She twists free, stares at him.
– Hide my baby?
She shakes her head slow to the left.
– Never.
Slow to the right.
– This child is meant for the light.
Chubby’s hands flutter at his sides.
– Delilah, dear, I’m not suggesting you live in a cave.
– Yeah, you are. He looks at Lydia.
She’s leaning against the wall, next to the assault rifle she took from the Cure house.
– You’re telling them they have the love that dare not speak its name. And a baby that’s going to have to learn to pass. And that’s not the way it has to be.
Chubby slips a thumb in the armhole of his vest.
– This is a family matter, Miss Miles.
– Mizz Miles.
She comes away from the door.
– Throw those diminutives around, but don’t slap them on me.
Chubby looks at me.
– Joe?
I shake my head.
– No way, I’m not in this.
Lydia goes to Delilah.
– We can use you.
She puts a hand on Delilah’s belly.
– This baby, whatever it is, this baby says we’re all the same. It says infected and uninfected, we’re all human. It forces them to look at us and see people, not monsters. This baby, it’s not a symbol, it’s a fact. And it, and you, both of you together, if you come with me, you can save lives. Just by being there and letting people see you and see what you made together.
Chubby wipes a hand down his face.
– Madness. Madness.
Lydia stays with Delilah’s eyes.
– It is not safe. It will not be safe. But it isn’t a safe world. All we can do is try and make it better.
Delilah’s eyes are wide and shiny.
She holds her hand open to Ben, he takes it, she pulls him close.
– This is a child of destiny in troubled times.
Chubby throws up his hands and walks away.
– Babbling, incoherent madness.
Delilah puts a hand on her belly.
– I will not hide this light.
She takes a step, pulling Ben along.
– Come, Benjamin, we are not welcome here.
Chubby takes a step after them.
– Delilah. Some small ounce of sense, please.
But she’s turned away, opening the office door.
– Lydia Miles, we will go with you. She will speak to the world, and our child will lead.
Ben glances back at us.
– I.
She pulls at his hand.
He lets himself be pulled.
– I’m a dad, man.
Both disappearing down the hall.
Delilah’s voice raised to declaim.
– We can shine a light. Our baby can be a light.
Chubby stands at the corner of his desk, moves toward the door, has another thought, turns back, stands lost in the middle of the room.
– Impetuous. That has always been her nature. Impetuous, passionate, romantic. Not a patient or a realistic bone in her body.
He looks at Lydia.
– And you encouraged her.
Lydia picks up the assault rifle.
– I just told her the right thing to do, she made up her own mind.
– Yes, a starring role as mother of the messiah baby, how could she resist?
Lydia waves him off.
– I’m guiding a revolution. You, Freeze, you’re trying to make yourself feel better about being a crappy dad.
He moves to a corner, stands there, looking at photos on the wall.
Lydia comes to where I’m slumped on the couch, she puts a hand under my chin and forces my head up and takes a good look into my eyes.
– For a girl. Joe Pitt blows up the world, for a girl.
She shakes her head.
– I wish I knew.
She lets go of my chin and straightens.
– I wish I knew.
She turns and walks away.
– I wish I knew where I could find a girl like that.
I watch her walk, favoring the side where the bullet’s stuck in her, carrying the assault rifle on her shoulder.
Tomorrow she’ll be on TV. Standing with her people around her. Delilah and Ben right up front. Trying to put a human face on what they’re pulling out of that hole in Queens.
And she’ll be lucky to live one more day past that.
I raise my good hand.
– Lydia.
She doesn’t look back at me.
– Save it.
– Just gonna say you can take the Impala.
– I already was.
And walks out the open door.
She does make it through the next couple days without dying or being thrown in a cage, she’ll go back underground. Fighting a new kind of fight. But I don’t need to tell her that.
After all, she kept the gun.
That lady, she wants to find a girl worth blowing up the world for, she should maybe look in the mirror.
– Do you think Delilah will come back?
I shrug.
– Beats me.
Chubby is still looking at those photos on the wall, a little girl.
– She’ll come back.
He looks at the floor.
– Of course she will. Once she sees. How hard it is. She’ll come back.
I push myself out of the corner of his couch.
– Don’t count on it.
He scuffs his foot against the lay of his shag carpet.
– No. I won’t. I won’t.
I start to gut myself up for standing.
– Anyway, all I need is for you to tell Evie I did my bit. I got the kids here safe. They didn’t want to stay. Too late for me to do more.
He scuffs again, drawing a cross in the carpet.
– Yes.
I lean and grab the side of his desk and pull and my bowels don’t fall out of my ass so I’m not dead yet.
– And I could use a ride over to Enclave.
He rubs the cross out.
– About that.
I’m lurching to the door.
– Don’t give me grief at this stage, Chubs. You don’t have to linger, just drive me over, push me out, and drive away.
– Joe.
I look at him.
He’s holding one hand to his cheek.
– I’m sorry, Joe.
I put my back against the wall, trying not to slide down it.
– Chubby?
– Very sorry.
– What did you?
He pulls his hand down his face, dragging the cheek, giving himself a cant.
– I never spoke with Evie.
I start to slide.
He pulls his cheek lower.
– She doesn’t know anything about Delilah and the baby. She never.
I’m on the floor.
Chubby looks like the side of his face that he’s touching has melted under his hand.
– She never said you should go looking for them.
He lets go of his face and it pulls itself back up.
– As far as I know, she doesn’t know that you’re alive.
I stay on the floor.
I could pull the piece I took from the Cure house armory and shoot Chubby, but I don’t much see the point of it. Said from the beginning that I owed him one. Just because I thought I had extra reason to go looking for his daughter, that doesn’t mean the debt wasn’t reason enough. Figure I may have thrown in the towel a few times if I hadn’t had that extra motivation, but that just doubles his smart for making the play he made.
I lift a hand.
– Doesn’t matter, Chubby.
I feel for a smoke, can’t find any, remember I never got my tobacco back from Ben.
Oh well.
Chubby comes over, takes my hand, pulls me up.
– If there’s something I can do, Joe. Money. I. Anything is what I mean.
He puts a finger alongside his neck.