Mom enters the kitchen and makes a cup of Lipton tea.
Dad follows and pours a bowl of cereal with reconstituted powdered milk. I watch each of them circle each other, Mom handing him an extra spoon as she gets the sugar out of the jar, Dad scooping some dry milk into her teacup. I never noticed how much happens between them without words. Comfort and acceptance in the little things.
Penelope comes in and announces she’s leaving.
“Leaving?” Mom asks, then takes a sip of tea. “Back to Florida?”
Penelope stands firm, one suitcase in hand. I wonder where all the rest of them are. “No, through a vertex,” she says.
She’s serious.
Dad laughs. “Good luck to them.”
“Ben!” Mom throws a dishrag at Dad, then focuses back on Penelope. “You can’t just leave.”
“The hell I can’t. Look at this place. It’s a prison. Look at the food.” She points at the counter. “What happens when all this is gone?”
“I have more at the store. In the back room. Not as much as before, but it’s enough.”
He’s lying. I know him. He may have food at the store, but when he said “enough,” he cracked his knuckles.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough drama to last a lifetime. You all ought to come with me, but I know he won’t go,” she talks about Dad like he’s not in the room, “and if he won’t go, you won’t go.”
“No one’s going anywhere.” Dad slams his fist into the table. “We have to stick together. Bunker down. Let the government handle it. We just have to wait.”
“Wait? Wait and worry and then what?” Penelope points in his face. “Die together? I don’t understand how you cannot put your family first over your love and trust in this damn country.”
“Mother, back off.” Mom steps between them. Dad turns around and storms out of the kitchen. Their bedroom door slams.
Penelope smiles a sad smile, kisses Mom on the cheek, leaving behind hot pink lip prints, and whispers, “I knew he’d be your downfall.”
Mom’s fists ball up, but she doesn’t respond.
“I love you,” Penelope says to her. “Take care.”
Penelope moves from Mom to me.
“Bye, sweetheart.” She kisses me on the forehead. “You can come with me, you know. You’re eighteen. It’s your decision.”
I shake my head and refuse. I don’t know if it’s the right decision, but I know it’s not the wrong one. At the moment. As much as Dad irks me, and as much as I’d love to see Rita, I can’t see myself stepping into the unknown with Penelope, and especially without Dominick. There’s still another month before the comet arrives. The government could come through, like Dad said.
“Oh, Alexandra, I know you love your father, but he makes you worse. However, if you want to stay, that’s your prerogative.”
A car horn beeps. Penelope picks up her bag with one hand.
“Marcus offered to drive me. I didn’t think a send-off at the vertex would be a good idea. Didn’t think Ben would react well. I was right.” She lifts up her suitcase higher. “Traveling light. No choice. You can do whatever you want with my other things.”
As she hugs me goodbye, behind her my mother struggles to stay calm. Her eyeballs look ready to burst. She could use one of my pills.
Mom begins to cry, and Penelope hugs her one more time.
We have to un–booby trap the back door to let her free. And then, my grandma sets off on her voyage through a vertex.
I hope I made the right choice. She was a good ally to have around. Harsh, but an ally all the same.
Mom tells me that Dad wants to talk to me alone. Thanks a lot, Penelope. He hasn’t left the bedroom since Penelope’s departure, and I find him sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed. I plop down next to him with plenty of space between us in case he decides he’s so angry at Penelope that I’d make a good venting bag.
My parents’ bedroom is definitely a mix of Mom’s and Dad’s tastes, including an heirloom quilt bedspread with a huge American red, white, and blue star pattern across the center. His old cigar box on his bureau. Pictures of Benji and me on the wall in various stages of puberty. A gross one with me in braces from sixth grade grins at me.
“Mom said you wanted to see me?” I prompt. The sooner we get it over with, the better.
“I need to explain something to you. Only your mother knows this story. I don’t want Benji to know.”
Already I’m interested because it’s information Benji doesn’t have. Whatever he’s going to tell me, it’s not good. Dad’s cracking every finger one at a time nonstop. I worry that he might break one.
“Penelope acted like I don’t care about my family. I need you to understand something about me.”
He pauses and takes a deep breath like I always do. “During my time in active service, I made a decision that cost the lives of four in my unit.”
He doesn’t look at me. He holds onto his knees. I notice that despite his graying hair, his face suddenly looks like a scared ten-year-old.
“We were surrounded,” he continues, his voice wavering. “I made the call.”
An uncomfortable heaviness builds in my stomach. I have the urge to rub his back like Mom does, but I can’t do it. What did he do? Pull out a machine gun and let loose?
“I chose to retreat.” After rubbing his eyes and blinking back tears, he continues. “If we had stayed . . .” He stands and paces near the boarded-up window. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nod. “You regret the decision—”
“I have to give the government time to fight. Penelope has no idea how much I want to protect you. That I am protecting you.”
He waits. My heart races like a team of horses fleeing a fire.
“I’m not ready to leave yet, either.” I know it’s what he wants to hear. I don’t know if it’s what I want to say. Why don’t I want to fight for myself?
“That’s my girl,” he says, reaching over and patting my knee for my loyalty.
I feel proud and guilty and pathetic all at once.
To stay or to go, to burn or to jump, to obey or to follow—it’s like cats are clawing at my insides, one hot scar for every wasted minute. I can’t decide, I just can’t. And the more I can’t decide, the more my body feels like it’s on fire. One of Dante’s circles of hell should be indecision because it secretly burns the hottest.
My prescription bottle beckons me from my dresser.
It would be so easy. The urge to swallow them all overwhelms me like a tide of fear and relief rolled into one wave. As I reach for the bottle, I feel like I’m drowning, yet it’s easier to breathe. I roll the orange plastic between my palms. The pills inside click together like tap dancers in a stage performance. I miss Rita. Penelope’s gone. Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same.
I don’t know what to do. I stare at my escape. All of my problems would go away without needing to choose a side. Freedom in a bottle. But the logical side of me fights the emotional side in a battle for my future. Isn’t death just another choice? I put the bottle down. I need to process all of these feelings in a rational way outside my body. Arianna mentioned that I should use my journal to help with anxiety, instead of just storing information.
I pull my journal from the bookshelf and write.
All of my horrible feelings come spilling out in a cathartic scribbling that leaves me dumbfounded. Time loses all meaning. I don’t know what to do to escape the changing world around me. I can’t deal with such deep, profound decisions. No one should. After an endless session of frantic, manic writing, I read over the pages of drivel, pages about utter nonsense. As I’m about to tear the pages out and chuck the whole disaster, one line that I wrote catches my eye:
When the truth is shrouded in fear and clouded by dreams,
when fact a
nd fantasy become deviant lovers,
maybe there are no real heroes anymore.
I read that line over and over again. It’s beautiful and haunting and I cannot believe I wrote it. My new mantra of frustration. Of indecision. Of hopelessness.
Nearby, the prescription bottle still sings its mellow song of relief. I spill the contents into my hand. Ten left before my next refill. Is it enough? If I swallow all of them, will the onslaught of thoughts and questions end? Or will I wake up in a worse situation?
Ah—there’s that good old Shakespearean rub that Hamlet talked about.
I repeat my line. Somehow it articulates my foggy emotions. It makes me sad. It makes me let go.
I cannot control the world. I cannot control my family or my friends. I am only one person.
But I can control me.
I push down hard on the white cap and take only one. For now.
Chapter 18
Day 137: December—1,140 hours to decide
Question: Do you have cell phones? The Internet?
Answer: We have advanced technology for communication, but it has evolved from the cell phone and Internet to a holocom interface with genetic recognition.
The Internet has gotten weirder if that’s possible. It’s morphed into an electronic graveyard where people are mounting tributes to themselves on social networks before they leave through a vertex. Dominick said it’s a just-in-case memorial, where their electronic selves can live on regardless of where the vertexes lead. A false sense of the infinite.
Let’s be real.
If the comet hits, the Internet will disappear like everything else. It’s just the skin of our civilization, carved in electricity instead of rock, able to withstand nothing, and completely pointless without a body. And if the comet does not destroy us, don’t they realize that no online company is going to store the electronic remains of all these people indefinitely? They will hit some secret red delete button, and all social online traces of their inactive accounts will vanish forever.
I look up Rita’s account anyway. She listed her departure date, favorite foods, television shows, best friends. A picture of the two of us posing outside a Paramore concert. I take screenshots of everything, print them out, and keep hard copies. As if paper can withstand an apocalypse.
Christmas time usually brings stress and activity into the house. Mom typically cleans like crazy in November, then the day after Thanksgiving, she puts up the tree and decorates everything in red, gold, and green, including the outside of the house and the front lawn.
Not this year.
You would think that for our last possible Christmas ever, she would go all out. Nope. In fact, the house is looking messier and messier, and she hasn’t been on my case about doing chores or about the piles of laundry growing on my bedroom floor. Maybe she’s been distracted by Benji’s wedding, or she’s upset about Penelope leaving. All I know is that Mom might be joining the depression squad. Clean for an apocalypse? Nope. What’s the point?
A week before Christmas, she finally puts up our artificial tree. I help her decorate it while Dad’s at work. She plays carols and prances around like a happy reindeer. Her joy disturbs me even more than Dad’s drinking.
When we’re finished, I stand back to admire the lights.
“I’m never taking it down,” she mutters aloud.
I face her. “Never?”
“Nope.” She smiles wide.
I think she really means it. A forever Christmas tree. Until.
Every time I walk past and see the twinkling tree, it creeps me out. Like someone crying in a sequined dress at a funeral. A flashing oxymoron.
The United Nations predicts that today we will learn whether or not part two of the CORE plan, Hercules completing its gravity trick, was successful. An early Christmas gift.
We wait in front of the television screen.
“If it doesn’t work,” Mom says to me from the couch, “they still have another backup plan.” She pats my knee.
Like I don’t already know that. Sounds like she’s scared and trying to be brave.
The television breaks from regularly scheduled programming for an important announcement.
“Here it is,” Dad says.
I hold my breath.
News reporters scramble to inform us that “the mass gravity transfer has been aborted.” They repeat, “the mass gravity transfer has been aborted.”
The message crawls across the bottom of the screen.
“Oh, no,” Mom says, then covers her mouth.
They failed. Something about not being able to get close enough. Gases and ice coming off the comet kept messing with sensors and navigation.
A comet is still heading to destroy us.
“Like you said, they still have a backup,” I say, trying to stay positive.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that,” Mom says.
Dad’s quiet. About time.
Part three of CORE is finally revealed. A second, manned ship, Artemis, will be loaded with the largest nuclear bombs ever detonated. More than three hundred megatons. I’ll have to ask Dominick what that means later. They had to get special permission from the UN to allow it. According to NASA, sending a manned ship with a single bomb will help with accuracy, something to do with light speed communication being limited by distance, the major reason they believe plan one failed.
It sounds like A.) this won’t be ready until the last minute and B.) if we do survive, this will cause nuclear fallout, and we’ll die anyway. I scribble facts into my journal to avoid visualizing the consequences. It has something called a directional neutron blast, so apparently this will keep any residual effect from reaching us.
Right. Sure. ‘Cause whenever we’ve used nuclear weapons in the past it’s always turned out just fine.
NASA and the PDCO is very specific that this is not intended to blow up the comet but to move its path from colliding with Earth. Of course, it could backfire. Artemis could accidentally blow the comet and itself up, and the pieces and radiation could rain down and fillet us anyway. Now I know why they kept this part a secret.
On Christmas Eve it snows, blanketing the town in crisp white wonder. Thanks, universe, for granting us a white Christmas before possible obliteration. It’s so nice to be granted happiness before debilitating despair.
Despite the recent CORE news, Dominick and I have plans to celebrate together tonight since my family always gets together on Christmas Day. On the phone he says that he has a surprise for me.
“Dress warm,” he says. That sounds ominous. I pack a backpack with a present for him, snacks, and my pills. When the doorbell rings, I zip up my fleece-lined, hooded jean jacket and put red fleece gloves on my hands. My neck remains scarf free as usual.
Using the back door, I escape and meet Dominick at the front porch stairs. He smiles and kisses me immediately. How I ever thought I could be without him is beyond me. Snowflakes stick to my eyelashes. Thank God for my hood; my curly hair would soak up the moisture in seconds.
His car is nowhere in sight.
“Where’s your car? Are we walking?” I ask.
“Conserving gas,” he says. “Don’t worry—we’re not going far.”
“Where’re we going?” I plant my feet firmly in place and pull on his hand.
“Stop asking questions,” he says. “Try to go with the flow for once.”
“I don’t do that,” I say. “I’m anti-spontaneous and proud of it.”
He rolls his eyes and walks away from me. Then he spins around and yells, “You coming or what?”
I take a deep breath and follow his lead.
We travel around the corner and over several blocks, past the historic Millicent Library in the center of Fairhaven that by day looks like a storybook castle, but by night looks more like a sinister torture tower. At least
the snow is beginning to cast a magical spell over everything, covering the neighborhood with a white film. As we approach the Atlantic coastline, the cold air pulls at my nose, cheeks, and ears. My eyes water in the wind. The snow falls heavier, like feathery grains of flour piling underfoot.
“Promise you won’t freak out,” he warns.
To be honest, that immediately makes me start freaking out. The dead trees cast grisly shadows in the moonlight.
“What’re we doing?” I ask, more insistent this time.
He touches my shoulder. “Do you trust me?”
I stare at him and smile. “No.” We laugh, and then I give in. “Fine, I trust you.”
“Then run.” He pulls my hand, and my body jerks forward. I run to keep pace as he darts into a huge yard that overlooks the ocean. When he races up the back stairs and across a huge deck of a random house, I pull my hand free.
“What—” I try to argue, but he cuts me off by placing his finger on my bottom lip.
“I’ll explain. Come inside first.” He slides the glass door open. It’s not his home. It’s not the home of anyone he knows. No one we know could afford a place so big on the water. This is illegal.
He smiles. The world’s ending. Carpe diem.
I walk inside.
Candles illuminate a path from the dark kitchen to the dark living room. Once there, a fire burns bright, carrying heat to my stiff bones.
“I’ve been staking out the place for the past two weeks,” Dominick explains. “They’ve gone. I checked online. No squatters around, either.”
“What is all this?” I ask, pointing to the candles and the fire.
“Your Christmas present. I wanted to give you—well, us—a special memory. All the hotels are full or closed and money’s tight.”
I feel silly having him do so much work and put a massive spotlight on me, yet I can’t help but smile like a spoiled child.
“Are you telling me you committed breaking and entering for me?” I tease. “How romantic.”
He turns his face and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He thinks I don’t like it.
“Hey,” I turn his chin to force him to look at me. “I love it. It’s perfect.”
Consider Page 20