Them, Left Behind
#38 Underwater
-/-
They never quite recover.
Eventually they reach a state of inertia where his name doesn't get brought up as often and they put up the front of a happy married couple, but if they were on the road to peace of mind, they stalled out a long time ago. They've both resigned themselves to a life with too much space in the seat of the third chair at dinner, with conversations that trail into silences that should be punctuated by the anecdotes neither can bring themselves to speak.
Eva retires, grey-haired and acrimonious, and starts a garden in their backyard. She defends it with unmanageable fury from the crows and gophers that try to sabotage her. Sometimes Peter walks outside and finds her talking to herself, or maybe to the flowers, raging about past evils, muttering curses towards a universe that's conspired against her.
Peter works well past his retirement age, if only to have a reason to get up in the morning. He received accolades and awards for his work with Z-space. He contributes to research that wins a Nobel, and another hole carves itself in his chest when only his loving wife is there to congratulate him when he announces the news.
They attend Cassie's, and then Jordan's, and then Sara's weddings. Eva cries and pretends it's only because the brides and grooms are so touchingly in love. They leave all three wedding receptions early.
Every once in a while, Peter pulls out the album of newspaper and tabloid clippings in the closet. The photo albums and home videos were lost in the war, but there are enough glamour shots and Time profiles that their son's always somewhere in the house, smiling at them, making hand gestures, pouting and raising an eyebrow, laughing.
They still put flowers out on the deck every time his birthday comes around, counting off the missing decades of his life. On the anniversary of his disappearance, they sit in lawn chairs and stare at the stars, though they've long stopped wondering where he is and why he won't call home once in a while.
It only took a decade of misfortune to flood them, and sometime in the last twenty years they surrendered and stayed submerged. No amount of time sorting through the aftermath brings them back to the surface.
But Eva still loves the ocean and Peter waves at kids on their scooters as they ride by the backyard, and they maintain their crafted image of happy domesticity so well they convince everyone on Earth but themselves.
