Page 19 of Last Light

An unexpected curl of heat tightens beneath my belly.

“Well?” Travis says, sounding grumpy. He’s rubbing his face, checking for stray bristles.

I pull back, feeling my cheeks flush again. “Looks like you got it all. How should we sleep?”

Despite the vague question and the lack of segue, Travis understands what I’m asking. “Got a sleeping bag in the back of the Jeep. Only one, but we both can’t sleep at the same time out here. Gotta keep watch.”

“That makes sense. We can take turns sleeping.” I go to get the sleeping bag, realizing as I do that I actually feel good.

I’ve got food in my stomach. I’ve had plenty of water. I’m somewhat clean. I still taste toothpaste. Travis might be annoying, but he isn’t a creep. And I’m getting ready to sleep.

I don’t realize that I’ve been humming as I spread out the sleeping bag next to the fire, very close to where Travis is sitting on the rock.

“What’s that?” he asks abruptly.

“What’s what?”

“That song. Sounds familiar.”

I have to hum a few notes to recall what song has been on my mind. “Oh. It was my grandma’s favorite.” I hesitate. Then I sing the first couple of lines.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart.

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.

My voice isn’t great. Not like my grandmother’s. But I can hold a tune, and the sound of my singing isn’t unpleasant.

Travis’s eyes are fixed on me as I trail off.

“You know it?” I ask, strangely self-conscious.

“Yeah. Your grandma would sing it at church sometimes. Always liked when she sang.”

I always liked it too.

For a moment I miss her so much my eyes burn.

I didn’t cry when she died. I couldn’t. There’s a defense mechanism built into the human soul. You get to a point where loss is so immense that the part of you that hurts when something dies simply shuts down. You go numb.

I can’t even process what it means that billions of people have died in the past four years.

That nearly everyone I love has died.

That my grandma died only a few days ago.

I can’t process it. It sits like a weight in my chest, but it doesn’t make me cry.

It just is.

“You know the whole song?” Travis asks, his gruff voice breaking into my thoughts.

“Yeah.”

He hesitates as if he’s waiting. Then, “Well?”

I let out a soft huff of amusement. Then I sing the whole song for him, sitting on my knees on the sleeping bag.

I haven’t sung in years. It’s strange. Emotional.

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