The Longest Night (40 page)

In the corner of his vision he saw the door of the gray building swing open. The health physicist moved toward him.
Collier, Collier. You'll need to come inside now.

His vision pulsed and blurred. A sudden thought came to him. Esrom was about to leave: He was clean; he was free. Paul was stuck here, dirty, watched. He couldn't leave, couldn't help his family. But maybe there was another way.

Mr. Collier. You're going to need to come with me—

This was Paul's chance. It might ruin everything he had ever worked for, but if he didn't take it now, he might never get another one.

“Listen,” he said, stepping up to Esrom's face. To his credit, Esrom didn't flinch. “I need to ask you a favor.”

“A favor?” Esrom watched him, suspicious.

Paul cleared his throat in a long, dread-filled stutter. He gathered his courage. “Go to my house,” he said. “Tell Nat what has happened, then take her and the girls somewhere for a few days. Can you do that for me?”

There was a pause. Then Esrom said, “No.”

“I need you to.”

“I can't do that.”

“For the girls, you could do it.”

Esrom looked Paul in the eye. “If you think people talk now, imagine how they'd talk then.”

“She's going to be upset,” Paul said. “Our car's at the reactor; they'll never let me near it. It's toxic and they'll destroy it. So she has no way to get out, and I'm a walking poison, and no one's even letting me near a phone. She's got the big girls and the new baby. But if you could take her and the girls out of town—she trusts you. She'll do it if she knows it's for the girls. Can you do this for me? Please.”

“Mr. Collier,” the health physicist was at his elbow now in his crinkling suit, “it's time for you to come back inside. Are you getting upset? Are you feeling disturbed?”

“One moment,” Paul barked.

“Are you sure you mean this?” Esrom asked.

“Yes.”

“This isn't some kind of trick? It's not some kind of—”

“It's the least you could do for me!” Paul snapped. “Please.”

The doc fretted by his elbow. “Mr. Collier, I need you to come back inside.” He addressed the other men: “Is Mr. Collier having emotional changes?”

For one moment Esrom, Russ, and Paul all stood, as if this question had finally silenced them.

“I'm getting out of here,” said Russ, ducking back into the car. He pointed at Paul, his voice half-muted by the windshield: “You are a freak.”

“Promise me,” Paul said. “Promise me you'll do it.”

“I'll do it,” Esrom said, climbing in.

Paul watched the car turn and grow small. It seemed to take forever, on the flat plain, for it to leave his vision. How odd to think of Nat driving that car around town all summer, the girls in the backseat, singing her old Girl Scout songs. It was like watching a movie of his life taken by someone else, but he had been rubbed out.

“Let's go inside now, Mr. Collier,” said the health physicist.

Paul turned and followed him back into the building, feeling like a trained bear.

He imagined the car collecting Nat from home. Esrom would explain the situation. He would be reassuring and protective. He'd reassure Nat that this was for the good of the girls; settle them in the car, adjust the baby's basket, ask if everyone was warm enough. You're so kind, Nat would say, you're so kind. Then he'd take Paul's family and drive away. It was a moment that had been in the making for a long time; it shouldn't have been any more horrifying than the ones that had come before. The worst step had already been taken long ago.

N
at did not sleep. By morning she could see that something larger than an argument with her husband had taken place. Neighbors gathered in the street, trading misinformation. A prop plane circled low over the town. She called the dispatcher over and over and was told that no one could be put through to the CR-1—wives were
always
put through to the operators—and she did not know if Paul had gone there anyway. She felt pent in a bubble of quiet terror. He could have been anywhere, could have thumped off the icy road and frozen, unconscious, could be bunking with a friend from work with no plans to return to her, could have gone in to the reactor and been somehow involved with whatever disaster people assumed had happened there.

Nat paced the house while her heart simultaneously raced and dragged. She prayed with thoughtless desperation:
Please Lord, let Paul be all right. I'll do whatever you ask.
Somehow she made bottles and fed the baby. Triangles of toast appeared on the big girls' plates and were replaced with crumbly, butter-smeared parentheses, and the girls slid from their chairs and trotted away.

Her distressed isolation was finally broken by the sight of Esrom's pickup in front of the house. She laid Sadie down, shot out the door, and ran to him, gripping his forearms, trying to explain what had happened and ask him questions at the same time.

“He just drove away,” she said. She felt cold air lift and inflate her nightgown; it was noon. Her legs were bare. From the corner of her eye she could see a small group of neighbors gathered in Edna's window; she knew she was in their line of sight but she didn't care.

Esrom held her shoulders and turned her around. “Girls, get back inside,” he said. He had never spoken to them with anything other than a shy, joking affection, and they bolted back through the door.

Nat allowed him to move her into the house. “Sit down,” he said gently, pointing to the couch. Sam and Liddie were around his knees, touching his pant leg, asking questions. He put one arm around them both and held them against his side, which quieted them immediately, and they stood wordlessly while he talked to Nat.

“Do you need your robe?” he asked her.

“No,” she said, impatient.

“Okay, then.” He cleared his throat. She watched him as he explained about the reactor, the deaths of the crewmen—poor Webb, she could hardly believe it—and how they were taken to the decontamination center. He told her about waiting outside with Paul. (“You talked to Paul?” she cried, in simultaneous relief and horror.) Esrom claimed the two of them had reached an understanding. He said Paul wanted him to take her and the girls away.

She stared, not knowing what to make of this. Paul was okay; Esrom had seen him and spoken to him. He was walking and talking and aware of what had happened. With this burden of fear lifted she felt her whole body sink against the couch, her muscles trembling as if she'd been under tremendous physical strain. Could Paul really have meant it when he asked Esrom to take her and the girls away? Did he really think she would do it?

After Paul's meanness, and knowing now that he was not maimed or killed, part of her felt thrilled at the thought of leaving with Esrom. An entire week with him after her self-imposed ban seemed like an incomparable gift. But she knew it was a sick sort of gift, too, with the price people had had to pay for it.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“This is what Paul wants?” she asked.

“It's what he asked me to do.” He frowned down at the couch, and then looked back to Nat. “Your husband knows a lot more about this sort of thing than I do. I think if he says this is the right thing, then it is.”

“Where will we go?”

“My cousins have a hunting cabin up north.”

“What about people here?”

Esrom shifted. “I'm not sure. On the radio they keep saying no one's in immediate danger. Maybe your husband knows more than they do. But he was worried about the girls, long-term stuff.”

“What about the past few hours? Haven't we already—”

“Nothing we can do about that now.”

“Are you worried?” Nat asked him.

“I am now, I think.” His mouth twisted slightly. “But not about myself.”

“What about your family?”

“I told them. They prefer to stay.”

“Really?”

“The ranch,” he explained. “That's how they are.”

“What about you? If the girls and I weren't in the picture, would you stay?”

“Probably,” he said.

Nat opened her arms and gathered Sam and Liddie into them, kissed their heads. Their little bodies were sweet and soft; she squeezed their hands. Then, getting to her feet, she went quickly to their bedroom where she gathered some of their little clothes, socks and pants and sweaters in pink and lavender, a small canvas bag each for Sam and Liddie. She filled another bag with Sadie's tiny gowns, cloth diapers, and safety pins.

Then she found some clothes for herself. She still had to wear a maternity dress, but at least she could belt it now. She paused by her own dresser. She'd once imagined what she would wear if Esrom invited her and the girls to his family's ranch for the day, a self-indulgent fantasy that had never come close to fruition, the silliest sort of brain game. (She'd planned to wear black slacks and a pale-green blouse with her hair in a mother-of-pearl clip. Those pants wouldn't even fit her at the moment.) But now she felt the surge of guilty power that had grown familiar over recent months, as if her ungovernable thoughts had somehow made this whole mess happen.
Are you happy now, Nat? Are you getting what you wanted?

She headed back to the living room. Rounding the corner she saw that Esrom had the girls' coats on, their mittens and hats. This was startling and natural at the same time.

“We're going on a trip!” Sam beamed. “I hope the baby doesn't
cry
.”

Nat settled Sadie into the Moses basket. Esrom leaned over it, smiling. “Hello, little baby,” he said. He offered Sadie one rough finger; her spindly hand closed over it, and her feet jerked with the sensation. She looked so much more alert now, her little eyes taking in the room. Nat and Esrom both smiled at her for a moment. “Well,” he finally said, to Nat, “you sure did a good job.”

“I'm so glad you're here,” she blurted.

Then she stood, wiped her palms on her skirt, and grappled with the heavy cardboard box that held cans of formula. Esrom got to his feet after her, took the box, and headed outside to load it into the truck; the cans clanked gently down to the curb. A moment later he came striding back up the walk.

“We'll have a good time, won't we, girls?” he asked, gathering an armload of blankets Nat had dug up. “I hope you like checkers.”

“Who's Checkers?” Sam asked.

He smiled.

“Mama come, too?” said Liddie.

“Yup,” said Esrom. “We're all going to just get out of town for a little while.”

“This is a vacation, Liddie,” Sam said, as if she knew of such things. “This is where people go and they have fun, and they have checkers, and beaches.”

Esrom said, “There won't be any beaches, darlin'. Just trees.”

“That's okay,” Sam said. God, those girls loved Esrom; they'd be happy wherever he was.

“I'll take your bags,” he said, collecting them into his free hand. He reached toward Nat: “You got your bag?”

She hesitated. She found it hard to catch her breath.

He stood expectantly.

“I didn't pack one,” she said.

He stared at her a moment. He was puzzled and then his expression turned inward, hurt. He nodded, turned, and carried the bags out to the car.

Nat felt wretched. She stood, leaden, and finally forced herself into action. “Sam, Liddie, let's go.” She gave Sam's shoulder a nudge. The girls traipsed ahead of her down the walk, the wind nearly blowing them sideways.

Esrom met the girls halfway, scooped them up, and carried them down the walk. He piled them into the truck, squeezed tight side by side. Nat nestled Sadie's basket at their feet.

“Stay on your seat, girls,” she told Sam and Liddie. “Watch out for the baby.” She closed the door and turned back to Esrom, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I had orders,” he said.

“I know.”

“What are you planning to do, Nat?”

She placed her hands on his crossed arms. “I need you to take the girls—”

He nodded. “Of course. They can't stay here. But you shouldn't, either. That's why your husband asked me—”

“And I'm going to need to borrow your green car back.” She squeezed his arms. “Please.”

He paused, staring at her.

“Please, Esrom.”

He looked away, chewing the corner of his mouth, and finally nodded. His lips were chapped and his skin looked grayish, cold. She could feel the disappointment emanating from him, a silent devastation that slumped his shoulders and drained the color from his face in one fell swoop, as if she had just zipped a knife down his chest.

The part of her that wanted to go with him bucked in defiance: They wouldn't do anything wrong; they could just be near each other and live, briefly, in a daydream of affection and sweetness, feeling the rare joy of empathy:
Can I get this for you?
Here, let me help you
. In a world gone mad, their makeshift family would be nothing but kindness and love. The one thing Nat knew about Esrom was that he would never, ever be cruel to her; he would never shout at her or make her feel ashamed. He wouldn't keep things from her just because he could, not if they were together a hundred years. She imagined them all at this hunting cabin of his cousin's, a fire in the fireplace, the girls tumbling around underfoot, all of them having dinner at some little local restaurant, an elderly couple smiling at what a sweet family they were, what a charming picture, gentle blue-eyed Esrom and Nat and her dark-haired girls.

But those girls were Paul's, and Nat was Paul's, too. And Paul was a good person; his anger at her was not wholly unjustified, as her thoughts about Esrom, seconds before, were proving. Of course Paul was hurt, drawing into himself like a skittish, muscular clam inside its double shell. He thought they could recover from all this by never speaking of it again, as if his dignity had spilled out, a tragic war wound, and he could shuffle around picking it up and packing it back in.
I'll have to pretend to trust you,
he'd said. Well, damn him, because she deserved more than his pretend trust; she deserved his real trust. She had faced a temptation and she hadn't strayed; she had endured his anger and she loved him still.

Esrom looked stricken. “Everything is just going to
hell,
” he blurted, avoiding her eyes, an unfamiliar catch of desperation in his voice. “Everything seems so ruined. Then I look at you and the girls and I think,
That would feel like a warm glow all of the time
.”

Nat stared at him.

“I'm sorry,” he said, sounding disgusted with himself. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“I know you'll be fine,” she said, feeling the inadequacy of the words.

“I am,” he said dully.

“You're a good person, Esrom. You're the best person I know. Do you see how much I trust you?”

“Thank you,” he said. He pulled his arm gently away. “Please get in the truck. You'll freeze solid out here.” He leaned around her to open the passenger door and she reached for his arm again.

“I'll take good care—” he started, but she leaned forward and kissed him, cupping his cheek with her free hand. His lips were cold and dry, and her heart lurched when she touched them. His whole body seemed to pound through his jacket. For a moment she kept her face against his, noticing the smell and feel of him, thinking
How strange, this could be my person, this could be the smell and feel that was familiar to me
. She would get used to it, see it every day, notice all its variations and changes, and over time it would just be another version of her own. But then eventually they would belong to each other, which was a miraculous kind of thing but a savage one, too.