I Hope You Find Me (14 page)

He came up behind me and kissed the back of
my neck lightly and I let myself smile and enjoy the moment. We had
crossed a line the night before and although I was prepared for
things to be awkward the next day, it was the opposite. I felt
comfortable and happy with him and I could tell he felt the same
way too. We shared an unspoken need for each other, a craving of
sorts, and for the time being, I welcomed it.

He handed me a steaming mug. I deeply inhaled
the subtle honey and green tea aroma and wrapped my hands around
the ceramic to warm my fingers.

“I love this weather.” He said, embracing me
from behind.

I sighed. “Me too.”

I moved to the sofa and buried myself into
the oversized pillows while Connor turned on the electric fireplace
and the rain drop chandelier above the dining table. The previous
evening’s events rushed back to me when I saw the flowers.

“Connor, should we go next door and check on
Mariah?” I asked him after I took a sip of my hot tea.

He was in the kitchen and turned to face me,
and even in the soft glow of the suite I could see the discolored
mark on his jaw.

“I don’t want to see Matt, do you?” He asked
me.

“No.” I continued to slowly sip my drink,
being careful not to scald my tongue. I watched Connor move around
the kitchen, preparing a pot on the small glass top stove. He
poured dry oatmeal into it and put the lid on. When he joined me on
the sofa, he set his own cup of tea down on the coffee table.

“I’m sure she will make her way over here
eventually,” he said with no attempt to hide his disdain.

“Should we talk about it?” I moved the hot
mug around in my hands.

“There isn’t much to say. I hit him…he hit
me…he’s a tool.” He paused, before leaning into me and then said,
“And you are beautiful.” He kissed me gently. The faint taste of
honey passed between our lips.

The room had begun to warm from the fireplace
and Zoey had stretched out in front of it. When Connor sat next to
me she began to thump her tail against the ground. She didn’t want
to go out in the rain but it was obvious she was done waiting for
her potty break.

After Connor returned to the kitchen I went
to my room and changed into my jeans. I wasn’t ready yet to take
off his shirt, so I decided to leave it on, even though it was snug
around my chest and the material was thin enough to see my bra.
After pulling on some socks and my shoes I searched around for my
sweatshirt and carried it out into the sitting room. Connor wasn’t
in the kitchen anymore. Zoey rushed over to me and whined.

“I’m taking Zoey out, I’ll be right back,” I
said loudly.

“Just a sec, I’ll come with you.” He hollered
from his room. When he joined us at the door he was wearing jeans
and a hoodie. He gestured at the V-neck shirt I still had on and
said to me with a laugh, “It looks much better on you.”

I went up on my tip-toes and planted a kiss
on his mouth, “So, you don’t mind if I keep it on for the day?” I
slipped into my sweatshirt and opened the door. The windows at the
ends of the hall did little to help light up the walkway since the
clouds outside had swallowed up the sunlight. We walked quickly and
quietly past the room next door and pushed the call button when we
reached the elevator. I waited nervously for the doors to open. I
half-expected Matt to come barreling out of his room wielding an
empty whisky bottle above his head as a weapon, but we stepped into
the elevator without being seen.

The hotel lobby was freezing, and it was even
colder outside. Water was rushing down the street gutters,
overflowing the sidewalk in places. I thought to myself we needed
the rain, California
always
needed rain, but also considered
the fact that not having an infrastructure in place meant no one
would be around to help move downed trees and repair flooded roads.
I considered this while Zoey ran out to her patch of grass and did
her business. She came back to us shaking the rain from her
drenched coat.

We took the elevator back upstairs and talked
about the weather, and the damage it was most likely creating to
the roads we planned on taking into East County. I thought of the
resort, and what condition it was in, or if it would even be
standing when we found our way to it. Surely if it was built in the
mountains it would be designed to withstand rain, wind and even
snow. I held onto that hope as we made our way quietly down the
hall to our suite.

The rest of the day was spent either on the
sofa in each other’s arms, or in the kitchen organizing and setting
things aside for the journey we agreed to take after the storm
subsided. We never heard from Matt or Mariah and by the time the
day ended, shrouding the hotel in darkness again, my curiosity got
the better of me, and against Connor’s wishes I went next door and
knocked for almost five minutes. When no one answered, I got down
on my knees and peered through the gap below the door. The floor
looked empty except for one of Mariah’s high heeled shoes, knocked
over on its side, near the sofa. I doubted they would have left in
the rain and Mariah didn’t seem the type to leave without her
shoes, so I relaxed a bit and went back to the suite.

We had a simple dinner of rice, black beans
and mixed veggies from a can, and afterwards I offered to help
Connor pack his things. While we worked, we listened to Connor’s
MP3 player that was docked into its own speaker system. From his
room we began filling a large suitcase with his warmest clothes and
an extra pair of shoes. We used his second suitcase for canned
goods, packaged foods and bathroom necessities and tucked some
candles that Connor had found into the gaps. We set the bulging
suitcases on the floor of the sitting room, returned to Connor’s
room and plopped down on his bed, exhausted. Augustana was playing
in the background and as I listened to the lyrics of
Boston
I laughed at the sheer irony of the song’s words. No one knew my
name anymore. Life was starting over, whether I wanted it to, or
not.

The rain was still falling outside but it had
softened and lost most of its fury. The wind had also changed,
instead of violently slamming into the building with vehemence, it
whistled around the window lethargically. The air smelled cleaner
and fresher and soon the only light in the room was a soft flicker
from a single candle. The Script was playing a mellow beat and the
soulful buzz of Danny O’Donoghue’s voice echoed around the
room.

I rolled onto my side and looked at Connor,
who was on his back, his hands linked behind his head, with his
eyes closed. At first I thought he was asleep, until he turned and
fixed his gaze on me. Shadows danced around his face from the
candle flame making it hard to see his features, but I watched as a
single tear glimmered down his cheek and disappeared into the curve
of his ear.

When he spoke his voice was tight with
emotion, “I think my son is dead.”

For a moment I thought my blood stilled in my
veins. I sat upright and kneeled close to him. “Where is he?” My
body was shaking.

“I don’t know.” He looked away, up at the
ceiling. My stomach twisted in knots as I waited for him to
elaborate.

Eventually he continued, “He was with his
mother, spending the month with her family in London. He’s with her
a lot because of my work. We never married.” He paused to look at
me and I nodded for him to go on. “The last time I talked to her,
she said all International flights were grounded, hospitals from
Britain to China were reporting cases of an illness called the Red
Death to the media. The Governments started calling it the Cardinal
Plague because of how bloody the death is.” He stopped again, his
voice wavering and I remembered the reports I had heard myself with
the same names. “Her father was sick. It was in their home, Riley;
it made its way across the oceans to my son.”

I sat perfectly still beside him, stunned,
even though I wanted to run into the bathroom and vomit.

The early days of the virus flashed through
my mind. When I couldn’t get my children into the hospital down the
street from my house, I brought them home and put them in bed. I
did everything I could to stop the fevers, but nothing worked. I
kept the television on to watch the news. Regular programming was
suspended and the only channels broadcasting were the major news
stations. The images of the sick flooding hospitals and swarming
airports was the same all over the country, the written messages
appearing at the base of each station kept repeating one statement:
The President has declared a National State Of Emergency.
Officials at the CDC have asked all civilians to remain in their
homes and to limit all contact with the public. All Military
personnel must report to duty. Hospital Staff or those with Medical
training are asked to report to their closest Hospital or
Clinic.
I knew my own children were dying by then and when the
Emergency Broadcast System showed only a bright blue screen on the
TV. I turned it off. I left a battery operated radio on in the
kitchen but eventually most of the channels became constant static
or continuous tones and I shut it off as well. I was numb when my
children died. For me it didn’t matter if the rest of the World
died with them because to me they were my everything.

When Connor described the chaos that
fractured Europe and Asia, the severity of it all crashed down on
me. I couldn’t process it. The whole world -
the entire
globe…infected?

Connor was right, his son probably was
dead.

“
I’m so sorry Connor.
” I
whispered.

“I should have been there. I should’ve at
least been there, in case…what if he had no one in the end?” He
covered his face with his hands and stayed that way for a long
time.

I sat next to him, not sure how to comfort
him. I decided not to lie. “Being there, as a parent, would have
only made it harder for you.” My voice wavered.

He sat up and looked at me. His eyes were
moist. It made the blue color of his irises brighter, almost
turquoise in color. He stared at me intently.

“As a parent…?”

I cleared my throat and braced my arms
against my legs. “My daughter’s eight…my son is four. Was,
was
eight and four.” My body trembled and Connor reached out
to me. I couldn’t say anymore.

“Oh my god, Riley.” He hugged me to him. When
I began to softly weep he pulled me under the covers with him and
we stayed in bed that way, in our clothes, holding and crying into
each other until we ran dry.

Zoey slept fitfully at our feet, lost in her
own dark dreams.

***

The next morning we woke at dawn. We left the
window curtains wide open the day before and as the sun broke the
surface along the eastern side of town it lit up the room with
radiant streaks of oranges, ambers, and golden yellows. The room
was absolutely ablaze with sunshine. With the light came warmth,
and as the shadows were forced under the bed and into the corners,
the ability to stay under the covers fully dressed became
unbearable and we begrudgingly rolled out of bed.

Connor delegated himself to coffee brewing
duty while I sifted through the food on the counter until I found a
bag of granola and set out the last of the fresh apples. We hadn’t
spoken much since rising. We were both mentally and physically
drained.

After breakfast we took turns showering and
dressed in clean clothes. We threw the little laundry we had into
the washer and sat down to write a list for what we wanted to take
east. Both of us needed warmer jackets and snow gear. Connor needed
boots that were designed with the weather in mind, and his designer
footwear, though expensive, wouldn’t survive many hikes in the
mountains.

We also wanted to find another vehicle, one
that would get our gear and us back to my Jeep. This meant a truck
and Connor thought he knew just the one to take. In the parking lot
there was a brand new F250, and since it was in the lot for the
hotel, with only a handful of other cars, it shouldn’t be too hard
to find the owner. This meant though, that he had to rifle through
the dead bodies he had moved into the conference room until he
found the right set of keys.

It was just before 7:00 when we planned to
head out for the morning, and walk over to the mall where we could
get the rest of our supplies. Connor was the first to open the
suite door as I searched my room for Zoey’s leash.

“Riley, there’s a note on the door,” Connor
said.

I met him at the entrance as he pulled the
paper off the door where it had been suspended by a piece of tape.
He handed it to me and I read it out loud.

Riley and Connor,

It was early when we left this morning,
otherwise we would have said goodbye. Thank you for the room and
the company. We are on our way to Las Vegas to hopefully find our
family, please wish us luck. I wish, wherever the two of you go,
you will find what you are looking for, and I hope to see you
again. Who knows, we may end up coming back this way.

Love, Mariah

p.s. Please hug Zoey goodbye for me!

“So…they left,” I said quietly to myself. I
regretted parting with Mariah this way, although I was happy Matt
was gone.

I glanced at Connor and he said, “I hope they
make it there.” It sounded like he meant it, though I was sure it
was only because he hoped they found someone in their family alive,
so they would stay in Nevada. I doubted he ever wanted to see
Matt’s face again either.

***

It took us a few hours and two different
stores to find everything on our list. We pushed it all back to the
hotel in a drugstore shopping cart. The roads had a different
feeling than they did the last time I walked through them. The rain
had washed away the dirt and most of the debris, and the dead smell
that had been festering from within the buildings was barely
noticeable. I still had the feeling I was being watched, though the
streets were completely silent, so I continuously scanned the road
around us.