by Pamela Jekel
“Youngest one today.” He squatted down so that he was at Miranda’s level. “Hi, kiddo. I need you to go stand with that team over there, okay? I bet your team is going to be one of the best in the whole dorm. These bigger kids don’t know how to play good together like you do, and we’re going to have to give them time-outs, I bet. But you guys are going to get all the gold stars, right?”
A glimmer of a smile came to Miranda’s face. “Yeah.” Her voice was soft, trying to please. She glanced up at Skylar, who motioned her to go join the others. Jack took Skylar’s hand. She let him.
“She’s amazing,” he said. “She’s going to be alright.”
Now the soldiers were handing out room assignments to the kids, and Miranda held hers up like it was a prize, grinning at them. They were color-coded, so the smaller kids could easily understand the system. Miranda quickly found two girls, both a little older, who had the same color cards as she did. Without instruction, the kids seemed to know to group together with those who had identical cards, and in moments, the soldiers were moving them up the stairs to the dorm floors, the parents trailing behind. Miranda was talking excitedly to her new friends, patting one’s head and admiring her long hair.
Miranda was on the second floor with the younger children, and each floor had one dorm room for adult supervisors. They greeted the children as they reached their floor, and in the flurry of presenting Miranda’s card to a supervisor, and meeting Miranda’s new friends and their parents, Jack noticed that the soldiers were no longer present. Once the kids were delivered, they had gone back down to get more. The woman who escorted Miranda to her room said, “These dorms are really quite nice, I’m sure she’ll be comfortable here. She’ll share the room with one girl, four girls to a bathroom. You’ll see her at meals and recreation times, but no parents are allowed in the children’s dorm at any time, no exceptions.”
“What if she gets sick?” Skylar asked.
“Then she’ll be taken to the infirmary, and you’ll be notified.”
“What did you do, before?” Jack asked the woman, as they approached a door. Two cards were in the plastic slip on the outside, and the woman checked the names against Miranda’s card in her hand.
“I was a professor here. Most of us were. It was this or some other work assignment on the campus. The cafeteria workers and the janitors stayed on in their original positions, of course. They’re more valuable now than professors.”
“So these are the kids that didn’t get selected for the Program?”
“Or whose parents wouldn’t let them go. They’ll be in classes in the morning and on work detail in the afternoon, is what we know so far. But we’re still waiting to hear how this is supposed to go, too, so that’s about all I can tell you. I’m just an R.A., so I don’t get to know much.”
“R.A.?”
“Residence Advisor.” She smiled. “I can see you don’t have older kids; you’d know that.”
“None in college.” Skylar returned her smile. “But we have another son. He was selected.”
“So was mine,” the woman said, touching Skylar’s arm briefly. “So. Let’s see, Miranda, has your bag arrived?”
Miranda went to the small closet on her side of the little room, opened it, and there was her bag, with an inspection tag attached.
“They’re pretty organized,” the supervisor said.
Jack looked around, and went to the window. The parking lot was empty now, and the buses were gone, but the registration tables were still crowded. He sat on the other bed. Not too bad. The room had two twin beds, two closets, two small dressers, two little desks, a sink in the corner, and one window. An air-conditioning unit hummed at the ceiling. Another door led into the bathroom.
“You can get her settled in, and then you have to go to your own dorm. Does she have any electrical items?”
Skylar was helping Miranda unpack her bag and put her clothes in the little dresser next to her bed. “No.”
“Well, all the bags were checked, but we have to ask. No electrical items are allowed. No blow dryers, no hot plates, no electric toothbrushes.”
“I’ll bet the teenage girls hate that,” Jack said.
“I’m not too crazy about it myself,” the woman replied.
“There’s no pillow on the bed,” Skylar noticed, as she was putting the sheets on Miranda’s mattress.
“No, you put your dirty clothes in the pillowcase or do without. They provide one set of sheets, one towel, one washcloth, one blanket. That’s it. Like in the Army, I guess. On this floor, the room gets cleaned once a week, the bathroom, too. The older children do their own cleaning. Parents do their kids’ laundry. No eating or drinking in the room, and lights out at nine on this floor. Did you get your brochure?”
Jack held up a sheet of printed instructions they’d been handed at registration.
“You’re set then. I have to go and get more kids to their rooms. Be sure to sign out as you leave the dorm. Bye, Miranda. I’ll see you again for floor meeting before dinner.”
Another little girl and her parents came in the room. Miranda smiled shyly. “Hi, I’m Miranda. I’m six.”
“I’m Stacey. I’m eight,” the girl said. She turned to her parents. “She’s almost the same age that Laurie was.”
The woman’s face fell. “Yes, honey, she is.” She said to Skylar, “Our Laurie was five when she passed.”
“My son was two and a half.” Skylar went to the woman and embraced her silently. Miranda looked at the two women and then went to Stacey and took her hand.
The two husbands stood wordlessly as their wives held onto each other for comfort.
“Well.” Skylar finally let the woman go. “We should see your bathroom, girls. And then we’ll go and let you two get acquainted.”
Stacey found her suitcase in her closet, the women and their daughters inspected the spartan bathroom which would be shared by four girls, and the men introduced themselves and then stood aside, talking quietly. “You have any other kids?” Jack asked.
“No, you?”
“One. My son was selected for the Program. We just dropped him off.”
“That had to be tough,” Stacey’s father said. “Our pastor said that sending children off away from their parents was contrary to the laws of God.” He shook his head. “Don’t know if I believe that or not. I know some couples who almost broke up over it, though. Fought bitterly. I don’t know if I could do that. Send my girl away.”
“I’m not sure I should have,” Jack admitted. “Miranda was selected, too, but her mother couldn’t let her go.”
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to know for a long time what was right on that one. What have you heard?’
Jack shook his head. “Not a damn thing to speak of. Last television news I saw was a week ago. No Internet, no papers, I feel like we’re in some kind of a wartime black-out.”
He nodded. “We are. I saw that the National Guard was mixed in with the regular Army guys. They’re running the country now.”
“What about people who are on farms, with wells, out in the country? Did they come in?”
“I met some guy at the Center who came in from Athens. He had a farm and a well, but he came in anyway. Said he had four kids and couldn’t feed his family. He didn’t have any choice.”
“I felt the same way. At least here, they’ll feed the kids. But what are they going to do for food after awhile? I mean, are the trucks running? I know the airlines aren’t flying; are all the trains running? How are they going to feed all these people all over the country?”
“Well, there are a lot less of us now, that’s for sure. I heard we’ve lost about a quarter of our population.”
“Oh my God, I hadn’t heard that,” Jack said in amazement. “Is that world-wide?”
Stacey’s father shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything anymore. I feel like I did in the war. I just do what I’m told, I don’t know why, and I keep my head down and hope wha
t’s left of my family can make it.”
The women came to their husbands then, and Skylar said, “Let’s go now, while she’s distracted.” The two girls were sitting on Miranda’s bed, reading one of Miranda’s picture books together. They said goodbye to Stacey’s parents, and Skylar gave Miranda a quick hug. “Okay, honey, we’re going to go to our dorm now, and you and Stacey will meet us in a little bit for dinner, okay? The lady who brought you to your room will be picking you up for a team meeting, so you can meet the rest of your new friends, and then we’ll see you right after.”
“Okay Mom,” Miranda waved. “See you guys later!”
They slipped out the room, and Skylar leaned against the wall. “I can’t believe how she’s taking this. I thought she’d be in a heap.”
“She’s doing great. And you’re doing even better,” he said, taking her hand.
They signed out, found their way to their own dorm, picked up their bags from the loading area outside the dorm, and went to a registration desk inside. They were given their room assignment, another sheaf of instructions, and they climbed the stairs to their floor. Same room as Miranda’s, essentially, twin beds, dressers, two small closets, two desks, a sink, and a bathroom with toilet and shower to share with the adjoining room. At least it was cool and relatively quiet.
From their window, they could see Thomas Hall, where their daughter slept. The door locks had been taken out of the rooms, even the lock on the bathroom door, only round punched holes where the locks had been. Their bags had been opened and inspected, and Skylar’s electric toothbrush was missing.
“You think it’s safe to drink this water?” Skylar asked at the sink.
“It doesn’t make any sense to go to all this trouble just to make us sick,” he said. “They said it was disinfected. I have a feeling that if they’d wanted to exterminate us all, they could have done it easily enough.”
“Yeah, well they’ve made a good start at it.”
As they were putting their clothes away, there was a discreet knock at the bathroom door.
Skylar opened the door to an older couple.
“Hi,” the man said. “Guess we’re your roommates. I’m Jim Edwards; this is my wife, Judy.” They were both stocky, running to middle-aged plump, and Jack wondered how they were going to fit on the small twin beds.
They shook hands, made their introductions, and Skylar said, “Well, I guess we’ll have to work out some sort of bathroom code, with no locks on the doors.”
“Just put on the light, I guess. That’ll mean it’s occupied.”
“Come in, sit down,” Jack said, pulling up the two desk chairs around a bed. “Where you all from?”
“Calhoun, just to the north. We’ve got a few acres up there in apples.”
“But you came in anyway? Didn’t want to try to make a go of it on your own?”
“You can’t live on apples. Most of the town was emptied out. We thought about trying to make it through the winter at least, but Judy’s got diabetes, and she needs her medication, so all in all, we thought we’d be better off here.”
Judy shrugged an apology. “It’s just type-2, and it’s real manageable, but we want it to stay that way. Where you folks from?”
“Marietta,” Jack said. “I’m a mechanical engineer for Lockheed Martin, and Skylar is in management for the Holiday Inn chain.”
“Okay, professional people,” Jim nodded with approval.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “For as much good as that’ll do us here.”
“Well, education’s always a good thing.” Judy had a kind face.
“Any kids?” Skylar asked.
“Our boy is a lifer, in the Air Force, stationed over in Germany. He was, anyway. Don’t know where they’ve sent him now. We heard that Ramstein and NATO are both shut down over there.”
“You’re kidding.”
Jim shook his head. “So far as I know, most of our bases are shut down all over the world.”
“We’ve got a daughter in New York City, she’s a television announcer.” Judy’s voice was proud. “Got two adorable little grandbabies, eight and ten. Do you have kids?”
“Two,” Skylar said. “Miranda’s six, and she’s right across the lawn over there at Thomas Hall with the other kids. Our boy, Chase—“. She hesitated, looking down at her hands.
“Chase was selected for the Childrens Transport Program, you heard of that? He’s on his way to Kenya,” Jack said smoothly.
“I heard of that program,” John said. “For gifted kids. I know some parents who were desperate to get their kids into that. Well, good for him.”
“How old is Chase?” Judy watched Skylar’s eyes.
“Twelve,” Skylar said. “He’ll be thirteen by the time he gets there, I guess.”
“They take them on the train to camps, he’ll be in Savannah,” Jack added. “They teach them languages and eco-farming, and then they send them to places where they teach what they learned. Like ecology colonizers, they call it. In a month or so, he’ll sail to Africa.”
“Well, I know that was a hard choice,” Judy said. “But what an opportunity he’ll have.”
Jack nodded. “It’s sort of like the British do with their kids, send them off to boarding schools.”
“Except that he won’t be back for Christmas,” Skylar murmured.
“What did you do with your livestock? Or did you have any?” Jack changed the subject.
“We just had a few horses,” Jim said, “No cattle, dairy nor beef. The Army came and took the horses, and I don’t know what’s going on with everybody else’s stock. I guess somebody’s still feeding the chickens and such. Have you heard anything about the food here?
Jack shook his head. “Have you had word from your son or your daughter?”
“Not a thing. We always used Skype or emails, texts, cell phones, you know. The wife knows more about that stuff than I do. They say the mail’s being delivered, but it takes longer, because everything goes by ground. We’ll be back to Pony Express before long.”
“Well, now we have an address, they say we can send and receive mail. I’ll write to Chase tonight,” Skylar said. Then she looked stricken. “I didn’t even bring any stationery. I haven’t used any in so long. I don’t want to write him on the back of these rules,” she added, gesturing to the sheaf of instructions they’d received.
“I’ve got some,” Judy said, “I’ll give you a sheet and an envelope. They probably have stamps we can buy.”
“Thank you.” Skylar suddenly looked exhausted. “What time do we get to pick up Miranda?”
He shuffled through the papers. “Says five-thirty, dinner at six. Then an assembly, and the kids get a movie, and then back to the dorms. Lights out at ten.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Skylar said, “but I’ve just got to lie down for awhile. Will you excuse me?”
“Of course, of course, I’ll go get that paper and envelope for you.” Judy left the room.
Skylar went to the other bed without another word, took off her sandals, turned her back to the room, and lay down.
“She’s worn out.” Jack kept his voice low.
“We all are,” Jim said.
Judy came back in the room, set the paper on the desk, and motioned silently to her husband.
Jack went to Skylar’s bed and sat next to her, his hand rubbing her shoulder lightly. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Like what?” she asked, still facing the wall. “A glass of chilled Chardonnay? A hot bath? A decent pillow? We’re in jail. There’re not a lot of options.”
“Well, I might be able to wrangle up something—“
“I just need to be quiet now. I’ll be alright. Just let me be still.”
He went back to his own bed and lay down, closing his eyes. Two hours before they could see Miranda. He said a silent prayer to God that she was oblivious to the fear he felt.
* * *
In awhile Skylar got up, went to the bathroom, and hesitated outside
the door. She knocked softly. When there was no answer, she went in and turned on the light. When she came back, she sat down at the little desk and began to write her letter to Chase.
“What are you going to tell him?” he asked.
She paused, her pen in the air, gazing into space. “That this place is horrid, and he’s better off where he’s going.”
Jack was silent.
She turned her stare to him. “That we’re under armed guard, that we’re locked in our rooms by ten, and that we’re probably going to be worked to death and then exterminated, just like they exterminated everyone else who wasn’t going to be any good on a chain gang.”
“Well, leave a space for me to add something,” he said.
“So you can tell him how nice it all is, how it’s so much fun to be back on a college campus again, and that the air conditioning works?”
“So I can tell him the truth.”
“Ah. The truth.” She let the bitterness spill into her voice. “Well, that’ll certainly make him feel a lot better about being kicked out of the family.”
“Sky, stop it,” he said. “Please. It won’t do us any good to turn on each other. Remember what we always said? In the trenches, we’d choose each other, back to back, us against the world, right? Well, this is the time for it. You know it was a mutual decision to send him to safety, and we won’t have any clue for years if it was the right thing to do or not, but what is, is. Tell him the truth.”
She put her head down on her arm and the tears rolled silently down her cheek onto the desk.
He went to her and pulled her up into his arms. “Oh, my love. You’ve got to hold on. We still have Miranda to get through this. I can’t do it alone. Don’t make me live in this world without you.”
She gripped him tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, I hate this and I can’t do anything, and I’m just full of rage, and I’m terrified. Our lives will never ever be the same again. Hell, they won’t even be lives again!”