In Another Life

by Liesel Browning

  There were a couple of rows of bike racks near the big entrance in front. Amelia and Sadie parked their bikes and went inside together. They held hands until they came to the receptionist’s desk. The young man, a newbie in the community, looked startled to see them.

  Amelia explained why they were there. As at the security gate, the receptionist radioed for confirmation. Sadie and Amelia couldn’t hear the response clearly over the crackling line as the receptionist held the radio to his ear. He nodded to them. “They’re sending down an intern to bring you up.”

  The intern was Sophie, which made Sadie feel a lot less tense. “Nessa told me to expect you,” she said. She looked very official in her white lab coat.

  “Have you seen him?” Amelia asked as they went up a narrow stairwell to the top floor. “How is he?”

  “He should be up for taking a walk on the grounds,” Sophie said, and Sadie knew her brother would like nothing better than to get the lay of the land, especially now that he’d been moved. She thought, kind of funny, how all three of them were moved to new homes around the same time. And yet, they still weren’t together.

  “They’ve got a bunch of flowers growing in the back,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “They call it a ‘Zen garden,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

  Amelia actually laughed a little. “It’s meant to be relaxing,” she said. “People used to grow flowers all the time before. Just for enjoyment.”

  “Hmm,” was all that Sophie had to say to this. Sadie remembered what her lover meant, though. Her mother used to buy potted flowers at a nursery in Iowa City and plant them in the beds in their front yard. That was before she split with Glenn, of course. Like Sophie, she didn’t really see the point in a whole garden full of flowers, but she was curious to check it out.

  The virus treatment wing reminded Sadie even more of a hospital from back in another life. Everything was white and sterile and smelled like bleach. Scientists and interns in white coats and cloth masks and gloves went this way and that, going into patients’ rooms or hurrying down the corridor with stuff in test tubes.

  “It’s busy around here,” Sophie said, chuckling at the stunned look on Sadie’s face. “A lot of the work we’re doing is related to the treatment Christian just completed.”

  “Is he…is he cured?” Amelia asked.

  “I can only say so much,” Sophie said as she led them to Christian’s new room. “But I’ll tell you this: things are looking good. I’ve read through his treatment history, and…there’s progress.”

  But Sadie didn’t believe this when she and Amelia stepped into Christian’s private room. It was much like the one he’d had at SC’s general hospital…except there was no window. And when she saw her brother sitting in the chair in the corner, she had to swallow back a gasp. He didn’t look good at all. He’d lost more weight, and there were heavy bags under his wide eyes, the only color on his otherwise pale face.

  But he smiled as he looked up from his comic book and saw them. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “Hi, Sadie.”

  Amelia went to her son and put her arms around him, stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “I’m gonna come here as often as they let me, I promise.”

  Amelia let her son go long enough for Sadie to come forward and give the kid a brief hug. He felt tiny. It reminded Sadie of when Amelia first came to the farm all those years ago. Sadie stepped back from her little brother and had a hard time meeting his eye as she asked, “How are you?”

  Christian shrugged. “Bored. As usual.”

  “Do you know Sophie?” Amelia asked. “She’s one of the interns here. She said you can take a walk on the grounds. Do you feel up for it?”

  But Christian’s sunken eyes lit up as soon as his mother mentioned taking a walk. “Can we?” he asked. For some reason, he sought permission from his sister.

  “Yeah, let’s check out this ‘Zen garden’ she was talking about,” Sadie suggested with forced cheer. Christian might not have looked good, but he was in good spirits. And she was right, the poor kid wanted nothing more than a little fresh air.

  Sadie almost expected that they’d be hassled on the way out to the garden, but the white coats hardly spared them more than a glance. When they stepped outside, just the three of them, Amelia said, “This is nice. At the hospital, someone was always hovering.”

  “There’s guards all over the place,” Christian said.

  “Really?” Amelia looked around. But they were alone at the entrance to the garden.

  “That’s what they told us,” Christian said. “We were having rec time the other day, and one of the patients, this lady, was talking about breaking out. She got caught before she even tried it.”

  “Someone ratted her out,” Sadie suggested as they walked beneath an arch made of shrubbery. Christian only shook his head in response.

  “How do you like it here?” Amelia asked as they walked slowly, for Christian’s sake, amongst the flower beds. There were all kinds of varieties of flowers, many of which Sadie didn’t remember ever seeing before. Then again, flowers might have been just another unimportant detail that her mind allowed to slip away. But she liked the garden. It really was relaxing.

  Christian shrugged his bony shoulders. “It’s about the same as the hospital,” he said. He frowned. “Except my room doesn’t have a window. That kinda sucks.”

  “Christian,” Amelia scolded.

  “What?” the kid asked innocently. “It’s not a swear, Mom. The staff say it here.”

  “You don’t exactly see the scientists at church on Sunday,” Sadie pointed out. “That’s where it’s at. Maybe we should see about being transferred up here.”

  “I’m sure,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes. “The garden’s nice. What do you think, Christian?”

  “It’s okay,” Christian said.

  “Have you seen it already?”

  Christian shook his head. “I haven’t been outside since…I think since the last time Sadie visited.”

  Sadie frowned. “What was this new treatment like? What’d you have to do?”

  Christian frowned. “I don’t remember a lot of it.”

  “You don’t remember?” Amelia asked. She was clearly struggling to hide her alarm.

  “They’d give me these big shots in my belly button,” Christian said. It made Sadie queasy just thinking about it. “It made me really tired. So I pretty much just slept.”

  Sadie looked at her lover, who had gone as white as her son. “Hey, Chris, check out these giant flowers,” she said, to try to draw his attention away from Amelia and give her a moment to compose herself. “They’re bigger than your head!”

  After a few more minutes of wandering the garden, Christian admitted, “I feel a little tired now. Can we go back upstairs, please?”

  “Sure,” Sadie said. “Come on.” She put an arm around her brother’s shoulders and took Amelia’s hand. Amelia hadn’t said much since learning about her son’s treatment. Sadie wondered exactly what she was thinking.

  Up in Christian’s room, he got back into bed. Just as Amelia sat down in one of the chairs, a white coat came in, followed by several interns. “Clear the room, please,” the man, probably the oldest man Sadie had seen in SC besides Bob, said without looking at either one of them. The white coats surrounded Christian’s bed.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Amelia called over the hovering scientists.

  “We’ll both be here,” Sadie said, but she wasn’t sure if Christian heard them over the scientists’ talking. Sadie lingered by the doorway, hoping to hear some details about this treatment they’d been putting him through. But another intern came to the door and shut it in her face without a word.

  Sadie found her lover sitting down in the narrow stairwell, sobbing. “My poor little boy,” she cried into Sadie’s shoulder. “What are they doing to him?”

  “They’re trying to help,” Sadie said, but she wasn’t sure how.

&n
bsp; “Shots in his belly button,” Amelia sniffed, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “That’s how they used to treat rabies, you know.”

  “Maybe that means they learned something about how the virus, like, works,” Sadie offered up, feeling lame.

  “An aunt of mine got bit by a raccoon once when she was a kid,” Amelia said. “She said the rabies shots hurt a lot. My poor baby,” she whispered, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Sadie held her lover, kissed her forehead, and rocked her gently as they sat in that narrow stairwell together. When Amelia was finally ready to go, Sadie helped her to her feet and supported her down the stairs.

  *

  Over the next few weeks, Sadie’s life fell into a new pattern. She now looked forward to leaving work at the auto shop because it meant meeting up with her lover and going to visit with Christian, before going back to her apartment and spending the evening together. Sadie was actually happy, for a while, that their cute little houses were taken away and they’d been relegated to the apartment block. Sadie’s place had become their own little love nest.

  Because Johnny stayed away more often than not. Sadie didn’t bother to question him about what he was doing. If he didn’t have the decency to give her a “heads-up”, then she wouldn’t go out of her way to try to help him. She enjoyed a little moonshine like any of their friends, but it wasn’t worth risking everything over.

  And besides, for her own selfish reasons, she liked it when Johnny stayed away. That meant she had Amelia all to herself for the night. Whether they spent the evening making love in Sadie’s bed, or listening to SC’s lone radio station in the living room, Sadie enjoyed her time with her lover. She found that she couldn’t take her hands off of her, and Amelia certainly didn’t seem to mind.

  Sadie was so absorbed in spending time with her lover, trying to rebuild the life they’d once shared together, that she declined Manny’s next party invitation. Manny made a point of dropping by the auto shop during her lunch break. Sadie was on break as well, enjoying the early autumn weather as she ate by the wall.

  Sadie stood up when she saw Manny approaching, stuffing the last bit of egg salad sandwich into her mouth. Amelia made it for her. Sadie sat at the table that morning and watched her lover make her lunch. It was perfect.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “You never stop by anymore,” Manny said. “We can hardly get rid of Johnny.”

  Sadie was relieved to hear this. “He’s been at your place a lot?” she said. “He’s been really tight-lipped with me.”

  “About every other night,” Manny said, and Sadie nodded. That didn’t explain all the other nights, did it? “Listen, though, I miss you. You’ve been all wrapped up in Amelia…”

  Sadie shook her head. “We’ve been seeing Christian at the lab,” she said.

  “How is he?” Manny asked. “How’d he like the bike?”

  “He loved it,” Sadie said. “And he’s looking a lot better. He rode around on the road in front of the lab a little bit, it was great.” Sadie tried not to tear up as she thought of her brother on his ridiculous bike, looking almost like a normal kid, like any kid she might have played with in her neighborhood coming up. When’d she become so sentimental?

  “You should have come with to see him ride it,” Sadie said.

  Manny shrugged. “I don’t think Amelia would’ve liked it.”

  “Amelia wouldn’t mind,” Sadie insisted. “She’s really grateful.”

  “She hates me,” Manny said. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  Sadie shook her head. “She doesn’t hold that against you,” she said. “She put it all on me. As she should have.” When Amelia figured out that Sadie was sleeping with Manny behind her back, she’d thrown herself into life in SC, wanting to build a separate one from Sadie, she knew. Because someone (perhaps it was Pastor Steve, that smug, hypocritical asshole) told her the same thing that Manny believed: that it was circumstances, not fate, that brought them together. That they weren’t each other’s destinies.

  But they’d both realized it again, and things were good. And Sadie wanted everything to be good with Amelia and her friends. And yet, when Manny said she was having a party at her place that weekend, Sadie was hesitant. Manny was right; she hated to give up any time alone with her lover.

  “You can bring her along,” Manny said. “I want us to be friends, too, okay?”

  “You want to sleep with her, don’t you?” Sadie asked, to lighten the mood. Manny only laughed.

  “You have to come,” Manny insisted. “I’m trying to cheer up Vanessa. She’s really bummed out.”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “She told me Sophie’s getting married.” Manny rolled her eyes. “It was only a matter of time, though, eh?”

  “She should’ve known,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “Whose she getting married to?”

  “Vanessa wouldn’t say,” Manny said. “It’s not like we’re not gonna find out soon enough.”

  “I guess,” Sadie said. She saw that the other mechanics were heading back into the shop. “Lunch is over,” she said. “I’ll see about the party, okay? I’ll let you know.”

  Manny frowned. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Hey, where’s your bike?” Sadie asked. Her friend had a long walk back to work.

  “I blew out a tire,” Manny said with a shrug. “I need to replace it.”

  Sadie chuckled. “You work in the bike shop. I’d think that’d be the first thing on your list this morning.”

  Manny shrugged. “I felt like taking a walk,” she said. “Please come,” she added. “Johnny got us this great bud.”

  “What, did he get it off that guy from the farm?” Sadie asked. Sadie knew of one field-hand who grew a couple of plants at home. It wasn’t like Sadie could do it anymore, not without her own private yard.

  “Um, I’m not sure,” Manny said. She shrugged. “I’m coming to your place tomorrow evening,” Manny warned as she backed away. “You better be ready to say ‘yes’ to the party.”

  Sadie said nothing, just waved goodbye to her friend and went into the auto shop, hoping the afternoon would rush by so she could be with Amelia again.

  Sadie was relieved when Manny never came around the following evening as she and Amelia hung out alone at her place. She decided not to tell her lover about the party invitation and just spend Saturday alone together, as she’d planned. That evening, they lounged on the couch, Amelia’s head resting in Sadie’s lap, Sadie lazily stroking her hair, as they listened to the radio. SC had one station, broadcasting a low frequency that was really only picked up by people within the community’s walls. They played a random selection of music, perhaps limited to old CDs and records salvaged after the war.

  “I love when they play songs I remember,” Amelia sighed, closing her eyes as an old pop ballad played.

  “I thought you’d like the gospel singing hour,” Sadie teased. A couple of times a week, some churchy folks with minimal musical talent busted out their acoustic guitars and played live on the air. Sadie kept the radio off during those scheduled times.

  Amelia snorted. “They actually wanted me to join them for a session.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sing.”

  “Because I never do,” Amelia giggled. She shifted for a moment before she looked up at her lover. “I remember this one time, I was having a bad day and Christian was like, six months old, I think. And Glenn was outside or something and he was just crying and crying and crying, and…I just couldn’t do anything about it.”

  Sadie nodded. She knew what Amelia was going to say, but she let her lover talk on. “And you finally come in, and you’re annoyed, I’m sure, but you try to soothe Christian. I guess you got him a clean diaper from the line and changed him and everything, and as you’re putting him back in his crib, I hear you kind of singing to him.”

  Sadie was blushing, but she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I reme
mber that.”

  “Maybe you thought I couldn’t hear you,” Amelia said. “But I could. It was nice.”

  “I’m a terrible singer,” Sadie insisted.

  “Yeah, you were pretty terrible,” Amelia giggled. “But it was sweet.”

  Sadie leaned down and kissed her lover softly. “Don’t expect me to sing to you.”

  “I think you will,” Amelia said. “If I really wanted you to sing, you would.”

  “I can do something else much better,” Sadie said, kissing her again. Amelia sat up and straddled her lover’s lap. They didn’t even bother to move into the bedroom. They made love on the sofa, the radio playing comforting, familiar tunes in the background.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sadie was relieved to find Johnny on the couch when she got up early on Sunday morning. She hadn’t seen him all week. Maybe the council wasn’t aware of his activities, whatever they happened to be, but they’d notice if he skipped out on church.

  Sadie started the kettle before waking up her husband. He stank of moonshine, and he groaned and smashed his pillow over his head when Sadie spoke to him. “Fine,” Sadie said. “It’s not on me if the council gets on your ass.”

  Sadie went back to her bedroom, where Amelia was sitting up, in no hurry to leave their love nest. “Johnny’s here?” she asked.

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “He’s hungover. He’s gonna be way fun at church today.”

  “That’s such a shame, when you usually have such a great time at church,” Amelia teased. Sadie got back in bed and put her hands on her lover’s face, kissing her. She might have gotten into it, if the kettle hadn’t started to whistle.

  Somehow, Johnny managed to throw himself together by the time Amelia and Sadie were ready to head out the door. “We’ll wait a couple minutes for you,” Sadie offered.