The man eases himself down into the grass and she sits beside him.
“You’ve been down in the grave?” he asks.
“I worked in it all day. That’s what I do, Daddy.”
He chuckles. “You know I’m proud to death of you, angel, but Jesus do you have a f**ked-up job.”
She leans her head against his shoulder, laces her fingers through his, twiddling the platinum band he now wears on the nub of his left ring finger.
The team builds a bonfire after supper.
Someone strums a guitar.
Someone rolls a joint.
A bottle makes the rounds.
She sits between the old man and Sam, the Australian team leader, feeling contemplative off two swigs of whiskey and staring into the flames. The cold of the night a wonderful contrast to the eddies of heat sliding up her bare legs.
Usually, those thirty days in hell are as unreachable as if they had happened to another family. But sometimes, like tonight, she feels plugged in to the raw emotion of it all, a closed circuit, and if she doesn’t keep it at arm’s length, it still has the power to break her.
Her father is a little drunk, Sam more so, and she tunes back in to their conversation as Sam loosens his tie and says, “. . .learning more about the Great Auroral Storm.”
“Yeah, I’ve read some wild theories,” her father says.
“You talking about mine?”
“Entirely possible. You really believe these auroras contributed to the epic massacres and extinctions in history?”
“I think there’s some compelling solar abnormality data on that. But something of the magnitude that happened here? Keep in mind recorded human history is just the blink of an eye since life crawled out of the oceans. This was a hundred-thousand-year occurrence. Maybe a five-hundred. Natural selection at its darkest.”
“So who got selected?” her father asks. “Who won? Us?”
Sam laughs. “No.”
“The affected?”
“Most of them selected themselves out when they committed mass suicide.”
“Then who?”
“Your son,” Sam says.
“Excuse me?”
“People like Cole. Those who witnessed that terrible light show on October Fourth, and either didn’t kill, or did, and resisted the crushing guilt. That’s who won.”
“I have a close friend back home in Belgium in the humanities department where I teach. A priest. He thinks the aurora was just God testing us.”
“Those who saw the aurora, or those who ran?”
“Both, Sam.”
“Well, it all comes down to purification in the end, right?”
“You say it like that’s a good thing.”
“On a human level, no, but in terms of our DNA, it’s a different ball game. Remember, the barbarians finally took Rome. That was horrible, but Rome had become a corrupt, ineffectual, soft culture. Genetically speaking, it was a positive thing.”
“Or,” the old man says, “maybe we just need to kill each other. Maybe that’s our perfect state of being.”
Sam pauses to have a smoke, and when he finally exhales, says, “It surprises me that you would want to see this place again.”
“Why?”
“Because of what you saw and experienced here.”
“You should be examining my bones in that hole,” the old man says.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“This was an awful place, no question, but a miracle happened here. I never want to forget that.”
She’s buzzed and getting tired. Stretches her bare feet toward the fire, lays her head in her father’s lap. Soon he’s running his fingers through her hair, still debating with Sam. She’s almost asleep when something vibrates against the back of her head.
“Excuse me, Sam,” her father says.
The old man reaches into his pocket and retrieves his mobile phone, answers, “I forgot, didn’t I? . . . I’m sorry. . . . Yes, here safe and sound, sitting by a fire. . . . Difficult but good. . . . Yes, I’m glad I came. . . . . . . That’s still the plan. We’ll meet you both in Calgary tomorrow evening. . . . . . . Oh, I know. It’ll be so good to all be together again. . . . Yes, she’s right here, but she’s sleeping. . . . Okay, I’ll tell her. . . . No, I won’t forget. I’ll do it as soon as we get off. . . . Goodnight, darling.”
The old man slides his phone back into his pocket.
She’s almost asleep now, in that cushioned bliss between consciousness and all that lies beneath. Feels her father’s hand on her shoulder, and his breath, still after all these years, familiar against her ear.
“Naomi,” he whispers, “your mother sends her love.”