Death's Awakening

Chapter Forty-Three: Noah

Noah raised his glass.

The three of them sat at the long table in the dining room. He'd managed to find long white candles and crystal candlesticks that must have been his mother's long ago. Light flickered across the table. Parrish had set out his parents' wedding china. He couldn't even remember the last time it had been used. Maybe not since his mother died.

The table looked beautiful.

Parrish finished pouring red wine into the other glasses, then the two girls raised theirs as well.

They'd done what they could to dress up and look nice for dinner and he was glad they had this one last night together before it all changed.

"I've never really given a formal toast or anything before," he started. "But, this is our last night in this house. This neighborhood. Maybe even this city. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you. We've been through so much in the past few weeks that it's hard to imagine things changing any more than they already have. At the same time, we don't really know what tomorrow might bring."

He couldn't help but look to Parrish when he said that. He knew she ached for her sister, but was she really going to go to New York to find her? Did she want him to go with her? There was so much uncertainty in their lives right now.

In the candlelight, her eyes sparkled like amethysts.

"I wanted to say that despite everything else, I'm grateful for both of you," he said. "This would have been a very scary, very lonely couple of weeks without you."

Parrish and Karmen nodded, then they all took a long drink of wine.

Karmen nearly choked on it.

Noah laughed and Parrish brought a hand to her mouth to hide her smile.

"Sorry," Karmen said with a giggle. It was a sound he hadn't heard in a while from her. A happy sound. "I'm used to vodka."

"Haha," Noah said. He knew nothing about wines, really, but he'd seen it sitting there on the counter. He'd heard his dad say it was an expensive bottle, and it seemed wrong to let it go to waste.

"What are you grateful for Karmen?" Parrish asked.

Karmen looked up toward the ceiling. "Grateful? It's hard to think about being grateful right now," she said. Then she held her glass up and smiled. "I'm enormously grateful to have clean underwear and deodorant."

Noah couldn't help but laugh. Only Karmen would be grateful for underwear.

"What about you?" he asked, turning to Parrish.

She held her glass in both hands, then looked down, fidgeting. "I'm grateful for the time I had with my sister," she said. "I'm grateful she might still be alive somewhere. And if she isn't, I'm grateful not to have had to watch it happen."

Noah ached at her words, but he understood them. He would have given anything not to have been here to see what his father had become.

"I'm grateful that I never got close enough to most people to miss them," she said, heavy sadness in her tone. She tried to smile it away, but there was such truth in her words, it hit Noah hard. Then, she looked up at him, her eyes glistening as she raised her glass. "And I am truly grateful there are still people on this earth who are worth getting close to."

They each took another drink. Parrish looked at him over the top of her glass and a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

Noah smiled back, his heart full. Maybe he'd managed to break down a little piece of that wall she kept around her heart after all.

They sat down as a group. Karmen had managed to put together a meal despite there being no electricity. It was mostly things like crackers and anything that she could salvage from the fridge and the cans in the pantry.

But it wasn't half bad, really.

For the rest of the dinner, they shared their memories of life here on the street. Life as neighbors. Good times with their families and friends. Things they hoped never to forget.

They all slept in the living room instead of going to separate rooms for the night, finding comfort in the closeness of each other.

And in the morning, they loaded up in Parrish's mom's van and drove toward the hospital, leaving behind forever the neighborhood where they'd lived with their families and dreamed of a different future.

The journey begins!! They are finally leaving their neighborhood behind. Lots of adventure ahead. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far! Thanks for reading.