Page 84 of Heart of the Sun

“What?” I asked, moving around him and stepping inside. I let out a giddy laugh of disbelief, turning to look at him with wide eyes before bringing my gaze back at the classic yellow car.

“It looks like there was one parked next to it,” I said, nodding to the empty spot where a canvas cover like the ones my dad had used to protect his cars had been discarded. “Whoever lives in that house had to have taken one of the cars and left.”

He moved around the yellow car and then tried the knob on a door that likely led into the house, finding it unlocked too. “Hello?” he shouted inside. Only silence returned, though he still shoutedhelloone more time to the same result. “Look,”he said, walking toward a pegboard on the wall where a singular key was hung. “Holy shit.” He plucked it off the board and held it up.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Had we really gotten this lucky?

“There’s only one way to find out.” He opened the driver’s side door, and I quickly rounded the car and got in on the passenger side as he was turning the key in the ignition. It rattled, and sputtered, and when it caught, rumbling to life, I let out a gleeful squeal as I clapped my hands together. “It runs! Oh my God. Tuck.”

He met my eyes. “We’ll write down the address. We’ll return it as soon as we can.”

“They have a car,” I said. “And who even knows if they’ll be back.”

“Still,” he said.

I smiled. “Still.” Doing the right thing mattered, even now. And why that made me feel powerful when perhaps it should have done the opposite, I didn’t even know.

He turned off the ignition and then I ran my hand over the dash and peeked at him sideways. “This classic car brings back memories,” I said. “Of that old dusty loft you found peaceful for some reason.”

He opened his mouth to say something but then merely smiled, that secretive one that had always made me want to pin him down and force him to tell me what he was thinking.

He slid from the car and pocketed the key. “So, then we’ll stay here tonight and leave in the morning. But I do want to check the house more thoroughly and make sure this is what it looks like. Wait here for a few?”

I nodded and then he disappeared through the door, returning about five minutes later and beckoning me inside. “All clear,” he said. “There’s an itinerary for a middle school trip to DC on the kitchen counter. I wonder if they took off to find their kid.”

God.The stories to be told from this disaster. I’d seen so many awful things on the road, the worst side of humanity showing itself, but I’d also been struck by the fact that when the lights went out, the first thing human beings did was reach for those they loved.

I wondered if years into the future, people would say, “Where were you?” And no one would have to clarify, “When?” Because everyone would know exactly what the asker meant.Where were you when the lights went out?

And I had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude, even though my personal answer to that question would likely give me some amount of PTSD for many years to come.I was on an airplane. We made a crash landing.The gratitude was for the fact that when we crawled from the wreckage, I was with Tuck. And there was no one better to find at my side.

I heard a sound outside but realized it was just one of the horses out back, letting out a soft whinny. “What if the people who live here are gone now, but return?”

“We’ll hear them coming. They have a car.”

“Good point.” I came to stand in front of him and our eyes met, the moment weighty and full.

He tilted his head, his gaze moving over my face. And there was something sort of assessing, and sort of soft in his eyes that made a small shiver run over my skin. Whatever he was thinking made him smile in that secretive way of his, and I very suddenly loved that secretive smile when I knew thoughts of me were behind it.

And though I’d been needy and desperate and ready to have sex while seated on a horse just a short time before, now that my blood had cooled and rational thought had returned, I felt a little nervous too. Tuck looking at me the way he was made me feel giddy, but also young and a little bit shy because God but this man meant so much to me, and he always had.

“If you, ah, have to use the bathroom, we should go outside now before I lock up. There won’t be plumbing in here.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, me too.” He pointed at the staircase, a beam of muted light coming in through the large window overhead. “Go ahead and pick a room. I’m going to make sure all the doors and windows are secured and check to see if they left any weapons behind.”

I nodded, and our eyes lingered, and it was clear that we both knew what we wanted and understood exactly what was going to happen between us. To me it felt destined, like I’d finally arrived at a place I’d been traveling to my entire life. My skin prickled with anticipation and for a moment I found it difficult to draw in air. For a moment I was afraid. But of what, I couldn’t exactly say. It felt like holding something precious and delicate that, left unattended, was very likely to break. Or disappear. “I’ll just…ah…” I waved my hand toward the stairs.

“I’ll find you.” He smiled and it was sweet. It was the smile of the boy he’d been, and it caused a flurry of wings to take up under my rib cage. I turned and ran quickly up the stairs.

I poked my head into a primary bedroom, and a child’s room, both obviously lived in, the drawers open in the primary as though the couple had packed in a hurry.

The room at the end of the hall appeared to be a guest room, and I set my things down in the upholstered chair in the corner and then turned to the dresser where there were a couple of candles and a lighter. This family had done as so many others had probably done as well—they’d placed candles in all the rooms, they’d lit fires in their wood-burning fireplaces, and then they’d waited it out, thinking it was just a winter outage and the lights would be back on shortly. Especially in a more remote place like this, it might have been several days before they realized something was very wrong.

I lit the candles and the wicks flickered to life, mixing with the final glow of the sunset through the sheer curtains on the window.

The door to the attached bathroom was open slightly and I went inside and tried the faucet just because but the only thing that came out was a few brown dribbles.

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