The newscaster in the bad suit spoke. “What about the many people who say they’re never coming back to New York?”

“I beg them to look at this painting and remember why they came here in the first place. If, working by night, in the conditions this city is currently in, an artist can create something so great as the image we see behind me, I think the rest of us can be inspired to rebuild condos, restart businesses, and reform the place that inspires us all.”

They went on and on, but I turned the video off. There were tears welling up in my eyes once again, but this time it wasn’t because I was depressed.

“It was so beautiful.”

“Those paintings are all over the city,” Tina said. Beneath us, the tiny pedicurist was finishing up her work. She smiled up at us. “Evann, I think New York is the place you’re looking for.”

“Yes,” I said.

The winter that had seemed so relentless faded. The winds whipping through the tunnels created by tall buildings lessened. Buds grew on the bare branches of the trees that still remained upright, but had been stripped clean by the storm. During the day, the sun beat down on the asphalt of the streets, and the heat radiated out of it after the sun went down. Soon unbearable summer would be there, and the winter clothes they had layered on all winter to keep themselves from freezing would be discarded. What would they do in the heat? How many more would die?

Part Twelve Jesse—May

PART TWELVE

JESSE—MAY

1 The bad dreams got better once we were in the building. I almost totally stopped having that nightmare about Lux in the hospital. One night, I dreamed that she was cuddled up behind me as I slept in the huge bed in the apartment we’d taken over. We’d slept that way some nights in the IRT station, for warmth and because we were really good friends, you know? I woke up after that dream and stretched under this huge white down comforter I was sleeping under and felt good, felt that she was out there somewhere and someday I would find her.

Things were good there. It wasn’t exactly utopia, because you could tell there were de facto leaders calling most of the shots. There was Makayla, for one, who had gotten there first, so people would kind of ask her what was okay and what wasn’t. They went to her when they didn’t know what to do. I guess there could have been worse leaders. Kristin was another leader, but I could tell she was getting bored with the whole scene now that things were running smoothly. One day we were sitting down in the lobby alone, and she started talking about the life she missed.