The End Has Come

“Hey.” Gill was leaning on his SUV, one foot on the bumper. A thrill went through Teale. She tried to tamp it down, wondering if Gill had come outside hoping she would, too, or whether it was just coincidence.

She joined him by the SUV.

“You want to talk about, you know, the kitchen? Or just forget it happened, or —” Gill trailed off.

“Or? Is there a third option besides talking about it or not talking about it?”

He smiled. He was nervous, not meeting her gaze. “Help me out here — I’m kind of lost.”

Teale gave a dry, bitter laugh. “You think I’m not?”

That wasn’t fair, though — she’d kissed him, not the other way around. She truly was lost, though. In the other world, before, she’d never kissed another man, even when she was drunk. Even after she learned about Wilson’s affair with Beth Edwards.

“I can’t touch Season. In a sexual way, I mean. I tried once. It felt like I was molesting her, not making love.” Gill pressed a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“I haven’t had the courage to try with Wilson. I know it’s not Wilson’s fault, but it’s hard to get in the mood when your partner is wearing an adult diaper. Once in a while I, you know, relieve him. With my hand.”

With everything else that had been happening in the aftermath of the virus, Teale hadn’t realized how much the silence, the isolation, had worn her down. What a simple pleasure, to say something, anything, and have another human being respond to it.

Smiling, Gill said, “You’re a good wife.”

“I thought I was.” Teale realized the problem wasn’t so much that she’d kissed Gill, it was that she wanted to kiss him again.

There was an orange glow in the distance, over the rooftop of the muffler shop. Someone must have built a bonfire in their backyard.

“I should probably go in,” Teale said.

This time it was Gill who kissed her.

* * *

Someone whispered Teale’s name, jolting her awake. “Wilson? Is that you?”

Wilson lay beside her, his eyes closed, arms at his sides, just as she’d positioned him.

“Please say it was you.” She watched his face, looking perfectly normal in sleep, as if he might open his eyes at any moment and give her a big, warm Wilson smile.

Did he know? Did he suspect? And if he did, did he understand, or was he inside there, screaming in jealousy and anguish? Teale never had to lie, because Wilson couldn’t ask.

“Teale.” An urgent whisper from outside. Teale went to the window.

Gill was standing in the darkness, hands buried in his pockets.

Teale padded out of the room, checked on Chantilly and Elijah before pulling on a coat and heading outside.

She melted into Gill’s arms. “How’re you?”

“Good, now.”

“You making any progress on the grand City Council project?”

“I don’t know about progress.” Gill kissed her neck. “I finished the census, at least. There are officially sixty-nine residents of Gunnison, Colorado.”

“Interesting number.”

“I thought you’d like that.” Gill let her go, took her hands. “Listen, I have something I want to ask.” He licked his lips. He looked nervous.

“O-kay.”

Letting go of one of her hands, he drew a little white box out of his coat pocket, flicked it open with his thumb.

A diamond ring sat nestled in the box. Marquis style, the diamond three carats, at least. “I want to ask you to marry me.”

Teale reached down, touched the ring already on her finger, with its half-carat diamond. She twisted it, struggling to make sense of what was happening.

“I love you,” Gill said. “I don’t want to hide it any more. I can’t. I can’t sneak around behind Season’s back. I know it bothers you, too.”

Yes, it bothered her. She’d walked around for the last month with a perpetual knot in her stomach. Sometimes she felt sure Wilson knew where Teale was going when she said she was going for a walk.

“But what’s the alternative? Tell them?” Teale tried to imagine telling Wilson she was marrying Gill. He wouldn’t react, of course. Neither would Chantilly and Elijah. How would they feel, though, when Mommy explained that she loved Gill? “Imagine having to sit, frozen, day after day, while your wife kisses some other man. I’d rather be dead.”

Gill looked at the ground. “For all we know, they’d rather be dead anyway.”

Teale flashed back to those terrible days when the nodding virus was raging, the hushed conversations about painless ways to release loved ones from their suffering. How much Oxycodone or Valium you needed to mix into their water. Teale had been there, a scarf pressed over her nose and mouth, when their friend and neighbor Mark Melancon gave his son Valium-laced grape juice. She could still see the tears rolling down Mark’s cheeks as Jeremy drank. A few days later, Vanessa Melancon held the cup while Mark drank.

“If I was in their situation, I’d be grateful if Season slipped a dozen Oxycodone tablets into my juice,” Gill said. “If I didn’t know I was about to die? If I just drifted off gently? That would be the kindest thing she could do for me.”