THEY HAD TAKEN RUTH from her bed in the middle of the night, and they had kept her hidden in a place that looked like a hospital with no windows. They had chained her to a bed, and they had reached inside her and taken the only thing that was both hers and Michael’s. She didn’t remember much after that. She ran after she exploded through a roof thick with layers of soil and cement, and she escaped the place. Every step she took dropped another curtain on her memories, occluding them. Ruth kept running. She paid no attention to the screams she heard as she rushed to the edge of the land that had once been home. Metal, brick, and flesh whined beneath her feet until she reached the ocean. She stopped when she felt the cool water wash them clean, like her mind.
Ruth no longer thought about the baby they had killed to do this to her, nor did she remember her husband, or anyone else she had ever met. She stood in place, in silence, and listened to the sounds that traveled across the plane. Nothing yet, but soon there would be a rain of firepower that would silence the voices of thousands. Ruth wouldn’t reach it in time to save Michael. That was the first truth that flooded her mind as awareness started to seep into her being. There were no thoughts, no imagery but what she perceived from those close to the ground; men and women like insects and the sounds they made sounded like cicadas in the night. Ruth paid them no attention as she waded into the cool water, and swam toward death.
On the other side, it had stopped raining. The sun rose and the light it brought painted the devastated fields until the sheet of fog that covered dissipated, and men started killing one another at the accorded hour. By the time Ruth reached the terrain, she found it wounded by shelled trenches that would never heal, as devoid of green life as it was littered with the dead. Cooling bodies dangled from barbed wire or sunk into mud that was stained red. Ruth did not step on any of them, no matter what side they had fought for. She wove her feet slowly into the fabric of remains and added no injury to them, whether they were silent or moaning in horror at what they saw. A few bullets struck her skin and bounced off it with no effect. She never stopped to punish those that attacked her. There was nothing they could do. That was the truth.
Ruth reached Michael. There were no memories to reveal why she had made her way to him, but she knew she had to be there, and nowhere else. On the ground, Michael’s eyes fluttered open one last time. He tried to move his lips, and Ruth knelt all around him, her thighs parted to form walls that no weapon could penetrate. She sat on her heels and leaned slightly to encompass him fully with her shadow. The air oscillated with the heat that left her body in endless waves. “Shh,” she said. “Don’t say anything. You don’t have to. Speak to me with your thoughts.”
Ruth? It is you, isn’t it?
“Yes, it’s me.” That was no longer true, but the images she sensed from Michael’s mind told her what was true to him.
You look different. I’m very glad to see you.
She smiled. Her fingers moved slowly around him to carve a bowl of dirt out of the ground, so she could lift him without disturbing his broken body.
Where is baby? Are you here? Are you truly here?
“I am here. Baby is fine. Your Mother is caring for him.”
Him? A boy?
“Yes, Michael. A beautiful baby boy. I named him Philip, after your father.”
It is a good name. Will you tell him about me?
“Of course, darling.” Ruth lifted the clump of soil in her palm closer to her heart and held it close, keeping Michael as still as possible. She focused on his pain until it was gone.
What is happening?
“I came to see you. I had to see you. I’ve missed you terribly.” Somehow, that was the truth.
It doesn’t hurt, Ruthie. I don’t suppose I look very dashing at the moment.
“You always look handsome to me, my love. Nothing will ever hurt anymore. I will make sure of it.”
Michael took a breath closer to his final and felt a different kind of pain rake through his mind like nails.
They’re all dead, Ruthie. The boys. Everyone… they are gone.
Ruth reached for the truth and found it almost instantly, lingering on like expensive perfume.
“Not everyone, darling. Tom is alive. He is badly injured and he will lose his leg, but he is going to live a long life and tell his children and grandchildren about his best friend Michael, and how he saved his life.”
I saved him.
“Yes, you did.”
Ruth, I’m frightened.
Another breath left his body, and Ruth knew there was only one left after that.
“I’m here with you, Michael. I’m holding you, and I won’t let go.”
Michael thought of his friends, all born and raised in Keston, men he had known his entire life. All of them, gone.
“Not Tom.”
Tom is alive. Thank God. And my son is alive.
“Yes, Philip is alive.”
“Will it hurt?”
The sun began to hide on the horizon, but Michael never felt warmer. The sky was still a vibrant blue for him, and the sound of screams had dissipated into birdsong.
I hear the birds chattering outside our window.
The image of two female blackbirds filling the air with conversation entered Ruth’s mind like bait on a hook. She let the last light of Michael’s mind show her how it had been between them and she multiplied the vision for him, making it swell into a lifetime.
“Remember the goldfinch, how it sat on the fence and sang in the evening. Remember my full belly, Philip kicking, your hand feeling every strong bump. Remember laughter. Remember his birth, my screams turned to laughter. You cried and smoked, and wanted to use one of those telephone contraptions to call someone, but we did not know anyone that had one.
“Remember Philip’s first steps. Remember when we moved to the Miller farm after Old Man Miller died and his son moved to London. Remember teaching Philip to milk the cows. Remember my custard tart. Remember Emily, our little girl. Remember Philip getting married. Emily, getting married. Remember our grandchildren. Remember holding my hand every morning, and every evening before we retired. Remember we never fought. Remember I loved you more than anything and anyone. Remember a full life, and in the end, sunlight, and the blackbird’s song. Walk over to it, darling.”
Somewhere only Ruth could see, Michael sat up, smiled at her, and felt his nostrils flare with the rich fragrance of something wonderful baking in the oven. In the world and in Ruth’s palm, he didn’t move anymore.