Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

I had a horrible nightmare last night, and I couldn’t shake it from my mind today.

I dreamed we were in the convenience store, Dad and Julie and me zipped in our sleeping bags. Only Alex was up. First he went to Julie and forced her to swallow two pills. Then he forced Dad to swallow two.

When he got to me, I tried to free my arms from the sleeping bag, but I was trapped. I couldn’t move my body. I felt helpless as Alex knelt beside me. He gently lifted my head, resting it in the crook of his arm. Almost in spite of myself, I felt an overwhelming hunger for him, and when he bent over and kissed me, I welcomed his lips, his mouth, the proof of his love, until I tasted the sleeping pills on his tongue.

I woke up shaking. There was enough light coming through the broken windows that I could see everyone’s faces. Even in sleep Alex looked troubled.

I love Alex. I love loving Alex. I love his touch and I love remembering his touch. For so long I thought I would never have someone to love, and now I do. Every day I’m with him is a day I never believed possible.

Tonight Alex is sleeping in the room next to mine. I want him so much. I want the wall between us to dissolve, for us to be alone, to be together, to be one.

Then my doubts would be gone. My nightmares would be gone.

All there would be is Alex and me.

Two bodies. One heart.

We’re home.

Horton is dead.

I’m crying too hard to write.

I slept most of today.

Jon still refuses to come home.

Matt went to Dad’s, but Jon wouldn’t talk to him. Dad told Matt that Jon’s angry at him for bringing Syl home. Syl’s in their bedroom, so she didn’t hear, but Matt whispered everything to Mom anyway. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear either, but I did.

Syl tried to talk to me, to explain why she did it, but Mom said I was too tired to talk about anything and Syl’s explanations would have to wait.

I know I’m going to have to talk to her. We live under the same roof, and I can’t move in with Dad the way Jon has. It wouldn’t be fair to Mom or to everyone there. Alex has to figure out what he and Julie are going to do, and the way she’s been coughing, they can’t go anytime soon. That would make seven of us there, not counting Gabriel, and three here, and that’s not a good idea.

But I don’t want to talk to Syl. I don’t want to look at her.

I’m going to start crying again. I’m going to my closet to cry there.

Alex came over. I haven’t seen him since we got home two days ago. He looked haggard.

“Mrs. Evans, you have to talk to Jon,” he said. “You have to convince him to come home. It’s not good for Julie having Jon there all the time.”

“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “When Jon’s ready to accept what Syl did, he’ll come back.”

“Could you talk with him?” Alex asked me.

I wasn’t sure what I’d say to Jon. I couldn’t ask him to accept Syl’s decision to let Horton go so he could die peacefully in the woods. I can’t accept it, and it doesn’t help that I was angry at Matt before we left for the convent and I’m even angrier now.

But Mom won’t go over, which I refuse to think about because it scares me when I do, and Jon won’t talk to Matt, and Dad has Lisa and Gabriel and fears of his own to deal with. And Alex looked awful.

“I’ll talk with him,” I said. “But I’m not going to change his mind.”

“Just calm him down,” Alex said.

“I’ll try,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

Jon didn’t even know what Syl had done until Thursday. Mom sent Jon to stay with Lisa Tuesday night, and Syl let Horton out on Wednesday morning. Matt says that was to protect Jon, so he wouldn’t be there when Horton died, but even if that’s true, it wasn’t Syl’s decision to make. Mom was so worried about us, she didn’t realize Horton was gone until Thursday.

Syl told her and Matt what she’d done, and Matt went over and told Jon. The two of them looked for hours before they found his body. Matt says he was maybe a hundred feet from the house. They just didn’t know where to look.

I’m not going to cry.

Matt went back to the house and got a towel and Horton’s favorite catnip mouse. He wrapped Horton up, and he and Jon buried him in Mom’s old flower garden. That was Thursday afternoon, and no one knew where we were or if we were okay.

And I didn’t know about Horton.

I hate Syl. I hate her doing this to Horton and to Jon and to Mom. It tears me up inside to think of Horton trying to get home but too weak to make it those last hundred feet. Or maybe that was as far as he ever got.

I knew he was dying. I think Jon knew it, too. But Horton should have been allowed to die in his own home. It was more his home than Syl’s.

Charlie must have seen us as we were walking over, because he ran to join us. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said to me. “About Horton. He was…” and he paused. “He was an excellent cat.”

“Thank you,” I said. “He really was.”

Charlie patted me on the arm and then went back to Matt.

Alex turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he said, “about your cat. I never had a pet, so I don’t know how you feel, but I can see how upset Jon is.”

“Horton was a member of our family,” I said. “It’s like losing a member of your family.”

Alex is like Syl, like Charlie. They don’t talk about their pasts, their families. I know he has an older brother and a younger sister, but he’s never told me what happened to his parents. And I don’t want to think about what he’s been through to make him so certain death could be preferable to life.

I have scars. No one alive today doesn’t. But Alex’s scars have to be much deeper than mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s different. But it still hurts so much.”

Alex nodded. “I wish you hadn’t come on the trip,” he said. “You could have been home, maybe done something.”

“Horton was dying,” I said. “It was a matter of time. I don’t like how he died. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Syl. But it was good for me to go, to see what things are really like. I needed to know.”

“I thanked Christ you were with us,” Alex said. “I thanked Him for every hour, every minute, with you.”

“Do you mean that?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” he said. “I’m not good at loving people. I know you’re supposed to want what’s best for them, but all I want is you.”

“I’m here,” I said, reaching out for his hand to touch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I am,” he said. “I’ve got to find a place for Julie.”

“Her place is here,” I said. “Your place is here.”

“We live on charity here,” Alex said. “Your family’s charity. The town’s charity. Charity doesn’t last.”

“There’s a difference between charity and love,” I said. “What we’re offering is love. Love lasts forever.”

“It only lasts if there’s something given in return,” Alex said. “I helped find food, the van. I gave your family things they needed. But now all I do is take. That wasn’t what I was taught, to take and not give. We have to go, Miranda. As soon as Julie’s ready, we’ll leave.”

“Just think about it,” I said.

“It’s all I ever think about,” he said. “Now come. Get Jon. It’s not good for Julie having him here.”

I followed him into the house. Gabriel was crying, and Lisa was trying to soothe him. “Julie and Jon are in the parlor,” she said. “It’s okay. Hal’s with them.”