Mom asked Peter if he could stay for supper, but Peter said he had to go back to the hospital. They were all on crazy schedules, 16 hours on, 8 hours off, because the staff was no longer at full strength. He really couldn’t take any more time off.
“But I’ll be back,” he said. “I promise. And I want you to promise you’ll stay off that foot and let the ankle heal on its own. There’s no reason for you to limp any longer than necessary.”
“I promise,” Mom said.
Peter bent down and kissed her. Then he left and we could hear the sound of his car. Such a funny sound.
“I’m so sorry,” Mom said to us. “I know this is going to be a terrible bother for all of you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Matt said. “We just want you to follow Peter’s instructions and get better.”
“I’ll take care of suppers,” I said. “Don’t worry about that, Mom.”
“I’m not worrying about anything,” Mom said. “I know you’ll all do whatever has to be done. I just wish I could help you.”
I know I’m going to have to be strong for the next couple of weeks. No more whining. No more picking fights. I’ll have to do whatever Mom asks me and not protest and not complain. I know I can do it.
But for that one moment I felt so weak, so helpless. I felt nothing but fear and despair and the most awful need to be anyplace else. I told myself it was hunger, but I knew that was a lie.
As long as Mom was all right, I could fool myself into thinking we’d all be all right. But even though I knew Mom could have fallen anytime and sprained her ankle anytime, this felt as though it was the beginning of the end.
So while Matt and Jonny were busying themselves getting Mom set up, I slipped upstairs to my bedroom and wrote all this down. All the things I could never tell any of them.
I thought of Dad and how I may never see him again. I thought of Lisa and wondered if she and the baby would be all right, if I’d ever get to know if I had a new sister or brother. I thought of Grandma and wondered if she was still alive.
I cried and I pounded my pillow, pretending it was Dwayne, and when I calmed down I wrote.
And now I’ll go downstairs and make supper and pretend everything is just fine.
September 19
Mom was looking lonely in the sunroom this afternoon, so I decided to keep her company. She was sitting on the couch with her foot propped up, and I sat down next to her.
“I want to thank you,” she said. “And tell you how proud I am of you.”
“Of me?” I said.
“The way you raced out of here when I fell,” she said. “I know you’ve been reluctant to go anyplace on your own, but you didn’t hesitate for a moment. And standing there all that time. I’m very grateful and I’m very proud.”
“I wish I could have done more,” I said. “I felt awful leaving you that way. It never occurred to me they wouldn’t let me in.”
Mom reached over and began stroking my hair. “You are so beautiful,” she said. “The past few months have been so awful and you’ve been very brave. I’ve been at fault not telling you that. I’m so proud to be your mother.”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought about all the fights I’d provoked over the past few months.
“We’ll get through,” Mom said. “We have each other and we’ll survive.”
“I know we will,” I said.
Mom sighed. “You know what I miss most?” she asked, and then she laughed. “At least today. It changes every day.”
“No, what?” I asked.
“Clean hair,” she said. “Daily showers and clean hair. My hair is such a mess. I really hate it.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s no worse than mine.”
“Let’s cut it,” she said. “Miranda, get a pair of scissors and cut my hair. Come on, do it right now.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“Positive,” she said. “Hurry.”
I found a pair of scissors and brought it back to her. “I’ve never cut hair before,” I said.
“What do I have to lose?” she asked. “It’s not like I’m going to any fancy parties. Cut it real short. It’ll be easier to keep clean that way.”
I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was doing, but Mom cheered me on and reminded me to cut from the top as well as the sides and back.
When I finished, Mom looked like a plucked chicken. No, worse. She looked like a plucked chicken that hadn’t eaten in months. The cut emphasized her cheekbones and you could see how much weight she’d lost.
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Don’t look in a mirror.”
“That bad?” she asked. “Oh, well. It’ll grow out. That’s the great thing about hair. Do you want me to cut yours?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve been thinking of letting my hair grow real long.”
“Cornrows,” she said. “Those little braids. They don’t need shampooing too often. Do you want me to braid your hair like that?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, picturing me with cornrows and Mom with her new punk hairstyle.
Mom stared at me and then she burst out laughing. It was real laughter, too, and before I knew it I was laughing as hard as I had in months.
I think I’d forgotten how much I love Mom. It was good to be reminded.
September 20
I went to visit Mrs. Nesbitt this afternoon. Mom used to go almost every day, but she can’t now, so I volunteered.
She had her furnace going and her house was actually warm.
“I don’t know how long the oil is going to last,” she said.
“But then again, I don’t know how long I’m going to last. I figure as long as I don’t know which of us is going to go first, I might as well stay warm.”
“You can move in with us,” I said. “Mom really wants you to.”
“I know she does,” Mrs. Nesbitt said. “And it’s selfish of me to stay here. But I was born in this house and I would prefer to die in it.”
“Maybe you won’t die,” I said. “Mom says we’ll make it through.”
“I believe you will,” Mrs. Nesbitt said. “You’re young and strong and healthy. But I’m an old woman. I’ve lived a lot longer than I ever thought, and now it’s my time for dying.”
Mrs. Nesbitt hasn’t heard from her son and his family since the first tsunamis. There’s no way of knowing if any of them are still alive. I guess Mrs. Nesbitt feels she would have heard from one of them by now if they still were.
We talked about all kinds of stuff. Mrs. Nesbitt always has stories about Mom when she was growing up.
She used to babysit Mom’s mother and I think I like those stories the best. I know Mom loves to hear them, since she was so young when her parents died.
I’ll go back tomorrow. There’s so little I can do, but visiting with her and making sure she’s okay and then reassuring Mom about it is something.
One good thing about Mom’s sprained ankle. She’s forgotten that I should be doing schoolwork. I don’t think she’s been pestering Jonny, either.
What a strange, strange life this is. I wonder what it’ll be like when things get back to normal, if they ever do. Food and showers and sunlight and school. Dates.
Okay. I never had dates. But if I’m going to dream, I might as well dream big!
September 23
Peter managed to drop by. He checked Mom’s ankle and agreed it was definitely getting better, but she still shouldn’t put any weight on it.
We left Mom and Peter alone for a while. He probably told her about diseases and accidents and plagues.
He’s entitled. I noticed how much older he’s looking. I should have noticed it last week, but I was so crazed by the time I saw him, I didn’t really see anything. It’s not just that he’s thinner. There’s a sadness in his eyes. He seems weary.
I mentioned that to Matt when we had a chance to be by ourselves.
“Well, he’s dealing with illness all the time,” Matt pointed out. “
Most of his patients are probably dying. And he’s alone. He’s divorced and he had two daughters, but they both died.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Mom told me,” he said.
I guess all the worrying Peter would do for his own family, he’s doing for us.
How am I going to feel when people I love start dying?
September 26
Matt and I went to the library today. It’s only open on Mondays now. They don’t know how much longer they’ll stay open.
As we were leaving, I saw Michelle Schmidt. I guess she hasn’t vanished after all.
I wonder how much I hear is true and how much is just made up. Maybe everything is fine with the world and we just don’t know it.
The joke would sure be on us if that’s the case.
September 29
It’s funny how much I’m enjoying things these days. I think we all are. We’re so used to worrying we hardly even notice it.
Actually, life is pretty cozy. We have the woodstove going full-time because of Mom, so there’s always a warm spot in the house. We spend our daytimes doing whatever needs to be done. Matt and Jonny are still bringing in firewood (“Better too much than too little” is Matt’s mantra and I can’t argue with him). I’m doing whatever housework there is to be done (the worst is the clothes washing, which has to be done with as little water as possible, all by hand, and very yucky) and visiting Mrs. Nesbitt every afternoon. I go after lunchtime so she won’t try to feed me (although she does, but I always say no, thanks) and I stay for an hour or so. A lot of times we hardly even talk; we just sit at the table and stare out the kitchen window together. Mom says she and Mrs. Nesbitt do the same thing so I shouldn’t worry.
Mom now trusts me to go to the pantry and I get to select our suppers. A can of this and a can of that. There’s less food there than there was when I had my great chocolate chip feast, but as long as we don’t eat too much, we’ll be okay for a while.
Ever since I saw Michelle Schmidt and realized she had never disappeared the way the kids at school thought she had, I feel like things really are better than we’ve been letting ourselves believe. So what if I’m deluding myself? Better to delude myself that things are okay than to delude myself that things are doomed. At least this way I smile.
After supper when we’re all feeling good because we’re not too hungry, we’ve taken to playing poker. I like 7-card stud the best. Jonny and Matt like Texas Hold ’Em, and Mom prefers 5-card draw. So dealer decides.
Matt went into the attic and dug out a box of poker chips. Jonny is the best player, and as of tonight I owe him $328,000 and a utility infielder (we’re high-stakes gamblers).
I think even Peter is feeling better about things. He came over this evening, proclaimed Mom able to walk around again as long as she is careful and avoids stairs, and he didn’t mention a single new way people are dying. We convinced him to stay for supper and I put out an extra can of tuna. This is the first time I can remember when Peter came over and didn’t bring us anything, so either he’s run out of supplies or he’s now officially family. I hope it’s family. Because I owe him $33,000 from a single hand of Omaha Hi.
Horton is on a diet (not of his choosing). Maybe it’s the warmth of the woodstove, or maybe he just hopes we’ll feed him, but he’s very affectionate lately. He keeps Mom company all day and in the evenings he sits on the most available lap or else by the woodstove.
Matt brought down an old portable typewriter because Mom is thinking about writing down some of the stories she knows about her great-grandmother and her family. What life was like in this house before there was electricity and indoor plumbing.
I like thinking about that. It makes me feel connected, like I’m a part of some bigger thing, like family is more important than electricity. The sunroom was just a porch back then, but I can imagine my great-greatgrandmother’s family sitting around in the parlor, with the oil lamps glowing, and the men tired out from chopping wood and the women tired out from doing the laundry.
Actually, Mom says the family had two servants and one of them did all the laundry, but the women were probably tired out anyway.
I wonder if they imagined the future. I bet they never could have guessed what things would be like today.
Chapter Fourteen
October 2
I turned on the stove to boil water and no flame came out. I ran the hot water in the kitchen and the water stayed cold.
I guess Aaron’s father knew what he was talking about when he said the natural gas would be turned off by October.
Mom says it’s okay. We can heat our food and boil our water on the woodstove. She’s refusing to let us use up the last of our oil for the furnace, but at least we’re not dependent on gas for our heat. A lot of families are worse off than we are.
We’ve all been taking just one shower a week for a while now, but with no hot water I guess no more showers at all. And no hot water is going to make washing clothes that much harder.
I know it shouldn’t bother me but it does. I can see Mom’s upset, too, even though she’s acting like she isn’t. I guess it’s because things have been kind of level for a while, and now they’re worse again. Not big bad worse (at least not for us or Mrs. Nesbitt, who also has a woodstove and oil heat), but worse anyway.
We played poker tonight, but none of us were really into it. Which is probably why for the first time I was the big winner.
October 3
Matt, Jonny, and I all went to the library. Mom’s ankle still isn’t strong enough for her to bike.
The library was open, but Mrs. Hotchkiss was the only person working there. She said that this was the last day the library would be open; they just couldn’t keep it open with no heat. There was no limit on how many books we could take. Mrs. Hotchkiss told us to take as many as we possibly could. If the library reopens in the spring, we can always bring them back.
So we loaded up. We had our backpacks and the bikes all have baskets, so we managed a dozen or more books each. We looked for ourselves and for Mom, too. Since we’ve been playing poker, we’ve been reading less, and of course there are plenty of books in the house (including lots of old ones in the attic). But it’s still upsetting to think the library won’t be there.
Mrs. Hotchkiss said she and her husband were going to Georgia. Her husband has a sister there. Jonny asked her how they were going to get there, and she said walk if they had to.
“The temperature’s been below freezing for the past two weeks,” she said. “If it’s this bad in October, none of us will make it through the winter.”
“I think we should go, too,” Jonny said as we were getting on our bikes to go home. “We should go to Kansas and see if we can find Dad.”
“We don’t know where Dad is,” Matt said. “He could be in Colorado. He could be back in Springfield.”
“No,” I said. “He would have stopped off here if they came back east.”
“We still don’t know where he is,” Matt said. “Jon, Mom and I have talked about it a lot, about what we should do. There’s no point in going. We have shelter. We have firewood, so we won’t freeze. It’s not like we’re going to be able to find food anyplace else.”
“We don’t know that,” Jonny said. “Maybe there’s food in Kansas.”
“Dad couldn’t even get into Kansas,” I said.
“Missouri, then,” Jonny said. “Or Oklahoma. I don’t see why we’re staying here just to die.”
“We’re not going to die,” Matt said.
“You don’t know that,” Jonny said. “What if the moon crashes in?”
“Then it won’t matter where we are, we’ll die anyway,” Matt said. “Our chances of survival are best here.
This isn’t just happening to Pennsylvania, Jon. It’s all over the world. We have a roof over our heads. We have heat. We have water. We have food. How long do you think we’d survive biking our way across country?”
“Dad got gas,” Jonny s
aid. “We could get gas.”
“Dad bought black market gas,” Matt said. “He had connections. And at that, his gas ran out.”
“Black market?” I said.
Matt looked at me like I was an infant. “How do you think he got all that food?” he said. “You didn’t really think it was just waking to be taken, did you?”
“Does Mom know?” I asked.
Matt shrugged. “Dad and I talked about it while we were cutting down trees,” he said. “I don’t know what he talked to Mom about. He probably didn’t tell her. Mom’s happier not knowing things. You know that.”
I do, but I didn’t realize Matt knew it also.
“So we’re stuck here?” Jonny asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Matt said. “But things will get better. Maybe not right away but we’ll make it.”
That’s Mom’s answer for everything. Hold on and wait until things get better. It didn’t sound any more believable coming from Matt.
But I know he’s right about our not going. It’s like the world before Columbus. People leave and you never hear from them again. They might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.
We have each other. As long as we have each other, we’ll be all right.
October 6
Mom’s writing again. Or at least she’s typing.
“I’d forgotten how hard it is,” she said. “The letter A in particular. My left pinky isn’t really up to it on a manual typewriter.”
It’s been so long since it rained I don’t remember what it sounds like. It’s getting harder to remember sunlight, also. The days are getting shorter, but it doesn’t matter.
The air’s getting worse, too. The longer you stay out the dirtier you are when you come in. Mom’s worried about what all the ash is doing to Matt’s and Jonny’s lungs, even with the face masks, but they still keep chopping firewood for as long as they can every day.
Mom and I scrub the clothes as hard as we can, but even though we’re hanging them indoors, they’re still gray. We wash ourselves every night, and the washcloths are filthy and we can never get them really clean. The towels aren’t much better.
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