The Last Town on Earth. Thomas Mullen

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СКАЧАТЬ baby in small circles. Millie was five months now, still impossibly small to Philip’s eyes, but she felt heavy, as if a baby were somehow denser than other human beings. Her eyes were huge, and Philip wondered if the rest of her would grow into them or if she’d always have large eyes like her mother. She stared at him intently.

      “So what are you looking at, exactly?” he said to her softly. Did she even recognize him, or had the event with the soldier changed him so much that even a baby could see the difference? He tried to laugh at himself when he realized he was reading too much into an infant’s blank expression, but the laughter wouldn’t come.

      She was warm against his chest. His fingers had regained their feeling a few hours after burying the body, but they began to tingle slightly beneath the cotton enveloping the baby. It was with a disquieting chill that Philip realized he had held that day first a dead body and now a smiling infant.

      He looked up, rocking the baby softly, and his eyes as usual were drawn to a crooked stair at the bottom of the staircase, which always reminded him of the days after Amelia’s stillbirth. At the time, the Stones had been living in a smaller house with two other families, as Commonwealth still hadn’t enough buildings. Whenever Graham wasn’t working at the mill, he was helping construct new houses, and he had encouraged Philip to join in. Graham taught him the basics, and Philip spent many hours that summer helping the older men build the town. After the stillbirth, Amelia was bedridden for days, and Graham barely spoke, his face a downturned mask of silent grief. He also barely slept, working late into the night on the new house, desperate to complete the job so he and his wife could move in and begin to grapple with the world that had just turned on them.

      Every night for two weeks he was joined by Philip, who came after dinner and silently worked with Graham until his arms were too sore to continue. Philip’s inexperience was the reason one of the steps was crooked, but Graham had insisted it was fine, after issuing a short laugh. It was his first laugh since the loss of his baby. Other men in the town had seemed uncertain in Graham’s presence, never knowing what to say to a grieving man, but Philip had simply shown up and worked, usually in silence, as it was clear that Graham didn’t want to talk. Philip suspected Graham’s refusal to fix the stair was his way of thanking him for helping when no one else had known how.

      Philip was stirred from his memories when Amelia and Graham descended those stairs. Graham looked groggy, but he was holding a pipe and smelled strongly of tobacco, so he obviously hadn’t been sleeping.

      “I’ve been forbidden from playing poker with you,” Graham said as Amelia took the baby from Philip and laid her in the crib.

      “Me, too. Maybe you need to teach me a new game.”

      “You’ll just start beating him at that one, too,” Amelia said.

      “I can hold my own, thank you very much,” Graham said. “He’s just a good bluffer. With that damn innocent face, you can never tell when he’s lying.”

      “Watch the cuss words, husband.”

      “Bluffing’s not lying,” Philip said. “I would never lie.”

      Graham rewarded the lie with a mocking smile, then wandered to the fireplace, teasing the fire back to life with swift jabs from the poker.

      “So how’s the family?” Amelia asked Philip while kneeling on the kitchen floor, scribbling labels for each jar. “I imagine staying inside the town must be hard on Rebecca, not being able to go to all those meetings and things.”

      “It is,” Philip said, “so she’s been spending more time than usual at the school. Those poor kids are probably going crazy with all the extra work.”

      Suddenly, Amelia coughed. A few times.

      Philip felt himself stiffen and saw Graham temporarily stop rearranging the logs. Amelia reached for a cup with her free hand and sipped the water, and all seemed well.

      Her coughing wasn’t entirely unusual, not anymore. After the stillbirth, she had lost a good deal of weight, and her subsequent pregnancy with Millie had been difficult—she had been bedridden for the last two months before the birth, as well as the first three weeks afterward. Considering how many times she’d been laid up with colds over the past two years, her coughing fit in the kitchen didn’t really mean anything unusual, Philip told himself.

      “But the mill’s doing real well,” Philip said. “Charles keeps talking about it. Says we’ll prove his brothers wrong soon enough.”

      “His brothers are wrong in a lot of ways,” Graham said.

      “Once we can open up the town again, we’ll have plenty of good shingles and lumber to ship out,” Philip said.

      To Philip, their banter felt somewhat forced, as if they were all concentrating on the charade that everything was normal. As he thought about this he looked at Graham, seeking some acknowledgment of what they’d experienced together, and when they made eye contact something flickered in Graham’s face.

      “Help me bring in some wood,” Graham said.

      Philip followed him out, closing the door behind him. Graham was already in the back, retrieving firewood from the shed. When Philip caught up to him, Graham turned around and faced him, though Philip could barely see his features in the dark.

      “When are you out there guarding next?” Philip asked.

      “Tomorrow night.”

      “Overnight?”

      “That’s right.”

      Philip couldn’t imagine standing guard all through the night, surrounded by nothing but darkness and increasingly irrational thoughts. “Who with?”

      “Deacon.”

      Philip had heard that Deacon had volunteered to stand guard on many of the nights; the role of nocturnal sentinel seemed entirely in keeping with his Gothic demeanor. But Philip was surprised to hear that Graham, who usually turned in earlier than Philip did, would want to do the same.

      “Are we still painting those porches Sunday morning?” Philip and Graham had planned on finishing some of the newer, as yet unoccupied houses in town.

      “Sure. Why wouldn’t we be?” Graham finished stacking the pieces of wood in his other arm. Philip offered to help carry some, but Graham shook him off.

      “I figured if you’d be staying up all night the night before, maybe you—”

      “I can manage,” Graham insisted.

      Philip nodded, backing away as Graham emerged from the shed with his arms full of firewood. Graham was about to unload some into Philip’s arms when their eyes met again, and Graham stopped.

      “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Graham asked.

      “Like what?”

      “Like I’m somebody you just met and don’t trust.”

      Philip looked down instinctively. “I was just … wanting to make sure you were all right,” he replied weakly.

      “Of course I’m all right.” Graham looked insulted. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

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