Page 82 of What Rough Beast

I need Ava Germaine to be happy.

Fifty-Six

Ava

Micah looks at me, eyelids flickering.

“What happened?” he asks, voice fading.

Then he’s gone.

And somewhere, a baby is crying.

Epilogue

One Year Later

“Shit, he’s walking better than I am these days,” Widow says from the porch, resting her stiff leg on the railing.

Typhus toddles toward me in the grass, goes down. Raises his head, looks at me, mouth warped, deciding whether or not to cry.

“You’re okay,” I tell him.

Widow says no Zedeker needs to be babied, not even the babies.

Typhus’s mouth hangs open, still debating whether to complain about what the world has done to him. Panda runs over, licks his face, and what would have been tears turns into giggles as he grabs on to the dog, pulls himself up, and tries again.

“Good boy,” I say to both of them.

“And there’s your partner in crime,” Widow says, shading her eyes.

I don’t know if she’s talking to me or Typhus as Hailey crosses the road, Brady bouncing on her hip. Behind her is a white picket fence, the refrigerators long gone, trees trimmed and the Wagner home visible for the first time in centuries, old, dark bricks contrasting with the shining new tin roof the Brimleys wanted over their grandson’s head, along with new electrical wiring, and whatever else Hailey determines needs to happen next, I’m sure.

“It can stop being hot anytime,” she complains, dropping into the grass next to me and sending Brady to Typhus with a playful swat on his butt. He’s still crawling, but he catches up to Typhus, pulls him down by the waist.

“Nature doesn’t do what you say,” Widow calls from the porch.

“Yeah, neither do you,” Hailey calls back. “I told you to keep that leg bent.”

“You can get bent,” Widow mutters, but loudly enough that we can hear it.

Hailey rolls her eyes, turns to me. “How are you?”

“Somebody’s got to haul manure out of the skunk pen,” I say, yanking up some grass and running the tips over my scarred palm. “Tripod’s got a tick behind his ear he won’t let me get to—you’ll have to hold him for me—the new raccoon is pregnant, so I need to run to the store and get formula replacement before too long, the bees need to be treated for mites and—”

“I’ll try again,” Hailey says, interrupting me. “How are you?”

“Oh, I . . .” How I am hardly occurs to me these days, a non-thought that to others might sound sad, but to me is a relief. I am not miserable, and I’m still working at identifying other things I can be, the opportunities for feelings people manage to have, that always seemed distant and unattainable to me.

“You’re . . . ?” Hailey prompts me.

“I’m fine,” I say, meaning it. “Busy.”

“Busy makes you happy,” Hailey says, watching my face.

“Something has,” I tell her, and she smiles at me.

“Me too, and it ain’t a man, I can tell you that,” Hailey says, shading her eyes as she watches Brady flop onto Typhus, both of them giggling. “Well, I guess he will be, one day.”