"You see the woman who moved in next door?" My father gives me a suggestive smile. "She's a looker."
I cringe inwardly at the thought of my father planning some kind of delusional romance for me in his spare time. I need to find him a hobby. "Yes, and she's also half my age, if you hadn't noticed."
Roger scratches under his chin as he waits for his meal to warm up in the microwave. "Haven't you heard that it's socially acceptable for younger women to seek out older men?"
"It's for stabilities sake," I answer glumly. "The older men are always wealthy and able to provide for the woman's every whim. What do I have to offer but a meager teacher's salary? Not exactly the height of romantic fantasy."
Roger abandons his playful façade with a winded sigh. I drop the warm TV dinner down in front of him and hurry to retrieve a replacement oxygen tank.
"Come on, Ben," my father complains while I hook up his air supply, "It'll do you good to be more social with females. What ever happened with that one woman? Oh, what was her name? The cute little redhead you went to college with."
"Annie?"
"That's right! Annie."
"Dad, Annie has been happily married for the last twenty-seven years."
"You see?" he snaps. "At least she knows what she's doing! You've got to hurry up and get yourself a wife. You're not exactly a spring chicken."
"Yes, thank you for pointing that out."
"I'm just saying," my father huffs, "that you . . . well, damn it, Ben. You spend all day looking after those bratty kids, and then you come home and look after your old man. You need . . . you deserve better."
"Do I?" It's not as if I've hated my quiet, boring life. Sure, there are moments when I wish I had found someone to spend my life with—usually in the silent hours after my father falls asleep for his afternoon nap and I have no one to talk to.
Conversation. Stimulating conversations is all I crave. Someone to discuss history and science and literature with. Someone to fill the void of loneliness. I ask for so little, but I've yet to meet a woman who asks for so little in return.
I can't help but smile at my poor, misguided father. "And what do I have to offer?"
"You're a good man," he says sincerely, and I falter. "If you'd just allow a woman to get close enough, she'd see for herself."
I twist the valve on the tank and oxygen releases with a sharp hiss. "How's that?" I ask.
My father only nods with relief. "I wanted so much more than this. I wanted so much more for you. That's why I signed up for that damn Dharma Initiative."
"I know."
Both of us jolt at the unfamiliar ring of the doorbell. We are unaccustomed to visitors.
"You expecting company?" my father asks.
"Must be Alex," I muse. "I told her to drop by sometime today to pick up a few history books from my personal collection. I thought she might find them helpful in her studies for the AP exam. Excuse me for a moment."
I gather the small stack of books I piled on the coffee table and swing the front door open.
An impossibly beautiful young woman smiles at me from the front step. I've searched every feature of her flawless face before I realize I'm staring awkwardly, mouth agape. It is the woman who moved in next door.
"Hello!" She brings a hand up in an excited, jerky wave. In her other hand she balances a small casserole dish. "I just moved in next door . . . Oh, you're already eating. I'm so sorry—"
"Who is it?" my father yells from the dining room, freeing me at last from my hypnotic gawking.
The woman is already backing away, apologizing.
"Wait!" I blurt out. My heartbeat anxiously increases at the thought of her departure. "Wait, I'm sorry. Excuse me." I turn and fling the history books haphazardly onto the sofa so I can follow her out. "You must be my new neighbor."
Even at her full height she only comes up to my collarbone. Now that I'm so close, I notice the flecks of gold within the emerald of her eyes. A faint floral scent wafts off her and makes me stand up straighter.
"I'm sorry to bother you," she apologizes, cringing with embarrassment. "I should have figured you were already eating at this hour."
"Well, helllloooo!" my father yells from the doorway.
Oh, God. Please no.
"Don't keep her waiting out in the dark, Benjamin! Excuse my son. He's usually not this rude."
"I was just dropping this off," she says and hands me the dish. "Mama says there's no better way to make friends than with food."
"Oh, come in, come in!" my father insists. "Enjoy the fruits of your labor with us! We were just sitting down to eat. Join us!"
"I wouldn't want to impose."
"Nonsense!" Roger yells jovially. "You wouldn't be imposing in the slightest!"
"Feel free to flee," I whisper to the young woman. "I implore you to get out while you still can." Her lips twitch with humor, and I find myself smiling in return.
Undoubtedly frustrated with the slowly dwindling prospects of a future daughter-in-law, my father barks, "Do not make me wheel myself down these steps, boy."
"Your father?" she asks, nodding at the insufferable figure behind me.
"Unfortunately," I sigh. "Would you humor him—I'm sorry, I don't even know your name yet."
"Cora."
"Benjamin. Pleased to meet you." In all my infinite foolishness, I let go of the casserole dish in my mad dash to clasp her hand in my own. Luckily, her reflexes are impressive enough to catch the dish mid-fall. I apologize with a rising heat in my cheeks.
Her mirthful laughter brings a strangling sensation to my chest, and I'm suddenly so winded I need to sit down. "That's alright," she assures me with another chuckle. "I've got it." She steps past me and through the front door, and it takes a concentrated effort not to watch her backside while she walks.
I scowl at my father when he gives me an excited thumbs up.
Cora makes her way to the dinning room, and I set down a potholder so the hot dish does not leave a mark on my table. "Oh," she sighs at the sight of the small TV dinner I microwaved for my father. "Again, I'm really sorry for barging in on your meal."
"What? This?" Roger hastily chucks the meal in the trash. "Nothing but a tasteless pile of cardboard. What did you bring?" Cora peals back a layer of tin foil and thick clouds of spiced steam spiral up towards the ceiling. "Smells absolutely delicious. Doesn't it, Ben?"
"Grasi," she says.
"Lucky for us," my father continues, "that a woman who enjoys eating moved in next-door. We'll surely never go hungry now."
I drop my fork, mortified.
If there is one thing I've learned about women in all my years of life, it is that you are never, ever supposed to comment on their weight. Especially not here, in Los Angeles, where the starving starlets of Hollywood roam the streets for men to lust after. Where ribcages and thigh-gaps and protruding collarbones are a fashion staple. Where even though women like Cora are at a physically healthy weight, they will never grace the cover of those God-awful style magazines.
Smite me, God. I beg of you. Free me from this situation.
"What?" my father asks, clueless. He looks from my dark expression to Cora's raised eyebrows. "All I said was—"
I kick his shin under the table.
"What?" my father repeats, louder this time. "I for one am relieved to find a young woman in this day and age who isn't afraid to eat more than a glass of water and a damn crouton and call it a meal. Look at her. She has an hourglass figure that your aunt would have killed for, Ben, I kid you not. Back in my day, women weren't afraid of looking like women! They're supposed to be soft, for God's sake."
Cora rests an elbow on the table, covering her mouth with a hand. Her shoulders shake as she shifts her face down to rest against the table.
I panic.
What am I supposed to do? I have the overwhelming urge to comfort her, but I don't know how to console a crying woman. This is a disaster. I will never forgive my father for this travesty.
Cora throws her head back and roars with laughter. "You are too much, Mr. Linus! You sound so much like my father. He could talk you to death on that subject."
Sweet relief flows through me at the realization that she's amused, not insulted, at my father's ramblings. I slump in my seat.
Roger fixes me with a smug smile.
After serving everyone a hearty slice of the thickest lasagna I've ever seen in my life, I have to kick my father three more times before he'll finally shut up about how delicious Cora's cooking is. And it is delicious. Definitely the best lasagna I've ever tasted, but that's not the point. The point is my father has a plan, and his meddling is driving me insane.
Due to my father's incessant questioning, I learn that Cora was born in Kentucky but left four years ago to attend UCLA. The oldest of four, Cora's younger twin sisters, Capri and Cassandra, harbor dreams of becoming fashion designers. Her younger brother Casper is in a band, much to her amusement.
"I'm sure they're not that bad," I comment.
"Bless them," she muses fondly. "Poor things call themselves Embryonic Laundromat."
Water shoots back up my throat and into my nasal cavities. "That's a very interesting name choice," I say, wiping away water with a napkin.
"My father makes it a point to encourage them. Says music will help shape him into a well-rounded adult." Cora smiles and serves my father another slice. "I think he might be their only fan."
Roger plows forward. "What made you move out here and leave your family?"
I fix my father with a look that says: I swear if you do not stop talking right this instant, I'll wheel you off the front porch and straight into the street.
"I hate the snow. It's awful. I remember during the winter of my senior year of high school I chipped away at the ice on my car and promised myself I'd never have to own a chisel ever again." Cora pauses before answering, staring silently at the dish of food, homesickness evident in her eyes. "Shortly after I graduated UCLA I was hired as an English teacher at the high school a few blocks away. Tomorrow is my first day."
I suck in a breath, waiting for my father's inevitable reply.
"Well, fancy that," he proclaims and slaps the table. "Ben has been teaching there for years. Haven't you, Ben?"
I avert my eyes and take another bite of lasagna.
"You teach AP European History, right?"
I look up and blink at her, stunned. "How do you know that?"
"When you opened the front door, you were holding a stack of books about Elba Island and looked surprised to see me, which leads me to believe someone—presumably a student of yours—was scheduled to pick them up to study the misadventures of Mr. Bonaparte. And since your father has disclosed that you teach at the high school, and since Napoleon lived circa 1769-1821, then that would fall under the realm of early European history, which is only taught as an AP course, if I'm not mistaken."
"How perceptive," my father praises. "If you don't mind my asking, how'd you get the job? You don't look much older than a highschooler yourself."
"Roger," I warn, but he ignores me.
Cora smiles shyly. "Actually, I'm not much older. I turn twenty-one this December. My parents homeschooled me, so I graduated high school at sixteen and got my teaching certificate last May. I was worried no one would want to hire me because I'm so young, but Principal Reynolds practically begged me to take the position."
Twenty-one. Young and bright and beautiful with a full life ahead of her.
Well, there goes that. Say what he will, but there is no way my father can win this romantic battle on my behalf. "What will you be teaching?" I ask, slowly coming down from the high I've been riding.
"AP English. I've been given the juniors this year while Mrs. Simmons is out on maternity leave. My lesson plan took months to complete, but I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'm focusing on early European writers, specifically Jane Austen."
"Do you have a favorite work of hers?" I question, genuinely curious.
"Sense and Sensibility," she answers.
My father brightens at the news. "Isn't that the one where the young girl marries the old farmer?"
"He was a Colonel," Cora corrects him kindly.
"And he was old, wasn't he?"
Oh for God's sake.
A musical chime brakes the lull in conversation, and Cora fumbles to retrieve a cellphone from her purse. One quick glance at the number and she excuses herself from the table.
"Leaving so soon?" my father asks.
"Do you want your dish back?" I add lamely.
"I'm really sorry," she says on her way to the living room. "I have to take this call. Please, keep the leftovers. I'll pick up the dish some other time." I spring up from my seat to escort her out, but she's already rushed through the house to the front door. Before the door closes, I hear her say, "Hey, dad. What's going on? Everything okay?" She turns to shut the front door and gives me a small wave.
After her departure, the house feels immensely quiet. It's unsettling.
"She was nice."
"And you could have done me a favor by staying silent," I retort. "I have to work with that woman."
"All the more reason to get to know her better. Tell you what. How about you go over there and return her car keys?" A small keychain with a looped key and car alarm dangle from one of my father's fingers.
I stare at him for what seems like an eternity. "Those fell out of her purse?"
"Yeah," he answers with an amused edge to his voice, making it very clear that they did not. Before he wheels himself to his bedroom, Roger huffs an exhausted sigh and shakes his head at me, smiling. "The things I do for you, Ben."
I watch a fizzling wire sway to and fro for the hundredth time, spiting sparks with every lazy swing, and I pray with every fiber of my being that this is not Heaven. If it is, I have spent my entire life setting the standards impossibly high.
I suppose my one consolation is that if this is Hell, it's not as bad as people tried to make it out to be.
Cotton is moister than my mouth. Even when I was a prisoner on Hydra Island I didn't feel this broken and useless. Mud dries and crackles on the side of my face. I cannot muster the strength to move. Not one inch.
I sleep.
I awaken to total darkness. The swinging wire has long since stopped sparking, and the sun is nowhere in sight. Bugs buzz noisily in my ear, so I try my best to flick them away by jerking my head.
I hear a pitiful whine.
"Brandon?" I gasp, surging with purpose. My fingers dig deep into the earth, sloshing through mud as I probe around for my friend with my useless limbs. "Brandon?"
A weak bark alerts me of his close proximity, and I drag myself closer to him, slogging through slush on my belly like a snake. It takes a lifetime to reach him.
His chest heaves with each labored breath. As my hands roam over his body, I discover his front leg has been sliced clean in half by a hunk of metal. "Brandon," I wheeze in horror. "Brandon, can you hear me?"
Brandon gives two sharp barks and then whimpers.
I blink in the darkness. Brandon's bark is the same sound as his voice, but for some reason I can't translate the meaning behind it. "I can't understand you."
Two barks and a whimper.
"Shh. It's okay, baby. I've got you." I lay down beside him, squeezed under a low-hanging beam. Brandon stretches his neck to lick my face and gives another agonized whimper. "I won't leave you," I whisper. My fingers roam his fur, searching for wounds, but the only major injury he seems to have sustained is the loss of his front leg.
Pressing my face into his fur, I grieve silently. I can no longer understand Brandon anymore than I can understand the birds chirping overhead or the tree frog croaking loudly in the distance. I can no longer understand what animals are saying, and that can only mean one thing.
Jacob is dead.
She has a dog.
A vicious sounding dog.
As the seconds tick by, I begin to debate whether or not to leave her items on the porch and retreat back to my own house.
The door opens before I have the opportunity to leave.
"Ben?" Cora struggles to keep hold of the massive dog pawing at the door. "Sit, Brandon! Sit! Sorry, I don't know what's gotten into him lately," she tells me. "Sit, boy!"
I'm not certain what breed of dog it is, but it looks strikingly similar to a wolf. Brandon barks franticly at me, twisting and tugging in an effort to free his collar from Cora's tight grip. He succeeds.
I back up off the porch and miss a step, falling backwards into the grass as the massive beast pounces on me. I close my eyes, awaiting sharp teeth and pain, but I receive a gleeful yipping and wet tongue instead. Brandon runs circles around me, barking like mad, and every once in a while he'll plop down beside me and roll around.
"I am so sorry!" Cora shrieks as she hurries down the porch steps. Before I can push myself up, she has dropped to my side in the grass. "Ben, are you hurt?"
"No," I lie hastily. "No, no, I'm fine."
"I cannot believe you, Brandon," she seethes. "Bad dog! Sit!"
Brandon will have no part in her commands. The dog continues to whimper and bark and lick my face as if I am its own mother.
"He really likes you." Cora stares at me with an unsure smile. "He's not usually good with strangers."
I try to laugh it off as the crazed hound makes one last lap around me before bounding back into the house. "You dropped your keys before you left."
"Oh! Thank you." Cora retrieves them with a hearty laugh. "You saved me a very nasty mental breakdown tomorrow morning."
I stand and brush off my pants. "I wanted to thank you for tolerating my father tonight."
"Oh, don't worry about him. I think he's sweet." Cora smiles. "We should have dinner again sometime. It's nice not to have to eat alone."
"I'd like that."
"How about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" My first instinct is to tell her the truth—I have too many other obligations to fulfill—but her suggestion is tinged with such hope that I don't immediately know what to say for fear of making her more homesick.
"I like cooking," Cora explains. "I just don't like eating by myself. My family always eats meals together. I . . . I miss that."
I have stacks of essays and assignments that need to be graded, but if I go in early tomorrow and work straight through my lunch break, I should be able to dwindle it down to a workable number. Even if I have to stay up all night grading papers . . . well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time. At least in this instance I'd have a good excuse for procrastinating.
I don't have it in me to disappoint her. "I don't see why not."
When I was a little girl, I remember hearing stories about women and children committing impossible feats of strength when faced with imminent death.
I now believe those stories to be true.
"One, two, three!" A groan of pain and frustration rips out of me as I hoist Brandon up onto my shoulders. His head and front legs—or what's left of them—hang down over my left shoulder, and his tail and back legs hang down over my right. His stomach is draped behind my neck, pressing against me so I'm forced to keep my head down.
We are trapped in a maze of crossbeams and wires with only the faint light of the moon to help me navigate our escape. Careful to duck down as best I can when the beams hang too low, I force my burning muscles to cooperate.
I push out from under a particularly tight space and burst into humid night air. The trees are alive with unfamiliar chirping. I blink sweat out of my eyes.
"We did it, Brandon. We . . . oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Separating us from the rest of the jungle is a high, circular wall of dirt that inclines upwards for at least a dozen feet. We are smack dab in the middle of a bowl.
"Son of a bitch," I grumble. "Why can't anything just be easy for once?"
"Are you sure I shouldn't take a plate over to your father?"
"He really isn't feeling well," I lie. "Hasn't left his room all day." Another lie. Roger practically leapt from his wheelchair and did summersaults in the kitchen when he heard Cora wanted to make dinner. When he suggested I eat at her house, I didn't argue. If anything, it means I no longer have to sit through awkward questions and rude comments.
"I'll make him a plate for you to take before you leave."
"Thank you. He'll appreciate that. So," I start, "how was your first day with the invalids?"
Cora grimaces. "Could have been better. I walked into the first class of the day to a penis drawn on my white board."
I roll my eyes in sympathy. "Welcome to high school."
"I told the class I sincerely hoped it was drawn by a virginal young lady because I pity any male who honestly thinks such a misshapen and anatomically incorrect member is a healthy genetic occurrence."
I haven't laughed this hard in a good, long while. "Did you ever figure out who the culprit was?"
"Considering the boy in the front row turned so red you could cook an egg on his face, I'd take a wild guess that he at least had some part in the prank. I believe his name is Karl."
We talk over a meal of homemade tomato soup and steamed mussels. I relay stories of my first teaching experiences to help placate her growing fear that she's not cut out for this line of work. "It will take some time for the kids to warm up to you, but it seems to me that you've got a handle on things for the time being."
She smiles over her glass of wine. "Let's hope it lasts."
My eyes flicker to the clock hanging on the wall behind her, and I'm not surprised to find that I've stayed far longer than I originally planned to. It looks like I'll be spending tonight under a lamp with my red grading pen. Essays and assignments be damned.
"Daniel?" He's sitting slumped against the outermost portion of the massive hole, unresponsive. A metal rod protrudes from out of his shoulder, and for a horrible moment I think he is dead. Upon closer inspection, I discover the rod penetrated the shoulder opposite of his heart. "Daniel?" I ask loudly. "Can you hear me?"
He stirs. "What? What happened?"
"You've got a rod through your shoulder. Can you pull it out?"
"What?" he asks groggily. "What is . . . what is this?"
"Hey, listen to me. You need to get that rod out of your shoulder, okay?"
"I'm not dead," he says in wonderment. "How am I still alive?"
"That's the million dollar question, now, isn't it?"
"Where are we?"
"The present day, if my memory isn't completely shot to hell. Now, get up. Brandon is a lot of weight to carry, and we need to find a stream."
"I should be dead. I'm supposed to be dead."
"Shut up, Daniel." This snaps him out of his daze, and he stares up at me with wide eyes. "We did not just survive a freaking hydrogen bomb so we could die in the middle of nowhere. Get up."
"I can't."
"Don't give me that bullshit." I shift Brandon on my shoulders. "My right ankle is broken, the muscles in my upper left arm have been shredded, I can't feel my fingers, and I'm pretty sure I've got a chunk of metal stuck in my thigh, so if I can carry myself and Brandon, you sure as hell don't need my help."
"It didn't work," he mumbles.
"Tell him there are more dogs in Heaven than cats." Charlotte kneels beside the whimpering madman, but he takes no notice of her. "Tell him I won the bet."
I'm too tired for this. "What?"
"If you want him to listen to you, tell him Charlotte says there are more dogs in Heaven than cats. I win the bet."
Daniel lights up when I repeat her message. "Who told you that?"
"Charlotte."
"When?" he demands.
"About three seconds ago."
He looks around.
"You can't see her," I tell him. "She's dead."
"Yes," he confirms with uncertainty. "Yes, I . . . I know that."
"Daniel," says Charlotte, and this time he seems to hear her. "I need you to get up."
Daniel looks around, frightened and hopeful all at once. Charlotte looks at me, but I don't need her to ask. I'm already leaving.
It isn't long before I find a stream. Falling to my knees in the gravel, I gently lay Brandon down near the water so he can drink. I reach down with a cupped hand and gulp greedily until my stomach bloats with content.
Daniel stumbles into view, looking utterly lost. I don't mention his red, glistening eyes, nor the reason behind them. His conversation with Charlotte is none of my business. "How's your shoulder?"
He grips tightly to the bleeding wound. "I don't know."
"We need to get moving. I'm afraid if I fall asleep again, I won't ever wake back up."
"Don't move." A dark figure approaches from out of the brush, flanked closely by two shadowy figures wielding loaded bows.
"Who are you?" I ask.
The leader gets closer and tilts his head. "Cora?"
A young woman to his left pulls a scarf down to reveal her familiar face. "Lady Cora?"
I only knew her for two days, but I would never be able to forget the face of the girl who volunteered to go to war with me. The girl who pleaded to be my coverguard. The girl who defeated all other opponents for the opportunity to fight at my side. "Anjali?"
"Lady Cora?" I recognize Peter standing to her left.
"Hey, Cora." I watch as the leader pulls down his own scarf to reveal himself. He smiles at me in the moonlight, light glistening off his white teeth. "It's been a while."
I look up at the young man who has grown so much since I last saw him, and I wonder what on earth he's doing here. "Hey, Walt."
