to the gold of your heart? You’re so, so much like my Tom. Too much. This is so hard.

He gave her that awkward, soulful smile, his over-generous outpouring of empathic reception. Sophie was still taking him in, marveling at the fact that he was actually there. He was so much like Tom, but forty pounds lighter and three inches taller, with that charming, somehow gullible and cadaverous face. He had the same gold hair as Tom’s, yet tinged with auburn, and almost all his thinning crown chased away by grizzled silver. She knew he grew his beard out to give himself some substance, for whenever he had been forced to let the world look in at him. And now?