“This is Ami Miles. She’s gonna be visiting with us for a little while. Ami, this is Hanna, and I’ll let y’all do the rest of the introductions yourself because I need to be gettin’ on back.” I felt kind of panicky watching her walk away and had to stop myself from running after her. I watched her go down the steps and disappear into the building. When I looked back at the table, I saw that the kids there were scooting their chairs around to make a space for me. One of the boys jumped up and pulled another chair over from an empty table nearby. The girl called Hanna spoke first.
“Hey, Ami! I’m Hanna, like Miss Helen said.” Hanna had deeply tanned skin, dark eyes, and straight, shiny dark brown hair that ended in a sharp line even with her chin. I had never seen a girl with short hair before, but it was pretty on her. She gestured to the girl sitting next to her, whose hair was curly and long like mine, but blond, with bright blue eyes, pale skin, and a scattering of freckles across her nose. “This is Melissa.” Melissa gave me a huge smile and a funny little wave and said, “Hi.” Next to her was a boy with the same darker skin and shiny dark hair as Hanna. “This is my brother, Ben.” Ben must have been a little shy because he just kind of nodded and mumbled hello. “I’m a year older than him.”
“And I’m Will.” There was another girl between Ben and Will, but he jumped in and introduced himself before Hanna could get to her. Everything about this boy looked like sunlight. His hair was goldy blond, and a fine scruff the same color covered his cheeks and chin. His eyes were clear golden brown with a dark ring around each iris, and they looked lighter than the tanned skin of his face. I imagined that if he smiled, light would shine out from his mouth, but he wasn’t smiling at me then. He looked curious, like I was a kind of bird or plant he’d never seen before. His eyes were studying my face so hard that I blushed and could barely get out a hello.
“Will and Melissa are twins,” Hanna said. She shot him a look and added, “And he’s kind of bossy.” I expected Will to rebuke Hanna for speaking to him like that, but he just laughed and winked at her. Were girls allowed to speak to men this way here? Papa Solomon had been very firm on the idea that God made men to lead and women to follow, but I was already getting the feeling that not everyone saw it that way. The closest I’d come to meeting someone who seemed to be in charge around the place was Helen, but I didn’t know if she would call herself the boss. I was also amazed by the idea of twins, which I had only read about in the encyclopedia. Will and Melissa didn’t look exactly alike the way the picture showed them in my book, though. I would have to ask about that later.
“And this is Nina,” Hanna said, motioning to the girl that Will had skipped. Nina looked a little younger than the others, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old if I had to guess. But what made her stand out to me was the fact that she was brown. Her skin was a deep, smooth brown all over, and her hair stood out from her head in a fluff of dark corkscrew curls. I had seen brown-skinned people in my encyclopedias, and Papa had preached about the mixing of the races being against God’s law, but I’d only ever seen a handful of people in real life, and all of them were white. She gave me a shy smile and said hello, and I realized that I was probably looking at her in the same curious way that Will had just done with me, so I made myself smile back.
Ruth had told me that when the first black people were brought to America on slave ships, white women fainted at the sight of them. Looking at an actual black person there in front of me, I thought that seemed awfully dramatic. I wondered if my lack of reaction was because she really wasn’t all that shocking, or because everything else that was happening was. I didn’t really know how I should react, but I had been taught that good manners are never wrong, so I fell back on politeness.
“So, Ami,” Will said, drawing my attention back to him, “tell us about yourself. Where did you come from? Why are you here at Lake Point?”
“God, Will, give her a minute! You’re so rude,” Melissa said, and I felt grateful. I hadn’t had much time to think about my story. I also was not used to talking to people I didn’t know. Melissa turned to me and said, “Don’t mind him, Ami. If you want to tell us about yourself, you can, but you take your time getting comfortable. My brother”—she threw him a look—“sometimes forgets that the way we grew up here isn’t normal for most people. But you aren’t the first person to come here from out there, and from what we’ve heard, you can go a long time without seeing other people. So we know you might not be used to … this.” She waved her hand to include everyone at the table. They were all looking at me.
“Yeah, uh, I … I’ve only ever been around my family where I lived.” Melissa nodded, satisfied that she had been right. But Hanna seemed to be the one who steered the conversation, and she changed the subject back to whatever they had been talking about before I showed up. I knew she was trying to give me room to breathe, and I was grateful, but I had trouble following the conversation. I still couldn’t believe I was here, sitting at a table with other kids my age, and I was supposed to just eat my dinner and talk like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Where was I?” Hanna asked. “Oh right, Teenie. What does your mom say, Nina?”
“Nina’s mom is the midwife,” Melissa directed at me. Nina looked pleased to have the conversation turn to her, and she sat up a little straighter.
“She put Teenie on bed rest.” There were sympathetic noises from the group. “She’s holding too much water. When Mama pressed a thumb into her ankle, the dent stayed for almost a minute.”
“Pitting edema,” muttered Will. I couldn’t imagine what either of those words meant, but everyone else ignored him.
“She’s not due for six weeks, but Mama’s not sure she’ll make it that long. She’s gotta watch her pressure ’cause it might be the clamps.” She looked around at all of us seriously, but I had no idea what that meant. Will sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Pre-UH-clamp-see-uh,” he said in a smarty-pants voice. “I’ve been reading about it. It’s very serious.” He looked like he was about to give a big speech about this, but Melissa cut him off.
“How’s Matthew handling all this, Nina? Is he taking care of her?”
“You know,” Nina said, “he’s … Matthew. He’s trying, but he’s not the best at remembering all those instructions, and Teenie’s not exactly the easiest patient. Lurene is there, of course, but she’s got that palsy pretty bad now, so there’s only so much she can do. Mama tried to talk to Jessie about helping, but you know how she feels about this baby. She wasn’t hearing it.” Everyone nodded and looked worried. I was mostly lost, but I gathered that this Teenie person was pregnant and something was wrong, and Matthew must be the daddy. I didn’t know who Jessie would be, but Hanna filled me in.
“Jessie and Teenie are best friends,” she explained. “Or they were until … Jessie wasn’t too happy about Teenie getting pregnant again.”
“Again?” I said.
“She had a…” She stopped and looked down.
“She was pregnant before, but the baby came too soon and it died,” Melissa said softly. “And Teenie almost died too. Margie, that’s Nina’s mama, she told Teenie it would be best if she didn’t try again.”
“She told Matthew, too, but I guess he didn’t listen.” This was Ben, who had been so quiet up till then, and I was surprised to see his face angry. Hanna looked at him sadly, then turned away.
“That’s who Jessie’s really mad at,” Nina said. “When Mama tried to talk to her about helping Teenie, Jessie started hollering about how Matt needs to help her by leaving her alone and not trying to kill her with any more babies. Then she ran off.”
I didn’t know what to think. I knew that babies sometimes didn’t survive their birth, but I’d never thought about it hurting the mother. All Ruth ever talked about was the baby. Wasn’t it worth any risk to bring new life into the world? I wondered about this Jessie person.
The conversation moved on to lighter things and I lost track. I didn’t know the
people they talked about, and my head was still spinning from the newness of being in a strange place with so many people everywhere. I let their talk wash over me, and they didn’t push me to join in any more than I wanted to. After a while, everyone went their separate ways, and I went back to my little room and to bed.
I opened the window in my room to catch the breeze and then lay down in the dark. It seemed so quiet after all that talk, and I wondered if I’d ever really noticed how quiet a room could be when I was the only one in it. All my life, being the only one had felt so normal to me, so permanent. The wonder of finding all these people was still washing over me in waves, and I felt tears leak out of the corners of my eyes and roll down into my hair as I lay there on my back replaying that first look at them when I came out onto the patio with Helen. And I hadn’t even known then that I was about to meet a whole handful of kids my age, or close enough. And they’d mentioned a few others. It was like finding treasure, and I would have the chance to get to know them all. I drifted off to sleep, smiling up at the ceiling like a fool.
They were all there again at breakfast the next morning, like a miracle. They were sharing a table when I came down to eat, and Melissa motioned for me to come sit with them. They talked, and I tried my best to keep up. Just by listening and watching, I started to get to know their personalities. Melissa seemed thoughtful and sweet, never saying a bad word about anyone. Nina was funny and quick to pick up on any chance to make a joke. Ben was quiet, almost as quiet as I was, even though he’d been there all his life. Will seemed to think he knew more than anyone else about every subject, and Hanna would roll her eyes at him and shush him sometimes. I got the feeling she didn’t really mind, though. I saw the way she watched him when he wasn’t looking.
They let me get through breakfast without saying much of anything, and I stayed to help clean up when they all went off to their jobs for the day. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, but keeping busy seemed like a good idea, and the other people in the kitchen didn’t seem to mind the extra hands. Then cleanup from breakfast turned into setup for lunch, and I hadn’t even left by the time they all came back to eat. They saw me coming out of the kitchen and waved me over to sit with them again. I figured I was in for another hour of listening to them talk about people I didn’t know, but I guess they’d decided I was settled in enough for them to start asking me questions about myself.
“So, Ami,” Hanna began, “you said last night that you were only ever around your family back where you came from. You want to tell us about them? What was it like growing up with no other people around?” The way she said it and looked at me reminded me of the time I found a stray cat and tried to tame it, but I was thrown off guard.
“Well,” I began slowly, “I was the only child.”
“Oh,” Melissa said, “you don’t have any sisters or brothers?”
“No. I mean, I don’t. But also, no one else did either. Have any kids. I was the only … person my age. I’ve never met anyone younger than my aunts and uncles, and they’re … not young.” My face felt like it was on fire, and I could only stare down at my food. Why was this so hard?
“So none of them could have babies?” Nina asked.
“No. They tried, but my mother was the only one who could.” I had not meant to mention my mother!
“But just you?” Hanna asked. “She couldn’t get pregnant again after you were born?” I tried not to look shocked at the words she had used. Get pregnant seemed like such a bold way to say it!
“I don’t know. I don’t think she did? I’ve never met her. She ran away after I was born to hide from the C-PAF men.” Will let out a bark of a laugh, then no one said anything for a minute, and I dragged my eyes away from my plate to see why. They were looking at me with a mixture of confusion and something that seemed suspiciously like pity.
“That doesn’t make sense!” Ben blurted out. Hanna said his name sharply, and he got quiet again. I figured he just meant it didn’t make sense that she hadn’t come back by now, since C-PAF kind of fell apart soon after I was born. But then Will spoke up.
“There were never any C-PAF agents, Ami. That’s just a story they put out to scare women into turning themselves in. Everyone knows that!”
Eleven
“What? No!” I said.
“What Will means,” Hanna said, throwing him a look, “is that according to our records here, there’s no evidence that the C-PAF men existed. There’s no record of anyone ever meeting one or being taken in.” I didn’t understand.
“There’s a woman here, her name is Miss Jean and she’s the librarian, along with her sister, Evelyn,” Melissa said. “They’ve lived here all their lives, and their family has been here since the Break. They’ve kept kind of a journal of everything that’s happened since then.”
“But that’s just for here, right?” I asked. For reasons I didn’t really understand, my heart was pounding and I felt like I might be sick. “Just because the last C-PAF men never came here, that doesn’t mean they weren’t anywhere else.” Hanna was nodding and she started to agree with me, but Will cut her off.
“That’s only partly true. The librarians since way before Miss Jean went out on scavenging trips, but instead of looking for supplies, they looked for information and news from all around. Now, it’s true that they couldn’t go out that far because they were on foot or horseback and they still had to get back here. But I’m guessing you don’t live more than a few days’ walk from here, do you? They found a lot of stories that kind of match up to older boogeyman stories from folklore, like the Night Doctor. But nothing firsthand. They would have known if a real agent came within a hundred miles of here.” He leaned back in his chair and looked kind of satisfied after he stopped talking. I felt like I wanted to punch him in the mouth.
“Shut up, Will. You don’t know everything.” This was Nina. She was small, but she didn’t seem afraid to speak up. I still wasn’t used to the idea of girls talking to men or boys like that. “Even though the librarians went out all around here, that doesn’t mean they hit every single house and place where people were still living. Some of those old farms and stuff are hard to find. I’ve read the journals, or at least a lot of them. They never said they were sure they knew every single thing that happened.”
“That’s right. Ami”—Melissa looked at me encouragingly—“did you come from one of those hidden farms? Or way back in the woods or something?” I was having a hard time looking at her or making the words come out, so I looked down at the table and shook my head. No one said anything for a minute. My mind was racing, and it felt like the only way I could start to sort out all the thoughts was to say them out loud.
“No,” I said. “Our compound is right on the road. On the hi-way, you know? It used to be a dealership a long time ago, to sell house trailers? My great-great-grandfather saw the signs, so he took it off the grid. He stocked up on all kinds of food and supplies for the families, but they … anyway, it was for selling trailers, and it’s right on the road where people could see it when they drove past.” My voice trailed off to a whisper. “It’s not … it wouldn’t be hard to find.”
“Ami,” Hanna said softly, “just because we were taught that the C-PAF men were never real, that doesn’t mean your family knew. You said you didn’t leave your compound much, right? You never talked to many people outside your family, but you heard stories that were handed down from before. So it makes sense that they would still believe those stories too. They probably just didn’t know.”
I wanted to believe her. And she was right, it made sense that no one on the compound could have known the stories weren’t true. But it was very likely that the librarians would have come by Heavenly Shepherd, since it was right there in plain sight along the main road, so if a C-PAF man had ever come to the compound, that would have gone into the journal. Probably. Maybe. But then I realized something that made me understand a bigger truth: If my mother came here when she left me, then she would have known what
Hanna and her friends knew. She would have known the C-PAF men weren’t real. But I hadn’t mentioned that my mother was here, or had been here, and I didn’t feel like talking about it right then either.
“Ami?” Hanna was looking at me like she was worried about me, even though we’d just met. And suddenly I felt really mad. Not at Hanna but at my mother. I was a stranger to Hanna; she’d just met me, but she already acted like she cared if I was okay or not. Where was my mother? Why didn’t she care if I was okay or not? Why did she leave me and never come back even though she had to know there were never any C-PAF men? It seemed to me that there was only one answer to that question: She just didn’t want me. Was there something so wrong with me that even as a tiny little baby, my own mother couldn’t love me? And whatever it was, could Hanna and the rest of these kids see it too?
“I have to go,” I mumbled, pushing myself away from the table and standing up. I could feel hot, bitter tears starting to spill over, and I didn’t want them to see me crying on top of everything else. Just the day before, I had been so excited and happy to meet other kids my own age. Now all I wanted was to be alone again so they wouldn’t see whatever was wrong with me. I heard them calling my name as I walked away, fighting the urge to break into a run and just keep going, but no one came after me. The tears were coming fast, and I somehow made it back to my room without making eye contact or talking to anyone in the big room. As soon as I was safely inside, I threw myself onto the bed and let it all out.
Angry, rough sobs tore themselves from my throat, but instead of draining away my anger, they seemed to feed it. My whole life, I had tried to be good, I had controlled myself like Ruth taught me, I didn’t let myself dwell on what couldn’t be changed. But there in that little room at Lake Point, I felt a different Ami being born. It had started when I saw myself in the bathroom mirror and grown stronger when I saw all those people and knew I wasn’t alone, but those had been feelings of happiness. When Ruth talked to me about birthing babies, she sometimes called it “the crisis.” Understanding that my mother could have come back for me but didn’t was like that: a crisis that finished forming this new, stronger Ami and pushed her out into the world.
The Ballad of Ami Miles Page 8