The Divide

by Jolina Petersheim

  “Like establishing a new form of government?”

  Reaching up, he reshapes the brim of his ball cap. “At this point, I have no idea what we’re supposed to be establishing, but I do know that what I’m doing here’s not making the kind of difference I swore I was going to make to counter taking all those lives to save mine.”

  I pour the rest of the rich coffee into his mug, but Josh lets it sit where it is. “Maybe,” I say, “you’re making more of a difference than you think.”

  Nehemiah’s large frame blots out the doorway to the hall as, in the distance, the rooster cuts loose again, relentlessly announcing dawn before its visible arrival. “Moses,” he says, “there’s some man named Jaybell outside the gates. He said he needs to talk to you.”

  I glance over at Josh. “You mind if I run down a minute?”

  “Nah,” he says. “Our shift’s almost over anyway.”

  I rise from the chair, hobbling slightly until my joints start loosening up when I reach the first landing in the flight of stairs. I’m too young to ache like an old man. But then, I bet not everyone’s survived a bombing, plane crash, and gut shot, so I’m lucky I don’t feel worse.

  I exit through the fire escape. Jabil hears the crunch of my boots on the snow and looks up through the gates as I approach. I try not to wonder why he’s here, and yet I know he wouldn’t be coming all this way to tell me something good. “Moses,” he says and nods.

  “Jabil.” Our exchange isn’t a greeting as much as it is a duel of names.

  Taking out my key, I insert it into the padlock and twist hard, shattering the ice that has sealed over the metal. Nehemiah and Joel are standing ten yards off—far enough to give us privacy but close enough to intervene. I should’ve told them Jabil won’t fight with his fists.

  Jabil glances around as he steps inside the gates. Even in the dark, and even though he cannot see much of anything, I can still perceive his scorn. “I heard you’re now part of a militia.”

  I laugh to prove I’m not perturbed. “Guess you could call us that. Though most of us are here because we’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  “What do you all do? Besides—” he makes a dismissive gesture—“shoot people?”

  I have neither the energy nor the time to let him bait me into an argument. “We’re also trying to get a vintage Cessna running so we can see how far the EMP reached.”

  Jabil nods, but the corner of his mouth lifts in a sardonic grin. I can see my revelation through his viewpoint: I’ve been hanging with homeless guys and piddling with planes while he’s probably trying to keep a community from starving.

  Eager to switch topics, I say, “So, how’s everybody on the mountain?”

  Jabil’s jaw throbs. “Not good. The flu hit. Four people have died so far.”

  My heart speeds up; I can’t stop myself from asking, “And the Ebersoles?”

  His gaze lifts to my face. “Eunice is bad,” he says. “I don’t think she’s going to make it. Leora sent me here to tell Seth.” He stops and studies me. “He is here, right?”

  “Yes,” I murmur, “he’s here. I just can’t believe all of this happened so fast.”

  “Not so fast,” Jabil retorts. “You’ve been gone awhile.”

  “I had no choice.”

  He steps closer, his breath streaming white against the darkness. “If you cared about Leora half as much as you think you do, then you would’ve come back.”

  “I only stayed away because I thought you’d take care of her . . . were the best for her.”

  Jabil speaks, his voice cold and hoarse, anger sparking in his eyes. “Night after night, I’ve followed her out of the community. Night after night, she stands there, freezing in the dark, waiting for you to come back while I’m—” he thumps his chest—“I’m waiting right there.”

  “Then maybe you should stop waiting.”

  “You don’t deserve her!”

  I look at him and slowly shake my head. “I never said I did.”

  I pass Jabil the refilled thermos of coffee, which Josh doesn’t know I took. He thanks me and accepts it—a peace offering—but I can tell he’s still frustrated. I’d be too, if I were him.

  I turn to Seth. “Thanks for coming,” I say. “It’s been good . . . having you here.”

  He nods curtly, caught between dread of losing his grandmother and frustration that he has to leave. “Save a place for me,” he says. “I’ll be back.”

  “Will do, man,” I reply, clapping his thin shoulder, but I hope he doesn’t come back. Though for the most part I’ve enjoyed having him around, I don’t think—well, I know that the guys in our militia aren’t the best role models for someone like Seth, who’s so eager to learn the ways of the world, he absorbs every good and bad thing he’s taught.

  I watch Jabil and Seth depart until their shrinking figures are extinguished by the glare of the rising sun, and then I force myself to turn away. I want to leave with them. Of course I do. I want to lay eyes on Leora myself and make sure she’s okay. But I can’t. I know it’s part fear that keeps me landlocked to this airport, telling myself I have a purpose here when the reality is, I’m not sure what my purpose is—or like Josh and I discussed, what our purpose is as a group. And yet how could I show my face now, when the community has lost so much?

  Entering the traffic control center, I go up two flights and try to catch some shut-eye on my floor, though my circadian rhythms are so messed up from guard duty that I have a hard time sleeping beyond catnaps during the day, but I will be sure to wake up starving in the middle of the night. However, even after the majority of the guys stop cutting up and leave, my mind’s eye burns with the image of Seth’s empty cot. This makes me think of his sister and the horror she must be facing as she’s about to lose another foundational pillar of her already-devastated life. And I still won’t go back to her? Coward. I mash the airline pillow beneath my head and cover myself with the airline blanket, though it’s like trying to get warm beneath a paper towel. I can’t go back to her. Sal told me—that day she had her crazy grandmother about kill me while tending my wounds—I was brave for holding off that gang. I suppose, all things considered, I was. But another, lesser part of me wanted to be left behind.

  It was all fine and good, having that whirlwind intimacy with Leora when all of life was falling apart, but could I be the kind of man who was content with the unending rhythm of life, secluded on a mountain? I wasn’t sure I could, so I played the hero because it was easier than me finding out I hadn’t grown up as much as I thought, and then—even worse—Leora finding out that she was disappointed in who I am. Yes, all things considered, it was easier to just let faultless, reliable Jabil go back with Seth. Nice and tidy, these things of the heart.

  I try to sleep for about two more hours, and then throw myself into my work in an effort to distract myself. The only problem is, manual labor is not very distracting: a body can shovel snow, chop firewood, or haul melted water up to the fourth floor of the center while the mind continues working double-time.

  Josh comes over from the hangar as I’m trying to clear the pathway from the traffic control center’s emergency exit to the gate, even as more snow’s falling, reclaiming the asphalt as soon as I uncover it. “What are you doing?” he asks.

  I look up at him. I’m wearing no hat, and sweat pastes my hair to my forehead, despite the cold. “Keeping out of trouble.”

  “Isn’t there a more productive way?”

  “Nope.”

  Josh sighs with the world-weariness of a father trying not to get exasperated with his son, which is what I’ve become to him, and what—as strange as it is—he’s become to me.

  He says, “Is this because of Seth?”

  I shrug and lift the shovel, cracking the ice, and then scoop it up and toss it away in an effort to reach the snow trapped beneath. “No.”

  Josh folds his arms. “Is it because of the guy who came?”

  I glance up. A line of sweat drips, stinging, into
my eye. I blink hard, clearing my vision, and straighten, leaning on the shovel. Blood thwump-thwumps in my ears. “Seth has a sister.”

  A smile splits Josh’s face, the skin crinkling around his aviator glasses. “A sister.”

  “Her name’s Leora. Jabil, the guy who came for Seth, wants to marry her.” I think about saying more but don’t. Josh doesn’t seem the type to salivate over drama.

  But to my surprise, he prods, “And you don’t want him to.”

  “Marry her?” I shake my head. “No.”

  “But you don’t want to marry her yourself.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not cut out for it.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re scared.”

  “Says the guy who got divorced.”

  Josh lifts his hand. “Hey. Don’t meddle.”

  “Then don’t meddle with me!”

  Reaching out, he takes my shovel and tosses it on the snow. “I want to talk to you a minute,” he says. “Seriously. Man to man.”

  “Glad we cleared that up.”

  Josh looks at me, his gaze hard. “Stop hiding behind your mouth. That’s just fear too.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble and have a flashback to me as a child, apologizing to my dad for the very same thing. Maybe I hide behind my mouth because it draws attention away from how inferior I feel next to guys like them.

  “It’s all right,” he says. “But I’ve been on this earth twice as long as you, so I know a thing or two more about it.” He pauses and takes off his aviators, hooking the ear stem over his coat and pressing them down. “I don’t want you ending up like me,” he says. “Holed up in some airport, waiting for somebody to come back to you, who doesn’t seem to care that you’re gone.”

  “Who you waiting on?”

  Josh studies his boots. Despite the slush, the steel toes are buffed to a shine. “My wife.”

  “But you’re not married anymore.”

  He glances to the side. “No. Not on paper.”

  “Does she know you’re here?”

  “She should. She was on her way to pick me up when everything happened.” He shrugs. “I’d flown in for our son’s wedding. He was marrying a girl who lives near Flathead Lake.”

  “So you’ve just been waiting here the entire time, thinking she’s still going to come pick you up or something?”

  Josh flinches, and I realize, too late, that my words were harsher than I intended. “In the beginning,” he says, “yes. I figured we had a better chance of finding each other if I stayed put.” He exhales. “I’ve lost hope, though. It was stupid of me to ever think it was possible. Honestly, I doubt any of my family’s even alive, but what I wouldn’t give to see them again.” He swallows hard; his eyes gleam. “Nothing like everything falling apart to put your priorities in line.”

  I clap him on the shoulder. “Least you’ve got them in line now.”

  He nods. “Just take my life as a warning: I used to be fearful of showing those I cared about just how much I loved them. Man, if you’ve got someone to love, don’t be like me.”

  Such a difference between last fall—when Sal brought me here to the warehouse, and blood leaked through my stitches and splattered on the hot concrete—and now: ice sheathing the rusty railing and the stairs covered in so much snow, they better resemble a slope. It’s probably not my smartest move, returning to Liberty, but Josh told me I wasn’t going to be worth anything until I saw for myself how the community is doing. And how Leora’s doing, in particular. But before I make my way back up to the compound, I have to find Sal.

  The day I discovered Luke Ebersole upstairs in the warehouse, I sensed he wasn’t going to make it unless his riddled body had the chance to withdraw from the drugs. I wasn’t sure how everything worked because I stayed on the main floor with the refugees who were there for room and board alone, but I got the feeling Luke must’ve owed someone something, and I didn’t want to get tangled up in that by busting him out of there.

  Because of that furtive maneuver—the two of us sick and weak and nearly falling down those rusty fire escape stairs—I never got the chance to properly thank Sal for saving my life. This debt has always bothered me, and I figure coming here to tell her about the sickness and seeing if she wants to come along to see her son, Colton, might pay her back, at least in a small way, for how she helped me. Plus, her medical knowledge could be of use.

  I have to knock on the door twice before Papina, the wizened gatekeeper, opens it. She stares for a long time, as if trying to place who I am. And then she leans forward, grips my shoulders, and presses a whiskered kiss to each cheek. She never showed a hint of affection while I stayed here, so the action startles me, to say the least. “Is Sal here?” I ask.

  Nodding, Papina leads me into another room. A cheap metal filing cabinet stands along the left wall. On the floor is a mattress layered with blankets. An orange recliner is to the right. Sal sits in this recliner, reading a Louis L’Amour Western with dog-eared pages. One leg dangles over the recliner’s sagging arm. She glances up. The book falls closed. She stares across the room at me like she’s seeing a ghost.

  I shift my weight, trying to come up with an icebreaker and yet finding none. “I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye.” I shrug. “I would’ve left a note . . .”

  “But you had no paper.”

  I nod.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she says, but I can tell it does.

  “I’m going up to the community. Wondered if you’d like to come with.”

  She hesitates. “I don’t want to upset Colton, showing up just to disappear again.”

  “Sal . . .” I deepen my voice and wait until she looks up. “I think you should come.”

  Her facial features shift in surprise, and then grow pale. “Why? What happened?”

  “Flu or something’s going around up there. It sounds bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “People have died from it.”

  “Why didn’t somebody send for me before?”

  “I just learned about it myself. I thought you should know.”

  She stares at me a moment, as if deciding how to react, then says, “Thank you.”

  Due to the screen of evergreens, the community’s not as easy to find as you might expect. But I am grateful for the obscurity. If it’s difficult for me to find—who learned of the general vicinity from Seth—it will be equally difficult for the ARC. Sal and I approach the compound’s wall, which doesn’t appear nearly as formidable as the one we built down in the valley. An iron triangle hangs outside it, the same as it did down there. Who had the forethought to take it down and pack it along with everything else? Even some of the wooden signs made it.

  My stomach tightens, seeing those words—Warning: Property Under Surveillance—painted by Leora’s hand, and I recall each conversation, and touch, that followed after I gave her those pieces of wood. How do I come back here to show my support while also letting her know I’m not the type of man she wants to have around?

  Striking the triangle, Sal calls out, “Anybody here?”

  I stare at the silver bark papering the logs and can feel the snow soaking through both layers of my pants. The gate, where we’re waiting, is about a foot taller than I am, but the wall towers above it. Everything is built from birch, and it appears the door was simply cut out after the perimeter was built, then reattached. I assume the community used ropes to lever the massive logs into place with a mixture of horsepower and manpower. Wish I could’ve been here to help. Then again, who knows how many hammers Charlie threw the second time around.

  Sal moves forward to strike the triangle again when we hear someone trudging through the snow on the perimeter’s other side. The person calls, “Who is it?” I never would’ve thought Charlie’s gruff voice could sound like music to my ears.

  “Moses.”

  A few seconds of silence pass, followed by him responding in a somewhat disbelieving tone, “You’re alive?”r />
  A grin puts feeling back in my frozen face. “Don’t think I’d be talking to you if I wasn’t.”

  Charlie begins fumbling with the latch. He drags the gate open through the new layer of snow and comes out through the shadowed entrance. I’m shocked by his appearance. Charlie’s always been this overblown caricature of strength, but he’s lost so much weight, he looks like a scarecrow version of his former self, swallowed in his old Salvation Army clothes.

  Embracing me, he beats my back as if helping someone who’s choking. “You came.”

  “Of course.” I don’t know how to interpret the break in his voice, and so I don’t have the guts to tell him I’m not staying.

  Charlie pushes me away and lightly smacks my bearded cheek. “You’re thin.”

  “I was just about to say the same about you.”

  “What’ve you been eating?”

  “Lobster and cold duck.” I roll my eyes. “It’s such a drag.”

  “Bully for you. We ate our lobsters two months back and turned their shells into meal.”

  “Ah,” I sigh, “the finer things in life. What’ve y’all been eating besides meal?”

  “Not much.” Glancing behind me, he nods at Sal. “Your son’s doing good, though.”

  She lowers her head—her tangled dark hair sweeping across her face—and I can tell that she’s fighting not to cry. To draw attention away from her, I say, “I heard y’all have the flu.”

  “Yeah, man,” Charlie says. “Talk about a drag.”

  “Who all has it?”

  “Who doesn’t? I just got over it myself.”

  “How many deaths?”

  Charlie looks down. “Sixteen. And we’re losing more all the time.”

  Sal breathes, “No.”

  “Dehydration,” he says. “That’s what’s getting them. Because they can’t keep anything down long enough.” He pauses. “You still sure you want to come in?”