End Times (22 page)

Janie let the rest of the noodles slide off her fork and back onto her plate. “I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.” She took a deep breath. If she and Doug were going to be parents together, she had to tell him everything—even stuff that made her feel icky inside.

“Me and Daphne saw this commercial about adoption the other day, and she asked if I’d ever consider it. I said no, of course—because, like, if God didn’t want me to have this baby, why would He have let me get pregnant in the first place? But every once in a while, I realize that I don’t even know if you’re supposed to give an infant a chew toy or if they’re even called chew toys or whatever, and I wonder if we really know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

Doug had stopped chewing. His mouth hung open, a slick of steak sauce visible on his tongue. “Daphne wanted you to give up the baby for adoption?”

“No!” Janie rushed to defend her cousin. “She totally didn’t say that. She just asked. She told me it’s always an option. But it’s not, right? I mean, we
want
this baby.
God
wants us to have this baby!”

The words tumbled out of her mouth and tangled like the fettuccine on her plate.

Doug closed his mouth. She could almost see the thoughts somersaulting through his head, chasing each other and stumbling to abrupt halts like kids playing a game of freeze tag. She hadn’t meant to turn their date into a big, deep philosophical conversation—sometimes she felt cursed by her own stupid tendency to always say what was on her mind.

When Doug opened his mouth again, the glossy sauce slick had disappeared. He poured himself the rest of the wine and took a long gulp.

“Babe.” He put his hand over hers, making her feel tiny and protected. “Why are you even asking these questions now? We’re having this baby, and we’re keeping it. End of story.”

She let herself melt under his touch, and tears teased at her eyes. She hadn’t realized how much it meant to her to hear him say those words: that he wanted the baby, too. That the three of them were going to be okay.

He leaned in and kissed her, a strong, sloppy kiss that tasted like wine and meat and something sour and nervous underneath. “Be right back,” he said.

She watched his wide back disappear, weaving slightly in the maze of tables. At the front of the restaurant, he paused and said something to the hostess with the milky white skin. His face was close to hers, and his arm disappeared momentarily around her waist. Was he touching her? Jealousy snaked a burning path through Janie’s gut—she knew Doug could be a flirt, and she accepted it as best she could, knowing he was devoted to her in his heart. But did he really have to flirt right in front of her, on the most romantic date they’d ever been on?

She sat quietly as the waiter cleared away their dishes, scraped the crumbs off their tablecloth with a device that looked like a silver straight razor, and handed her a smaller menu bound in rich brown leather.

“Whatcha want for dessert?” The chair opposite her scraped the floor as Doug sank back into it. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and he hunched forward awkwardly, drumming his fingers on the table.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She rubbed her belly absently. “I’m so full from dinner, there’s barely any room for the baby in there!”

His fingers paused above the tabletop, frozen like claws. “But you always get dessert.”

“Yeah, and then you always make fun of how much weight I’m gonna have to lose!” she teased.

But Doug didn’t smile. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his cheek. “What about the chocolate lava cake?” he asked. “I heard it’s the best here—better than anything in, like, Denver, even.”

“Yeah?” Janie snuck another glance at the menu. As stuffed as she was from her meal, she did have a soft spot for chocolate . . .

“Just get it,” Doug pressured. “You don’t even have to eat the whole thing. Just take a bite or two.”

“Fine.” Janie laughed as the waiter appeared at their table. “He really wants me to get the chocolate cake, for some reason,” she explained, gesturing at her boyfriend. “And who am I to say no?”

“An excellent choice, miss. And for you?”

“The banana split.” Doug’s face was slick with sweat—and maybe it was just a trick of the candlelight, but his skin looked almost green. Janie wondered if the bottle of wine had maybe been too much for him, and hoped he wouldn’t get sick on the way home.

“Are you okay, babe?” She reached out and touched his forehead, but it was impossible to tell if he was feverish under the clammy feel of his skin.

“I’m fine.” Doug’s voice was strained. “Just, uh . . . it’s hot in here, right?”

Janie shook her head. “I wonder if you’re getting sick. We can skip dessert and just get out of here,” she offered.

“No!” The word boomed through the restaurant, and several other diners turned to look at them. “Uh, our dessert is here anyway,” he croaked.

The waiter set Doug’s banana split down in front of him.

“Oh, that looks good!” Janie said. Her own dessert was coming, the waiter smiling like he had some huge secret as he placed it in front of her. It really did look scrumptious: thick, glistening chocolate surrounded by drizzled raspberry sauce, with a dollop of whipped cream and . . .

“Oh!” Janie cried. Another sound, something between a squeal and a deep, guttural sob, rose in her throat, and she was powerless to hold it back. Doug stood from his chair and came around to her side of the table, sinking to one knee beside her and taking her hand in his.

Time slowed down, and the world grew fuzzy around the edges.

The garnish on top of her chocolate lava cake was a diamond engagement ring.

The rock was the size of a maraschino cherry, bigger than any Janie had ever seen in person. It refracted the candlelight into a million dancing rainbows that flitted across the white expanse of their tabletop.

“Janie.” Doug’s voice sounded thick and faraway. “Will you marry me?”

Her back heaved, and tears streamed down her face. Everything was a blur: Doug’s hand in hers, the expectant faces at the other tables, all turned to her, the candlelight and the music and the smell of roses.

“Yes!” she said. And then she was on her feet, squealing and crying and jumping up and down, her arms around Doug’s shoulders and her feet kicking in the air as he lifted her, the sweat from his forehead licking at her face and the entire restaurant clapping and cheering.

“Doug Varley,” she said when he finally put her down and they’d slipped the ring onto her finger and decided it fit. “You just made me the happiest girl in the world. That was the best dinner ever, and I can’t wait to be your wife!”

THE sack of drilling mud weighed seventy pounds, but it may as well have been seven hundred. Daphne struggled to keep it aloft, arms shaking, as she carried it from the forklift to the rig.

“Need a hand?”

Owen was waiting for her by the derrick, smiling devilishly.

She set the bag down with a thud. “A little late to ask now, isn’t it?” Owen had been at her side all day, cracking jokes and making her laugh in spite of herself. She turned back to the forklift, Owen falling in step beside her.

“Allow me to escort you.” He took her arm playfully, the rough leather of his work glove tickling the skin inside her elbow. His scent was strong in the hot, close day, that unexplainable combination of grease and metal and leathery earth overpowering the primordial smell of oil all around them.

“I can stroll unaccompanied, thank you very much.” Daphne elbowed him lightly in the ribs, suppressing a smile as she tried to shake off his hand. But it remained on her arm until they reached the forklift, and she didn’t try that hard to remove it.

“Are you two gonna work, or just stand there flirting all day?” Dale called, rushing by on his way to the admin shed.

Daphne leapt away from Owen, brushing off his hand like it was made of fire. “We weren’t flirting!” she called after Dale. But he was already gone.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” she complained to Owen, grabbing another bag of drilling mud.

Owen hefted a sack onto his shoulders. “If anyone gets you into trouble, Daphne, it’ll be you.”

She smiled. Work on the rig was still backbreaking, but she was secretly happy to be lugging mud next to Owen and away from the wedding madness that had taken over the Peytons’ trailer. The Varleys wanted to rush the big day so the baby would be born to legally married parents, and had hired a wedding coordinator to plan the affair. Daphne came home each evening to find the trailer’s tiny living room packed with caterers, decorators, or florists, and she couldn’t sit down on the couch without Janie shoving a bridal magazine in her lap and asking for her opinion on page after page of bubblegum-pink wedding dresses. As far as Daphne was concerned, sweltering days on the rig were easier to tolerate than dress shopping.

A bead of sweat trickled into her eye, and she blinked reflexively, small explosions dancing behind her lids. In the scarlet darkness her toe hit something hard, pitching her forward and slamming her into Owen’s back. Her eyes flew open as she teetered on the edge between standing and falling, the weight from the sack pulling her backward.

“What the—?” She righted herself and looked around, heaving the bag higher on her shoulders.

Owen had stopped in his tracks. His sack lay forgotten at his feet, and he gazed upward, one hand shading his eyes, mouth open in wonder.

“What, are you too good to work now?” she teased.

But Owen merely raised a finger, pointing at the sky. “Look,” he said.

Daphne reluctantly followed his gaze. Her arms went limp, and the bag of drilling mud fell to the ground with a hollow thud.

The sky was a mass of teal and fuchsia. At first it looked like a kite-flying contest, the clouds over Carbon County obscured by swooping streaks of color that danced on the air currents, trailing multi-hued streamers behind them. But then she heard the chirping. It nearly drowned out the jet-engine roar and clang from the rig, a cacophonous twittering like an orchestra of xylophones. As she looked closer, she realized that the kites’ long tails were really feathers, and they weren’t tethered to the ground by strings. A flock of birds, what seemed like hundreds of them, painted the air with wings the color of Froot Loops, dipping and soaring on air currents visible only to them.

Daphne felt the normal hustle and bustle of the rig chug to a halt, even as the drilling continued. One by one, the workers stopped to stare.

“What’s going on?” Floyd called, dashing out of the admin trailer with Dale, a sheaf of papers forgotten in his hand. “What’s everyone looking at . . . oh my Lord. Look at that.”

The birds seemed to sense that they had an audience. Their sweeping tail feathers cut elegant curlicues in the air as they huddled into a tight tornado of color, chirping a cheerful call-and-response and beating their wings with enough force to send a stiff breeze blowing around the rig.

“Do you know what they are?” Daphne asked.

Floyd shook his head slowly, shading his face with one hand, his eyes never leaving the sky. “They look just like . . . but how?” he wondered aloud.

“Like what?” Dale asked. Even he seemed softened by the birds, a sight unlike any he’d seen in twenty years of working on rigs.

“Well, I watched a documentary once, on Animal Planet,” Floyd said. “And God strike me dead if I’m wrong, but those look just like ’em. Birds of paradise, they’re called. But they sure are a long way from home.”

“Where’s that at?” Dale scratched at the silver steel wool of his hair.

“New Guinea.” Floyd’s voice was gruff with astonishment. “In the South Pacific. It’s a miracle that they got all the way up here.”

Daphne could barely take her eyes off the flock. She wished the birds would stay forever: They were like an elaborately painted scene on a china teacup, and their chirping filled her with the kind of inexplicable joy that she’d felt as a child, climbing onto her mother’s lap and smelling the faint scent of her jasmine perfume after a long day of play.

The birds, as if acting on an invisible signal from above, formed two loose lines and soared higher, heading toward Buzzard Road and downtown Carbon County.

“They’re leaving!” one of the floorhands cried.

A sense of loss tugged at Daphne as she watched them go. She wished she could fly with them, borne along on whatever invisible breeze they’d ridden in on.

“Okay, all right everyone, birds’re gone, back to work!” Dale barked. “You think I pay you all to loaf around playing amateur ornithologist all day?”

Uncle Floyd stayed as the rest of the crew scattered, staring into the sky where the birds had been.

“This is another sign, I’m sure of it,” he said to himself. He turned and saw Daphne looking up at him. “Don’t you think?” he asked.

She gulped. The birds had stirred something powerful in her, a strange cocktail of joy and emotion. They made her want to believe in
something
. But she wasn’t ready to accept God the way Uncle Floyd did. The concept was still too alien, too far from the misery she’d known for most of her life. How could she approach the purity of her uncle’s belief with her stepfather’s blood on her hands and the truth she’d concealed from the Peytons still stuck in her throat?