HOW MANY ANSWERS YOU SEEK ARE JUST A PART OF YOU, WAITING TO BE FOUND?
The game has changed.
Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human in New York while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought wit...
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SADIE BOUNDED OUT OF THE HOUSE, LOOKING FOR SARAH, I WAS sure. I ran after her, but Noah held the others back. "No," he said. "Let her do this on her own."
"Sarah!" Sadie screamed. "SARAH!"
She found Sarah sitting on the ground against a tree in silence, Hannah next to her. They looked like mother and child.
"Sadie-child, I beg you not to ask me what you are about to," Sarah said, her voice shattered.
Sadie laughed angrily. "So many secrets."
"Sadie . . ."
"Are you my mother?" she asked. Sarah looked taken aback, like that wasn't the question she was expecting. When she didn't respond, Sadie persisted. "My name is really Sarah, isn't it? Did you name me that? Did they name me after you?"
Sarah's eyes pleaded with her not to continue. To trust her. To be content with not asking.
But my lovely Sadie only knew how to ask questions. And then ask more of them.
And she would never be content.
"Are you my mother?" she demanded.
"No," Sarah said plainly. "I would not name a child after myself. That would have been too vain." Sarah wouldn't look Sadie in the eye, but she couldn't have been lying. Sadie was in her head; she'd know and she wouldn't let up until she'd stolen the truth if she had to.
But Hannah couldn't stand the secrets anymore.
"She's not lying," Hannah said. "She isn't your mother. But she . . ."
"Hannah!" Sarah cried. "Stop!"
"I won't! It's time to end this. We're all going to die anyway. We might as well let them know the truth before it happens," Hannah said fiercely. Then she turned back to Sadie, and said, "She named her child after her best friend."
"Lizzie?" Sadie exhaled sharply and put her hand to her forehead. "Beth. Beth was your daughter. And you named her after Lizzie." And then with a sadness I'd never heard in her voice before, Sadie whispered, "And so Lizzie named me after you."
Sadie dropped to her knees, her breathing ragged, cutting at her like knives. I caught her before she fell to the ground.
"She was my mother. All this time . . . and now she's . . . gone . . ." she said. "Gone."
Hannah got to her feet, and put her hand on my shoulder. "Let's leave them alone to talk." I was reluctant to let go of Sadie, but she nodded for me to go, and so I respected the tiny elder. As I followed Hannah away from the scene, it was clear that we didn't belong in the middle of it, but I had to know what was about to happen. I couldn't count that Sadie would tell me what they said on her own. So I hung close enough to hear.
"How could you not tell me?" Sadie said.
Sarah said, "Because I'm bound."
"Bullshit," Sadie spat. "I don't give a damn about your stupid loyalties anymore. Tell me the truth."
