you. Tripp knew it, I knew it, I think everyone knew it but
you. Don’t you give up on her now.”
“But how -” Up’s voice cracked, and he squeezed his
eyes shut in shame. “When I’m like this- how can she still-”
Rosie’s look wasn’t pitying, but it wasn’t unkind.
“Well,” she said, hoisting herself and her son out of the
chair. “I offered to discharge her, and she wouldn’t take it.”
She smiled and briefly touched his cheek. “She’s still here,
isn’t she?”
After they left, Up sat holding the book for a long time.
He imagined himself as he once was, strong and tough
instead of broken, hearing the satisfying sound of zapper
fire on metal, leading men into battle, his lieutenant, the
best of them all, by his side. He imagined Taz in a white
dress, if she’d put one on, him in dress uniform, giving her
a ring, kissing the life out of her and not caring if anyone
saw. He imagined Taz with a swollen abdomen, a baby on
her hip, a little boy with a face like his. He imagined her
reading to them like she did for him, like her mama had
done for her, he imagined teaching them to climb, to do
calculus, to fight. He imagined having a family at last.
Suddenly he started to laugh.
He couldn’t ever have a family now. The injury had seen
to that.
Laughter turned to racking sobs, and then Up was
crying, crying for the first time he could remember.
Everything surfaced, everything that had been building up
in him since he’d first woken up to Taz’s tearful face, to his
broken body, to this half-life he’d been left with. He gasped
for air. He couldn’t stop.
Taz, dressed in sweats and her new haircut, stood frozen
with her hand poised to knock. The sound coming from
behind Up’s door was a sound she’d never imagined, never