A car moving down the highway that winds between Minneapolis and St. Mark after midnight is a very lonely thing. The black anonymity of the passing countryside is briefly relieved only by the dim lights of several sleeping villages. Bearing its own source of light, it purrs along, steadily slicing its way through the darkness.
Tonight it was the Pearsons’ turn to be traveling in such a car. Steve had silently brushed aside his wife’s offer to let her drive them home. He had planted himself behind the steering wheel and maneuvered their DeSoto out of Reedville, by some miracle finding the right road that led them to St. Mark. Drawn into himself, he had said scarcely a word since leaving the Landgren home.
Kay, sitting close beside him on the cushion seat without quite touching him, felt her heart slipping into that state of panic which she had not known for over a decade. She wanted desperately to enfold in her arms the grieving man she loved, but she didn’t dare touch him for fear he’d crumble. So she sat there, frozen in place beside him.
They were ten miles north of St. Mark when their car slowed down and swerved uneasily onto the gravel shoulder on the right where it came to a halt. Kay looked into Steve’s expressionless face in the dim glow from the headlights and held her breath.
For a few moments he remained motionless and erect behind the wheel. Then, as she looked on, a wince snarled his features. He fell forward onto the steering wheel and broke into sobs.
“I can’t go on! I can’t go on! It’s all a farce, a terrible farce! They’re all dying right in front of my nose. They’re dropping like flies and we scientists are the ones who are killing them! Hope? Progress? Eradicating evil? Rubbish! If our science blesses one, it curses ten, in peace as much as in war. It kills, it maims, it cripples—the soul in peacetime, the body in wartime. So I gave everything I had to producing this? To make my Cecilia happy in Heaven? And my Kay on earth? What kind of a fool have I been? This is the bottom of a pit I’ve got myself into! God! What’s gone wrong? What have I missed? Why did it take ‘today’ to show me this? O Kay! What have I done to you? You trusted me, and look where I’ve dragged you! Look where I’ve dragged you….”
“No, Steve! No! No! Everything I cherish has come to me in you. You are the wisest, and the bravest, and the most wonderful person I have ever known. No, Steve! Come to me. I love you. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t go away from me!”
She pulled his limp body towards her and he received her, pressing her head against his chest with his left hand.
She clamped herself around him.
Trembling he stroked her soft hair with his hand and fingers, back and forth, back and forth. And in her embrace and with his gentle stroking in her hair, his tremors slowly died away.
“Kay,” he said, breathing a little more normally. “You are the only good I know for sure. Where did you come from? How did you get here? I think you came straight from Heaven, sent to me by the good God. Why aren’t there more of you? Why isn’t the world full of you? Then we’d have hope. Can you tell me why the good God is letting the world destroy itself? Can you, my love? Why?”
“O Steve!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Let’s just start all over again, just with each other, like we did before. Let’s let everything else go. Let’s just start with loving each other and go from there.”
“My love, I couldn’t go on for another day without you.”
Kay’s heart was pounding, her breast was heaving up and down. Pulling herself even closer to Steve, she pleaded, “Love me! Love me!”
“Always I love you.”
“Steve,” she whispered fondlingly. “Love me here. Love me now. Love me!”
He ran his fingers through her silken hair.
“You know I love you always.”
“Love me here! Love me now! Now….”
He understood. His loins were awaking to her touch.
“But it isn’t safe now,” he objected weakly.
“Love me here, Steve! Love me now!”
A good half an hour later the DeSoto crept back onto the pavement and slowly made its way back toward St. Mark.