Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Two

Carina left the warmth of Donovan's body to stir up the fire, but when he suggested they make coffee and have breakfast, she looked at him incredulously. This was not a day for something as mundane as breakfast. Sunlight streamed in the windows and lit the colored glass of the cupola, and she was seized with a desire to take a good look at the world.

She dressed and went outside while Donovan damped the fire and folded a piece of soft cheese into a tortilla for a hasty breakfast. Then he hurried after Carina and found her picking her way along the cracked sidewalk, throwing her head back from time to time to admire the infinite blue of the sky. "The prettiest days are always the ones right after a storm," she told him. "It's too muddy to travel today. Let's go exploring."

They made their way down potholed streets and through sticky expanses of mud. They explored an old school, an office building, and a post office covered in graffiti. Donovan wasn't sure if it was the glow of the golden day or just the warmth of Carina's sudden happiness, but the devastated town no longer seemed malevolent. In a corner store they found a few good safety razors and some dusty and curling postcards of Catalunia in happier days. They stopped at a playground and after checking the strength of the chains, Donovan pushed Carina on a swing. Then they squelched through the mud of a little park and sat on a stone bench to rest and ponder. When Donovan pulled his uneaten breakfast out of his pocket, Carina laughed. "You still haven't eaten that thing?"

"When would I, with you dragging me all over town? But I'm not like you. I can't live off the air."

Carina closed her eyes, tipped back her head and allowed a breeze to caress her face. "With air this good, I bet you could if you tried."

Donovan studied her. "It's nice to see you happy."

Carina stretched her arms overhead. "Right now is just a nice moment. I'm going to try not to think about anything else."

They went walking again, this time into a residential area. Many of the houses leaned at crazy angles and were surrounded by chunks of brick and plaster that had come loose and plummeted to the ground. One home, however, caught their eye. It was made of concrete that had once been plastered and painted to look like adobe, and inside there was still a bit of furniture and a fireplace with an intact chimney. "It would probably be more comfortable than the library," Donovan offered.

So they moved into the house. They parked the wagon in the garage, but Carina wouldn't let Donovan turn Goneril and Regan out into the scrubby yard to forage. "There's something wrong with the water here," she said. "That's why this town is abandoned. Everything that grows is contaminated."

Donovan stabled the animals in the garage and gave them hay and rainwater while Carina found a mouse-eaten broom and tried to clean up a little. They cooked dinner in the fireplace that evening and spent the night in a proper, if musty bed.

In the morning Donovan found Carina sitting on the lumpy living room sofa, flipping through an old magazine. She had found a gossamer pink scarf and knotted it loosely around her neck, and had put on a bit of lipstick. He approached her with a frown of concern.

Carina smiled. "Good morning. Want me to make some coffee?"

"Sure." His gaze wandered toward the window. It was another pretty day. Good traveling weather. "Don't you think we should get on the road?"

She stood and threw her arms around his neck. "Not today." She kissed him, then went into the kitchen for the coffeepot, and went out the back door to where she had already set up a spot on the concrete patio for a fire. She lit a bit of kindling with her flint, added a few broken branches from a long-dead potted tree, then set the grate over the fire and sat back on her heels to wait for the coffee to boil. "Too bad the fireplace is too small for the coffeepot," she said, "But it's nice to be outside on a day like today."

"Then why don't you want to travel?" Donovan asked, sitting beside her.

"I've got the whole rest of my dull farm life waiting for me back there, and for just a couple days, I want to pretend that things turned out different." Noticing the look of worry on his face, she smiled, her eyes reflecting all the blue of the morning sky. "I'm not trying to dodge reality; I'm just putting it off for another day. We'll leave tomorrow." She pulled the pot of boiling coffee off the grill and set it on the concrete. "Get your coffee cup, and one for me, too. And my magazine. I'll read you all the stories and we'll pretend we're an ordinary couple from the early years of the century, enjoying a leisurely morning coffee while ignoring that the world is falling apart."

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