The Gates of Babylon by Michael Wallace Page A

almost naïve look on her face that belied the horrors she had suffered. Eliza didn’t resent it so much as feel an aching envy that she couldn’t do the same.
    Reluctantly, she came and sat next to Lillian on the bed. The younger woman took her hand and squeezed it. “You can do it.”
    “I know. But I don’t want to.”
    “We should both be with them,” Lillian said.
    “You wanted to go too?”
    “I’m not following Miriam around the desert for the fresh air. She works me like a dog. The only thing that makes it tolerable is that she works herself like a dog, too.”
    “Assuming dogs carried grenades and M99 sniper rifles, yes.”
    “I was so tired last week and so sick of reading that stupid explosives manual that I almost packed it up, quit, and moved back in with my father.”
    Eliza raised an eyebrow. “Now that sounds like true desperation.”
    Lillian’s father was Elder Smoot in the Quorum of the Twelve, Father’s cousin, and made of the same material too. Smoot had pushed his daughter into a first, disastrous marriage and would no doubt attempt more of the same if she moved back home. At the least, Eliza thought Lillian would find it intolerable to get a taste of freedom, only to fall beneath the patriarchal thumb again.
    “I’d decided to quit,” Lillian continued, “when Miriam congratulated me on my shooting. She said I was a better shot than Krantz.”
    “That’s quite a compliment. Steve could trim a coyote’s whiskers at twelve hundred yards.”
    “I didn’t say it,” Lillian said.
    “If Miriam said it, it meant something. She doesn’t dish out compliments very often.”
    “She said she was sorry for riding me so hard.”
    “Or apologies,” Eliza said.
    “She said she was pushing me because I’m a lot like her a few years ago and she wants me to reach my potential. Hearing that felt pretty good. Next day, we went on a ten-mile run around the edge of Witch’s Warts. In pouring rain. That
didn’t
feel so great.”
    “That’s what you get with Miriam,” Eliza said. “One step back, two whip cracks forward.”
    “So she’s always been like this?”
    “More or less. Worse now that she’s convinced the end is here.”
    “Are you sure it’s not?”
    “You have to admit they’ve been telling us that all our lives,” Eliza said.
    “Yeah, but this is different. This time it seems real. Don’t you think?”
    “Things do seem to be falling apart,” she admitted.
    “Or coming together,” Lillian said. “Depending on your point of view. Wars and rumors of wars. Strange weather, famine.”
    “What about signs in the heavens?” Eliza asked. “I haven’t seen any stars falling from the sky.”
    “Have you seen the sunset? Last night, the moon looked like blood. How do you explain that?”
    “Volcanic ash.”
    Lillian raised an eyebrow then glanced toward the window. “Do you think they’re safe out there?”
    “I do,” Eliza said. “Jacob knows what he’s doing. Steve and Miriam have the FBI background, and Trost is a police officer, and David… well, there’s always room for comic relief.”
    Lillian laughed.
    “David is growing up,” Eliza said, more seriously. “If he’s not ready yet, he will be soon. Jacob managed with me, and I’m sure he can do the same for David.”
    “Are you feeling better?”
    “I am,” Eliza said, a little surprised. “Thanks.”
    She started to rise, thinking she would get an early start and shower before every toilet in the house flushed at the same time and killed water pressure to a trickle. But Lillian didn’t let go of her hand.
    “One second,” the younger woman said. “Can I ask you something before you go?”
    “Sure.”
    “Do you think your brother would make a good husband?”
    Eliza gave Lillian a sharp look. “I wouldn’t get any ideas if I were you.”
    “I’m not going to throw myself on him,” Lillian protested. “But I’m wondering if his wife would accept me.”
    Other women had come to Eliza