Characters in Summer Thunder

Both of them, actually, because Diana had surely never imagined that when the apocalypse finally arrived, she would be in Boston with their daughter, investigating the academic possibilities of Emerson College. Eating for one, the food would last longer than he did. Robinson had no doubt of that.

As if he could enjoy anything. He and Diana had been talking about a trip to England—their first extended vacation since the honeymoon—once Ellen was settled in school. Ellen, he thought. Who had just been recovering from the breakup with her first real boyfriend and was beginning to smile again.

That was when there was still enough gasoline to make flight possible. The owners of Woodland Acres, George and Ellen Benson, had stayed. So had Timlin, who was divorced, had no children to mourn, and knew the Canada story was surely a fable.

• • • On each of these fine late-summer postapocalypse days, Robinson clipped a leash to Gandalf’s collar (he had no idea what the dog’s name had been before June Sixth; the mutt had come with a collar from which only a State of Massachusetts vaccination tag hung), and they …

That was when there was still enough gasoline to make flight possible. The owners of Woodland Acres, George and Ellen Benson, had stayed. So had Timlin, who was divorced, had no children to mourn, and knew the Canada story was surely a fable.

… two miles to the pricey enclave of which Howard Timlin was now the only resident. Diana had once called that walk snapshot heaven. Much of it overlooked sheer drops to the lake and forty-mile views into New York. At one point, where the road buttonhooked sharply, a sign that read …

… Robinson was okay as long as Gandalf was. Not okay in the sense of everything is fine, but in the sense of getting along from one day to the next. He still woke up in the night, often with tears on his face from vivid dreams where Diana and Ellen …