The Leftovers

seemed like a disorganized mob, but as they walked they began to form a horizontal line, a configuration that reminded Kevin of a search party. Each person was carrying a piece of posterboard emblazoned with a single black letter, and when they got to within shouting distance of the stage, they stopped and raised their squares overhead. Together, the jagged row of letters spelled the words STOP WASTING YOUR BREATH .
    An angry murmur arose from the crowd, which didn’t appreciate the interruption or the sentiment. Nearly the entire police force was present at the ceremony, and after a moment of uncertainty, several officers began moving toward the interlopers. Chief Rogers was onstage, and just as Kevin rose to consult him about the wisdom of provoking a confrontation, Nora addressed the officers.
    “Please,” she said. “Leave them alone. They’re not hurting anyone.”
    The cops hesitated, then checked their advance after receiving a signal from the Chief. From where he sat, Kevin had a clear view of the protesters, so he knew by then that his wife was among them. Kevin hadn’t seen Laurie for a couple of months, and he was struck by how much weight she’d lost, as if she’d disappeared into a fitness center instead of a Rapture cult. Her hair was grayer than he’d ever seen it—the G.R. wasn’t big on personal grooming—but on the whole, she looked strangely youthful. Maybe it was the cigarette in her mouth—Laurie had been a smoker in the early days of their relationship—but the woman who stood before him, the letter N raised high above her head, reminded him more of the fun-loving girl he’d known in college than the heavyhearted, thick-waisted woman who’d walked out on him six months ago. Despite the circumstances, he felt an undeniable pang of desire for her, an actual and highly ironic stirring in his groin.
    “I’m not greedy,” Nora went on, picking up the thread of her speech. “I’m not asking for that perfect day at the beach. Just give me that horrible Saturday, all four of us sick and miserable, but alive, and together. Right now that sounds like heaven to me.” For the first time since she’d begun speaking, her voice cracked with emotion. “God bless us, the ones who are here and the ones who aren’t. We’ve all been through so much.”
    Kevin attempted to make eye contact with Laurie throughout the sustained, somewhat defiant applause that followed, but she refused even to glance in his direction. He tried to convince himself that she was doing this against her will—she was, after all, flanked by two large bearded men, one of whom looked a little like Neil Felton, the guy who used to own the gourmet pizza place in the town center. It would have been comforting to think that she’d been instructed by her superiors not to fall into temptation by communicating, even silently, with her husband, but he knew in his heart that this wasn’t the case. She could’ve looked at him if she’d wanted to, could’ve at least acknowledged the existence of the man she’d promised to spend her life with. She just didn’t want to.
    Thinking about it afterward, he wondered why he hadn’t climbed down from the stage, walked over there, and said, Hey, it’s been a while. You look good. I miss you. There was nothing stopping him. And yet he just sat there, doing absolutely nothing, until the people in white lowered their letters, turned around, and drifted back into the woods.
     

A WHOLE CLASS OF JILLS
    JILL GARVEY KNEW HOW EASY it was to romanticize the missing, to pretend that they were better than they really were, somehow superior to the losers who’d been left behind. She’d seen this up close in the weeks after October 14th, when all sorts of people—adults, mostly, but some kids, too—said all kinds of crazy stuff to her about Jen Sussman, who was really nobody special, just a regular person, maybe a little prettier than most girls their age, but definitely not an angel who was too good for this world.
    God wanted her company, they’d say. He missed her blue eyes and beautiful smile.
    They meant well, Jill understood that. Because she was a so-called Eyewitness, the only other person in the room when Jen departed, people often treated her with creepy tenderness—it was as if she were a grieving relative, as if she and Jen had become sisters after the fact—and an odd sort of respect. No one listened when she tried to explain that she hadn’t actually witnessed anything