[Read chapters 1-47 here. This is the final chapter. A new project will follow.]
It was a hot morning and I felt uncomfortable walking in my boots. I worried that we might not have enough food, and whether my clothes were clean enough, and even if my aunt and uncle back in New York were getting enough to eat without me there to help them out. It was an endless loop. And then it stopped when I realized that really, I was worried about my mother and father. What If they’d abandoned me on purpose. What if they were dead?
I had trouble imagining what they were doing in The West. I thought the whole point was that my mom went there to rescue my dad, and got trapped. And now the hermit was saying that the border was more or less wide open. Would she know that? Couldn’t she have come home for me? How could a mother just leave her daughter and never come back?
Carmen took my arm and pulled me to a stop on the trail.
“Are you ok?” she said.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, shaking my arm free. “Why?”
“Because you’re talking to yourself. I’ve never seen you do that.”
“Nah, I’m fine, really.”
We continued along the trail and my mind spun with thoughts about my mother and my father.
“Why on earth am I doing this?” I said to no one.
“What?”
It was Carmen. Damn, I thought. I really am talking to myself. I ignored her, kept walking.
“Sarah, seriously. What is going on?”
I stopped and looked at the ground. Carmen stood a little away from me, I could see her feet.
“I don’t know why I am doing this,” I said. “It’s like I’ve come all this way and I don’t know why or how I got here. It’s crazy. All my reasons have fallen apart.”
Carmen inhaled sharply, rubbed her boot on the ground like she was a horse. I laughed silently at that image of her. Look, this horse can count!
“I know why I’m here,” Carmen said. “I know exactly. I need to be myself. I need to get out of that rut of a life I was in and you gave me the chance. And I know why you’re here, Sarah. It doesn’t matter what the truth is about your mom and dad. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done or who they are right now. What matters is that you see it for yourself. That you know, for sure, what your story is – whatever it is.”
I felt her loyalty to me, and the bond we’d formed on this ridiculous journey like a shawl around my shoulders. I thought about how I’d always felt like I didn’t know something. There was always a missing piece in my life, and maybe the truth was that there was never anything there to lose. Nothing was missing at all. “So you’re still ready to do it?”
“Hell yes,” said Carmen. “Fight those thoughts. Beat them down! Stomp their asses!”
We walked on. And on. And on. I must have been afraid of everything because the walk seemed to go forever. Once in a while I heard a sound in the underbrush off the trail and I knew that it must be Little Calico. Or was it the cat Carmen had told us about. Why did Carmen attract these protectors? Why did they hang out in the background?
It was late afternoon when Carmen held her hand out for us to slow down.
“What is it?” I said.
“Shhhh,” she said.
We all stopped moving and followed Carmen’s gaze across the valley.
This was where the wall was supposed to be. There was nothing but a vast pasture,
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Carmen caught a glimpse of an old apple orchard up the hill and we hiked up through brambles and weeds to the rows of twisted apple trees, the bark gnarled like an old man’s forehead. The branches were filled with young, shiny fruit, largely unblemished, and we picked what we thought we could eat – all our pockets, our hands, my hat – and sat on the ground and ate what we wouldn’t be able to carry. We were lucky to find the orchard but still I felt hungry. I wanted meat. I craved bread, of all things. I ached to be filled up.
We walked all that afternoon. A couple of times we had to skirt through the woods to dodge people on the path, but overall the walk was simple and trouble-free. At one point we came to an archway crafted of finely sanded wooden beams and steel bolts. These words had been burned into it:
Outsiders: turn back now. You are not welcome here.
We looked around for any sign of guards, or police, or soldiers, but there was no one, nothing. I saw a group of five bees flitting between flowers in the pasture next to us, and an old grey barn in the distance. So many black eyed Susans between us and that barn, bees on every one.
We walked easily through this border crossing that I’d worried about since leaving New York.
“It is a myth,” I said. “Every last bit of it.”
The hermit had packed us some food. Carmen took out two slices of bread and honey.
“Thank God for the bees, “ she said.
###The End ###
[Read chapters 1-47 here. This is the final chapter. A new project will follow.]
Thank you for reading my novel, which I completed just before the pandemic kicked in, in March, 2020. I remember doing the final edit while I was recovering from my first case of covid. I love this book. I have written five other novels in the last 40 years, each one quite different in terms of subject and genre. But this is the second I’ve set in a post apocalyptic New York. After publishing this novel, I think I’m finally over my preoccupation with this setting.
This has been an interesting publishing experience both for the loyal, yet small audience I’ve attracted, and for the quiet haters. A number of people who’ve read my work over the years don’t like this novel. It’s not serious enough, or literary enough, or it’s “genre” or it’s dumb. As a writer, I don’t really understand these judgements. But publishing it this way has shown me that that there are a number of people who like this book, and followed and read it carefully (there’s tons of data within this platform, Substack, that writers can use to drive themselves crazy trying to figure out who their audience is). The chapters had consistently high opening rates. This committed audience has been so gratifying. Your commitment. Thank you.
Going forward, I will be publishing posts about the writers life, and what it’s like to be a ghostwriter. And soon I will began posting another, very different, project. I will also be adding videos, another passion of mine. Honk if you like the future!
Love and gratitude to all of you,
Stephen