“I hate this world. I never belonged here.”
“Nah, you belong right here with me,” I said, holding his back against my chest and kissing his head. “You’ve shut yerself away for too long, but the world ain’t all bad. Yer the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and if I believed in God, I’d thank him every day that I found ya. You made me a better person, you got Austin to open up to you, and you saved him and Adam. What kind of a terrible person does that?”
“I’m always nagging you, and I treated Adam horribly. He reminded me of everything I hated about myself.”
“Adam knows you don’t hate him, and you nagging me got me on the right track. You could’ve turned into a real psycho like yer dad, but you broke that cycle. Yer responsible and you care. You say you hate yer mother, but I didn’t feel that. You said the opposite of what you felt because you was hurtin’. Yer gonna be one hell of a good leader one day. I’ll be right there with ya, picking you up when you fall, making you laugh when yer sad, and I’ll keep makin’ you good food. I make the best meals for people that mean the most.”
Cody turned and looked me in the eye, a sad smile inching up his face.
“Thank you, Roscoe.”
He shattered into a million pieces then disappeared, and the black room brightened to a blue sky with beautiful green hills. Cody stood in the middle of it, and we ran to one another.
“Roscoe?” Cody asked, throwing his arms around me. “Is this really you?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Looks like we passed.”
“You know about the ritual?”
“I remember doin’ something like this when I joined the ferals a long time ago. You got me my memories back.” I held him tight as we stood in the middle of the warm field together. “One hundred and seven.”
“Huh?”
“That’s how old I am. I was born in rural Arkansas on December 21st, 1916. My dad died when I was about seven, so I don’t remember much about the guy other than what mama told me. He was a Sardinian immigrant. He did teach me a little Italian, though. All these years the memories were never really gone, just fuzzy.”
“Did you mean what you said?” Cody asked. “Will you keep making me delicious food?”
“You never have to ask. You and I will sit together on that ugly couch and eat it while watchin’ old movies.” A new memory popped into my head from the trial we just went through. “You said I was the most wonderful person you ever met. No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“I meant it. No one comes close.”
“Damn,” I said. I was about to choke up, and I held him tighter. I couldn’t picture myself holdin’ anyone else. “Yer makin’ me gross.”
“You were gross before we met.” We both laughed, but Cody looked worried.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t imagine what Adam’s looking at right now.”
“It’s gotta happen, though. The only one who’s gonna break him out is the one who put him there.”
“The elder told me what would happen if they don’t make it. I don’t want to lose my memories.”
“They’ll be fine. There’s more to Adam than he lets us see, and Austin’s got a lot to work through. It’s gonna take time, so let’s enjoy all this. It’s pretty here.”
“It’s like a thousand pounds has been lifted,” Cody said, walking alongside me. “I really do think you should become a chef.”
Gettin’ my memories back meant remembering all those meals I cooked for my friends in the camps. They used to be painful, but not anymore. My old friends aren’t broken, dirty, or miserable. They’re smiling while enjoying the meals I made.
“I like the people in Norwich, and I can make food for people I like.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Cody cracked a smile while starin’ at me.
“I love you—r cooking,” he said, studying my reaction.
“And I love… yer voice. We should sing together more.”
They weren’t quite the words we meant. It wasn’t the right time, and I wasn’t sure when it would be. There were some things from the past that didn’t heal. The last time I’d said those words, I lost everything. If something were to ever happen to Cody—
