Notfign="lefra shrugs. “Good people. There are good people out there.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s got to be one or two.”
“Do I still get the cookies?”
She stops and raises her eyes skyward, letting out a slow sigh. She slips off her backpack and pulls out the bag of Oreos, hands it to her brother. He shoves the last two into his mouth and Nora studies him as he chews furiously. He’s getting thinner. A seven-year-old’s face should be round, not sharp. It shouldn’t have the angular planes of a fashion model. She can see the exhaustion in his dark eyes, creeping in around the sadness.
“Let’s crash,” she says. “I’m tired.”
Addis beams, revealing white teeth smeared black with cookie gunk.
They set up camp in a law firm lobby, wrapped in the single wool blanket they share between them, the marble floor softened with chair cushions. The last red rays of the sunset leak through the revolving door and crawl across the floor, then abruptly vanish, severed by the rooftops.
“Can we make a fire?” Addis whimpers, although the night is warm.
“In the morning.”
“But it’s scary in here.”
Nora can’t argue with that. The building’s steel skeleton creaks and groans as the day’s warmth dissipates, and she can hear the ghostly rustle of paperwork in a nearby office, brought to life by a breeze whistling through a broken window. But it’s a law firm. A place utterly useless to the new world, and thus invisible to scavengers. One threat out of a hundred checked off her list—she will sleep one percent better.
She pulls the flashlight out of her pack and squeezes its handle a few times until the bulb begins to glow, then gives it to Addis. He hugs it to his chest like a talisman.
“Goodnight, Adenoid,” she says.
“Goodnight, Norwhale.”
Even with the powerful protection of a 2-watt bulb against the endless ocean of creeping night, he still sounds scared. And she can still hear his stomach, growling louder than any monsters that may lurk in the dark.
Nora reaches across their makeshift bed and squeezes her brother’s hand, marveling at its softness. Wondering how mankind survived as long as it did with hands this soft.
For the first time in weeks, Julie Grigio is having a dream that’s not a nightmare. She is sitting on a blanket on a high white rooftop, gazing into a sky full of airplanes. There are hundreds of them, gleaming against the sky like a swarm of butterflies, writing letters on the blue with their contrails. She is watching these planes next to a silhouette who loves her, and she knows with warm certainty that everything will be okay. That there is nothing in the world worth fearing.
Then she wakes up. She opens her eyes and blinks the world into focus. The tiny cage of the SUV’s cabin surrounds her, spacious for a vehicle, suffocating for a home.
“Mom?” she blurts before she’s fully conscious, a reflex born from years of bad nights and cold-sweat awakenings.
Her mother twists around in the front seat and gives her a gentle smile. “Morning, honey. Sleep okay?”
Julie nods, rubbing crust out of her eyes. “Where are we?”
“Getting close,” her father answers without taking his eyes off the ringoad. The silver Chevy Tahoe cruises at freeway speeds down a narrow suburban street called Boundary Road. It used to terrify her, watching mailboxes and stop signs streak past her window, imagining neighborhood dogs and cats thumping under their tires, but she’s getting used to it. She knows the faster they drive, the sooner they’ll find their new home.
“Are you excited?” her mother asks.
Julie nods.
“What are you excited about?”
“Everything.”
“Like what? What do you miss most about the city?”
Julie thinks for a moment. “School?”
“We’ll find you a great school.”
“My friends.”
Her mother hesitates, struggling to maintain her smile. “You’ll make new friends. What else?”
“Will they have libraries?”
“Sure. No librarians, but the books should still be there.”
“What about restaurants?”
“God, I hope so. I’d kill for a cheeseburger.”
Julie’s father clears his throat. “Audrey…”
“What else?” her mother continues, ignoring him. “Art galleries? I bet we could find somewhere to show your paintings—”
“Audrey.”
She doesn’t look away from Julie but she stops talking. “What.”
“The Almanac said ‘functioning government,’ not ‘thriving civilization.’”
“I know that.”
“So you shouldn’t be getting her hopes up.”
Audrey Grigio smiles stiffly at her husband. “I don’t think any of us are in danger of a hope overdose, John.”
Julie’s father keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t reply. Her mother turns back to her and tries to resume the daydream. “What else, Julie? Boys? I hear the boys are cute in Vancouver.”
Julie wants to keep playing but the moment has died. “Maybe,” she says, and looks out the window. Her mother opens her mouth to say more, then closes it and turns around to face the road.
Behind the perfect movie set of beige houses and green lawns, the border wall looms like a studio soundstage, making suspension of disbelief impossible. Big red maple leafs painted every hundred feet serve as stern reminders of who built this barrier, and who’s keeping out whom. Julie loves her mother. She has high hopes for this new life in Canada. But she has seen more nightmares come true than dreams.