Free Todd by Adam J Nicolai Page B

wasn't at Grandma's. It almost didn't
matter what had happened to them. They were gone, and they weren't coming back.
It was time to face it.
    "I miss them," Todd
said. "I don't... I don't think we're gonna find them."
    "No." The word was
horrible, malignant. "We're not."
    "I wish this never
happened."
    "Yeah." He couldn't
protect his son from this. He couldn't bring anyone back. All he had was
himself. He scooted his chair closer, put an awkward arm around his son's
shoulders.
    Todd was staring out the window,
at the empty street. "Allie would've really liked Pinky Wing. I know she
would've."
    "Is that the pony we got
yesterday?"
    He nodded.
    "You're right. I think she
would've loved it." He took a deep breath, screwing up his courage for
what he had to say next. "I think maybe we should have a funeral for Mom
and Allie." The words burned on his tongue. They awoke some kind of
violent, thrashing denial deep in his skull. No! it screamed, whining
like a tantrum. No! No! NO!
    "What's that?"
    Alan blinked. "What's... a
funeral?"
    "Yeah. It's like a birthday
party, kind of?"
    "No." Ah, gods. "No,
it's—"
    "I mean not exactly a
birthday party."
    His son's naiveté wrung him like a
rag. "It's when you bury someone you've lost, and talk about how much you
loved them, and try to..." Let them go. He couldn't say it.
"Try to figure out how to deal with it. You celebrate the person, talk
about your favorite things about them. Sometimes people play music or sing
songs." Belatedly, he added, "We can do that if you want."
    "But we can't bury
them. They're gone."
    "That's okay. You can have a
funeral even without the body of the person. People do it all the time. And we
don't have—" Their bodies. Again, he couldn't say the words.
"I mean, they disappeared, but we have the clothes they were wearing. We
could bury those." Part of him stood apart, aghast at his words, frozen
with disbelief. What are you doing? it wanted to know. Are you giving
up that easily? Just giving up?
    But it had been three days, and
they weren't coming back. No one was.
    This was the right thing to do.
Wasn't it?
    "Okay," Todd said.
    30
    The shovel was too big for him,
but Todd was dogged anyway, his face serious and his eyes grim. Alan had never
seen him work so hard at anything. He was proud of him for coming to the
backyard with him, for facing this.
    Alan had never felt comfortable at
funerals. He'd never known what to say or how to act, even when he'd been a
believer. After his religion had dropped away, it had gotten even worse. Todd
would be looking to him for answers today, and Alan didn't have them.
    The digging gave him something to
focus on: real, hard labor. Each thrust of the shovel was a statement, a
declaration of love for his wife and daughter. He might have been middle-aged
and fat and weak, but he would do this for them.
    The end of the world wouldn't
seem so bad if they were here. It was a dangerous fantasy, the kind of
dream he wouldn't want to wake from, but he indulged it anyway. Yes, if the
whole family had been spared, it still would've been terrible. The stuff of
nightmares. But he would've had Brenda to talk to. They could've decided on a
plan together. Todd would have had Allie.
    They had always fought to make
their home a refuge: a place safe from the world's madness, from its bullying
fathers. They would still have had that. So what if the world outside disappeared?
They'd spent half their time trying to ignore it anyway.
    What's the difference between
four people and two? he demanded of whatever blind fate had made the
choice. You couldn't have just left those two more?
    Even in his blackest depressions
he had always been fiercely grateful for his family. Allie had brought joy to
every room she entered; Brenda had been sharp and competent and beautiful.
    The thought of Brenda arrested
him. Sure, they'd fought. She'd handled family life with such easy competence that
he'd felt inadequate, even threatened sometimes. But she'd made him