“Great idea,” I said. “And while we’re talking great ideas, I have one of my own.”
“Yes?” Matt drawled, skepticism practically oozing out of him.
“I think I should do Mom’s and my laundry, and you and Jon should do your own,” I said.
“No!” Jonny yelped. I guess he has some idea of what hard work doing the laundry is. “Mom?” he whined.
“It makes sense to me,” Mom said.
“Then Miranda should do the dishes,” Jon said.
“Okay,” I said. “If we take turns with the dishes. I’m not going to do them all the time.”
“Fair’s fair,” Matt said. “We rotate the dishes, and Jon and I do our own laundry. At least until we can start chopping wood again. Now let’s go skiing.”
I put on four extra pairs of socks so Dad’s boots would stay on my feet and out we went. We ski about as well as we sing, and I spent entirely too much time in snowdrifts on the road. But it got Jon out of his whiny mood, and by the time we finished we could all manage a little.
“We’ll do some more tomorrow,” Matt said. “It’s good for us and it’s good for Mom to have some quiet time.”
“Do you think I could ski to the pond?” I asked. “I’d love to do some more skating.”
“I don’t see why not,” Matt said.
It felt great to expand my world again. The idea of not being stuck in the sunroom cheered me up almost as much as seeing the sun would have.
New Year. New hopes.
That’s the way it should be.
January 3
We’re definitely getting better with the skiing. Since it’s one pair for the three of us, we don’t travel great distances. Mostly we ski back and forth, but each time we increase our distance if only by a few feet.
I can’t wait until I’m good enough at it to go back to the pond. I know Matt has us working at it in case there’s an emergency and we need to get help, but I’ve set my goal as getting to the pond for some skating.
Even Jon’s gotten into it. Matt pointed out to him that cross-country skiing is good aerobic exercise and he should think of it as wind sprints, which he’ll need to do when the baseball season starts.
In a funny way the same thing is true for Matt. He was a miler back in college, and the skiing is helping him stay in shape. I’m not sure the air quality is so great for us, but at least our hearts are getting a workout.
We ski after lunch. It would be too hard in the morning on empty stomachs. There’s a part of me that wonders if it’s a good idea for us to be burning off calories, but I guess if I starve to death at least I’ll have good muscle tone.
And it gets us out of the sunroom.
January 5
Something very weird happened this afternoon.
We’d done our skiing and were sitting around the sunroom doing schoolwork when we heard someone knocking at the front door. Smoke comes out of our chimney all the time so there’s obviously people living here. But no one ever comes by.
“Maybe it’s Peter,” Mom said.
Matt helped her up off her mattress. We all went to the front door to see who it was.
Jon recognized him first. “It’s Mr. Mortensen,” he said.
“I need help,” Mr. Mortensen said. He looked so desperate, it was frightening. “My wife. She’s sick. I don’t know what it is. Do you have anything, any medicine? Please. Anything.”
“No, we don’t,” Mom said.
Mr. Mortensen grabbed her hand. “Please,” he said. “I’m begging you. I’m not asking for food or wood. Just medicine. You must have something. Please. She’s burning with fever. I don’t know what to do.”
“Jonny, get the aspirin,” Mom said. “That’s all we have. I’m sorry. We’ll give you some aspirin. That should lower her fever.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“How long has she been sick?” Mom asked.
“Just since this morning,” he said. “Last night she was fine. But she’s delirious. I don’t like leaving her alone, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Jon came back and handed over some aspirin to Mr. Mortensen. I thought he was going to cry, and I felt relieved when he left. We went back into the sunroom.
“Mom,” Jon said. “Is Mrs. Mortensen going to be all right?”
“I hope so,” Mom said. “Remember, Peter told us there’d be illness. But she could just have a cold. None of us is at full strength. It could be one of those twenty-four-hour things.”
“Maybe he just wanted some aspirin for a headache,” Matt said. “Mrs. Mortensen could be out right now building a snow fort and he just used her as an excuse.”
Mom smiled. “That’s probably wishful thinking,” she said. “But I’m sure she’ll be all right. Now it seems to me we’re all behind on our schoolwork. Miranda, tell me what you’ve been learning in history.”
So I did. And as the day went along I thought less and less about Mrs. Mortensen.
But now she’s all I can think about.
January 6
I know this is silly but when we woke up this morning I was relieved that we were still alive and well.
When Matt suggested we do our daily skiing, I leaped up. I skied farther than I have before. I made it practically to the Mortensen house, but when I realized where I was, I turned around and set a record for how fast I made it back to Matt and Jon.
When we got home, I was relieved to see Mom perfectly okay. Matt and Jon and I didn’t say anything about it, but we’d all worked harder on our skiing than we had before.
And Mom didn’t say anything about how we’d stayed out too long.
January 7
It snowed last night. Our skylights are covered again and the sunroom is back to total darkness.
Matt says it wasn’t snowing when he and Jon went out last night for their bathroom break. I guess it must have started right after that because by this morning there were already 4 or 5 inches of fresh (well, gray fresh) snow on the ground.
It was still snowing after lunch and Mom said we should stay in. Instead of skiing, we did our going-to-the front-door-and-looking-to-see-what-it-looks-like-outside routine.
The snow stopped sometime this evening, so it was nothing like the blizzard last month. Matt figures we got 8 to 10 inches, not enough to bother cleaning the roof.
“The heat from the woodstove will melt the snow off the skylights,” he said. “We should expect snow in January. Fresh snow means more water and that’ll come in handy later on.”
All of which sounds perfectly fine, but the more snow on the ground, the harder it is to get out of here. I’m not that good at cross-country skiing, especially since Dad’s boots are way too big for my feet.
There’s nothing I can do about it so there’s no point complaining. But I miss the extra light in the sunroom.
January 8
Skiing was a lot harder on the extra 8 inches of snow. We all fell over and over. Of course Jonny and Matt were extra tired from having to shovel the walkways and a path to the road. I did their laundry for them.
We’re all on edge. I guess it’s the snow. There were flurries again today, maybe an inch more.
I know it didn’t snow for almost a month and Matt’s right. It snows in January. But if it snows 8 inches every couple of weeks in January and February and it doesn’t melt for months, then how much snow are we going to end up with?
We still have tons of firewood, but what if they can’t cut any more?
What if our food supply runs out?
I know I’m doing this to myself. We’ve made it through so far. There’s no reason to think we won’t survive some more snow. But I have that scared feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It’s dumb. I know it’s dumb. But I wish Peter would walk through the door, or Dad and Lisa and baby Rachel. I wish Dan was here. I wish I had a postcard from Sammi making fun of me for being stuck in boring Pennsylvania.
I wish the snow was off the skylights.
I wis
h it was still Christmas.
Chapter Nineteen
January10
They’re sick.
It started with Mom. She tried to get off her mattress this morning and couldn’t. “Something’s the matter,” she said. “Don’t let anyone come near me.”
Matt and I went over to the side of the room and whispered so Mom wouldn’t hear us. “We can’t move her out,” he said. “She’d freeze in the kitchen. We’ll just have to take our chances.”
But then Jonny screamed. It was the most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard. We ran over to him and saw he was delirious, crazed with fever.
“Aspirin,” I said, and I ran to the pantry to get the bottle. Matt put a pot of water on the stove to make tea.
Mom was close to unconscious when the tea was ready, but we lifted her head up and forced the tea and aspirin down her throat. I was afraid she would choke on it, but after we saw her swallow, we put her head back down. She was shivering terribly, so I took one of the blankets off my mattress and draped it around her.
Jon was harder. His arms were swinging around so wildly that he hit me in the jaw and knocked me over. Matt got behind him and held his arms down while I pushed the aspirin into his mouth and poured the tea down his throat. Then I ran to the bathroom and got the rubbing alcohol. Matt turned him over and pinned him down while I gave him a back rub. He was burning with fever and kept tossing off his blankets.
“We need help,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m doing this right.”
Matt nodded. “I’ll go,” he said. “You stay here and look after them.” But as he got up he began to sway. For one awful moment I thought he was going to grab onto the woodstove to keep from falling, but he came to his senses and sank onto Jon’s mattress instead.
“I can do it,” he said and he crawled from Jon’s mattress to his own. “Don’t worry.”
I didn’t know if he meant he could make it to his own mattress or to get help, but it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere. I handed him a couple of aspirin and poured another mug of tea.
“I need you to stay here,” I said when he gestured that he could get up. “Mom and Jon are helpless. You have to make sure the fire doesn’t go out and Jon stays covered. Can you do that? I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Go. Peter will know what to do.”
I kissed his forehead. He was hot, but nowhere near as bad as Mom or Jon. I put a couple of pieces of wood in the stove, and put on my coat, boots, scarf, and gloves. The skis were in the front hallway, so I got them, then closed the front door behind me.
The weather wasn’t bad, but I’d forgotten to put on the extra socks I need for Dad’s boots to fit, and I fell a dozen times as I made my way to the hospital. I fell into snow on top of snow, so I never bruised myself, but of course I got soaking wet.
It didn’t matter. Each time I fell I got back up and started again. No one else was going to rescue us. It was all up to me.
I don’t know how long it took me to reach the hospital. I remember thinking I should have eaten something before I’d left, so it was probably close to noon when I got there. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting help.
Unlike the last time I’d gone there, the outside of the hospital was completely deserted. No guards to prevent me from entering. I had a moment of pure terror that I’d find no one inside, but I pushed the front door open and could hear sounds in the distance.
The lobby was empty so I followed the voices. I’d never heard a hospital so quiet before. There weren’t any lights on, and I wondered if their generator had finally stopped working.
If the hospital wasn’t functional, what chance did any of us have?
Eventually I found the source of the noise. It was two women—nurses, I assumed—sitting in an empty room. I charged in there, relieved to see them, terrified of what they were going to say.
“I need Dr. Elliott,” I said. “Peter Elliott. Where is he?”
“Elliott,” one of the women said, and she scratched the back of her neck. “He died on Saturday, didn’t he, Maggie?”
“No, I think it was Friday,” Maggie replied. “Remember, Friday we lost ten people and we thought that was the worst of it. Then Saturday we lost seventeen. But I think he was on Friday.”
“I’m pretty sure it was Saturday,” the first woman said. “Doesn’t matter, does it? He’s dead. Just about everyone is.”
It took me a moment to realize they were saying Peter was dead. Peter who had done all he could to protect us and care for us had died.
“Peter Elliott,” I said. “Dr. Elliott. That Peter Elliott.”
“Dead just like everyone else,” Maggie said, and she kind of laughed. “I guess we’ll be next.”
“Nah,” the first woman said. “If we’re not dead yet, nothing’s going to kill us.”
“Flu,” Maggie said. “Past couple of weeks. It’s flying through town. People kept coming here, like we could do something, and all the staff came down with it, except for Linda here and me and a couple of others. We’d go home except we’re scared of what we’d find and besides we’d just make our families sick. Funny, isn’t it? We’ve survived so much and it’s the flu that’s going to kill us all off.”
“My family has it,” I said. “Don’t you have any kind of medicine? There must be something.”
Linda shook her head. “It’s the flu, hon,” she said. “It just runs its course. Only thing is no one has any strength left to fight it off.”
“It’s a bad strain,” Maggie said. “Like in 1918. The kind that would kill you anyway.”
“But my family,” I said. “What should I do for them?”
“Make them comfortable,” Maggie said. “And don’t bring them here when they die. We’re not taking any more bodies.”
“I gave them aspirin,” I said. “And an alcohol rub. Was that the right thing to do?”
“Honey, listen to us,” Maggie said. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe your family’s stronger. Aspirin won’t hurt. Alcohol rubs won’t hurt. Pray if it’ll make you feel better. But whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. And it’ll happen fast.”
“You can try fluids,” Linda said. “If you have any food, try to make them eat. They’ll need all the strength they can get.”
Maggie shook her head. “Save the food for yourself, hon,” she said. “You look healthy enough. Maybe you’re like us and you’re resistant to this strain. Your folks would want you to live. Take care of yourself. Your family’s going to live or die no matter what you do.”
“No!” I said. “No. I don’t believe you. There has to be something.”
“There were how many people here last week?” Maggie asked. “A hundred, maybe more. We lost half of them the first day. Go home and be with your folks. Give them whatever comfort you can.”
“Sorry,” Linda said. “I know it’s a tough break. Sorry to tell you about Dr. Elliott. He was a nice man. He worked until the end, then he just collapsed and died. We’ve lost a lot of staff that way, working until their last breath. But maybe your family will make it through. Some people do.”
There was no point staying. I thanked them and started the journey home.
The wind had picked up and was blowing against me for much of the walk. I stumbled as much as I skied, and it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears. Peter was dead. For all I knew Mom and Jon were, also. Matt might die, too.
I remembered how Jon had asked me what he would do if he were the only one of us to survive and how flippant I’d been. And now I was facing the same thing.
Yesterday everything was fine. By tonight I could be completely alone.
I told myself over and over again that I wouldn’t let that happen. We were strong. We ate, we had heat, and shelter. We’d been lucky so far. We’d stay lucky. We’d stay alive.
The sky was darkening when I finally made it home, but it looked like a snow sky, and I was sure i
t was still daytime. It took all the courage I had to open the door. But when I got to the sunroom I saw things were pretty much as I’d left them. Mom was so quiet I had to kneel by her side to make sure she was still breathing, but she was. Jonny was delirious, but he was covered and not flailing around so much. Matt was lying on his mattress, but his eyes were open, and he turned around when he saw I’d come in.
“Peter,” he said.
I shook my head. “We’re on our own,” I said. “It’s just the flu. We’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” he said, and closed his eyes. For the most horrible moment of my life, I thought he’d died, that he had stayed alive until I got back and then felt he could die. But he’d just fallen asleep. His breathing was shallow, but he was definitely alive.
I put some wood in the stove and collapsed onto my mattress. That’s where I am now. I don’t even know why I’m writing this down, except that I feel fine and maybe tomorrow I’ll be dead. And if that happens, and someone should find my journal, I want them to know what happened.
We are a family. We love each other. We’ve been scared together and brave together. If this is how it ends, so be it.
Only, please, don’t let me be the last one to die.
January 11
We’ve made it through the night.
Mom and Jonny don’t seem any better. It was harder getting the aspirin down Mom’s throat. She coughed a lot and threw the pills back up, so I dissolved them in tea.
Jonny alternates between delirium and stupor. I don’t know which is scarier.
Matt is the least sick of the three, and I really think he’ll survive. He sleeps most of the day, but when he’s awake he’s Matt.
I gave all of them aspirin and cold remedies every 4 hours and sponge bathed them and gave them alcohol rubs. It’s hard keeping the blankets on Jonny.
I heated beef broth and spoon-fed all of them. I had to hold up Mom’s and Jonny’s heads when I did. Matt was able to stay awake long enough to take a few swallows on his own.
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