3)

For the first time in months, Ro was not interested in trendy fads of fashion. Instead, inside the small woman’s clothing store, Ro found the simplest, most classic designs and laid them in a collective weight upon her forearm. Zee eventually took the pile from her, so she could move freely about the racks of new clothes. He examined what she examined but, as normal, expressed no opinion unless asked. Men did this with their women, he’d noticed. Men stayed quiet and only said flattering things.

‘Zee? What’s your favourite colour?’

He was still getting used to her reddish hair. Now she had a remarkable resemblance to her brother, as Casey had a sandy, strawberry-blonde head of thick hair, and a striking red goatee. Casey Rowen looked every inch the fair and freckled man of Irish decent. And Ro now resembled a fey leprechaun in much the same way. Zee almost laughed as he imagined Ro with Casey’s chin fuzz. The laugh was held in. It seemed an inappropriate time for laughter.

‘My favourite colour?’ He’d never been asked this before. It required thought. Until, at least, she looked up at him. ‘Blue. The colour of your eyes. The colour of the sky. The colour of the Caribbean sea. That is my favourite.’

Ro held up a sundress for him to add to the collection. It was blue with white and pale pink dots. ‘Blue it is then.’

‘You’re not going to buy all of these, are you?’

‘Absolutely not.’

He enjoyed a brief moment of relief.

‘You’re going to buy all of these. Oh! Shoes!’

Obediently, he followed her to the shoe display. In fifteen minutes, she’d tried on enough pairs to satisfy but had chosen none. Ro took the pile of clothing and hangers from him and made her way to the back of the store for the final fitting and decision process. Zee amused himself in this interim by watching the women shopping, and contemplating, though trying hard not to, what tomorrow would bring. Now that everything had changed for Ro and him, it seemed unjust, unnatural in a way, that the world should go on spinning as it had yesterday, all the time before. He couldn’t understand how this had happened. The world should’ve stopped. It should’ve shaken. It should’ve broken from its axis and rolled away into the sun, or into the nightmarish black holes awaiting beyond galaxy’s edge.

But it hadn’t moved. It hadn’t changed.

Dr Selig was dead. And the world didn’t care.

He was glad for the small hand on his shoulder. Ro awoke him from such thoughts and brought the scent of all things good and wonderful back into his life. He stood from the bench and observed this new Ro. She gave the obligatory spin to show herself off from all angles. In a baby blue dimity sundress, hugging her in all the right places, Ro’s feminine assets were fully on display. Having seen her attired in a shirt and skirt combination only once, this dismemberment of his predilections caused the weakest of smiles to appear. He’d forgotten, in the mayhem of the last two weeks, exactly how beautiful she was. He’d forgotten to be proud of her.

‘You—’

‘Save it,’ Ro abruptly said. ‘You can tell me how pretty I look the next time I burst into tears. I’ll need it then. I don’t now. Come on,’ she escorted him, with all her final purchases, to the door, ‘I’m starving. Time for food.’

He swiped the credcard on the way out the door, while the lasers worked to scan all the items for purchase and create a total amount. Zee didn’t even bother to look and see how much it was, but he caught a $1 followed by a comma and three additional digits of unimportance.

After leaving purchases in a line of public lockers along the beach, for visitors to keep personal belongings, Ro had takeaway from a wagon vendor. They took a footpath to the sand and picnicked there. The sun was going down in the west but left smoky trails of pastel yellow and pale green above the eastern horizon. A thumbnail of a moon hung translucent next to its guarding star. Sailboats were unfurled and picturesque against the waves. Children dashed across the dampened slip of sand, to catch each other, or hunt seashells, or otherwise exhaust their parents. Ro ate in silence, glad to be hungry. Five hours ago, she couldn’t imagine her stomach ever wanting food again. But shopping removed stains, and acquiring a new hair colour brought a new perspective on life.

What’d happened that day couldn’t be forgotten. At best it could only be subdued.

But the world went on. It spun and spun, rising the sun and the moon, setting the moon and the sun; bringing on the end of summer, fall, winter, spring. Time was a reminder that all things ended.

‘Zee?’

He opened his eyes and shifted his position. ‘Ro?’

‘Would you do something for me?’

He watched and waited. Ro set aside the last two bites of a sandwich, wiped her hands, and settled on her knees. She smoothed the dress out as she spoke.

‘You should find . . . How do I put this? You should find some other look.’

‘Look?’

‘You know—a different Zee Smith on the outside.’

He bobbed his head in vague understanding. ‘Like hiding. Like what you’re doing.’

‘Not exactly. I did all this because I can’t stand looking at myself in the mirror and thinking that I’m the same girl that saw what I did today. I don’t want to be reminded of myself as I was this morning. I wanted to change on the outside so I can change on the inside. It isn’t a cure-all or anything. But it might help.’

‘And you don’t want to look at me as I am because it’ll just remind you.’

She pursed her lips, yet refrained from affirmation.

Moving again, he creased his legs beneath him and reached across to take her hands. They sat like that for a while, until the moon rose higher and brightened; the tide changed and the children disappeared.

Ro finally found something to say. ‘I like the way you look. I like it as much as you do. But it’s time for something different. Our world is completely different now. We can’t pretend it isn’t. Let’s just change right along with it. We might be able to keep up with it if we do.’

Zee doubted this. ‘I don’t know, Ro. Change is all right for you, but—’

‘Zee! You can be anyone. Anyone in the world!’ She tightened their hands and gave them a vigorous, uplifting shake. ‘You’ll still be Zee Smith. You will. Only what’s different is on the outside, not the inside.’

His gaze left hers and returned to the ocean. To the south eighty miles and east two hundred miles lay the remains of Knossos. And, perhaps, the remains of one man they’d been searching for since the first month they met. There was no doubt that the hour of its destruction marked the beginning of an untried path for them. It would be different, their life together. He could not be who he was yesterday, and even his powers could not bring back the past. This moment was the only chance he had to change, or all the moments that came later, tomorrow, next week, next year.

‘Then I accept. I accept the changes, Ro.’

She smiled a little. ‘Good. Things have a way of sorting themselves out. You’ll see. Now,’ she wiggled a little and straightened her shoulders, catching his eyes, ‘let’s see you pick a new you.’

‘Help me find a place to start.’

It took her a moment to drudge up a memory that wasn’t tainted by the present. ‘I liked the one guy you were when we were at Jason Foley’s house. Remember?’

‘When the police were around, you mean?’

‘Yeah. He was shuai. Work with him. No goatee though.’ She tugged at the black lapel of his blue-violet coat, hoping, rather with a weighted heart, never to see it again. ‘Maybe get rid of the coat for a while. It is August, Zee.’

‘All right. No coat. No goatee.’ Zee let her hands drift from his. ‘Close your eyes.’

She did better than that: She put her fingers against her lids to refrain from cheating. In a moment, after Zee was assured of her sightlessness, there came the familiar rush of energy, the tangy redolence of ozone, and the calm aftermath. Upon opening her eyes, Ro found what she’d been looking for without knowing it.

As he’d tried telling her before, everything would be all right. She knew this now. They were still together. They were still a part of something bigger. They still had perils to avoid and a quest to complete.

Reassured by the emotions he’d unwittingly exposed, he brought her to her feet. They paraded for a while in delicious tranquillity. The sand tickled the back of Ro’s ankles. At one point, she looked behind her to the trail of faint footprints they’d left, comforted by the two rows running so close together.

‘Ro?’

‘Zee?’

‘I don’t know this about you, so I have to ask beforehand. Do you make promises?’

‘Sometimes.’ She took his elbow, grateful to have him at her side through the difficult walks of life, its strange turns and unpredictability. ‘I think I’d make a thousand promises for you. At least today. I don’t know about tomorrow.’

‘I want you to promise me something, if you will.’

She thought of making some comment on the uncertain curvature of his thoughts, but decided against ruining the peaceful hum of the evening and the optimism suddenly filling them. He was a little shorter now, no longer as tall as the other Zee Smith, and his frame was slightly narrower, but she liked the look of him. His profile was dignified, ending in the robust dent in a square chin. His nose had sharpened at the ball, no longer as round as before. It was a profile she could grow fond of, and a profile the NSA would come to know over the next few months. It might even become the face that acquires unlimited liberty and wholeness.

‘Do I get to hear what it is first?’

He stopped her. The sand had turned from ecru to golden beige. The ocean had darkened in the background. The moon seemed the pearly centre of tiara upon her head. He thought her commanding, realistic, grounded. Moonlight tended to make realistic object fey and meaningless. But the silvery presence gave Ro a soul of steel and a heart fit only for courage.

Thinking that what he had to say was too profound, he couldn’t look at her. ‘Whatever happens next, I don’t want us to become separated. We need to stay together.’

In the total quiet that followed, he made sure she was still there. The moon may have come down and snatched her away.

She was still there. A flood quivered in the rim of her eyes. ‘I’ll find you again if we’re ever separated. I did it once. I can do it again.’

‘But don’t—’

‘Don’t what?’

He was frustrated that the words wouldn’t come. Poetry might. Thoughts of the moon and the stars might. But not this simplistic idea of unity. It remained hidden. ‘Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me on purpose. It would be unbearable if you did. Especially now. We’ve been through hell and heaven together, with miles still to go.’

The wind altered paths and lifted from the north. On it came a portentous breath of the past mingled with the future. Ro didn’t know how to respond. Her thoughts were tangled with the scents of the sea, the memory of how the sun played with the highlights of his golden hair. Facing death that day had stripped away the coverings over their emotions, and they were left exposed and raw.

Zee picked up a shell from the sand and tossed it into the water. ‘If you thought it was difficult before—wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow it’ll be worse. Tomorrow we won’t know where to begin again.’

‘That’s not possible. I think we do know where to begin.’

‘We do?’ He was surprised by the conviction in her voice, like the Ro of yesterday. ‘Where?’

‘We’ll find Dr Selig.’

‘And if he’s dead?’

She rolled this off her shoulders. ‘Alive or dead, Selig is out there for us to find. We won’t stop until we know for sure.’ The open front of his shirt was pinned together by both her hands, and she held it in place against the rising gale. ‘That’s one of my thousand promises. Okay?’

‘Okay. What are the other nine hundred and ninety-eight?’

‘Hey. Don’t push your luck.’

‘I don’t think I’d better.’

‘And tomorrow morning, where will we go?’

‘You’d better choose.’

‘I’m thinking a land-locked state, away from the water.’ Ro gave a final look to the sea before crossing the street. Their hotel waited, with an oversized bed all to herself after a hot bath. It’d be a night of watching old movies. A night of listening to Zee’s snores. A night to, thankfully, end the horror of the day.