Theo gives me a look. “Are you sure we should stick around?”
“We have to!” I whisper.
“Marguerite, we can’t save Paul if we die here.”
“Keep one hand on your Firebird. We don’t leave unless we absolutely have to. The absolute last second. All right?”
“Yeah. Got it.”
Then I hear the planes through the cement, from underground. The sound could only reach us if the bombers were directly overhead.
I turn toward Theo; his eyes meet mine. He grips my hand tighter and says, “Just in case—I love you.”
And the world turns white, and disappears.
All those movies you see, where action heroes coolly stroll away while buildings explode right behind them? They’re total crap.
When something explodes near you, a wall of hot air hits you so hard it feels like stone. Your eardrums seem to shatter, like the bomb’s gone off in your head; you can’t hear anything but a dull roar, and a ringing. The explosion knocks you down, sears your skin.
I manage to push myself up on my elbows, above most of the dazed people lying around me. Smoke lingers in the air, and I look up to see the exposed night sky, ringed by rubble that must have been the building we ran into before. Fire flickers up there, but nothing’s burning down here. My palms sting, scraped and bloody, but I don’t think I’m hurt worse than that. Next to me, Theo’s lying on his back, coughing so hard from the smoke that he clutches his gut. Nearby I see Mom sitting upright, shaking her head like she’s trying to clear the ringing from her ears. Dad brushes stone dust from his hair.
As the air clears slightly, I see the people on the other side of the room—torn skin, unnaturally bent limbs, and blood. So much blood.
“We need help!” someone shouts. It’s not like I have any idea how to handle medical emergencies, but it’s impossible to look at this and not feel the need to do something. By the time I reach some of the injured, a few nurses and one doctor are already working to help, so I fall in with them and follow their lead. The next several minutes are a blur: ripping apart spare pieces of clothing to use as bandages, bracing people in whatever posture will allow them to protect their broken limbs and experience the least pain. One elderly woman seems to be having a heart episode, but with no drugs to give her and no ambulance to call, all I can do is sit by her side and talk her through it. “Deep, slow breaths. Try to calm down.”
She gives me a look like I am a total dumb-ass. Yeah, I get that “calm” isn’t really an option with bombers circling overhead. But we have to try.
When she’s as settled as she can be, I look around to find Theo standing behind me. “Anything I can do?” he calls over the clamor and the crackling of flame overhead.
Surely there is, but the way wounded and panicking people are crushed in here reminds me of a Hieronymus Bosch painting: nonsensical and grotesque. Who can tell what we should or shouldn’t do? “Just hang on.”
The air whistles as I hear another bomb fall. Theo and I look at each other in panic, and I clutch his hand. But the next impact is farther away. The one after that is even more distant. We begin to breathe a little easier, and the people around us visibly relax. Theo murmurs, “Does this mean we made it?”
“I hope so.” Only then do I realize we’re still holding hands, and I let go. We don’t look each other in the eye.
Near us, a little girl asks her mother, “Is it over?”
“We’ll get the all-clear soon enough,” the woman says. “You wait and see.”
From the weird glances she gets, I can tell not everyone is as optimistic as she is, but as long as I can’t hear bombs, I’m taking it as a positive sign.
I keep offering what makeshift nursing I can, which isn’t much. Within the hour, a doctor who’s taken charge tells me to take it easy for a few moments. With a sigh, I lean back against the wall and slide my hands into my pockets.
Something’s in my left pocket. I pull it out to see that it’s a photograph, bottom up in my palm so that I see the back and the words written on it: With all my love forever.
I turn the picture over to see Theo in full uniform, smiling up at me.
“What’s that?” Theo says from his resting spot nearby. He hasn’t really glimpsed it; he’s just trying to make conversation.
“Nothing.” I put the photo back in my pocket.
We don’t get the all-clear until hours later. By then my whole body is stiff, I’m starving, and the sunlight outside is so bright it feels like it could burn my eyes. I stumble around the street, squinting at the scene around us. Most of the neighborhood looks the same—except for the areas that have been instantly, totally obliterated. What were buildings are now smoldering holes in the earth. In the distance I can see smoke spiraling up from several new fires.
Through a megaphone, Red-Armband Guy shouts, “All commercial and manufacturing work is suspended for the day. Return to your homes and await further instructions.”
“Thank goodness this happened at night, instead of during the day when you were at work,” Mom says as we walk home along the ruined streets. All around us, smoke darkens the dawn sky. “I wouldn’t like the thought of you at the munitions factory at a time like this.”
My job in this universe is building bombs? How am I supposed to bluff my way through that? At this moment, I can’t imagine anything I’d less want to do than make even one more bomb in this world.
Buildings I saw only an hour ago now lie in pieces on the street, having crumbled into smoldering piles of brick and rebar. Most of those houses were empty, surely, because of the air-raid siren, but I can’t be sure. When I see a tricycle upside down in some rubble, I have to close my eyes tightly for a moment.
As the four of us reach our house—intact, untouched—Dad glances at Theo. “You know, Private Beck, during wartime, emotions run high. We live as if there’s no tomorrow. So we overlook things we normally wouldn’t, such as a young man sneaking out of our daughter’s room in the dead of night.”
For once, Theo is speechless.
Dad keeps going. “I myself am experiencing that sort of amnesia right now. I have no idea how you managed to find us in the bombing raid, since of course you were nowhere near Marguerite’s bedroom when this all began. However, I suspect your commanding officer will suffer no such memory lapse if you fail to appear on base shortly.”
“Right. Yes. Of course.” Theo’s hand steals toward his pocket, and his wallet, which we have to hope contains the address of this military base he’s supposed to report to. “I’ll just, uh, get going. I’m gonna do that. Now.”
Mom smiles crookedly at him. “Don’t you need your bicycle?”
Theo looks toward our house, and I glimpse the bike I saw last night. He sighs heavily, and I know he’s wishing for his Pontiac. “Yes, ma’am. Marguerite, I’ll be by later, okay?”
My only answer is a nod. I’m silenced by the memory of the last words he spoke before the bomb fell—what he wanted to say to me if those were our final moments alive. He smiles slightly, then turns to go.
Once we walk inside, Mom and Dad act like everything’s normal. For them, this is normal. My father volunteers to make breakfast, while my mother takes the first shower. I just sit at the kitchen table, unable to move or think. The smell of burning still stinks in my nose.