Breath returned to me in a rush, and with it came a dangerously fierce
hope, one of those seizures of hope so intense it can break your heart
if it goes unfulfilled, a hope that was really a mad and unreasonable
conviction, which I had no right to indulge here at the end of the
world, We would find Jimmy Wing, and we would find Orson, untouched and
alive, and those who had meant to harm them would rot in Hell.
Through the wooden gate, along the narrow brick walkway, into the
backyard where the aroma of jasmine was as thick as incense, I worried
about how I was going to convey to Lilly Wing even a small measure of my
newfound faith that her son would be discovered alive and unharmed.
I had little to tell her that would support such an optimistic
conclusion.
In fact, if I recounted a fraction of what Bobby and I had seen in Fort
Wyvern, Lilly would lose hope altogether.
Bright lights were on toward the front of the Cape Cod bungalow.
In expectation of my return, only faint candlelight flickered beyond the
kitchen windows at the rear.
Sasha was waiting for us at the top of the back-porch steps. She must
have been in the kitchen when she heard the Jeep pulling behind the
garage.
The mental image of Sasha that I carry with me is idealized yet each time
I see her, after an absence, she is lovelier than my most flattering
recollection. Although my vision had adapted to the dark, the light was
so poor that I could not see the arrestingly clear gray of her eyes, the
mahogany shade of her hair, or the faintly freckled glow of her skin.
Nevertheless, she shone.
We embraced, and she whispered, “Hey, Snowman.”
“Hey.”
“Jimmy? ”
“Not yet, ” I said, matching her whisper. “Now Orson’s missing.
” Her embrace tightened. “In Wyvern? ”
“Yeah.”
She kissed my cheek. “He’s not just all heart and wagging tail.
He’s tough. He can take care of himself.”
“We’re going back for them.”
“Damn right, and me with you.” Sasha’s beauty is not just or even
primarily physical. In her face, I also see her wisdom, her compassion,
her courage, her eternal glory.
This other beauty, this spiritual beauty which is the deepest truth of
her sustains me in times of fear and despair, as other truths might
sustain a priest enduring martyrdom under the hand of a tyrant. I see
nothing blasphemous in equating Sasha’s grace with the mercy of God, for
the one is a reflection of the other. The selfless love that we give to
others, to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them as
Sasha would give hers for me, as I would give mine for her is all the
proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest, we
carry within us a divine spark, and if we choose to recognize it, our
lives have dignity, meaning, hope. In Sasha, this spark is bright, a
light that heals rather than wounds me.
When she hugged Bobby, who was carrying the shotgun, Sasha whispered,
“Better leave that out here. Lilly’s shaky.”
“Me too, ” Bobby murmured.
He put the shotgun on the porch swing. The Smith & Wesson revolver was
tucked under his belt, concealed by his Hawaiian shirt.
Sasha was wearing blue jeans, a sweater, and a roomy denim jacket.
When we embraced, I’d felt the concealed handgun in her shoulder
holster.
I had the 9-millimeter Glock.
If my mother’s gene-swapping retrovirus had been vulnerable to gunfire,
it would have met its match in us, the end of the world would have been
canceled, and we would have been at a beach party.
“Cops? ” I asked Sasha.
“They were here. Gone now.”
“Manuel? ” I asked, meaning Manuel Ramirez, the acting chief of police,
who had been my friend before he had been co-opted by the Wyvern crowd.
“Yeah. When he saw me walk through the door, he looked like he was
passing a kidney stone.” Sasha led us into the kitchen, where such a
hush prevailed that our soft footsteps were, comparatively, as loud and