Consider

by Kristy Acevedo

  “Despite all the changes happening in the world, there is one thing that I know to be true. I am in love. With Marcus.”

  Everyone stops breathing at the table. Chewing sounds. Mastication. Horrible word for the horrible wet squishing sound that fills the room and bounces off the nice china. Under the table I try tapping my knees with my fingertips in a back-and-forth method like Arianna taught me.

  “We are getting married.” He gulps from his wine like it’s a liquid life force and sits.

  The clink and scrape of a fork on a plate, the swallowing of liquid from a glass. Everyone waits. I worry about the fate of the dishes once Dad explodes.

  I swear a whole minute ticks by before anything happens. Maybe that makes it worse. Then Dad stands, turns, and in one quick motion punches his fist through the wall behind him.

  “God damn it!” he yells, cradling his fist as he retreats from the room. We can hear his footsteps down the hall and my parents’ bedroom door slam close. I stare at his empty chair, his plate of food just sitting there getting cold when I know how much he doesn’t want to waste food right now. I tap my knees in rhythm, trying to calm the electric feelings coursing through my body that are commanding me to run out the back door and hide.

  Benji and Marcus cast furtive glances at one another, reading each other’s feelings and thoughts like an old couple, filling in the silence with the unspoken language of time spent together. I don’t know which of them will cry first, but I can feel the spillage coming like the crisp smell of snow on a cold day. Maybe the one who’s about to cry is me.

  What is he doing in the bedroom? Is his gun in there? What if he tries to shoot himself? What if he comes out here and shoots Mr. Blu, his brains splattering across our Thanksgiving dinner?

  I remember Arianna’s advice, and start repeating in my head, Don’t get tricked by a thought. Don’t get tricked by a thought. But my thoughts seem plausible. He could do it. No, no, his gun is always locked up in the attic, and Mom has the key.

  Penelope breaks the silence. “Is one of you pregnant or something?”

  Marcus cracks up laughing. His laughter is bubbly and infectious, and soon everyone is laughing. Everyone except Mom.

  Penelope continues, “I mean, in my day, that was the only reason to rush a marriage. That or”—she clears her throat—“someone leaving for the military. But I guess the world ending is reason enough.”

  Mom points accusingly at Penelope. “Now is not the time.” She removes her fancy napkin from her lap and tosses it on the table. “Excuse me for a minute,” she mutters to the rest of us and follows the wake Dad left to the bedroom.

  “I thought it was funny,” Penelope offers and sips a glass of wine.

  “It was,” Marcus adds.

  But I know that military comment was a dig. Mom married Dad when she turned eighteen before he left for duty and against Penelope’s wishes.

  Mom leaving the table has thrown me for a loop. I assumed Dad would lose it, but not Mom. I wish I could hear what was going on in the other room, but I can’t hear Dad’s voice for a change. How am I supposed to know if everything will be okay if I can’t see what’s happening? What if he shoots her? My medication is having trouble doing its magic.

  “I thought if anyone around here would be getting married,” Penelope says, “it would be this beautiful girl sitting next to me.”

  “Me?” The look on my face must be priceless because the three of them laugh again.

  “You’re eighteen now, and I’ve seen you with that boyfriend of yours. With all that’s going on in the world . . . Like mother like daughter.”

  “Um, no,” I say, cutting her off. “I don’t even know if I believe in marriage.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Benji asks. Marcus turns and stares at him. I don’t think he’s ever seen the side of my brother that likes to fight me on everything.

  I take a sip of water to stall. “I think it puts too much pressure on people. The forever concept. Freaks me out.”

  “Smart girl,” Penelope says. “Smarter than her mother.”

  Smarter than my mother. Her comment should make me feel proud, but instead I feel smaller. Benji glares at me from across the table, my brother and my adversary.

  Penelope drags her knife back and forth over the meat and makes a face. “Turkey’s overcooked.” She shoves a piece into her mouth. “Dry. So when’s the wedding?”

  “December 12,” Marcus says. “City hall, nothing crazy. We wanted to do it as soon as possible, but there’s a waiting list.”

  Benji pipes in. “Apparently everyone’s lining up to take the plunge since forever might end sooner than we thought.” He shoots me attitude.

  What can I say—forever scares me. Love scares me. I mean, forever? People change. And then what?

  When we hear the bedroom door open, the four of us flinch and sit up straight. Footsteps shuffle down the hall toward us. Mom returns, followed by Dad. I sit farther back in my chair as if the wooden back can provide the support I need. Instead of a gun in his hand, it’s wrapped with an ice pack and a hand towel.

  Benji stands up. What’re you doing? my brain screams. Sit down. Are you insane?

  Dad and Benji face each other, father and son, military men. Dad’s hands are balled into fists at his sides, and so are Benji’s. It’s like a western movie where someone must pull the trigger first or die. I don’t know who will win. I grip my fork like a weapon just in case the action somehow turns on me.

  Mom sits in her seat and places the napkin back in her lap. “Ben,” she addresses Dad. “I think you have something to say to your son.”

  Dad clears his throat. “Family sticks together. We’re a family.” He puts out his right hand to shake Benji’s. I still expect him to deck Benji with his left, ice pack and all. Benji’s body starts to tremble uncontrollably, so Dad abandons the handshake and delivers a quick, one-armed hug with several strong pats to Benji’s shoulders. I wait for Dad’s sneak attack.

  “Now let’s eat,” Dad announces.

  Sometimes people hide their true feelings while guests are present. Sometimes people give up their predilections since the world’s ending as they know it anyway. And sometimes, people just shock you. In Dad’s case, I don’t know where to put his reaction in my list of possibilities. Like the vertexes and holograms, it’s something I could’ve never predicted in my wildest dreams.

  As everyone eats, I stare at the hole in the wall, the hole that everyone else has managed to forget. Everyone except me. I look over at Mom. She’s smiling and talking to Marcus as if nothing happened. How does she manage to ignore things so easily? How did she manage to get Dad to come back out here and be civilized?

  That’s when I figure out something—I know what Mom is. If Benji’s fire, I’m oil, Dad’s gasoline, and Penelope’s gunpowder, then Mom is sand. Boring, adaptable, gentle, loyal, warm sand. Able to shift landscapes, put out fires, and battle the ocean.

  Benji and Marcus' wedding announcement subdues Dad for the next week. He goes to his job at the supermarket, but when he returns he doesn’t say much anymore. Maybe he’s following that saying, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” I’m trying to be optimistic. It’s not easy. I notice that when he comes home from work, he collapses into his chair and doesn’t move for hours. He used to take a shower, grab a beer, put on the television. Now he just stares into space. Like Zombie Night in the daytime. I keep trying to snap him out of it, talking to him about sports, the vertexes, his stockpile of food. Nothing works. He craps out mid-conversation. And Benji doesn’t live here anymore to talk Zombie strategies, and Mom doesn’t notice that Dad’s disappearing down the rabbit hole again.

  The first inkling of our city’s breakdown comes as a knock on our door in early December.

  I answer the door assuming it’s Dominick. We’ve been spending more
and more time together since his mother’s home to watch Austin. Instead, standing on the threshold is a young couple with a toddler. The mother holds the child on her hip, a little girl gnawing at her thumb like it’s a lollipop. The father, maybe in his late thirties, stands behind them. They look harmless enough except for a wide-eyed, empty stare. It takes me a second to realize their deprivation.

  “Please,” the woman begs. “Do you have any food?”

  Her request catches me off guard. Of course, we have extra food, thanks to Dad’s hoarding. The poor little kid is about to eat her own hand.

  “Hold on,” I say. “Wait here.”

  I shut and lock the door—something inside me senses the beginning of a danger that needs locking out, but I’m not sure what exactly is activating my fear yet. I walk down the basement steps and remove the sheet from one section of stored food. I take a deep breath and focus on my mission. I think about that little girl and search under sheets until I find a box of Cheerios, a can of beef vegetable soup, some peanut butter, bread, and a container of apple juice.

  Satisfied, I cover up the piles with the sheets so Dad won’t notice the difference. By the time I return upstairs, they have already left the porch and are standing on the sidewalk looking defeated. I can tell by their faces that they assumed I wasn’t coming back. I jog down the stairs and hand over the items. They react like it’s Christmas. The mother embraces me and starts to cry. The kid rips a hole in the top of the cereal box like a furrowing rabbit. The father avoids eye contact. The tops of his ears turn bright red.

  “Thank you,” the mother mutters. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  They scurry away like overgrown rodents hiding a treasure. I should feel happier inside about helping them, but I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that I’m putting a Band-Aid on a carcass.

  Chapter 15

  Day 131: December—1,284 hours to decide

  Question: Do women receive equal rights?

  Answer: Yes.

  On December 9, the United Nations releases a statement that part one of the CORE plan, the series of nuclear missiles, did not affect the trajectory of the comet according to NASA data. Hercules has been launched, and they’ll know by Christmas if it achieved its mission. If it fails, they’ll activate part three, which is still confidential and driving me nuts, and by January 15 they should get word whether or not CORE was successful in diverting the comet. I can’t believe it will take that long for them to get it together, but they said they want to ensure its success by taking all necessary precautions. They are especially concerned with the possibility that the “gas pressure blowing off the comet” will damage Hercules or push it off course. They are trying to compensate. Compensate: going around a problem and trying to deal. I know what’s really going on—they’ve never had to do something like this before. It’s unprecedented, which means untested. I’m worried that they have no clue what they’re doing, and that CORE really stands for Crazy, Obsolete, Rescue Error.

  Benji and Marcus' wedding has become Mom’s only focus. Doesn’t matter if there are holograms and vertexes and a comet crisis. Her only son is getting married in three days. She sends me and Rita on a mission to find flowers in the dead of winter.

  “Who cares about flowers during an apocalypse?” I argue. “No flower shops are still open.”

  She replies, “Flowers are celebrations of life. Necessary. Not luxuries.”

  She would never win in any courtroom, but I hate when she wins arguments with me simply because I don’t understand her cryptic responses and I’m usually left speechless. Maybe that’s her plan. Confuse and deflect.

  Even though I hate driving, I borrow her car. Rita and I have been texting polite nothings since our last face-to-face. I need to find the right time and apologize. When I pick her up, she bounds forward and unbuttons her coat, showing off another T-shirt underneath. There’s a cartoon of a pimped-out hologram in a purple fur coat and feathered hat charging admission at a vertex site, with the caption COME INTO MY VERTEX.

  “Rita, that one’s terrible.”

  “What’re you talking about? This one’s my favorite. Look at the colors in the graphics. It even has an old school hologram effect.”

  She moves from side to side, and the pimp’s coat changes from purple to royal blue and back again. It also bows and tips its hat. I shake my head and laugh.

  We drive to several florist shops, but each door has a closed sign and the windows are dark. I guess Mom’s wrong. Flowers are one of the first to go.

  We park in downtown New Bedford and walk the old cobblestone area to see if any local businesses are still open. Rita leaves her coat open even though it’s freezing out so she can show off her slogan while she’s out of the house. Again, the small shops have CLOSED on their front doors. We change course and head up Union Street, where we find one coffee shop with lights on. We are the only customers.

  “Hello?” I ask.

  The owner’s head appears from the kitchen area. “The bathroom’s around the corner.”

  “Could we order?” Rita asks from the counter.

  “Do you have cash?” he asks.

  His rude question catches me off guard. “Yeah. Would we order food if we didn’t have money?”

  “Okay, then. Let me see the money first.”

  “Why?” I ask, looking around at the empty business and wondering if he’s planning to jump us for cash. “What’s the problem?”

  “People keep coming in here to use the bathroom. Then they beg for food. Don’t have no money. This is a business. Well, was a business.” His eyes stare at the vacant wooden tables.

  Rita pulls out a five dollar bill. “I have money.”

  “Sit yourself down then, ladies, and give me a sec. What would you like? I’m all out of pastries and bread, but I still have coffee.”

  “I’ll take a coffee,” Rita says.

  “And you? Coffee?”

  His lack of hospitality and supplies concerns me. I wonder if I should really eat or drink anything he’s serving. Probably curdled milk, ants crawling through the sugar, maggots waiting to hatch.

  “Tea for me.” I’m hoping he can’t taint boiled water and a tea bag.

  “Sure, coming right up.” The owner disappears behind the counter. Rita and I find a seat near the windows. Cars pass by every now and then, but not as often as they did before the comet warning.

  “Did you ever think your life would turn out like this?” I ask Rita in all seriousness.

  She smiles. “Did you ever think you’d ask me that question at eighteen years old? You make it sound like our lives are over.”

  “Rita, everything’s screwed up. The world’s starting to crumble. Schools are closed, businesses are folding. People are getting freaked out and desperate, including me.”

  She strums her fingers on the wooden table. “If it’s so bad, maybe we should leave.”

  My heart skips several beats. “Are you serious?”

  “Alex, it’s December. By the end of January, either the comet comes or doesn’t. Say we actually stop it—what kind of world’s gonna be left?”

  My heart stops. She has a point. I’ve only been thinking about survival, not about the aftermath and consequences of surviving. “So you’re ready to leave?”

  She sighs. “I wouldn’t say ‘ready.’ I’m willing. I just don’t know when to pull the trigger.”

  The owner brings over two steaming cups—one with coffee, one with tea—and a ceramic creamer. “Enjoy, ladies. You’ll probably be my last customers before I close for good.”

  I search the sugar for signs of movement before stirring some into my cup. Not touching the creamer. “Why?”

  “Can’t get food supplies on time. Can’t get regular paying customers. Lose-lose situation. Time to call it quits.”

  “Here,” Rita hands him
the five, and I add two dollars. “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks,” he says, pocketing the money in the apron wrapped around his waist. “No rush. Stay as long as you want.” He returns to the kitchen, and I see him pick up a book and read.

  “That was nice of you,” I say. I stare at the brown liquid in my mug, wary to take the first sip.

  “My parents’ restaurant has been hurting, too. The only reason it’s still open is because members of the church have helped to keep the business afloat.”

  I nod. “How’s that going? The church stuff.”

  “Getting weirder every day. I don’t wanna talk about it.” She sips from her black coffee. “How’s your dad been with the wedding coming?”

  “Okay, I guess. Quiet.” I take a sip, following her lead, and let it linger. The warmth settles my insides, giving me courage. “I’m sorry about getting mad at you about the Benji thing.”

  “I know,” she says and smiles. “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not. I wasn’t being fair.”

  “No, you weren’t. But you were feeling left out and ambushed. It’s a major change to wrap your brain around.” She takes a long swig of coffee and sighs deeply. “I mourned the loss of my future husband for over a week.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  “That’s what friends are for,” she says, grinning. “For better or worse.” She gazes out the window. “What’s with all the cars?”

  A slew of vehicles have parked along the road up the street. More and more arrive and search for a space.

  “Something’s going on.”

  “Wanna check it out?” Rita asks.

  “Sure,” I say, glad to abandon my half-drunken tea. I wait as she downs the remainder of her coffee.

  We leave the café and follow the gathering crowd to the public library two blocks away. The wintry air nips at my nose and makes it run. I don’t have tissues with me, so I have to resort to wiping the drips on my sleeve.

  Inside the warm library, people line the walls and sit on the floor. A man with a cropped white beard rigs a microphone near the circulation desk.