Last Survivors 01 - Life as We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  I remember a few months ago how angry I was that we weren't eating as much as Jonny, how unfair that seemed. But now I feel like Mom was right. It is a possibility only one of us is going to make it. We have fuel and we have water, but who knows how long our food will last. Mom's so thin it's scary and Matt certainly isn't as strong as he used to be and I know I'm not. I'm not saying Jon is, but I can see how he might have the best chance of making it through the winter or spring or whatever.

  Probably if only one of us really is going to survive, Matt would be the best choice, since he's old enough to take care of himself. But Matt would never let that happen.

  I don't want to live two weeks longer or three or four if it means none of us survive. So I guess if it comes to it, I'll stop eating altogether to make sure Jon has food.

  Matt started to go upstairs to talk to Jon, but Mom said no, she'd do it. Her limp was pretty bad, and I worried about her getting up the stairs, but she insisted on going.

  "This is awful," I said to Matt, just in case he hadn't noticed.

  "It could be worse," he said. "We may look back on this as the good time."

  And he's right. I still remember when Mom sprained her ankle the first time and we played poker and really enjoyed ourselves. If you'd told me three months before then that I'd have called that a good time, I would have laughed out loud.

  I eat every single day. Two months from now, maybe even one month from now, I might eat only every other day.

  We're all alive. We're all healthy.

  These are the good times.

  December 11

  I went outside to do chamber pot duty and Jon followed me out with kitty litter brigade. I was turning to go back in when he grabbed hold of my arm.

  "I need to talk to you," he said.

  I knew it had to be important. If Jon talks to anybody it's Matt.

  "Okay," I said, even though it was 12 degrees below zero and I really wanted to get back in.

  "Mom said I should keep eating lunch," he said. "She said she needs to know one of us is going to stay strong, in case the rest of us need him."

  "Yeah," I said. "She's told me that, too. And you're the one we need to stay strong."

  "Is that okay?" he asked. "Don't you mind?"

  I shrugged.

  "I don't know if I can be the strong one," Jon said. "Matt practically had to drag me into Mrs. Nesbitt's."

  "But you went," I said. "You did what you had to. That's what we've all been doing. We do what we have to. You're a lot more mature than you used to be, Jon. I have so much respect for you, the way you handled your birthday. And I'll tell you something else. When we went for Matt, I fell and my oil lamp went out, and all I could think was, Jon will get me. Jon's stronger than I am and it'll be okay. So to some extent it's already happening."

  "But what if you die?" he cried. "What if you all die?"

  I wanted to tell him that was never going to happen, that we'd be fine, that the sun was going to be shining tomorrow and the roads would be plowed and the supermarkets would be open, full of fresh fruits and vegetables and meat.

  "If we all die, you'll leave," I said. "Because you'll be strong enough to. And maybe someplace in America or Mexico or somewhere things are better and you'll manage to get there. And then Mom's life and Matt's and mine won't have been a waste. Or maybe the moon's going to crash into the earth and we'll all die anyway. I don't know, Jonny. Nobody knows. Just eat your damn lunch and don't feel guilty."

  I'm sure the queen of pep talks. Jon turned around and went in. I stayed outside awhile longer and kicked the snow for lack of a better target.

  December 13

  "I think we've been doing this meal thing backward," Matt said this morning. For one gleeful moment I thought he meant he and Mom and I should be eating two meals a day and Jon only one, but of course that wasn't it.

  "None of us eats breakfast," he said. "We're hungry all day. We eat supper and stay up a little while and then we go to sleep. The only time we're not hungry is when we're sleeping. What good does that do us?"

  "So should we have our big meal at breakfast?" Mom asked, which was pretty funny since our big meal is our only meal.

  "Breakfast or lunch," Matt said. "Maybe brunch like Miranda used to do. I think I'd rather be hungry at night than all day long."

  "What about me?" Jon asked.

  "You'd eat something at suppertime," Matt said.

  I had to admit it made sense. Especially if Jon ate his second meal when we'd already eaten. There've been a couple of days when I've wanted to take his pot of whatever he was eating and pour it over his head. I'd probably feel less jealous if I wasn't as hungry.

  "Let's try it," Mom said. "I liked supper because that was the time of day we were together. But now we're together all day long, so that doesn't matter anymore. Let's try eating at eleven and see if we like it."

  So we did. And now it's 4 in the afternoon (or so Matt tells me) and I don't feel particularly hungry. And doing the laundry is easier too since I'm not hungry.

  Life just improved.

  December 16

  "Are you still keeping your journal?" Jon asked.

  "Yeah," I said. "I just don't have an actual journal anymore. I use notebooks. But that's what I'm writing. Why?"

  "I don't know," he said. "I just wondered why. I mean who are you writing things for?"

  "Well, not for you," I said, remembering how Mrs. Nesbitt had burned all her letters before she died. "So don't get any ideas."

  Jon shook his head. "I don't want to read about any of this stuff," he said. "Do you reread it?"

  "No," I said. "I just write it and forget about it."

  "Okay," he said. "Well, don't worry that I'll read it. I got enough problems."

  "We all do," I said.

  It's funny how sorry I feel for Jon these days. I'm 2 1/2 years older than him and I feel like I got those extra 2 1/2 years to go to school and swim and have friends and he got cheated out of them. And maybe he'll live 2 1/2 years longer than me, or 20 years, or 50, but he'll still never have those 2 1/2 years of normal life.

  Every day when I go to sleep I think what a jerk I was to have felt sorry for myself the day before. My Wednesdays are worse than my Tuesdays, my Tuesdays way worse than my Tuesday of a week before. Which means every tomorrow is going to be worse than every today. Why feel sorry for myself today when tomorrow's bound to be worse?

  It's a hell of a philosophy, but it's all I've got.

  December 19

  Lisa's baby was due about now. I've decided she had it and it was a girl. I've named her Rachel.

  Somehow that makes me feel better. Of course I have no idea if she's had the baby and if she has, whether it's a boy or a girl or if it's a girl what her name is. Technically speaking, I don't know if Lisa is still alive, or if Dad is, but I really prefer to think they are. I've decided they made it to Colorado, and Dad got Grandma out of Las Vegas and they're all living together: Lisa and Lisa's folks and Dad and Grandma and baby Rachel. When the weather improves, somehow he'll come back for us and we'll all move to Colorado and I'll get to be baby Rachel's godmother, just like I was supposed to be.

  Sometimes Colorado becomes like Springfield used to be for me, this fabulous place with food and clean clothes and water and air. I even imagine that I'll run into Dan there. After I've cleaned up, naturally, and eaten enough so that I don't look like a walking corpse. Also my hair has grown out. I look great and I bump into him and we get married.

  Sometimes I speed things up and Rachel's our flower girl.

  I bet Mom and Matt and Jon all have fantasies of their own, but I don't want to know what they are. They're not in mine, after all, so I'm probably not in theirs. We spend enough time together. We don't need to hang out in each other's fantasies.

  I hope Dad and Lisa are okay. I wonder if I'll ever meet Rachel.

  December 21

  Mom put her foot down (her good one) and we're back to doing schoolwork. At least it gives us some
thing to do besides laundry and playing poker.

  Right now I'm reading about the American Revolution.

  The soldiers had a tough time of it at Valley Forge.

  My heart bleeds for them.

  WINTER

  Chapter Eighteen

  December 24

  Christmas Eve. And the most wonderful thing happened.The day was just like any other. We'll have a big meal tomorrow. (And of course, though Mom and Matt and Jonny don't know it, they're all getting presents. I am so excited at the thought of giving them things.) No laundry, though. We draped the clothesline with tinsel and hung ornaments on it. Matt called it a horizontal Christmas tree.

  Okay. That means today wasn't just like any other.

  We sat around this evening and started talking about Christmases past. At first you could see Mom didn't know if that was a good idea. But she didn't stop us and we all had stories to tell and we were laughing and feeling great.

  And then in the distance, we could hear singing. Actual caroling.

  We put on our coats and gloves and boots and went outside. Sure enough, there were a handful of people singing carols down the road.

  We immediately joined them. Thanks to the path Matt and Jon had shoveled we didn't have too much trouble getting to road level. (There were some icy patches and I wasn't crazy about Mom coming along, but there was no stopping her.)

  The road itself is still covered with 3 feet of snow. Nobody's been traveling on it, so we created our own paths.

  It was thrilling to be outside, to be singing, to be with people again.

  I recognized the Mortensens from about half a mile down. The other people I didn't know at all. But our road is funny. Even in good times we didn't socialize with most of our neighbors. Mom says when she was growing up she did, but so many of the old families have moved out and new people have moved in and neighborliness has changed. Now being a good neighbor means minding your own business.

  As we trudged and sang (loud and off-key), another family joined us. We ended up with 20 people acting the way people used to. Or at least the way they used to in the movies. I don't think we've ever had carolers before.

  Finally it got too cold even for the most dedicated among us. We finished with "Silent Night." Mom cried and she wasn't alone.

  We hugged each other and said we should see more of each other, but I doubt that we will. We don't want anyone else to know how much food we have or firewood. And they don't want us to know, either.

  Still it was a wonderful Christmas Eve. And tomorrow is going to be even better.

  December 25

  Absolutely the best Christmas ever.

  We woke up in great moods and we talked all morning about how much fun it had been to go caroling the night before. We don't even like the Mortensens, but seeing them last night, knowing they were still around and healthy was incredibly reassuring.

  "We made a joyful noise," Mom said. "It's good to remember what joy feels like."

  And lunch. What a feast. First we had beef broth with oyster crackers. Our main course was linguini with red clam sauce and string beans on the side. Mom even pulled out the bottle of wine Peter had brought ages ago, so we had wine with our dinner.

  For dessert, Mom served the lime Jell-O I'd gotten at the free-food handout last summer. I don't know when she made it, but somehow she'd slipped it past us, and it was an incredible surprise.

  So much food. So much laughing. It was great.

  Then we all kind of hemmed and hawed and harrumphed and excused ourselves. I went up to my bedroom to get every body's presents, and much to my surprise, Mom and Matt and Jon also went upstairs to their rooms.

  When we met back in the sunroom, we were all carrying presents. Only Mom's were wrapped with real gift wrap, I'd used magazine pages for my presents and Matt and Jon used grocery bag brown paper.

  But we were all surprised. So many presents.

  It turned out there were two presents for each of us and one for Horton.

  Horton opened his first. It was a brand-new catnip mouse.

  "I got it at the pet supply store," Jon said. "I didn't tell anybody because I figured I was just supposed to be buying food and litter. And then I figured at least Horton should get a present for Christmas so I held on to it."

  It was actually a present for all of us. Horton immediately fell in love with the mouse and licked it and jumped on it and acted like a kitten. I thought about how scared I'd been when he'd run away. But he knew what family was, too, and he came back and we were all together, the way we were meant to be.

  Mom told us to open our presents from her next. "They're nothing special," she said. "Peter got them for me from the hospital gift shop before it closed."

  "That makes them more special," I said and I meant it. "I wish Peter could be here with us."

  Mom nodded. "Well, open them already," she said. "Just don't count on their being anything fancy."

  My fingers trembled when I carefully removed the gift wrap. It was a brand-new diary, a really pretty one with a pink cover and a tiny little lock and key.

  "Oh, Mom," I said. "I've never seen anything so beautiful."

  Jon's present was a handheld battery-run baseball game.

  "Don't worry," Mom said. "Batteries are included."

  Jon's grin was so bright he could have lit up the whole room. "This is great, Mom," he said. "Something for me to do."

  Matt's present was a shaving kit. "I figured you were due some new razor blades," Mom said.

  "Thanks, Mom," Matt said. "I've been feeling a little scraggly."

  I insisted Mom open my present next. She unwrapped it, and when she saw it was a box of actual chocolates, her jaw dropped.

  "They're probably a little stale," I said.

  "Who cares!" Mom cried. "They're chocolates. Oh, Miranda! Of course we'll share. I can't eat the whole box by myself." She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, I didn't mean that the way it came out!"

  I burst out laughing. Jon kept asking what the joke was but that only made me (and Mom) laugh louder.

  So I told Jonny to open his present from me next. He ripped into the paper and then flung the top off the shoe box. "I don't believe this!" he shouted. "Matt, look at these cards. Look at them. There are hundreds. And they're old. They're from the '50s and '60s. Look, Mickey Mantle. And Yogi. And Willie Mays. I've never seen a collection like this before."

  "I'm glad you like them," I said, relieved he didn't ask where they came from. "Matt, you go next."

  Matt opened my present to him. "What?" he said at first. "I mean, this is really nice, Miranda, but I don't think I understand."

  "Oh," I said. "I know the pictures are all colored. But the pencils were in great shape and I thought you could draw on the back of the pictures. You used to draw really well and I thought maybe you'd like to do it again."

  His face lit up. "That's a great idea," he said. "You keep your journal and I'll draw pictures of all of us. Thanks, Miranda. I'm going to love these pencils."

  If I'd known he was going to draw us, I'd have looked for gray pencils. But he seemed excited and that made me happy. "Open our present next," Jonny said so I cheerfully did. It was a watch.

  "How did you know I needed one?" I asked. "You keep asking what the time is," Matt said. "It wasn't too hard to guess."

  I almost asked where the watch came from, but then I really looked at it and saw it had been Mrs. Nesbitt's. It was an old-fashioned watch, the kind you have to wind every day. Her husband had given it to her and I knew how much she cherished it.

  "Thank you," I said. "It's a beautiful gift. I love it. And now I'll stop pestering you."

  "I guess this present is the last one," Mom said. "But honestly this whole day has been such a gift. I don't need any more presents."

  "Open it," Matt said, and we all laughed.

  "All right," Mom said. She took off the grocery bag paper and fell silent. "Oh, Matt," she said. "Jonny. Wherever did you find this?"


  "What is it?" I asked.

  Mom showed me what she was holding. It was an old black-and-white photograph of a young couple holding a baby. It was even in a frame.

  "Are those your parents?" I asked.

  Mom nodded and I could tell it was all she could do to keep from crying.

  "And that's Mom in the picture," Jon said. "She's the baby."

  "Oh, Mom, let me see," I said, and she handed it over to me. "It's beautiful."

  "Where did you find it?" Mom asked.

  "In a box at Mrs. Nesbitt's," Matt said. "I saw it was old photographs and I brought it back here. She labeled all the pictures on the back. It was Jon's idea to go back and find a picture frame it would fit in. I didn't remember ever seeing the picture before, so I thought maybe you didn't have it."

  "I didn't," Mom said, taking it back from me. "It's summertime and we're on the back porch. How funny. We're in the exact same place, only now it's been enclosed. I must be about six months old. I guess we were visiting my grandparents. Mr. Nesbitt probably took the picture. I think I can make out his shadow."

  "Do you like it?" Jon asked. "It isn't like it cost anything."

  "I love it," Mom said. "I have so few memories of my parents and so little to remember them by. This picture—well, it takes me back to a different time. I will cherish it always. Thank you."

  "I think I'll start sketching," Matt said. "I'll do some preliminary sketches before using my pencils." He grabbed some of the paper bag, pulled out the black pencil, and began drawing.

  Then Mom did something that made me even happier. She opened up her box of chocolate and read the diagram very carefully. Then she took the top off the box and placed 12 of the chocolates in it and passed it over to us. "You can all share this," she said. "The rest is mine."

  I loved that I was going to get to eat some chocolate but that Mom respected the fact it was my gift to her and not to all of us.

  The Christmas after Mom and Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dad's apartment. I thought that was great. I was all in favor of my love being paid for with presents.