The feeling of plastic against my palms. I don’t dare open the containers—imagine if it has all melted, imagine if there’s no ice left. . . . And have I started coming undone? Imagine if I can’t do it, don’t have the strength, am too old, too slow, have lost the rage required to see this through.

No, no, I haven’t. And it’s just as well if the ice has melted, then I can pour it out across his courtyard. It was supposed to melt anyway, sooner or later, the way all ice eventually melts. And I can say that, I can shout that to him.

All ice melts.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: David

Chapter Twenty-Eight

David

I was awakened by the first rays of the sun. It had absorbed the moisture in me, even if it was only early morning. In my mouth, the taste of dust, a dryness so intense that my tongue was paralyzed. And the smell of fire. All of me stunk, like a piece of smoked meat.

I lay with my cheek against the ground. The soil broke apart beneath me. I could see the stripes in the landscape, as wrinkled as the skin of an old man. The dry wisps of grass still held the soil in place, but they would soon surrender, crumble into dust. And what once had been topsoil, arable land, would be blown away.

I got to my feet. At the bottom of a bucket someone had tossed away I found a few dirty drops. Dirty water—shouldn’t drink dirty water.

But I couldn’t help myself and poured them down my throat.

Spittle formed in my mouth. And a taste, which either came from me or from the water. As foul as poison on the tongue.

I walked to the hall. Gathered our things, the few clothes, a little food I had saved. Quickly packed it up. I moved as quietly as I could. Marguerite was sleeping heavily and soundlessly on my bed.

Every time I bent over the backpack, my head pounded, the nausea rose. But I did nothing to prevent it. I wanted to feel the nausea, the headache. I deserved it.

Then I pulled on my backpack and picked up Lou.

Finally I was the one carrying her. Today I was carrying my daughter. I should have been the one carrying her yesterday.

And I should have been the one who carried my son, August. I should have carried him too. He was too heavy for Anna. She must have stumbled. He was too heavy.

No.

Just this, just now. Lou. My child in my arms. She was alive. She was here. I could carry her to the ends of the earth.

There was nobody seated by the exit when we passed. I didn’t see the guards when I left what had once been a camp.