Page 214 of Everything Under the Sun

I let her speak, let her get it all out; I felt her hands clutching my leg.

“Everything that has happened to us since we left—oh, Atticus, the odds are so stacked against us that I’m beginning to think we’re never going to make it to Shreveport. And look at us now”—she shot into a stand and threw her hands out at her sides—“we have nothing: no guns, not even a knife”—she plucked a pair of scissors from the folds of her skirt—“this is the closest thing I’ve found to a weapon. And we have no food. Atticus, I looked everywhere. There’s nothing. I looked under rocks for worms and in windowsills for dead flies—nothing.”

Thais stopped, and she stood there for a moment with her hands balled into fists at her sides. I could only wonder what she was thinking, what war was raging inside of her, and still, I didn’t have the heart to interrupt; I let her words cut me because they were true and I could do nothing to change the facts.

She knelt in front of me again, and her angry face had softened as if in that moment she had forgiven the world. Tears were still wet on her cheeks, brimmed in her eyes. She took my hand into hers, careful with my broken fingers, and then she kissed it.

“But I know, despite what the world wants me to believe, that we’re going to make it. And I know that when we do, when we walk through the glittering gates of Shreveport, that everything will change, that our lives will…truly begin.”

I smiled, and I stroked her hand with my pinky finger, and my heart filled up with love for her, for her patience and her optimism and her unimaginable strength and her hopes and dreams I myself could never hold onto for as long as she had. I wanted to kiss her, deeply, softly, I didn’t care and wouldn’t be picky if I had a choice, but my face was too swollen for kissing. And I wanted to make love to her, but my body was too battered for love-making.

I settled with words, pushed through my swollen lips, and willed my mind to make sure my mouth said them perfectly. “I love you with all my heart, Thais Fenwick.”

THAIS

My eyes found his in an instant, and for a moment they did not blink. My chest filled with up air, my heart with emotion that threatened to choke me. But I did not choke; I swallowed the emotion down, and I pushed my body toward him and kissed his broken lips with the gentleness of a feather. “And I love you…Atticus, I’ve loved you since the day you carried me in your arms away from my sister. And in my heart I know I’ll love you long after the sun dies and takes the world with it.”

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ATTICUS

We talked of many things: about the people of Paducah and their strange beliefs that were neither right nor entirely wrong.

“I can understand their ways,” Thais had said. “And a part of me feels that because of how they are, more people have found their strength.”

“And more have died because they couldn’t,” I had added.

Thais told me all about her unexpected friendship with a girl named Drusilla.

“She saved my life,” Thais had said. “And yours. We might still be in that place if it wasn’t for her.”

“Did he hurt you?” I had asked about Kade.

Thais shook her head. “He tried,” she answered. “He would have if Drusilla hadn’t come back for me.” And she looked at me, and in her eyes was something unfamiliar, dark, and she said, “I was relieved to see him die. Just like that man you killed in Lexington City. I was relieved…” It was a confession of guilt.

“They deserved it, Thais. Remember that. Don’t let your heart lie to your conscience. They deserved it.”

After a moment, Thais said, “I know.”

I told Thais about my time in the cage, and with a heavy heart, about Peter Whitman.

“Oh no…I remember now,” Thais had said. “The first fight. I thought I’d seen that man before, but I couldn’t place his face. Were you good friends?”

“I guess you could say that,” I had answered. “I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did, but then again, he didn’t know me, either.”

I told Thais about the dangerous secret Peter had been hiding, and about his wife and daughters.

“No one should ever have to hide who they are or who they love,” Thais had said, her head hung in dismay.

After a moment, I, thinking about my friend, said, “I know.”

I told her the news about William Wolf heading to the South soon.

“Do you think they’ll go to Shreveport?” Thais had asked.

“Eventually,” I had said, and I explained what Peter had told me about Texas.

And then I told her about Edgar.

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