Page 117 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

Her brother farts. Smiles blissfully.

He’ll need changing.

The gun’s still on the ground.

It’s too much. The fragments. The sliding. Cat not helping.

The unsayable spits out of my mouth, panic powered, stone sharp, meant to hurt.

You’re useless! I say to Cat. Why are you so useless. Why do I have to do everything?! Why won’t you do SOMETHING?

She doesn’t reply.

And that sharp stone, the one meant to hurt, it bounces off her silence and hits me instead.

I’m sorry, I say. I know why, but we have to go NOW.

And then it’s too late.

The door scrapes open and Digger bounds in, tail wagging, happily betraying us as the door behind her fills with the two men from the sailing boat, who are puffing with the exertion of chasing us and turn out to be a man and a woman on closer inspection and I wonder if I can maybe drop the babies safely and dive to get the gun, before they notice it, and they look back at me and their faces are as weather-beaten as their patchwork clothes, but there’s something in their likeness that tells me they are sister and brother, and one more thing that stops me for a moment, just long enough for the girl to see the gun at her feet and stoop to pick it up.

And the thing that stops me for that crucial life changing microsecond is that they look familiar. I haven’t ever seen these strangers from the sea before, but I’ve seen bits of them in another face—

The woman drops the clip out of the gun and jacks the bullet out of the chamber with a look of distaste. She then pockets the clip and squats and puts the gun back on the floor. She seems very calm. She looks up at me with very steady eyes, eyes I have definitely seen before in another face.

I’m Bar, she says. You don’t need that—

She nods at the gun.

We’re not going to hurt you, said the man, white teeth flashing in a beard like a spade.

He’s Ferg, said Bar. Who are you?

I couldn’t speak. Not to them. I felt my legs go and found myself slumping to the ground, sitting in the mess of books with the babies on my knees. I could only look down. Water dropped out of my face and plopped on to a green-covered book about an elephant in a suit.

I’m sorry, Cat, I said, the words somehow so big inside me that it hurt to get them out of my throat. I tried. I really did try. I know you tried too. More than me. Much more. Because you fell. Because the Tower fell on you. I didn’t mean what I said. You’re not useless. You’re just hurt…

More wetness fell on the elephant’s face.

I said the last words so quietly they were almost only in my head.

You’re my only-one.

And you’re mine, Cat said.

I looked up to smile at her.

Who are you talking to? said Bar.

They followed my eyes. There was only a blank wall. I turned and scanned the room.

Who are you looking for? said Ferg.

My sister, I said.

They looked at each other.

Us too, said Bar. I mean our sister. Not yours. But who were you talking to?