She closed her eyes. The words tumbled out of her before she could stop them. “Your shirt has a stain on it. On the collar.”
“Ah. No wonder—” He pulled out of the embrace, his expression tense. “I am sorry. I had thought I—” He stood, staring about the caravan. His eyes landed on cabinet doors, and he pulled them open to sort through the contents. He found clothes in one of them. They sported bright colours and patterns and were sized to fit an older, plumper couple, but Clare and Dorran had only brought extra jackets, no change of clothes. Dorran pulled a plain green shirt off its hanger then slipped out of the top he was wearing, discarding it in the caravan’s corner. As he pulled the replacement over his shoulders, Clare caught sight of the bandages on his wrist. Guilt twisted her stomach. She’d forgotten about the bite.
“Dorran.” She held out a hand, calling him back. As he sat at her side, she took his arm and ran her fingers over the bandage’s edge. “Does it still hurt?”
“No.”
She squinted at him, trying to read his expression. There was a lot to see; the fear still lingered, along with nervousness and painful vulnerability. But the impassive mask had been shed. He was no longer trying to hide from her.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I really, really do.”
His eyes flickered with deep joy, relief, and adoration. He leaned towards her, closing the distance, and Clare kissed him unreservedly. She still hurt. But she no longer felt alone. And that made more of a difference than she had expected.
“Rest, now,” Dorran murmured, brushing stray hair out of her face. “We are safe here. You can sleep.”
She wanted to. Spending the day in the caravan with Dorran, knowing he would hold the nightmares at bay, hugging him tightly as feeling slowly seeped back into her… it sounded good. But the reality of her world wasn’t so simple. She braced herself against the despair that wanted to crawl back into her. “I don’t want to give up on Beth.”
“No,” he said. “I thought perhaps you would not. Then are you ready to return to the car? We can look for another way across the river.”
“Yes.” Smiling felt foreign, but not bad. “Thanks for not listening to me yesterday. I don’t think I could forgive myself if we’d just driven home.”
They looked through the caravan before leaving. It gave Clare a strange feeling; they had borrowed a stranger’s home for the night, and Clare didn’t feel right leaving it messy. She flipped the sheets back into an approximation of neatness and swiped their empty tins into the kitchenette bin. It was bordering on laughable when the caravan would likely never be inhabited again, but it made her feel better.
Dorran found a day’s worth of long-life food and teabags in one of the cupboards then stopped beside the wardrobe. “Anything here that you would like?”
“As long as it fits, I won’t complain.” Clare felt grimy, and she knew Dorran must, as well. She flipped through the woman’s clothes, looking for something that might be comfortable and practical. The dresses would be hard to run in. Most of the blouses were too light. She eventually found a knit top that she thought would wear okay, even if it was too large. They carried their prizes bundled in the blanket as they stepped out of the caravan.
Cold mist bit into Clare’s exposed skin. She couldn’t tell whether it was just an early morning frost or the temperature was dropping again. Her breath misted, and she was grateful for the warm breakfast in her stomach. Smoke rose from a stack of charred sticks where Dorran had heated their food.
They slid into the car. The radio still played its static. It struck Clare as an acutely sad thing that it had been sitting on the dashboard all night, still trying to make contact. She watched it for a moment before reaching forward to turn it off.
Dorran didn’t speak, but she could see the worry gathering in his eyes as his brows pulled down.
“It’s okay.” The words were painful, but she smiled through them. “If we couldn’t get through to her by now, I doubt we will. It’s easier not to have it there as a constant reminder.”
He nodded and handed the folded map to Clare. Her eyes blurred as she blinked the tears back. By that point, she was almost certain they were just going through the motions. It had been nearly two days since she’d last heard from Beth. The bunker would be empty. But she still had to get there, just to know she had. To be certain. To know she’d done everything she could have.
In the distance, something inhuman wailed. Dorran stared into the mist that curled across the field. “It might be wise to begin moving.”
“Yes, that’s probably a good idea.” She traced lines across the map. “Try the second path across the stream again. The water might have gone down overnight. While you’re doing that, I’ll see if I can find an alternative.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Despite the cold, despite the sore muscles and stiff neck, and despite the implications of the silent radio hanging over them, Clare felt more like herself that morning. The man at her side was familiar and safe, not the stranger he had felt like the day before.
The car rocked across potholed ground, splashing fresh mud over its already-spoiled paint as they moved towards the river. Clare ran her finger across the map. She knew she had to find a way forward, but she hadn’t been in that part of the country in years; her trips along the road had always ended at Marnie’s house.
We need a high bridge. Not something low. Not something suspended a few feet above the water. A bridge with at least five meters of clearance.
The car slowed, and Clare looked up from the map. They had arrived back at the water’s edge. The river had subsided a little overnight, but not nearly enough. The sign declaring the bridge’s name peeked above the frothing water, its metal bent slightly by the force of the deluge. Everything else was still invisible.
Dorran turned to Clare, patient but waiting for direction. She chewed her lip as she traced lines on the map.
Wait… Marnie.
When Clare made her weekly visit to her aunt’s farm, she was greeted by three things: hot coffee, fresh cake, and gossip. Scratch that. Four things. Her cats always ended up in my lap somehow.
She managed a smile. The memories were bittersweet: sitting by the old stone fireplace, two cats already squished together in her lap and a third jonesing to get up. Marnie would sit in her favourite rocking chair, holding her cup as she chatted, her hair falling out of its bun and her cardigan a little crooked, but looking so happy that none of it mattered.
Clare latched on to that image. She held it in her mind, savouring it, trying to make its goodness overwrite her last memory of her aunt. It did, a little. She thought, with time and effort, she might be able to remember her aunt’s name without feeling sick.
Marnie had loved gossip, but not the kind other people usually spread. She didn’t talk about who was having an affair with who, how so-and-so’s child had been expelled, or about how the neighbours had fallen into a public argument. Her gossip could have been described with one word: wholesome.
She’d told Clare about the neighbour who snuck into the local church’s garden early on Saturday mornings so that they could trim the plants and fix anything that looked untidy, about the teenage boy who’d finally gotten up the courage to ask out the girl working at the grocery store after making eyes at each other for weeks—and about Mr. Peterson’s private bridge.