After the Fall

by Robin Summers

  It makes me want to cry. Instead, I find myself smiling.

  The truck stops beside the north barn, where we will be eating dinner later this evening. Instead of taking me directly to the dorm, Kate slides out of the truck and heads around to the back of the north barn. I follow, not quite knowing what else to do and having no place better to be.

  Kate rounds the corner and leans up against the side of the barn, her arms folded across her chest. Her head slips slightly to the right, and I can tell she would be content to stand there like that forever, just watching.

  There are seven in all, five boys and two girls. None of them can be older than twelve, and most seem far younger. There are a few older kids too, teenage boys who appear to be acting in some sort of supervisory capacity but who are failing miserably at actually supervising.

  They run with abandon, their little legs pumping furiously in a vain attempt to catch the one teenager who seems to be the object of their little game. The boy dodges and weaves, sidestepping and evading the tiny arms and bodies flying around him. He laughs heartily, urging the kids on in their attempts to catch him.

  It seems as though the poor things will never catch up, until one little girl stops running and starts to cry. In an instant the teenager is at her side, checking for injury. He doesn’t immediately see her crocodile tears, nor the devilish grin growing on her face just before she wraps her arms tightly around his leg, yelling, “I got him!”

  The other children rocket toward the now-trapped boy, who can only laugh as the kids leap at him, grabbing baby fists of shirt and jeans, dragging him to the ground. Pretty soon the two other teenagers, who until now had remained on the sidelines, jump into the fray, joining the pile on the grass while being careful not to smush any of the younger children below.

  It is demolition derby meets reverse tag, and it is wonderful.

  Kate is radiant in the waning sunlight. Her eyes dance with merriment and a hint of wonder even as they work the scene, moving from one child to the next.

  “Okay guys, time to call it a day,” she calls out, her voice a rich symphony. A few heads shoot up from the pile of giggling and squirming children in the grass, the kids’ faces lighting up as they find Kate. Clearly, she is someone special to them. I look at her again, wondering just who this woman is that she holds these children’s hearts so.

  Kate pushes off the barn. “Come on,” she calls back to me as she heads into the fray. She stops next to the group, waiting as one by one they turn toward her. “Time to get washed up for supper,” she tells them softly, as if she is just as heartbroken as they are that the game must come to an end.

  There are a few disgruntled squeaks of protest and whiny nos, even as seven tiny heads and three larger ones peek up from the pile, obviously waiting to see what her reaction will be. She says nothing but begins drumming her fingers on one arm. Her right eyebrow arches to her hairline, daring anyone to protest again. She may have been sad to end their fun a moment ago, but she certainly isn’t going to take any guff now. I bite back the grin threatening to erupt.

  “Come on,” one of the teenage boys says, rising up from the pile and helping some of the children to their feet. “You heard what she said. Time to wash up.”

  The children obey, offering little more than a few mumbled groans. They shuffle past her, heads hanging low in one final act of weak rebellion. A secret smile flashes across her face as she watches the last of the little soldiers marching past her.

  I can’t help but laugh. Her eyes lock on me in an instant, her eyebrow shooting up once again. My chuckle dies as quickly as it began. I clear my throat, my gaze landing everywhere but on Kate’s face. I feel an urge to start kicking my shoe in the dirt like a ten-year-old who just got busted by my teacher.

  Not that any of my teachers ever looked like her.

  She can’t hold the look in the face of my chagrin, and she laughs lightly as she heads back to me.

  “Come on, let me show you where you’ll be bunking.” She tugs on my shirt sleeve and heads up to the dormitory.

  Chapter Six

  “Most everyone has their own room right now,” Kate says as we move down the wood-paneled hallway of the dorm. “Each room is set up with two twin beds, courtesy of the local-and-now-abandoned furniture store.”

  She shrugs at me over her shoulder, as if to say she normally wouldn’t condone such a practice, but considering the circumstances…As far as I am concerned, anything abandoned is fair game, plus some things that are less than abandoned. You can’t really steal something that doesn’t belong to anyone anymore.

  “Married couples room together, although there’s only two of those right now. We put all the kids together in a cluster. One of the couples, Bruce and Diane, act as foster parents of sorts.” She stops in the hallway and turns to me. The shimmer in her eyes echoes the sadness in her words. “They lost their daughter in the plague, not long before they came here. She was only five. But as soon as they arrived and saw the ones without parents, they offered to keep watch over the children who had lost their moms and dads.” She shakes her head lightly. “I know we’ve all lost, but to lose your child and then willingly surround yourself with them when the grief is still raw…I don’t know how they do it. I’m not sure I could.”

  “We all deal with grief differently.” I speak without thinking, the sound of my own voice startling me. “Some of us isolate ourselves from anything that reminds us of what we’ve lost. Some go looking for such things, trying to fill the void by replacing what’s gone.”

  Kate studies me, and I wither under her scrutiny. She nods her head and picks up where she had left off. “There aren’t many women here, obviously. We’ve all kind of taken on the kids as our purpose here, making sure they eat properly and go to school and have playtime and such. Just generally keeping an eye out. It’s not very feminist of us, I know,” she says with another shrug. “I certainly never envisioned myself as a den mother. I guess our biological instincts are running on overdrive.”

  Her pseudo-apology intrigues me. I wonder why she feels it necessary, given her obvious affection for the children. I start to imagine myself as June Cleaver, complete with apron and pearls. As if I don’t already have enough nightmares to keep me awake at night.

  “Go to school?” I ask, trying to redirect my mind.

  “Yeah,” she says, stopping once again. “We managed to get some textbooks, a portable blackboard, and some school supplies from the local K through 12. Everyone fifteen and under goes to school from ten to three, five days a week, with time in the morning for chores and supervised playtime. The older teenagers get to choose school or work, although if they choose work, we try to tutor them in the evenings or when there’s free time. I teach the kindergarteners and grade schoolers, and Nancy takes the high school kids.”

  She has such pride in her voice.

  “You like it. Teaching the kids.”

  “It was my major in college. I subbed at an elementary school, before. So it made sense.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I say, pressing her.

  “Yeah, I do. I’ve always liked kids.”

  I appreciate her humility, among other things. I have not felt this kind of interest in anyone, or anything at all other than getting home, in a long time.

  “There are forty rooms, twenty on each side of the hallway, so we’re only a couple of rooms short of having to start doubling up. There are two community bathrooms, one at each end of the hall. The showers actually work pretty well, though don’t expect anything more than lukewarm water. The boys’ bathroom is back down the hallway, the girls’ on this end, since that’s how the rooms are booked, with the children’s rooms in between.”

  Boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, shared rooms for married couples, it all seems so…

  “Traditional.”

  “Hmm?”

  It takes time for me to realize I had voiced the thoughts in my head.

  “Oh. Well, it all seems so…traditiona
l,” I repeat. “Appropriate, I guess.” I fumble for words that won’t offend her. I don’t know why I said anything, or why I even care. Separation of the sexes, traditional gender roles…these were typical of the old world just as they are of this new one. Communities build themselves upon the foundations of the old, even if the present bears little resemblance to the past.

  “There’s nothing wrong with traditional values,” she says quietly. “They may seem old-fashioned, but they work for most people, give them something familiar to work from.”

  Kate studies me. I feel like a psychiatrist’s patient, waiting to be diagnosed. Her eyes bore into me, trying to dig out the truth. Finally, her face softens, as if she has found whatever it is she was looking for. And she seems to be happy with what she has found.

  “You shouldn’t mistake tradition for intolerance, though. What works for some doesn’t work for all, and the people here understand that. Everyone on the farm is free to make their own choices, as long as those choices don’t hurt anyone. We can all be who we are.”

  She begins walking again, and this time I force my feet to follow until we reach the end of the hall. Kate turns to the door on the left, the number 39 written neatly in Magic Marker in the upper center of the door. I want to bring her back to our conversation even as I tell myself I don’t, but apparently Kate has decided that subject is closed.

  “Originally, these weren’t numbered, but it became confusing pretty fast.”

  She twists the worn golden doorknob and leads me inside, reaching overhead and pulling down on a silver chain connected to an uncovered lightbulb at the center of the ceiling. The bulb casts a warm, soft light that doesn’t quite push back all the shadows, but still manages to make the room seem cozy.

  “After one of the guys, Tony, accidentally walked in on Mrs. Sapple just after her shower, the numbers went up pretty fast.” She laughs, shaking her head. “You should have heard the screaming.”

  I am surprised she is making a joke of such a thing, but only for a moment.

  “From Tony, not Mrs. Sapple,” Kate rushes on. “She’s seventy-two, and I think she kind of liked the idea of a twenty-six-year-old ‘strapping lad,’ as she calls him, seeing her in her birthday suit.”

  I laugh despite myself, imagining this spitfire elderly woman in all her glory, while the strapping lad runs shrieking down the hall. Kate smiles at me, as if my laughter delights her. I find myself smiling back. If we were anywhere but here at the end of the world, I might think we were flirting. The thought is too impossible to even consider.

  “Anyway, this whole room is yours, at least for now,” she says, the moment gone. If it had even been a moment at all.

  I take in the small but clean accommodations. Two twin beds line the walls, one to the left and one directly ahead of me, underneath a set of short, sea-foam-green curtains. Wedged in a corner, a rickety wooden chair sits beneath a tiny desk that has seen better days. Kate walks over and draws back the curtains, allowing the indirect rays of the late-day sun to sift into the room.

  She is lovely in the filtered sunlight. I tell myself to stop looking.

  “All the rooms have windows, so if you’re in here during the day, try to keep the light off. We have electricity on the farm, though we try to keep use to a minimum. Buck was a bit ahead of his time. He installed some solar panels about five years ago. That plus a couple of generators, and we have power enough to sustain us, as long as we’re careful.”

  She pulls the cord again, and shadows reclaim what the light had captured.

  “Last month we imposed a nine o’clock lights-out curfew for the dormitory, and we have candles if you want to stay up past that. It’s a little nineteenth century, but it should help keep the power on for a while. Our water comes from a well, fed by the same underground spring that feeds the creek running through the farm. As for the rest, Buck and his family managed to gather up a whole lot of supplies early on during the plague. When people were cleaning out convenience stores, Buck was making deals with his contractor and supplier friends, stocking up on things like kerosene and lumber, and all the processed food and canned goods they could find. I’m pretty sure he even has a stockpile of beer hidden somewhere.”

  I slip past her, having decided to make the bed underneath the window my own. As I pass, the faint scent of vanilla reaches out to me, and I know without a doubt it is coming from Kate. My eyes flutter closed as it drifts over me. It is sweet and warm, and I let it wrap me in its embrace.

  As I reach the bed the scent fades.

  “So where’s your room?” The question surprises me as it slips past my lips.

  “A few doors down. I’m in 33.”

  “You have a room to yourself?”

  She grins, like she knows a secret she’s not planning on sharing. The room suddenly seems a little warmer. “I’m not married, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s not, I mean, I wasn’t. . .I, well. . .”

  Oh hell.

  She is smiling, but then the smile turns wistful. “My parents died in the plague. I had been living in Indianapolis but went home to take care of them when they got sick. I’m the last of my family. Buck is an old friend of my parents, which is how I ended up here.”

  I nod, anything I could say seeming insignificant. Maybe if the plague had spared the poets of the world, we would have the words to comfort each other for the loss of everything.

  “So, I guess that’s about it,” she says, shrugging off the melancholy. “Not much of a nickel tour. Maybe a two-cent special.”

  “No, no, it was fine,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. My social skills are rusty from infrequent use. “I appreciate you taking the time.”

  “It was no trouble,” she says quickly.

  We stand there for a moment, more than a bit awkward. It’s like she’s waiting for me to ask her to the prom.

  “Well, um,” she says, “I guess I should let you get settled.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Reluctantly I reach across my chest and lift Mugsy and her holder over my head, setting them on the bed. Kate takes her cue and starts to shuffle toward the door. As I slip the backpack down off my shoulders, I suck in a sharp breath. I had forgotten.

  “What is it?” She misses nothing.

  “Nothing,” I say, willing myself to push down the pain. I fail miserably, wincing as the bag slides down my back.

  “Not nothing.” Kate decisively removes the bag from my body.

  “No, really—”

  “Take off your shirt,” she says as she lifts its hem.

  I open my mouth to protest again, but she catches my gaze with her own, and it is clear she isn’t about to take no for an answer. I lift my hands up in the air like a child, wincing again, and let her slide the shirt up and over my head.

  “Oh, Taylor.” She sighs, her voice full of empathy as she eases my bra strap off my shoulder and out of the way. I know it looks bad without seeing it, know the three-inch gash just below my left shoulder is infected, can feel the swelling and the tightness all around the area.

  “It’s no big deal.” I try to sound convincing.

  “Wait here,” she says and heads out the door. I want to put my shirt back on. Instead, I stand there and wait, clothed only in my discomfort.

  My thoughts are interrupted by her return, antiseptic and bandages in hand. She pulls the light cord. Apparently my wound warrants a little electricity use. I expect her to ask how it happened, but she doesn’t. Her hands gently probe and prod my skin, gliding over me with a touch as soft as a whisper.

  “This is going to hurt a bit,” she says, her voice infinitely gentle. Her words and tone are meant to soothe me. Instead, they make me more uncomfortable. I start to shift back and forth, her compassion making me crazy.

  I grit my teeth against the first sting of the antiseptic. The pain quickly grows in its intensity as she works her way methodically down my back.

  “Stop fidgeting,” she chastises. I do as I am told,
stilling my body. My restlessness festers, and I have a hell of a time keeping my mouth from picking up from where my legs leave off. I am almost compelled to tell her the story, but she doesn’t need to be faced with the reality of roving bands of thugs and running for your life and rusty fences. The world they have built within the farm’s borders is nothing like the one I have often faced outside.

  “There.”

  She steps back, and I sway a little. The pain is beginning to focus my unease into anger. I hate seeming weak in front of her and hate even more that I care.

  “How’s it look, Doc?” Sarcasm seeps into my words. I am coming apart, overwhelmed by too many conflicting feelings and unable to handle them. I feel like I am under attack, and even though the attack comes from within, I lash out.

  “It’s not too bad,” she says, either missing or choosing to ignore the bite in my tone. “You’ve had that about four or five days, right?”

  I nod, trying to keep myself in check. In a few minutes she will leave, and I will close the curtains and sink into the darkness of my little room. I just need to hold on.

  “Seems about right. It’s not as deep as I first though, but it’s definitely infected, pretty seriously. I’m going to have to see about getting you some antibiotics. My guess is you’ve been feeling a bit run down the last day or so, maybe a little fever?”

  I don’t answer her. It annoys me that she knows so much. I don’t want her knowing all this stuff about me.

  “And we’ll need to clean the wound at least twice a day,” she says, ignoring the fact that I am ignoring her.

  “You volunteering?” I ask with a smirk that borders on a leer. My only defense is to attack, and I am desperate to protect myself.