I opened my backpack and took out the deviled ham, peeled back the pull-tab, and used my tongue to pry out the juicy, salty contents, gulping it down like a ravenous, cannibalistic pig. I chuckled to myself, thinking about how I had outwitted the hog-ghosts by eating canned pork.
After I ate, I pulled out the field guide and began to leaf through it, pausing when I recognized the bark of a tree I had passed or a particular kind of nut I had stepped over on my way through the woods. The clues were few at this time of year since the leaves and fruits were mostly gone, but I was able to identify trees with distinctive bark like sycamore (pale and white like it’s sick), shagbark hickory (shaggy), and paper birch (papery). I also easily identified pine trees because of their needles. I read in the guide that pine needles can be used to make a tea that is an excellent source of vitamin C. I decided to collect some pine needles, acorns, and walnuts to take home to supplement my canned food diet.
One page of the field guide especially caught my attention. It described how the inner bark of the white willow contains salicin, which can be used in place of aspirin for various aches and pains. Maybe that would help Irvine, I thought, and I made it my mission to find a willow tree to harvest the pain reliever for my tortured brother. In the margin, Aunt Helen had written in barely legible scribbles—good for arthritis—as if she had actually tried it.
As I searched for willows, I thought about sweet Aunt Helen and how she was still giving me what I needed. I remembered her as a kind, down-to-earth old lady with an ample bosom that seemed to engulf me as she hugged me. Even though I enjoyed the hug and craved that simple act of connection, I felt I could suffocate if the hug went on too long. I’m sure Irv enjoyed it much more than I. He always wore a goofy grin when he resurfaced from one of her hugs.
I realized in the woods that day that Aunt Helen had been the only bright spot to otherwise miserable visits to the hog farm. She had fed us, stroked our meager funny bones, and showed us some of the old ways, like “putting up” fruits and vegetables and dehydrating meat. More importantly, she had made Irv and me feel like we belonged to an extended family, and that is something I cherish to this day even though that feeling died with her and Grammy.
It took a some time and hiking to finally locate a stand of willows by a little creek trickling through the woods. I chose the biggest, healthiest-looking one and carefully peeled back a piece of the bark. The inner bark was pinkish white. I stripped off a good amount and stowed it in the backpack. I also found pine needles and nuts to add to my harvest.
It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to sink behind the tress. I decided I should probably head back home, so I reluctantly put the setting sun behind me and headed east. As I walked, I wondered if anyone would have missed me since I was gone longer than I had realized and I hadn’t told anyone that I was leaving. I was concerned that Mom would be worried about me. Wishful thinking, perhaps, as I didn’t really believe she would come out of her fog enough to even know I was missing. At least Irvine would be concerned, I was sure.
It was nearly dark when I made it back home. Irvine was waiting for me on the stoop and rose to meet me halfway across the yard as I hurried past the hog pen. He didn’t say anything, merely stopping in front of me and looking me over. When he was satisfied that I was unharmed, he turned and headed back to the house. He didn’t need to say anything or even to hug me for me to know that he cared about me. He was the only one who had even noticed that I was gone.
Later that evening, I made him a steaming cup of tea from the inner bark of the willow. He didn’t ask why or say that it helped him in any way, but I felt that I had paid him back for his concern for me. I hoped it at least helped him sleep without pain for a while.
Chapter 6
Town
Early in December, Irv decided he wanted to walk to town and asked me to go with him. The odd look in his eyes and the tremor in his voice led me to believe he was desperately hoping to score some drugs in town. Part of me hoped he would, if only to ease his withdrawal pain and make him somewhat happy again. But mostly I hoped the ‘ice’ had all melted with the sun’s fury on PF Day.
We walked at a brisk pace matched by the bracing wind blowing against our backs, past abandoned vehicles and eerily quiet farms. While I felt invigorated by the clean crisp sweetness of the chilly air, I could hear Irv’s teeth chattering and looked over to see him shivering despite Uncle Owen’s fur-lined hat and voluminous coat, which wrapped around Irv one-and-a-half times.
To keep his mind off his suffering, I started a conversation, rather one-sided as usual. “Do you ever think of getting away? From them, I mean.” I wasn’t sure whether by ‘them’ I meant Mom and Dad, the hogs, or the ghosts—probably a culmination of all of them. I decided to let Irv draw his own conclusions though.
“Yeeaah.” He drew out the word like he was reluctant to let it go. It had a little lilt at the end, which I took to mean he wanted to know more of what I was thinking. Either way, I was going to tell him.
“We could move back in with Lori and Bob. Or maybe find a place of our own in town.” I wiggled my raised eyebrows to make the ideas more tempting. It didn’t work.
“He’d just come to get us back. He needs help on the farm.” Wow, the most words he’d said in months and they were to dash my hopes and dreams. But I knew he was right.
When we got to town, I followed Irv around like a puppy as he visited his dealers, trying to score some relief. All said the same thing—the ice had run out shortly after PF Day and there was no way to get any more. The best bet, they told him, was to make some alcohol by fermenting grain or fruit. It would take several days, but it was something to look forward to at least. The last guy we visited gave Irv step-by-step instructions for which Irv gave him a wad of cash. Those dealers knew how to get money from the junkies even without selling them drugs. I would have given the knowledge away for free if I had known about it.
We visited Bob and Lori just to say hello. Lori kept wringing her hands, saying she felt bad that she couldn’t offer us anything to eat. I told her to come visit us on the farm to get some pork and canned goods, which made her start to cry. I imagined it was because the tables had turned so drastically—once they were the ones we could count on for stability and the normal necessities of life, but now they would have to rely on us.
Bob, who worked for the electric company, told us about his trip to Kansas City to find parts to fix the blown transformers right after PF Day and the chaos that had already begun to engulf that metropolis. He told about riots and assaults and murders, as if the thirst, starvation, and diseases were not enough to demoralize the already traumatized population. But there was more. Rampant, out-of-control fires, lack of sanitation, and the release of prisoners and the mentally ill put even more stress on the inhabitants of the city. Bob estimated that half the city’s population wouldn’t survive the winter if electricity wasn’t restored soon. He added solemnly that there were not enough parts to fix the power grid soon though, since the whole country had been affected. It was the first time we heard that the power failure was at least countrywide and that it was going to be quite a while before the power was back on. It made me start thinking about long-term survival.
After that, Irv and I walked around town to see what was going on. The houses were dark and seemed to huddle forlornly against the wind. The few businesses in our small town were closed, some with boarded-up windows to deter looters. I was beginning to think it had become a ghost town. Would I ever get away from ghosts?
Nearing the town square, we heard muffled sounds carried on the wind, like people talking but not quite, reinforcing the idea of ghosts inhabiting the town. We finally found a large group of people—real live people, not ghosts—milling around tables of wares, talking and bartering. I was more relieved then I would have thought as I don’t normally like to be around lots of people, but compared to ghosts, I’ll take people every time, even though the townspeople, many of whom I’d known most of
my life, looked more like skeletons from lack of food or zombies from the trauma of the situation than how I remembered them.
Irv now distractedly followed me, as I wandered around looking at what people were selling or trading, and listening in on conversations to get information about the electricity situation as well as some tips on survival.
At Mrs. Littleton’s table—she owns a greenhouse at the edge of town—I stopped and eavesdropped as she discussed medicinal plants with Bracken Powell’s mom, Lauren. For a few desperate moments, I daydreamed that Lauren was my real mother and that she would recognize me and want me to come live with her. She was so kind and loving and their family was so normal—the kind of normal I’d been craving all my life.
Lauren interrupted my beautiful reverie by asking if I was interested in herbs too, and it took me a second to realize that my dream hadn’t really come true, that she was just being her friendly self by including me in the conversation.
I told her that I’d like to learn more and she and Mrs. Littleton were more than happy to educate me. Mrs. Littleton even gave me a book about Missouri plants that can be used for medicinal purposes.
After a long conversation with the ladies—perhaps the longest I’d ever talked to anyone—I looked around for Irv so we could reluctantly start heading home. He wasn’t in the square, so I wandered around town until I found him a few blocks away talking to a bunch of kids from school. At my signal, he silently disengaged from the group and joined me, and like ghosts, we slipped away without anyone noticing.
When we arrived home, it was as if we’d never left, or more precisely, that we were never there in the first place, because mom acted as though she didn’t even see us at all. I had a fleeting thought that maybe we really had become ghosts.
Chapter 7
Mom
How I longed for a mother who worried over me, gave me chores and discipline, made my life pseudo-miserable like normal mothers did. Before PF Day, whenever I had heard kids complain about their mothers not letting them do something, or making them do their homework instead of hanging out with friends, or embarrassing them by showing up at school with their forgotten lunch money, or a million other things that normal mothers apparently do, I wanted to scream, “You’re so lucky your mom cares about you!”
Instead, my mother didn’t care what I did or didn’t do, whom I hung out with, whether I even had anything to eat. She relied on the ‘system’ to raise me. She did as little as she could possibly get by with to keep Irvine and me alive. There were no hugs, no bedtime stories, no tenderness for us. It was as if she wished we had never been born.
Still, I had glimpses from time to time that Mom did love us. Like the time she had to meet with my teacher at the end of my third grade year after it had been determined that I had a learning disability in math.
“As you know, Mrs. Smith, I think Taylor has enormous potential. We just haven’t been able to tap into it yet,” Mrs. Allen told Mom. I sat beside Mom, imagining my ‘potential’ spilling out of me like a giant rainbow, filling up all the dark corners of the room like multi-colored enlightenment.
“However,” she continued, “most children can multiply and divide by the end of third grade, yet Taylor is still struggling. The test results confirm what I’ve been suspecting all along: Taylor has dyscalculia.”
“So are you going to help her now?” Mom asked. “Give her a tutor or special classes or something?”
“Well now, therein lies the conundrum.” I’m sure Mom didn’t know what that meant, but she covered her vocabulary shortcomings with a steady gaze. Mrs. Allen continued. “Taylor’s IQ is very high, too high to qualify for federally-funded programming, and I’m afraid our small school district just doesn’t have the resources to help either.”
Mom’s face changed almost imperceptibly from serene listener to cold inquisitor. When she spoke, her voice matched her expression, and Mrs. Allen was taken aback. “What does IQ have to do with learning disabilities? Taylor needs help; she deserves to get help.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Smith. I totally agree.”
“Then help her,” Mom insisted.
“I’m afraid you will have to give her the extra attention she needs, Mrs. Smith. We just don’t have the resources to help her.”
“What do you do with the kids who have learning disabilities and low IQs?”
“We get money from the government for special tutors for them,” the teacher answered between lips frozen into a determined smile.
“Then it’s easy. Just let Taylor sit with the other students during their tutoring sessions. Problem solved.” And with that, Mom stood up and left the room, not even checking to see if I followed. I stole a glance at Mrs. Allen before scampering after Mom; she looked perplexed, as if not sure whether to argue the point or accept it. Then she sighed and I knew she had given up.
I started visiting the tutor during math class the next day. Although Mom never asked how I was doing in math, I did improve until I finally figured it out in the fourth grade. From then on, I never had trouble with any subject in school.
Another time the mother bear hidden inside Mom’s indifference came out was once when Child Protective Services came to visit to check up on our welfare. The social worker was a persnickety older lady who was apparently not happy with the state of my wardrobe. She made a disparaging remark about me looking like an orphan, to which Mom icily replied, “She is not an orphan; she’s my beautiful angel no matter how she’s dressed!”
I hold on to those memories like Grammy’s diamond.
As I looked at Mom now, I wondered how she had gotten old so fast. The lines on her face seemed deeper and the new hair growth since PF day was totally gray. When had she started coloring her hair to cover the gray? I knew she colored her hair, but I thought it was because she liked to change her appearance, maybe to throw off the police. I didn’t know she needed to color it. After all, she was only 34.
Now she and, in fact, many of the women in town looked like some giant Van Gogh had dipped the tops of their heads in varying shades of gray paint to use as paintbrushes for some huge impressionist work of art, which to me was almost beautiful in itself. I have always been drawn to Van Gogh’s work, not only because of his bold and quirky style, but also because of the fascinating back-story of mental illness that fueled his visions.
I’d always thought Mom was pretty, but I wasn’t so sure now. In fact, my whole idea of ‘pretty’ had changed drastically since PF Day. The girls in town that had been considered ‘pretty’ before PF Day, with their makeup, salon-styled hair, and latest fashions, now looked drab and downright homely next to girls like Skylar Tipton, a natural beauty who used to be dismissed as ho-hum because she didn’t adorn herself with all the trappings of fake beauty like the popular girls. I was glad I had always stayed true to what nature and God had given me, so I didn’t miss the beauty products. The fake beauties were now desperate for makeup and hair-styling products—so desperate they were even trading food for it.
I made a note to myself to look for any products of Mom’s or Aunt Helen’s I could find at home to give the girls next time I was in town. Not to ingratiate myself with them, but because I felt bad for envying them in the past.
Chapter 8
Sanctuary
A few days later, the suffocating atmosphere of Mom’s indifference and Dad’s paranoia got the better of me, so I headed to the woods to the west of the farm again to clear my head and escape the feeling of impending doom that had settled over our lives. As before, the woods were calming and protective, and I felt renewed hope in surviving our situation beyond the eventual return of the power grid.
When I left for the woods, I could hear Irv tinkering in one of the outbuildings—the one farthest from the house and closest to the woods. I didn’t stop to ask him what he was doing because I wanted to be alone and didn’t want to risk him deciding to accompany me, as unlikely as that was. Even though I loved my brother and felt closer to him than anyone else on
earth, he had demons of his own, and I was just tired of playing the part of Don Quixote, fighting not the imaginary giants, but the all-too-real ‘windmills’ of mental illness, addiction, and ghosts.
I was on a mission that day as well. In the book of medicinal plants that Mrs. Littleton had given me, I found one—milk thistle—that helps detoxify the liver, which is especially important for alcohol and drug abusers. It also listed dandelion plants as good for that. Since it was early winter, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find any, but it had been unseasonably warm and the grass was still green despite chilly nights and occasional cooler days—such is Missouri’s capricious weather—so I held out a little hope anyway.
As I walked slowly along the meager trail made by wild animals, I inhaled the fragrance of the woods, the essence of the earth itself. Evergreens, musty fallen leaves, and the slight musky scent of animals were such a refreshing change from the cloying scents of hogs and mental illness. Not many people realize that mental illness has an odor of its own. It’s the smell of desperation and decay, fear and isolation. As much as I loathed the odor of hogs, the smell that permeated the house with desolation was much worse.
In a small clearing, I paused to enjoy the thin light and warmth from the sun peeking between the tops of the trees, and my eyes followed a ray of sunlight to a patch of dandelion plants in the middle of the clearing. They were ragged and limp from the cold but still green, albeit a dark ashy green, so I plucked several plants, roots and all, and stashed them in my backpack. I was careful to leave a few plants so that I could come back in the spring for the new growth, which would be especially good for nutrition and medicine.
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