“Of course it’s okay, Spencer. When I get home, I’ll tell her to get her room cleaned up. Hope you like to play with dolls,” Ty said, flashing his teeth in a broad smile.
Spencer shook his head vigorously.
“How about trucks and legos and stuff? I love my girl, but I kind of hoped for a little boy, so she’s got a few things like that too. Does that sound better?”
Spencer nodded shyly, and his mother rubbed his head affectionately. “That does sound better, doesn’t it? Why don’t you go back downstairs for a few minutes, while I visit with Zettie’s dad.” She watched Spencer leave, then turned back to Ty. “So why are you here?”
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see you. I stopped by a couple of times, but Carol said you weren’t up to talking yet.”
“She told me. I’m sorry to be such a bother. You don’t need to worry about us.”
“I promised Kyle I would, and I meant it. How would it look when he gets back if I haven’t kept my promise?”
Jennifer looked at Ty with dead eyes. “What makes you think he’s coming back?”
The look on Ty’s face spoke volumes. He was about to say something when Jennifer raised her hand to stop him.
“I don’t mean that he would choose not to come back, but what if something happens to him? The first time, I was so naïve thinking he could just somehow cross the country and get back to us. He did it, but he was so lucky. After listening to his stories, and thinking about what he went through, there’s no way that should have happened. The world is all screwed up, Ty. My fourteen-year-old son has been stabbed, and he’s had to kill armed invaders. I’ve killed someone, as has Kyle. That Smith girl was murdered, raped, and dumped in my house. This world is falling apart. How can I even hope that Kyle will make it back with everything that’s going on?”
“You don’t have a choice, Jennifer; it’s not just you. You have your kids and your friends. People look up to you.”
“Who looks up to me?” she retorted. “No one cares what I do. My kids, maybe, but I even wonder about them lately. I feel like I’m going over the edge, Ty, like I should be locked up in an asylum.”
“More people than you know watch you. My wife and I…you don’t understand. Last fall, this whole thing went down less than a month after we buried our daughter. We’d been home from Georgia for less than a week when the EMP hit. Our world was still spinning from losing her, and then all this?” Ty looked around the room, motioning to the dead lights and the condition of the house, then looked back at Jennifer. “We were ready to give up. I didn’t want to go on. It was so hard. Trust me, I kind of know how you feel.”
“What made you keep going?”
“There were a handful of things, but one of them was you.”
It was Jennifer’s turn to be puzzled. “Me?”
Ty nodded.
“What did I do? I only just barely remember seeing you at the town meetings. Did we even talk?”
“It wasn’t anything you said, Jenn. It was just you, your spirit.”
She still didn’t get it.
Ty grinned and chuckled. “We watched you. For some reason, you were kind of like our beacon of hope. Someone, I can’t remember who, told us your husband was gone, that you were all alone with your kids. Yet at the meetings, you always seemed so happy, so hopeful. My wife mentioned it to me one evening when I was really low. Said if Jennifer Tait could be happy and hopeful under similar circumstances as us, why couldn’t we?”
Jennifer listened, staring at the floor.
Ty continued. “She was right. The next day the weather was really nice, and I took a long hike and asked myself what good it was doing for me to be walking around like a man half dead, feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, it hurt, and it still hurts more than I can describe to have lost our little Lonnie. I’m sure it always will, but hating life just made it worse. You helped show me that, Jennifer.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“You can believe it or not, but it’s true. Come by and ask my wife if you’d like. Talia didn’t go on the hike with me, but she knows the story.”
“I was just naïve then. I didn’t know any better. Sorry to let you down now.”
Ty forced a smile and watched Jennifer for a minute, but she wouldn’t look up. “Jennifer, you’re a big girl. I can’t tell you what to do. I understand how tough it is, but hating people isn’t going to fix anything. I can’t promise you things will be great or that Kyle will be back tomorrow, but I can tell you it’s easier if you choose to smile. No one’s out to get you. Everyone’s just afraid and still figuring out how to deal with life. Give them some time.”
“I’m the one that needs time, you know,” Jennifer snapped before catching herself. “I will think about it though. I want to be happy, Ty, I really do, but with Kyle gone on top of everything else, it’s too hard.”
Ty took her hand and gave it a squeeze as he stood to leave. “I’m here to help if you’ll let me. If there’s something you need, please tell me. How about if I come by for Spencer after lunch tomorrow, okay?”
Jennifer nodded. “Thanks for stopping by. I do appreciate you thinking of me.”
Ty let himself out, and Jennifer sat back down on the couch.
“So what are you going to do?” Carol asked from the kitchen.
Jennifer jumped. “I forgot you were in there.”
“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help hearing the conversation.”
‘It’s your house; don’t apologize.”
“He made some good points, you know.”
“I know,” Jenn said, nodding. “But it’s so much harder this time. I’m terrified Kyle won’t come back. I keep thinking of him dead or hurt somewhere on the road, and it terrifies me. I really hate to say it, but if he’d been shot last week, at least the uncertainty wouldn’t be hanging over my head every day like it is now. I understand why the families of people who go missing struggle so much. I think not knowing can almost be worse than death.”
Carol stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “We all have tough things to deal with, Jennifer. I know you know that. Just realize that you’ll make it through this. You’ve got a lot of friends pulling for you.”
Jennifer nodded and went and helped clean the kitchen. She was about to go downstairs when someone pounded on the front door. She jumped to her feet and hurried to it, pulling it open. Ty stood on the front porch again, this time out of breath.
“Is Carol here? There’s an emergency. We need a doctor!”
CHAPTER 28
Tuesday, February 7th
Billings, MT
The road ahead looked like a World War II movie scene, with charred pieces of steel littering the highway, blackened vehicles on the road, and partially collapsed and burnt out buildings along the perimeter. It was just as the ranchers had described to Rose during her two-day stay with them while Blitz recovered from a leg injury, a deep gash inflicted by barbed wire buried beneath the snow.
Rose had met the ranchers, Paul and Mindy, at their home a few miles south of Huntley while seeking help for her wounded horse. The couple had been kind enough to take her in and help doctor the wound on Blitz’s leg, which, fortunately, hadn’t been too severe. Two days rest had done wonders for both her and her animals, but once refreshed, she had been anxious to get back on the road again, despite Paul and Mindy’s concern for her wellbeing as a woman traveling alone.
Now picking her way through the debris, Rose was feeling uneasy. What lay before her was the most graphic depiction she’d seen of the destruction that had followed the September attacks. Two oil refineries on the south side of Billings had lasted three days past the event before erupting in a series of explosions that shook buildings for thirty miles and launched pieces of shrapnel thousands of feet. No one knew what had triggered the blast, at least no one who had survived the explosions and the ensuing destruction, and there was nothing to be done except watch the fires burn themselves out, leaving charred buildings as semi-permanent reminders.