Lucy watched the twins tired and unsure of what to do since word of Larry's passing had reached her. When Stu returned a new hope had been instilled in many of the surviving free zoners, even after he shared his story Lucy felt as if Larry had been taken away without reason. He was a good man he'd made mistakes, certainly but had he needed to be a martyr to make up for them? Lucy choked back a sob and thought of the brief time they'd shared, wishing it had been longer. She paused a moment and thought about Nadine Cross and Randall Flagg, how they'd gotten her lover killed and suppressed an urge to break something. All that was over now, and in the end, she wondered if maybe Nadine was more of a victim than she seemed.
The twins slept in their crib, little sighs escaping them as they dreamed. She wished they could have known their father, seen the wonderful person he was and the father he could have been. Stu and Frannie had gone on now, trying to make their own lives in the strange land that had once been America. How she wished she could be setting out on her own journey, out to the desert that took her husband to take something from it of him. She could never achieve such a trip on her own and she knew it, especially with such young children to care for, and Joe too. It didn't make her want it any less.
It was hard being on her own, Leo felt the gap just as strongly, with the loss of Larry and Mother Abigail he'd grown more distant wandering off with a guitar he'd found in town. She hoped he wasn't going back to his feral state, he was hard to keep up with as it was.
A sudden rhythmic knock on the door caught her attention and she went to answer it.
A surge of anticipation welled in her, this was like the dreams she'd had after Larry and the other set out to meet Randall Flagg. In these dreams, she answered the door to find Larry, flesh melted and rotting, eyes full of feral red glow and only hate for her and her then unborn children.
She paused at the door and waited for the knock to come again. When it did she drew in her breath thinking of the monkey's paw as she put her hand on the doorknob and turned it.
Fear welled like some horrible fruit through her body and she forced back the fear, an unknown urgency ad excitement joined to it. Why did she fear the person on the other side of this door so much?
When she stepped around the front of the open door, she gasped, a sense of impossibility going through her mind, she could not believe the sight before her.
Larry whole, and unharmed, tired and bedraggled, but smiling the shy smile only he could.
She threw her arms around him and pulled him into a tight and enveloping embrace, feeling the pressure of his body and knowing he was home.