Page 98 of Last Light

After we clean up, I let the dog out and sit on the back step while he runs into the woods. The evening feels pleasant. The air isn’t very thick or overly hot.

There’s one spot through the trees that I can see the sunset.

Travis comes out to join me with the rest of his bottle of beer, sitting beside me without speaking. He rests his forearms on his thighs, leaning forward slightly to see the sun setting in the sky.

I wonder if he feels kind of heavy and poignant like I do.

I’ve really liked this place, and we have to leave it tomorrow.

“Gonna be purple,” Travis says after a few minutes of silence.

I glance over and see his eyes focused on the sky.

He’s right. Sunsets have been weird since impact. The haze in the sky changes the look of them, the color. For a while there was no color at all. Nothing but dim grayness. But the color has been back for the past year or so, not as vivid as they used to be and usually with one color predominating.

Tonight the color is a dusky violet.

We watch as the pale bluish sky transforms to purple, with an edge of light orange just around the orb of the sun. The surrounding mountains and trees block the lowest part of the descent, but it’s still a real sunset.

It’s lovely. And strangely sad. To watch the last light of day bleed into purple. To witness the sun’s hazy brightness slowly dying as it sinks toward the horizon.

Leaving us in darkness.

But only after one final spectacle. The sun’s last word to the world. Unmistakable proof of its identity—its existence—even as it disappears.

After a few minutes, the tightness of my chest and throat become painful. I reach out and find Travis’s hand on the step between us.

He twines his fingers with mine and squeezes gently. We hold hands until the sun dips below the trees.

When the sun rises again, everything will be different.

This intimate respite will be over.

We’ll have to enter a battered world again.

It’s getting dark when the dog returns from the woods. He trots over and snuffles at Travis before he moves to me and tries to squeeze between my legs so he can get his nose up to my face.

I make room for him, sliding my palms up and down his soft back. We were able to give him a real bath yesterday, so he’s clean now. His cuts are healing.

The tightness in my throat threatens to strangle me as I let the animal nuzzle me. He’s got a warm body. A cool, wet nose. And doggy breath.

He’s attached himself to us. He loves us now.

He thinks we’re his people.

I make a little sound in my throat as I try to control rising emotion.

“I’m so sorry, Layne.” Travis reaches over to scratch the dog’s neck.

He doesn’t say so, but he doesn’t think the dog should come with us. I know all the reasons he’d give me, and all of them are good.

People don’t have pets anymore. Not in this world. Food has to be used to feed people.

Not dogs.

And the dog would be put in danger over and over again on the road with us.

Four years ago, I never would have understood such a decision, but I understand it now.

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