Page 71 of Devotion

Saint Louis itself looks a lot like the Capital with its fortified wall and closely constructed large buildings. The streets aren’t as pristinely clean. The architecture isn’t as unified. But there’s also a different feel in the air. Like people are happier here, if that’s even possible to sense from such a short visit.

My family has their own house. It’s not fancy, but it’s comfortable and the cost for it doesn’t take most of their monthly earnings. Carrie has her own room, which she’s happy to share with me during my visit. They’re still getting used to a new city and a new way of life, but they’re definitely happy here.

Happier than they ever were before.

By the time I leave late in the afternoon on Sunday, I’m convinced that they made the right decision in moving here. My dad likes his job, and my mother has been given a decent one cooking in a community kitchen for only four hours five days a week. Carrie is registered to go to school when the next term begins, and my grandfather has already broken soil for a garden in their small backyard.

They’re all doing well. And every single one of them, at some point during the visit, gently suggests that I might join them here.

My mother is the most direct. She understands how I feel about Gabriel and believes that being his partner is the absolute best I could hope for out of life in the Capital. But life in Saint Louis is different. I could find a man who loves me, she explains.A relationship where I would be an equal. Where my own happiness is every bit as important as his.

I listen to her. Assure her that I’ll think about it. And I even try to mull it over as the hired vehicle drives me away from my family’s home and toward the guarded walls surrounding Saint Louis.

But it’s not an open question for me. It’s not worth more than a few minutes’ reflection.

I told Gabriel the truth before I left. I’m never going to leave him.

I’m his for life.

Maybe in silly, immature daydreams I play around with the idea that Gabriel might want to move back to Saint Louis himself. And maybe he’ll decide to take me with him. That our relationship would no longer be defined by the palace’s social conventions regarding partners. That we could be even more than we are now.

But I don’t let myself indulge in those fantasies for long. Gabriel is doing important work. And I have no doubt that he’ll do a great job with this project and all the others he’ll be given. People will continue to recognize how much of an asset he is. The president won’t want to lose him. And I can contribute in my small way to how he’s making things better in the Central Cities.

It’s enough.

I’m thrilled for my family, but I don’t need what they have.

My driver is a friendly man in his sixties named Carl. When I ask him a couple of questions about the fallen landmarks we pass, he chats easily, and we get into an engaging conversation that lasts for more than an hour.

The sun is going down by the time we cross the border back into the Central Cities. There’s a long delay as we wait for our turn in the line and then go through the inspection and approval process with the unit of guards stationed there.

It’s pitch-black by the time we’re through. The unfamiliar landscape is creepy in the darkness.

“Is it safe?” I ask Carl after a while as I get a little nervous. We have more than an hour left of the drive until we reach the Capital. “Being out in the open at night like this?”

“It’s safe in this motor,” he tells me. “We’re going too fast for any of the bandits to catch us.”

“So there are bandits out here?”

“Of course. Lots of folks don’t want to submit to proper authority, so they try to make their own way out in the countryside. Most of them do it by taking by force what’s not theirs.”

I scan the dark for any sign of predators, but I can’t see past the headlights on the road. It’s like there’s nothing out there. Nothing at all.

“So most of them are thieves?”

“A lot of them, yeah. Some are worse than that. Got some real monsters out there who like to hurt people for sport.”

“Can’t the guards deal with them?”

“They don’t do much patrolling off the road. Too much land and not many people in most of it. You don’t have to worry though. They’re not going to catch our car.”

That does make me feel better. We’re moving so fast I’m not sure how we could be stopped even by murderous monsters.

“I’ve heard people have guns out here.” No one in the Capital has access to a weapon like that except the guards.

“Sure do. That’s one of the reasons to stay behind walls where it’s safe. We also got a few rebel groups out here.”

“Rebels? So there are some still around?” I haven’t heard of any sort of rebellion against the president’s regime for years and years.

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