In Another Life

by Liesel Browning

  As Sadie and Amelia stood on the lawn outside the lab and watched Christian ride up and down the street, Amelia took Sadie’s arm. “Hey,” she said. “You’re really quiet today.”

  “I’ve got some stuff on my mind,” Sadie said, shaking her head.

  Amelia laced her fingers with Sadie’s. “I talked to one of the interns in there,” she said. “He said the last exam they gave Christian showed no trace of the virus.”

  Sadie turned to her lover. “Are you serious?”

  Amelia nodded, biting her lower lip. “They said in a couple of weeks, he’ll get to leave as long as…as long as he keeps coming up negative. They, uh, they want him quarantined until then.”

  “No more visits?” Sadie looked over at her brother, who was heading up a slope in the road so he could coast back down. “Just two weeks, though. Then he can go home.” She chuckled. “You and Zach’ll get your house back.”

  “It’ll probably be a different one,” Amelia pointed out.

  “Yeah, but still.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Amelia said. “That’d be really great, to have a house again.” It wasn’t like there was much advantage to being in the apartments anymore, anyway, since they couldn’t stay the night together. “But every time I imagine it,” Amelia went on, “It’s the three of us living there.”

  “If only,” Sadie said.

  Amelia wanted to go back in and ask the friendly intern a couple of questions. As Sadie stood alone, watching Christian, he suddenly beckoned to her. “Come on!” he called, and Sadie followed him as he pedaled around to the back of the building.

  When Sadie caught up with him, Christian was off his bike. “I wanted to tell you something,” he said, his voice low.

  “What’s up?” Sadie asked, matching his tone. “I heard you were getting out of here soon.”

  Christian nodded. “Yeah. And before I do, I’m gonna figure out what’s going on around here.”

  His determination more than his words surprised Sadie. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I heard those noises again the other night,” Christian whispered. “I snuck out of my room and went down the corridor. It was all dark, and the only light was coming from this lab at the very end…”

  “Chris, hold up,” Sadie hissed. “Are you trying to get into trouble?”

  Christian shrugged. “Nobody was around.”

  “You’re the one who said someone’s watching all the time…”

  Christian scowled a little. “Well, I didn’t get caught,” he said, his voice rising just a little. “Do you wanna hear what I saw, or what?”

  Sadie blinked at her little brother for a moment. He’d never spoken to her so boldly before. “Well, fine,” she said, her curiosity getting the better of her. She gestured to him to pick up his bike, and they continued their walk around the lab, talking in low voices. “What’d you see?”

  Christian shook his head. “It was so messed up,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it was. It was, like, this baby, but…but it wasn’t. It looked like it was…I don’t know. One of its eyes was coming out…”

  “That’s the thing that was making that…that noise?” Sadie asked.

  Christian shushed her; Sadie hadn’t realized that her voice had risen in her eagerness. She wondered, again, what could be watching them, listening in on their conversation. She’d looked around the inside and outside of the building on her last few visits, but hadn’t seen anything that reminded her of security cameras from another life. Whatever Christian knew, or sensed, she just had to trust him.

  Christian nodded in response to Sadie’s loud question. “These white coats were all in there, and they took the…the thing and put it down on this table. I think they were holding it down, I couldn’t see, and I saw them take some of those giant needles, like the same ones they used in my treatments, I guess, and…”

  Sadie cringed. “Oh, God.”

  “Do you know what it was, Sadie?” Christian whispered.

  Sadie looked at her brother and shook her head. She couldn’t say for sure. But over the next few days, she came up with a few ideas.

  “I’m gonna figure it out,” Christian said again, with that same determination.

  “Don’t take risks,” Sadie said, the same lecture she’d given his mother. “You’re gonna be out of here in a couple of weeks. That’s like nothing. Just keep to yourself and don’t give them a reason to keep you here any longer.” Christian furrowed his brow and looked away. “Don’t you wanna go to school?” Christian shrugged.

  Amelia came walking towards them from the other direction. “Hey!” she called. “Are you done riding?”

  Christian nodded and walked his bike to his mother. “I’m a little tired,” he said. “Can we go upstairs?”

  “Sure,” Amelia said. “Do you ever talk to that intern Gavin? He said things are looking good for you to be out of here very soon.”

  “The staff don’t talk to us all that much,” Christian admitted. Sadie trailed behind her brother and his mother as they walked back upstairs, leaving Christian’s funky bike on the rack in the front.

  In the corridor on the busy virus floor, Sadie saw Sophie in her white lab coat, looking over a clipboard as she stood in front of a curtained lab window. As Sadie walked by, she stared Sophie full in the face until the intern felt her eyes on her. Sophie looked up, her dark eyes widening as Sadie glared. It was her fault. She was the reason Manny was leaving.

  Sadie would rethink this later, reminding herself that Johnny was already making plans to leave, that Manny’s expulsion only moved the matter along. And she thought, what were they doing now? They’d all gone to work that day, surely. Everyone checked in each morning at their job assignments, and if someone didn’t turn up, they’d send someone to that person’s home to check up. Sadie wondered what happened when Amelia had a dark day (few and far between as they were). Would she even be able to say anything to whoever they sent? Would that person stand over Amelia in her bedroom and understand what was happening? Amelia wasn’t the only one in SC with a dark past, after all.

  Sadie knew Sophie, young Sophie, had a rough childhood herself. But still. What excuse did that give her to fuck with everybody’s lives around here?

  Sadie broke her stare and followed her lover to Christian’s room. As usual, there was a pile of comic books and hand-drawn pictures on the small table in the corner. Christian settled into the armchair, and Amelia sat down and examined his drawings.

  Sadie took a seat on the bed. “Bet you won’t miss this place,” she said.

  “Maybe some of the other patients,” Christian said, lounging back in his seat. The armchair was similar to one that was in most SC homes. Another handmade furnishing, this one finished with recycled leather. It had the same cracked appearance as the chair in Vanessa’s office. Sadie tried not to think about that as she talked with her brother.

  “You’ll make a lot of friends at school, I bet,” she said. “School’s great, I used to love school.” But Christian only frowned at this.

  Amelia held up one of the drawings. It had some of the big flowers that Sadie once found so impressive in the garden. “This is very pretty,” she said.

  “Did you know those flowers are fake?” Sadie asked.

  Amelia chuckled. “Of course they are,” she said. “I don’t think hibiscus grow in Canada.”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” Sadie said.

  Amelia frowned a little, and Sadie realized that she’d snapped a little. “I guess it’s not important,” she said. “They’re still pretty to look at, though. Like a picture. Right, Christian?” Her son nodded in solemn agreement.

  When they left a little while later, Amelia giving her son a hug that she hoped would last him a couple of weeks, Sadie apologized in the stairwell. “I didn’t mean to bark at you.”

  Amelia took her lover’s hand. “It’s just two weeks,” she said. “And then he’ll come back to us.” Sadie nodded. “
We’ll get a house again, and you can come by in the evenings…”

  “What about Zach?” Sadie asked.

  Amelia shook her head. “He’s home when he has to be. That’s about it these days.”

  As Sadie rode beside her lover on their way home, she thought of the little scenario she was proposing. She’d get to play house with her real family…until nine o’clock each night. Then, she’d go back to her apartment. Where she’d be alone.

  Sadie almost told her lover about Johnny’s plan. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Amelia. She just didn’t want to risk getting the Charles family, the other people in her life who were so important to her, into any trouble. She wanted them to get away. And there was a part of her that wished she was going along.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next morning at the auto shop, Sadie was already working under the hood on an alternator replacement when she started hearing about a missing armored truck. Sadie always kept to herself at work, of course, and didn’t indulge in gossip, but she kept an ear on it as she worked, not entirely focused on her task. An armored truck had gone missing from the storage garage, a warehouse that was adjacent to the auto shop. It was one of the few places in SC that was kept locked, but some of the mechanics had a key to the padlock. Including Sadie.

  Her mind was buzzing as she put two-and-two together. How her husband got his hands on an armored truck, she couldn’t imagine. But she didn’t think it was too much of a stretch to link him to the missing vehicle.

  Sadie wasn’t too surprised when her supervisor, Helen, approached her about an hour before lunch break. “Sade,” she said in a low voice, “A couple of council members want to see you.” Her friend looked anxious.

  Sadie nodded, working to keep her face neutral. “I’ll get Chester on this,” Helen added.

  “It should just need an oil change now,” Sadie said. She walked slowly to the auto shop entrance, ignoring the eyes of the other mechanics that turned to watch her. She kept her face stony and neutral as she approached the council members.

  There were seven members on the Sanctuary Coast community council, down to six after Vanessa’s dismissal. Sadie knew all of them at least on sight, of course. They all frequently stood at the front of the church on Sunday morning, discussing community issues and, lately, new enforcements to the rules.

  Sadie had heard a lot about Councillor Nancy from Vanessa, who was not her biggest fan. Nancy was quite a bit younger than the other council members. Sadie guessed that she’d hardly finished high school when the war began. She was a pillar of the community by virtue of her uterus. She was tied with Pastor Steve’s now-single wife for the number of healthy children she’d borne. She was married to one of SC’s founders, who’d served on the council before her, but when he died, she stepped up in his place.

  According to Vanessa, no one questioned it when Nancy had a baby ten months after her husband’s death. “Everyone just acted like it was his,” she told her friends with a shrug. “Hey, a baby came out of it, so what’s it matter, right?”

  Sadie nodded to Nancy and to the other council member, the man who was supposedly the true father of Nancy’s fifth child. Patrick, or “ugly fuck” as Manny called him, wasn’t ugly just because of his natural features. He also had a nasty scar that ran along the left side of his forehead, like his head was bashed in and stitched back up by an amateur. His oversized nose was crooked, too. It must have been a nasty fight.

  “Good morning,” Sadie said. “How can I help you?”

  Nancy’s smile was too wide. “Sadie,” she said. “I guess you heard about a missing armored truck?”

  Sadie shrugged. “I heard a couple of things here and there,” she said. “Are you questioning everybody? I couldn’t tell you anything.”

  “I think you may be able to tell us something,” Patrick cut in. “Did you see your husband this morning?”

  “Uh, no,” Sadie answered truthfully. “Johnny works out at the farm, I just assumed he left early for harvest…”

  “Harvest is finished,” Patrick snapped. “I think you know that.”

  Nancy took the reins with her huge smile. “I think we should go discuss this at the council building,” she suggested.

  “But I…” Sadie pointed into the auto shop.

  “We spoke with your supervisor,” Nancy said. She reached out, as though to put a hand on Sadie’s arm, but she stopped herself. A lot of people in SC didn’t respond well to unwarranted touching. She instead gestured down the road. “We’ll ride with you,” she said.

  Sadie followed the two council members as they rode their bikes to the east side of town. Sadie’s heart was racing, and she focused on breathing steadily, staying cool. This was the reason why Johnny wouldn’t tell her anything. She just had to tell them as much as she knew…nothing at all.

  When they parked in front of the building, Patrick went in ahead of them. Nancy waited for Sadie at the bottom of the steps. “We won’t keep you longer than we need to,” she said. “We’re just trying to put some pieces together here.”

  “Do you think my husband has anything to do with the missing truck?” Sadie asked as they went inside. Nancy led her to the second floor. “I never gave him my key.” This was the absolute truth, too, though Sadie wouldn’t have been surprised if Johnny snuck it out of her jumpsuit at one point. But she couldn’t recall a time when it was missing. She never lost any of her things.

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Nancy said, her placating voice dripping with honey. “You can tell us all about it in here.” She led her into an office, one that was across from Vanessa’s old one. Sadie noticed that the door to Vanessa’s was open, everything cleared out. She wondered if they meant for her to see that.

  Patrick already sat at the small table. Sadie was meant to sit across from him, and found herself facing down the two council members. Sadie was too young to be familiar with the “good cop, bad cop” method, but they worked that on her as Nancy smiled and Patrick scowled.

  Apparently, the questioning needed to take well over an hour. Sadie got enough clues to figure out what her husband was up to in the weeks leading up to the curfew. He’d somehow gotten access to a key to the garage, though Sadie continued to deny that she’d given hers to him. He was in cahoots with a guard named Tim, who let him take the armored car and drive out of SC on several occasions. Where he went, the council was apparently still trying to figure out.

  They’d pieced all this together when the truck was reported missing. They knew Manny was gone, Hank and Dina, too. “They have a child with them, Sadie,” Nancy reminded her. “If you know anything that can help us to help them…”

  “Manny came to see me a couple of nights ago,” Sadie said. “She told me about her expulsion hearing. You don’t care about helping her.”

  “But the child…”

  “I’m just as shocked by all this as anyone,” Sadie insisted. “I’ve known Manny for a long time. And Johnny is…he’s my husband.” She sat back. The shock she felt was very real, but it also helped maintain her innocence in front of the council members. She just couldn’t believe they’d pulled something like this off.

  Nancy stood up. “Let me walk you home,” she said. “They’ll understand down at the auto shop. You need to get some rest.”

  “I’ll make it,” Sadie said. “And…and I do want to help. I really don’t know anything. I don’t.”

  Nancy smiled, and it wasn’t such a freakish grin. And Patrick’s look seemed to soften as well, just a little. Sadie had them off her back…for now.

  *

  But it was only a week later that Pastor Travis and Nancy came to Sadie’s apartment. She was on the couch with Amelia. More accurately, Amelia was on her knees between Sadie’s spread legs, trying to make her lover feel better. And even though Sadie was worried about the Charles family, some of the only friends she’d ever really had, Amelia was doing a damn good job.

  Sadie let out a moan just as a knock came at the door. Amelia kep
t at it at first, and Sadie was getting into it, pumping her hips in time with her lover’s eager tongue, but they froze when they heard the knocking again.

  “Shit,” Amelia whispered. She hopped up and dashed for the bathroom.

  Sadie pulled up her pants and wiped her forehead as she went to the door. She bit back an irritated groan when she saw who it was through the peephole. She opened her door just a crack. “Good afternoon,” she said.

  Pastor Travis’s friendly smile was more convincing than Nancy’s, but he held no charms with her. “Hi, Sadie,” he said. “We wanted to stop by and see how you were doing.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said. “Thanks. I’m okay. I was just, uh, getting ready to have dinner with a friend…” She was eager for Amelia to get back to her eating, at least.

  “We won’t take much of your time,” Nancy said, which was a lie, just like it was before. “Could we come in?”

  “Sure,” Sadie said. Shit, shit, she thought as she let the pastor and the councillor into her apartment. It’s not that her place was messy or anything, and any contraband, like the big bag of weed and the last bottle of moonshine, were well hidden. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s just that she simply didn’t want them there.

  And yet, there they were, sitting down on her couch, examining the photographs on the walls. “Are these of your family?” Nancy asked.

  Sadie nodded. “Manny held on to them for us before we got here,” she said pointedly.

  Amelia broke the awkward tension (or perhaps contributed to it) by coming down the hallway, slowly, shy at the sight of the visitors. “Hi,” she said sheepishly, coming to stand beside Sadie.

  “Hello, Amelia,” Pastor Travis said, with a warmth Sadie almost felt. The kid had charisma, Sadie had to give him that. “We were just checking in with Sadie.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Amelia said.

  “You’re very kind to make sure your friend isn’t alone,” Nancy added. There was a strange twist to her smile.

  “Sadie’s more than my friend,” Amelia said, and Sadie felt her heart begin to race. Amelia smiled. “She’s my family.”