Still, Sadie could never forget how much Manny had done for her. When she felt all alone up at the farm, while Glenn and Amelia were forming their own cozy little family that she had no part in, she had a friend in La Ronge. A friend with a vibrator, and a good heart.
“They offered to let me go with them,” Manny went on. “I might do it.”
“Don’t,” Sadie said. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard Manny talk of running away from her family, but she’d never heard her be so serious about it.
“Would you go with me, if I left?” Manny asked, looking into Sadie’s eyes.
Sadie looked away. “I can’t,” she said.
“Because of your wifey,” Manny said, sounding a little disgusted. “Of course.”
“And the kid,” Sadie added.
“You know how fucked up your situation is, don’t you?” Manny asked. Sadie shrugged. Sure, she knew. But everyone’s situation was fucked up these days. How was claiming her late father’s lover as her own any stranger than anything else she could be doing?
Manny sighed, putting her head in her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“You’re so lucky,” Manny said, shaking her head. “You’ve got a family. Like, a real family. You’re not treated like an overgrown child, you can do whatever you want…”
Sadie barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“If you wanted to leave,” Manny said, “If you wanted to get in your truck and drive off west and never look back, you could do it, you know.” But Sadie just shook her head.
The talk left Sadie feeling a bit uneasy after she got dressed and kissed Manny goodbye. “Could I get a couple bars of soap?” Sadie asked.
Manny got her a couple of the lemon-mint bars she’d made. “I’m working on lotion, too,” she said, “But I need to get some cocoa butter or something.”
“The soap’s great,” Sadie said. She didn’t add how much Amelia loved it. She didn’t think Manny would want to hear that right now.
They kissed once more before Sadie went downstairs, leaving Manny to her soap making, the one thing that she had that was really her own. Remy was negotiating with another customer, so she just waved to him and loaded up her supplies on her own. She opened the shoebox with the pink heels and took a better look at them, now that she was out in natural lighting. They were completely impractical. She almost took them back in, or left them on the ground for someone to pick up. But she thought again of her lover’s legs, the way the heels would make her calves look, and she stuck the heels in the bed of the truck and got in the cab to head back to the farm.
As Sadie drove home, she kept a sharp lookout for danger, but she was mostly thinking of her conversation with Manny. A walled-in, fully functioning community in BC. Sanctuary Coast, she’d called it. Yeah, right. The idea of it was nice, but Sadie couldn’t imagine that a place like that was possible in today’s world. Society was dead. God was dead.
Sadie got home without incident. When she pulled up, she saw Christian crouched down in the garden. He raced over to the truck to greet her. “Did you see any?” he asked. He managed to sound both eager and somber at the same time. Sadie shook her head. “That’s good.”
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Sadie said. “Help me get this stuff inside, and you can have it.” Christian handled the lighter boxes, and Sadie took the heavier ones with the jars and cans of food, and they went into the kitchen.
Amelia wasn’t around. “Where’s your mom?” Sadie asked. Christian shrugged. “Amelia!” Sadie called.
“Back here!” Amelia called from the bathroom. Sadie went back there, and found her lover with her leg up on the rim of the useless tub, shaving carefully with one of the few razors they owned. “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “How was your trip?”
“It was fine,” Sadie said. She held up the wrapped bars of lemon-mint soap. “I got these,” she said.
Amelia smiled and dipped her rag into the bucket that sat in the tub. She wiped the remaining soap from her leg before she went to her lover, greeting her with a kiss. “Thanks,” she said. She took one of the bars and removed the brown paper that Manny wrapped around it. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. “How does someone around here get lemons, anyway?”
Sadie shrugged, but she knew Manny’s secret. She used a bit of lemonade powder. Amelia kissed her again. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Sadie said. “Come on, you’re gonna love what else I got.”
Amelia was, indeed, pleased at Sadie’s haul. “And boots!” she cried. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah,” Sadie said. The boots she’d gotten from Remy were ugly, utilitarian, but they were perfect for the harsh northern Saskatchewan winters. “I got you something else, too.” She showed Amelia the pink heels.
Amelia did laugh, but she took the shoes out and stared at them. “They’re so cute,” she said.
“I thought they’d suit you.”
Amelia giggled. “Where the hell would I wear them?”
“Around here,” Sadie said. “For me.” Amelia kissed her again, and she slipped on the heels. She was wearing a skirt, and Sadie saw that she’d been right: her legs, freshly shaven and still holding on to a bit of their summer glow, looked amazing. She wanted to kiss Amelia from her peeping toes, going all the way up under her skirt…
“Sadie?” Christian asked timidly, snapping his sister out of her daydream. “Are these for me?” He held up a bag of hard candy that he’d pulled from one of the boxes.
“Yeah, they’re for you,” Sadie said. Remy knew about her little brother, and always put aside candy or a little toy for him, whatever he had on hand.
“I can have them now?” Christian asked.
“You can have one,” Amelia said. “I’ll put the rest up for later. What do you say to your sister?”
“Thank you, Sadie.”
“You’re welcome,” Sadie said. Christian unwrapped a candy and popped it into his mouth before rushing out to the yard to finish his chores. Amelia took the bag and put it in the cabinet before she went to put the supplies away. “What do you want for lunch?” Amelia asked. “I can make some fried onion sandwiches.”
“Sure,” Sadie said. “Here, let me put that stuff away.”
“Sit down,” Amelia insisted. So Sadie sat at the table and watched her lover make trips back and forth to the pantry, organizing their food on the shelves. She was in there for a few minutes after, recounting the inventory, Sadie figured. Amelia looked relieved when she came out. “We should be all set for a while,” she said. “Let’s have some stew with the sandwiches.”
“That sounds great,” Sadie said.
Amelia poured Sadie a glass of lukewarm Kool-Aid, one of the few beverages they had besides straight water. As Amelia fried sandwiches and heated stew on the stove, Sadie said, “Remy says to keep the sweaters coming.”
“There’s still a lot of yarn left,” Amelia said. “Bet I can make a few more before your next trip.”
“Great,” Sadie said. She sat back in her chair and sipped her drink, watching her lover prepare their lunch. She wondered why she should ever leave this place. Life wasn’t exactly easy, but they were safe behind those brick walls, with the barbed wire on top like Sadie remembered from prisons on TV. But this was no prison. It was their own sanctuary. Sadie had her lover, she had plenty of food and clothes, and the kid wasn’t half bad, either. They were okay.
They were happy.
Chapter Three
Glenn had a nasty cough for a couple of years, but it got worse the winter after his son turned five. He’d be chopping wood in the yard or reading the Bible in his father’s old armchair, and he’d suddenly double over in a loud fit of wracking coughs. Sadie was more annoyed by it than anything else, though she knew Amelia was worried. She told herself she didn’t care.
One evening, Glenn was drinking some of the moonshine he’d gotten in La Ronge. When he drank, he got to sermonizing, standing before them
in the sitting room, making them listen to him read from the Bible, thinking aloud, trying to find some reason for why God allowed everything to fall apart. Sadie sat with crossed arms, staring at the floor, but she didn’t dare walk out.
Glenn was going on about all the sins of the world that had allowed this apocalypse to come upon them, that it was the end of days, or some shit, when he suddenly doubled over coughing. This wasn’t anything unusual, but he kept hacking on for more than a minute, his face bright red.
“Glenn?” Amelia sprang to her feet, putting a hand on his back. “Come on, let’s put you in bed.”
Glenn attempted to straighten up, his finger raised, as though he had another point to make, but he doubled over again. “Can you get him a glass of water?” Amelia asked Sadie as she led Glenn off to their bedroom.
Sadie went to the bucket in the kitchen, the one they’d been drinking from all day, and drew a glass for her father. She wondered what would happen if he died. It was far from the first time she’d had this thought. When she was young, it was a worried thought, especially when he went off to La Ronge or elsewhere to trade or loot for supplies. Lately, her thoughts of her father’s death caused her much less anxiety.
Sadie opened the door to Glenn and Amelia’s room, and Amelia stood right there. She took the glass of water. “Thanks,” she said. She was frowning deeply.
Sadie couldn’t help caring then. “Is he…?”
“Do we have any more cough medicine?” Amelia asked, her eyes wide and anxious. It reminded Sadie of the way Amelia used to look all the time, when she first came to the farm, not quite able to believe that her nightmare was over.
“I don’t think so,” Sadie said, and when Amelia’s frown deepened, she quickly added, “I’ll go see.”
Amelia nodded and shut the door. Sadie knew they’d run out of the last of the cough medicine a long time ago. Any kind of medicine, even something as simple as ibuprofen, was nearly impossible to come by. Glenn had been keeping his cough at bay for a while with the stuff he got from the Charles family a year before, but there’d been nothing since then, and Glenn was only getting worse.
Still, Sadie checked the cabinets in the kitchen. No medicine to speak of, not even kid’s aspirin. They were lucky that Christian was such a healthy kid; he’d never even been sick once in his life. He was suited to a rustic lifestyle.
“Sadie?” Christian asked timidly as she searched the cabinets in vain.
“Go to bed,” Sadie snapped, without turning to look at the kid.
“Okay.” Christian slinked off down the hallway. The little A-frame farmhouse only had two bedrooms, and he didn’t share with his much older sister. He had a cot in the hall closet, a bit of a depressing situation, Sadie couldn’t help thinking. But he was okay in there, the door was removed and he had plenty of blankets, thanks to his attentive mother.
Sadie sighed and knew she’d have to dash Amelia’s meager hopes. She knocked softly, respectfully, on their bedroom door. Amelia answered. Sadie said, “I’m sorry, we don’t…”
Amelia sighed. “Yeah, I knew that,” she admitted. “He’s trying to sleep. I’m gonna make him some of that tea.”
“I can make it,” Sadie offered. She thought she’d put a little bud in it and let it steep, that’d knock the old man out if the moonshine hadn’t already done it.
“No, I can do it,” Amelia said, slipping out of the bedroom. “Actually, could you come with me?”
“Uh, sure,” Sadie said. She followed Amelia back down the hall to the kitchen. She leaned against the counter, feeling useless, as Amelia put the old copper kettle on, using the last of the day’s water. She took Sadie’s suggestion and boiled some weed in it. She got out the little box of teabags, made by Mrs. Charles. Sadie liked the stuff, and she wondered if it didn’t have a little weed in it, too.
When Amelia had the kettle going, she looked down and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t think there’s much we can do,” Sadie said. Amelia looked at her, her eyes wide with fear and hurt. “I’m sorry,” Sadie said, only meaning it a little bit. “But if he’s sick…there’s no way to help him.”
“There’s no doctor in La Ronge?”
“People down there, and everywhere, are barely making it as it is,” Sadie reminded her, and Amelia knew this perfectly well. “Look, we were going to drive down there in a couple of days for supplies, anyway. I’ll just go by myself…”
“What?” Amelia gaped at her, clearly horrified at the idea.
“I’ve been tons of times. You know that,” Sadie reminded her. She felt both annoyed and touched at Amelia’s concern. I didn’t know she cared so much, she thought sarcastically. But she reassured Amelia. “I’m a great shot with the rifle.”
“Yeah,” Amelia agreed, nodding. She’d seen Sadie practice with Glenn in the yard. Amelia had no interest in learning how to shoot, no interest in killing ever again.
“I’ve…I’ve shot one before,” Sadie added. “It was off of the road, we saw it coming. Dad pulled over and told me to make the shot. So I got out, and…I did.”
Amelia shook her head. “I can’t believe he…”
“It’s okay,” Sadie said. “I can do it if I need to. I’ll be fine. And when I’m down there, I’ll ask around about medicine.”
“Be careful.”
“I know people down there,” Sadie said. “I’ll be okay.”
Sadie went down to La Ronge the next morning, a day earlier than she and her father originally planned. It snowed quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, but the plow that Glenn installed on the truck long ago helped quite a bit. It was slow going, but Sadie pulled up to the Charles family store a couple of hours later.
Mrs. Charles was the one to let her in to the shop, doing the whole peephole bit before ushering her inside. “You’re by yourself today?” she said, frowning with disapproval.
“My dad’s not doing so well,” Sadie said. “His cough is terrible. Do you have anything, anything at all?”
But Mrs. Charles was already shaking her head before Sadie finished asking her question. “I’m sorry,” she said. “No medicine. My husband, he cannot eat anything.”
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said. Mr. Charles was a decent man. He’d been looking out for her little family for years. She actually felt worse about his being sick than about her own father’s worsening illness.
“The boys went down to the city to ask around,” Mrs. Charles said. “I hate so much when they go. I can’t believe you made the drive by yourself,” she scolded.
“I’m the only one who can, I guess,” Sadie said.
“Let’s get your things and set you up,” Mrs. Charles suggested. “I’ll give you plenty of my tea, it might help the cough.”
“Thank you,” Sadie said. She and the lovely, dark woman, strong like her daughter, unloaded the truck and got down to business.
In the middle of their transaction, when Sadie asked about soap, Mrs. Charles suddenly beamed. “You won’t believe what Remy got,” she said. She went to the back room without another word. Sadie waited at the front counter. She hoped they’d gotten their hands on some soap with better moisturizer. The cheap shit dried her skin out, even in the summertime.
Mrs. Charles came back, presenting a bottle of shampoo. Sadie hadn’t seen shampoo since she was a kid. She remembered using her mother’s shower in her new apartment in Iowa City, after she moved out of their family home and left Glenn behind. Her mother used a shampoo with a strong floral scent.
The one that Mrs. Charles presented was citrus-scented. “Smell it,” she insisted, thrusting the bottle under Sadie’s nose. She complied. It was pleasant, and for a moment, it took her back to another time.
“How much?” Sadie asked.
“We only have a few bottles…”
“Mrs. C, I gave you a quarter pound of weed today,” Sadie reminded her. “Remy told me how much that’s worth. So, how much for the shampoo?”
Mrs.
Charles wasn’t such a hard bargainer, and she smiled and added the bottle to Sadie’s supplies. Sadie left with plenty of food to supplement their potatoes and onions and eggs throughout the next month or so, a couple of gallons of gas, half a spool of black thread, three dozen bundles of wood, regular cheap soap, and the shampoo.
For some reason, Sadie was very excited about the shampoo. She was so excited, she forgot to go up and visit Manny. Shampoo was something they hadn’t had in so long. Such a little thing, and yet…all she could think about what how pleased Amelia would be.
When Sadie got back, she found Amelia and Christian sitting together in the living room by the fireplace. “Hi,” she said.
Amelia was clearly relieved when she looked up. “How’d it go?”
“I got a decent haul,” Sadie said, working to hide her smile.
“I’ll help,” Amelia said, rising to her feet. “Stay here,” she instructed her son.
“Okay, Mommy,” Christian said. He was playing with one of the few plastic toys they’d ever been able to find for him. A figurine of some kind of superhero, but Sadie couldn’t remember who it was.
Amelia took in the boxes of food and household supplies while Sadie stacked the wood by the door. In the kitchen, as Amelia put the food in the pantry, Sadie looked on with her hands in the pockets of her loose jeans, waiting for Amelia to notice the surprise.
Amelia took out the bottle as she was putting aside the black thread. “What’s this?” she asked. She looked at the faded label. “Oh, wow!”
“I don’t know if there’s an expiration date…”
“I doubt that’d matter too much,” Amelia said. She held the bottle to her nose and sniffed. “That’s nice.”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Amelia said, “Take off that bandana and try it out.”
“Nah,” Sadie said. “I got it for you.”
“For me?” Amelia’s cheeks flushed for a moment. Sadie couldn’t hold back her smile then.
“Yeah,” Sadie said. She felt her face get warm, too. “I mean, my hair’s just short, you know, and you’ve grown yours out…”
In Another Life Page 4