“Isn’t it beautiful?” Janey says.
It is. Janey’s always been good at doing things with her hands. The small patches of wall Mary built are rough and uneven, wood poking through the mottled clay. Janey’s are perfect, tight and uniform.
Mary rolls onto her belly and yawns. “Now what?”
“Now we live here forever.”
“But I want breakfast.”
Janey rolls her eyes. “Sea roaches are probably edible.”
“Ugh.”
“Oh, come on,” says Janey. “We can stay in here forever. We’ll never come out.” She can’t think of a more perfect future. Her, Mary, the beach, a house they built themselves.
“That would be boring.”
“It would be perfect.” Janey lies back on the sand, staring at the porous roof over their heads, the milky, seeping chinks of sunlight. “We’ll tell each other stories all day, and watch the stars at night. We’ll live on fish and water.” She yawns. “We’ll never get any older.”
Chapter Fifteen
Amanda
Amanda hates summers now. She knows why the adults let the children run free: they’re too tired to do anything else. When the temperature spikes, the sun bullies the plants until they wilt and are only refreshed by the warm afternoon rains. Amanda is sheltered from the sun, but she wilts too. She can’t open the window or the doors unless she wants to invite a ravenous cloud of mosquitoes into the house. Netting is too precious to waste on houses; it’s saved for men working outside, and animal pens, and walls or roofs that fall in during the summer. In her house, there are tiny cracks in the walls and the windowsills that let in a small, steady stream of golden bloodsuckers. She is forever slapping her arms and legs, leaving bloody smears and ruddy handprints, setting out to hunt down the source of the whining, hungry hum and giving up before she goes two steps. The backs of her knees and creases under her breasts drip with sweat. She doesn’t mind giving food away to the muddy children outside; in this heat, eating itself seems repulsive. When Andrew reminds her that the baby needs to eat, she chokes down bites of cold porridge. She naps in the summer heat, rolling over slowly in a pool of sweat like a piece of meat being basted.
Sometimes when the downpours start, Amanda loses her self-control and races outside to stand in the rain, letting the warm torrents wash over her. The mosquitoes set forth hopefully, but raindrops smack most of them off her flesh before they can draw blood. The children shy away from her, unused to seeing a summer adult stand still in the rain. She’d love to tear off her dress, slap mud all over herself, and sprint toward the nearest tree. But the mud would drip in globs off her breasts and belly, cake in the hair between her legs, spatter when her flesh jiggled as she ran. She would disgust everyone.
Andrew comes home to find her with her arms out and head back, inviting the rain to further soak her clothes and skin. He manhandles her inside. “You can’t do that, Amanda,” he says, his brow creasing. “Everyone can see you.”
It’s true, and she has no doubt that news will spread across the island in a matter of days. Amanda Balthazar, gone crazy. Women have very little amusement during the summer besides gossip.
“But it’s so hot,” she whines, hating herself.
“This is not the way to fight it,” he answers, putting a gentle arm around her soaked belly. He doesn’t offer suggestions for the right way, she notes irritably. “I’m sure you’re so uncomfortable and acting so…oddly because you’re pregnant. It will be better next summer.” She doesn’t say anything, allowing him to blame her behavior on pregnancy.
Andrew brings Amanda into the kitchen and offers her a dry dress from her cupboard, but she shakes her head. She sits at the table, dripping onto the stained floor, while he slices a dried apple for her and pours her lukewarm water. Amanda doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty, but she nibbles at some apple to please him. His face relaxes. “Imagine telling this story to our children,” he says, laughing. “The day Mother went crazy and stood out in the rain.”
The apple is sickly-sweet and leathery on her tongue, hard to swallow. “What would you say if I said I wanted to leave?” she says suddenly, too loudly.
“Leave the house? Now? You’ll get eaten alive.”
“No, leave for the wastelands.”
He laughs, then frowns when Amanda doesn’t change expression. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. What if I wanted to leave the island?”
“Well, you can’t. I mean. How could you?”
“I don’t know. But pretend I had a way to leave.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, just pretend. Would you leave with me?” She leans forward and clasps his hands in hers.
“Leave the island?”
“Yes.”
“Amanda,” he says, putting his hands on her damp shoulders, “why would I want to do that?”
“Just to see what it’s like out there.”
“Why would I want to see that?”
“To see for ourselves. To live by ourselves. There must be food there, otherwise what do the people who give things to the wanderers eat? They bring in rice, don’t they, we don’t grow rice. Who grows the rice? The netting. Someone makes paper, and it’s much better than ours.”
“They take what the dead left behind,” says Andrew, shrugging.
“But not everyone is dead. I mean, I’ve heard there are defectives and freaks that walk the wastelands. And families come in from the wastelands, sometimes, which means at least a few people aren’t defective or freaks, right? At least a few. Caitlin Jacob isn’t a defective.”
“Okay, fine. But why would you want to raise our baby there?”
She pauses. “I just, I need to go.”
Andrew is staring into her eyes confused, as if trying to catch a glimpse of sense in them. He takes her forearms lightly. “Amanda, we can’t go. I don’t want to go. We have a house here, and food, and family, and a whole community. This life is a gift from the ancestors—why would you want to throw it all away?” He frowns at her.
“You’re just quoting from church. I feel like…things might be different there.”
“Of course they would.”
“I think maybe this isn’t right.”
“What isn’t?”
“The island. The way we live. I just really, really need to leave.” She shakes off his touch, then grabs his wrists and holds them tightly, hoping he can feel the desperation flowing through her veins. She moves closer to him, wondering how to convince him. Should she kiss him? Should she melt into sobs? Should she fall to her knees?
He puts his palm on Amanda’s cheek, and she feels the calluses brush her skin. “Is it the baby? Is being pregnant scaring you? I remember Mother said she had something similar when she was pregnant with me. This feeling that she had to get out.”
“I just feel like our baby might be better off if we lived somewhere else.”
“But we have nowhere else to live.” He pulls Amanda into a hug, his gentle, muscled arms squeezing her breathless. “I know it’s frustrating sometimes, the same chatter, the same people, the same food. It’s boring. The summers are too hot and then almost right away it’s winter, and spring is too short. I don’t blame you for wanting to escape sometimes. But we’re safe here, we have a life here. We can raise our child in a place that’s safe and protected.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“I feel the same way sometimes.” He laughs, running a hand through his sweaty hair so it stands up in sandy spikes. “Especially when the children are running around like crazy and you’re either running through the heat hoping for shade, or running through the rain wanting to stop and soak yourself cool. Like you did. But I’ve never wanted to go to the wastelands. I can’t believe you do either, really.”
Amanda sighs, her eyes hot with the pressure of tears. “It’s too hot. I’m going to the root cellar.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No, I’m going alone.”
She
can picture Andrew’s hurt expression as she turns her back. She knows he will sigh and rub the starred wrinkles by his eyes, run a hand through his hair again, and wonder what to do about her. He won’t say anything to his brother. He’ll laugh and report the small aches and concerns of pregnancy like any husband would. He’ll worry about her and try to think of ways to make her happy, and his concern will only make her feel worse.
In the humid darkness of the root cellar, Amanda starts to gnaw at a carrot. Then she thrusts her nails into the muddy floor, scrapes up a handful of dirt, and tosses it into her mouth.
Chapter Sixteen
Amanda
Dusk is stretching and scrolling across the island like a drop of blue ink dissolved in water. Amanda stands staring out the kitchen window, biting the dirty nails of one hand and twisting the other in her sweat-stained dress. Finally she straightens, drops her dress, and goes to retrieve the netting Andrew gave her the night before.
It’s an extravagant gift, most likely hard-won. The other men will tease him mercilessly for this. Women rarely receive netting in summer, because there is no need for them to be outside—the only exceptions being a visit to a neighbor, or a party, which the men do not see as crucial. Wives can beg their husbands for some, but most must resort to running as quickly as possible. Netting is precious, wasteland-only material, its intricate lines of soft metal dazzling the eye and confounding the blood-hungry mosquitoes.
Andrew kissed her softly when he gave it to her. “I’m not saying I want you to go stand in the rain,” he said mock sternly, and they both giggled. “But if you feel, I don’t know, closed in somehow, like I know you’ve been feeling, maybe you could go out a little bit. Where nobody can see you. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can give you.” Touched, Amanda laid her head on his chest for a few moments, listening to his heart thump steadily.
She has not quite learned how to swathe herself effectively, and she thrashes inside it to bring her arms up and fold the top end down to her head. She must wrap it tightly around her ankles, and ends up toddling about in a ridiculous shuffling gait, always one misstep from falling over. And yet it gives her more freedom than most island women have dreamed of: the freedom to emerge from her house in summer and walk leisurely to her destination. She is quite sure the wanderers wouldn’t approve. “Fuck the wanderers,” she murmurs, her lips tingling pleasantly with blasphemy.
Her steps stuttering and mincing, Amanda clumsily walks through the door. She has one pair of shoes, and she has gone three steps before she kicks them away. Not only do they drench her feet with sweat, but the wooden soles mean she can’t feel the ground at all. Her vision dulled by gray veils of wire, she is in severe danger of tripping and falling—and probably being unable to rise until someone finds her swaddled like a new loaf of bread in the morning. She groans, picturing the summer children discovering her, gravid and exhausted and half dipped in mud. Her pace slows even further as she struggles to move while keeping her balance.
The mosquitoes settle upon the netting like smoke, drawn by the heat of her exertions. The netting keeps them at bay, but their hum and whine grow louder and louder, until all Amanda can hear are seething high-pitched notes, shrieking endlessly near her hair and hovering in needle-sharp clusters at the ends of her fingers. She lets her filthy feet slide toward the beach, toward the place where, every summer, Janey likes to build her forts with Mary.
Janey rarely sleeps in summer; Amanda remembers her own moonlit, gleeful exhaustion as she would beg Janey to just stop talking or building so she could rest, sometimes simply leaving Janey in midsentence and moving toward a quieter place to curl up on the sand. As the muck between her toes turns to grass, to pebbles, to sand, she squints and tries to determine whether the two girls and the skeletal hut in the distance are real, or merely a blissful memory.
As she shuffles toward the vision, the taller girl spins and crouches. “Who’s there?” she calls. Amanda sees Mary’s smaller, wider figure stand up and move sideways toward Janey. As she nears, Janey folds into herself, as if to spring. “Who are you?” she snaps. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s me,” she says softly as she approaches. “It’s me, it’s Amanda.”
“Amanda?” Janey gawps and then stands still, staring, uncharacteristically unsure. “Amanda? That’s you?”
“It’s me,” says Amanda, close enough to see the way the moon outlines Janey’s sharp cheekbones, her brilliant hair.
Janey stiffens and then lets out a volley of laughter, bending forward in mirth. “Amanda,” she howls.
“What?” says Amanda, offended.
“You’re all wrapped up in netting, and women never…I thought you were a short fat man.”
There is a pause, and suddenly Amanda and Mary are laughing too, their peals rising toward the dimming sky. Suddenly exhausted, Amanda bends at the hips and thumps her rear into the damp sand. The netting rides up, and she feels the pricks of eager mosquitoes on her insteps. Their laughter joins together in a medley of raucousness and slowly, comfortably fades away.
“Janey, I need to talk to you,” says Amanda. “I, I really need to—”
Janey stops laughing abruptly and crosses her arms, glowering at Amanda as if she has just remembered her anger. “You shouldn’t even be talking to me,” Janey says harshly.
“It’s not my fault that I became a woman,” retorts Amanda. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s debatable,” snaps Janey, and then, “Go ahead. Talk.” In past summers, Janey would sometimes smack or punch Amanda to make a point, and Amanda wonders if she is about to be pounded again.
Amanda’s ankles flame with a needling itch, and she can almost feel the infinitesimal golden feet of mosquitoes dancing. “I can’t. Not here. Can we please go to my house? Andrew isn’t home, Mr. Aaron the weaver’s roof practically fell in, he’s working through the night with Mr. Balthazar and Mr. Joseph, and I just can’t, I’m getting bitten and can barely move and can barely see—I can’t think with all these mosquitoes!” Her voice rises with desperation.
“Fine, fine,” says Janey, holding up her hands. “Fine. Let’s go, Mary.”
“I—I need to talk to just you,” says Amanda, and flinches as Mary draws back, surprised. Dear Mary. Amanda remembers the shine of her young face when the three of them used to race around together, Mary’s sweet naïveté and high, hopeful voice balancing out Janey’s rages and rants. They would sleep, the three of them, curled together like puppies, and Amanda often woke with Mary’s dark head on her flat chest, rising and falling as Amanda tried her best to breathe slowly and preserve the moment. To let Mary dream peacefully until the rays of the sun broke through their eyelids.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” she murmurs. “It’s—” She tries to think of the words. “The things I need to say to Janey are—” I want to protect you, she thinks, but cannot bear to say the words out loud for fear of sounding like yet another condescending woman deciding what’s best for the children.
“It’s fine,” says Mary with feigned lightness, “I can wait here,” and Amanda winces at the hurt in her voice. She glances at Janey, who pauses and then nods once.
Quietly they move under the moonlight, pacing the short distance from the beach to Amanda’s house. Janey must slow her long strides to match Amanda’s struggles, and silence stretches long and awkward between them. When they are near her door, Amanda tries to run and ends up on her face in the muck. Without a word, Janey reaches over to hook an arm around her belly and haul her back upright.
Panting, they enter the house, and Amanda immediately sheds the netting and lights a candle. Janey looks around uncomfortably before settling down on a kitchen chair, one knee drawn up to her chest. Amanda gazes at her and shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“You came to fetch me, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
Janey shrugs a shoulder. Dried flecks of mud sift to the ground like
dirty snow.
“You’re thinner,” ventures Amanda. Janey’s body is camouflaged with knobs and swells of mud, and it’s difficult to tell a bony angle from a flesh-covered curve. Yet the difference between Janey now and two summers ago is plain. Janey has narrowed even as she has grown taller, and her thin, lanky limbs seem to trail on forever.
“I am,” replies Janey. “I have to be.”
“Why?”
“It’s getting stronger. My body wanting to change. To bleed, be like yours.”
“It must be hard.”
“It is. Especially alone.” Janey’s eyes are accusing.
Amanda feels the sting. “What about Mary?”
“She doesn’t have the will for it.”
“Well, I guess I didn’t either.”
“You could have. You made a decision. But I don’t blame you for it. Your father was disgusting, and your mother…” They both wince involuntarily. “Anyway. It wasn’t the decision I would have made, but it was…understandable.”
Amanda nods and shyly sits on a chair opposite Janey. Her wet, muddy dress clings to her globular belly, which Janey eyes with distaste.
“Six months,” Amanda says confrontationally. “And it’s a girl.”
Janey shrugs a shoulder again.
“You hate me,” says Amanda.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I hated you,” replies Janey. “I would have hit you on the head with a rock.” Amanda ponders this statement and then sees the side of Janey’s mouth quirking up, a dimple hidden underneath a cast of dry mud. They both giggle.
“So why did you want to talk to me?” asks Janey.
Amanda takes a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Is it Andrew, is he terrible? Is it awful to be married?”
“I love Andrew,” she says slowly. “I love him more than I ever thought I could.” Janey frowns, looking askance at Amanda. “It’s hard to explain,” Amanda says again, lamely. “But I love him second only to her.” She gestures at her belly.
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