I kneel on the cement and carefully massage the shirt with the brush, removing all traces of powder. Then, the same with everything else of his, and next, the remaining white on the floor. I fold and place his belongings into the trash bag as I go.
I give a once over to my own clothing, and move on to my mother. The shaking returns a bit as I start on her violet shawl, the one with the prayers of her sister woven into each intricate knit and purl. My mother explained to me once that during the creation of prayer shawls, the craftsperson always uses a multiple of three to determine how many stitches the shawl will have, three being representative of the Holy Trinity. I’ve always had mixed feelings about God and the supernatural. Sometimes, in my past, during quiet moments, I’ve thought I could sense God: a friendly, but still wild predator, sneaking up on me, hunting me, but not to harm me. Like spying, checking out what I’m doing. Or reverse the roles, and I could sense my hope of capturing something elusive, a baby grabbing a toy for the first time, all the elements finally coordinated, relief as five fingers hold tight, even if just for seconds. For that matter, where does all my artwork come from? My mind briefly scatters back to the shimmer in the grocery store. I catalog these thoughts for later. I focus on my task.
I panic when the shawl, so feather light and soft, gets sucked up into the hose. I reach over and click off the vacuum, then tug the shawl out. My heart beats irregularly, the hummingbird returned, a few loud thumps. I take a deep breath and resume, stretching the shawl along the floor with my knees, and I vacuum it clean from one side to the other. The imperfection, messiness and weirdness of this process saddens me more.
Finished with her clothing, her slippers and the floor, I again swipe the brush over my own body. Then I shut off the vacuum and look around the basement. I wish I could open the bulkhead, let in some air, but a winter’s worth of New Hampshire snow prevents me.
I limp back upstairs, my ankle throbbing from all this up and down. But then I get another trash bag, head back down and place the new, recently filled vacuum bag inside it, softly pulling the plastic ties tight. Not very beautiful, or ceremonial. But they’re together, at least. I’ll have to look around the house for something to put it all in. Maybe there will be a lovely chest in the attic or the barn, an heirloom I’ve forgotten. In the Spring, I’ll dig into the thawed earth and bury them.
For now, I tuck the two bags onto a bottom shelf, under the glowing pink, canned lines of strawberry-rhubarb jam. Not a totally inappropriate spot for my parents. They both loved strawberries.
The task done, the floor clean and the basement once more accessible, a slight weight lifts and allows my mind to return to the present. Where my body aches. And smells.
The water heater kicks on, a throaty roar, making me jump. I follow the ticking water pipes across the ceiling, imagining them stretching throughout the house, heating every room...including the bathroom...and the tap. Just the thought of a hot bath makes my muscles sag. I place my hand on the bag holding my parents remains. “I won’t leave you here forever,” I say, and then head up the stairs.
15
POE
After turning on the bathtub tap, I slide out of my clothing, step on my parents’ scale, and am shocked to see that I’ve actually lost four pounds. I’m usually skin and bones at 115 pounds, but the scale reads 111. Shouldn’t I be gaining weight by now? Isn’t Squirt growing?
I close the bathroom door to observe myself in the full length mirror hung on the back of it. Tiny, naked me, muscle tone still intact, brown eyes round like Oreo cookies, my snow white belly a tight paunch, and not big enough. I run my fingers through my short hair, making it stand on end. I need a shampoo, some scrubbing. My legs need shaving. Pits, too. The combination of musty barn, layers of sweat and dog dander odors coming from my body are ripe. I spread my fingers across my middle, my thumbs at my waist, and I visualize my baby, small peapod, my only human companion.
Luke barges through the door and flops down on top of my feet. I reclose the door and take a good, long look at my body in the mirror. Our three bodies in the mirror.
“I’m going to try to do better from now on.”
I close my eyes and send my attention away from my anxious brain, my stuttering lungs, down, down, to my uterus, where things are warm, red and liquid. I imagine my heartbeat, my child’s company. I imagine my baby in comfort, gently floating, cells dividing, limbs changing every day. I imagine nourishment flowing from me, to her. I imagine her.
A little girl, then.
“Please forgive me for not paying attention. May you grow healthy and strong. May you have a beautiful brain and a feisty spirit. I love you. I will always take care of you. No matter what.” It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a prayer. And it’s all I can manage. My body cries out for hot water. I slip into the bath, close my eyes and drift.
My thoughts ramble through the past few days—the event, finding Luke, my journey to the grocery store and my encounter with the...thing. The frantic race home and my parents... When it all starts to overwhelm me, I turn my attention to the future. A game plan. It’s just me now. There’s no one else to rely on, so I can’t spend a single moment of a single day not preparing for the future. For the inevitable birth. I’ll need more than food, I think, and mentally I walk through my parents’ house, taking stock of what is there and thinking I need to tour the place again. I see the upstairs in my mind, head toward their bedroom and stop beside a door to my right. When I was little, this is where my toys were. Now it’s my Dad’s office. Laptop, bookshelves...
My eyes snap open and I push myself up into a sitting position, the sudden movement lifting Luke’s head off the floor.
I can’t believe I forgot.
Just one room over, behind the creaking, closed door, sits an amateur Ham radio setup. I stand from the tub, grab a towel, wrap it around me and head out the door, leaving a trail of water that my mother would cluck at, and then dutifully wipe. I open the door and find the radio, which I’ve never seen without my father sitting in front of it, playing with knobs, listening to strangers around the world.
I plop into the dusty, rolling desk chair, hope zinging out of each hair follicle, down my arms and legs, blushing like a fever, my skin overly sensitive. Or maybe just cold from still being wet. I give the setup a once over. I find the microphone and plug it into the jack labeled, mic. Something is already plugged into the jack labeled, phones. I follow the cable, expecting to find a headset. Instead, I find speakers. Works for me, I think, and I turn my attention back to the microphone. Does it need batteries, or does it draw power from the receiver? Why wasn’t I paying more attention to this hobby of his?
He once described, to my mother and me, his connections with other amateur radio users in Humboldt County, California, in Vancouver, even all the way to mainland China. The conversation was short. Shame and regret roll over me for the past self who ignored what I considered my father’s dorky habits. I had the Internet, and a phone. Who needed this cute, prehistoric method, useless as Braille to the sighted? I have no idea how this thing works. Modern technology barely needs the user.
I almost don’t want to try turning it on, the desire to connect is so potent, the possibility of not connecting unthinkable. The window blind next to the table harbors several cobwebs, and since I see no actual, intricate spider designs, I open the blind, letting the moonlight in. On a normal night, even the full moon wouldn’t add much light to the room, but the world outside is white, reflecting and somehow amplifying the moon’s glow. It’s bright enough outside to read by. Magical, if not for the end of the human race. How much of that white is actually dust?
I push the receiver’s power button.
Luke noses his head under my resting hand.
I hear nothing. A quick glance around the boxy equipment, dials and meters. What am I supposed to do? I notice a volume knob. Turn it. Static. That’s a start.
Should I say something? Am I connected and broadcasting?
I le
an into the microphone, hold down the button. The static goes silent, so I assume the microphone is working.
“Hello? This is…” I remember that my Dad had some number, a call sign or handler identification or something, his legal way of broadcasting to the world, but I don’t know what it was. I suddenly want to have a southern accent and say things into the microphone like, ‘Ten-four, good buddy.’
“My name is Poe MacDowell. I’m in Barrington, New Hampshire. In the United States. Um. East Coast. We’ve had some kind of…” My voice trails off and my finger lifts from the button. How exactly am I supposed to describe what has happened? Everyone is dead. Everyone is powder. Except for me. Please help me. Please find me.
“We’ve had some kind of apocalyptic event. There’s no one left. We’ve got a lot of snow, and I can’t get anywhere. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Is anyone there?”
I wait, lean back, giving someone a chance to answer. I wait minutes; I wait for eternity, petting Luke, my hand repeating the path from his forehead down to mid-back, over and over.
I repeat my message several times, never really varying the words, because the shaking is starting again, and the repeated words are a strange anchor to not crying. I take an hour, repeating. Repeating.
When a bone jarring shiver runs through my body, I realize I’m still sitting in a damp towel. The house is beginning to cool around me and I don’t want to crank up the heat, taxing the generator, for which I will eventually have to get more propane. Moving fast, I get some fresh clothes—jeans, T-shirt, hoodie sweatshirt and thick socks—from my backpack, dress and return. The few minutes of moving clears my mind, and when I sit back down at the radio, my mind feels sharper.
I don’t just have to speak and listen on this one frequency. There are other options available. I look at a digital number display, which I’m assuming shows radio frequencies. Like a car radio, I think, and I smile when I see a button labeled ‘Scan.’ I press it and the numbers leap to life, scrolling quickly.
This is turning out to be pretty self-explanatory. A small buoyancy of mood makes me sit up straighter. My chin finds its way to my entwined fingers, elbows on the desk, watching the digital red numbers scroll, like waiting and watching on the dock end of a fishing line.
How long can it scan? How many frequencies are there? I’ve forgotten where I started from. I stand up, getting pissed. Am I using it wrong? I’m so frustrated; I kick the desk chair across the floor. It tips over when it catches on the braided rug and clatters down. Luke runs out of the room.
And then, the numbers stop. I hold my breath, looking at the frequency: 162.450. “A winter storm warning is in effect. Snow accumulations up to twenty-four inches are expected in...Rockingham County, Strafford County...”
I tune out the rest. I’ve heard it before. The NOAA severe storm warning played during the drive to my parents’ house. Like other forms of automated broadcasts, there isn’t anyone around to shut it off. Where does this broadcast from? I remember. Gray, Maine. Must still be power there.
Feeling frustrated by the robotic feminine tease, I hit the scan button again. The numbers scroll once more, stopping five more times to play the various NOAA messages for all of Maine and New Hampshire. I tap the scan button until I’m past them.
The scanner continues to do its thing, the sound of nothing but fuzz through the speakers. I pace around the office, looking at bookshelves, which cover the walls, with the exception of an acrylic painting on canvas. I gave it to him back when I was a budding artist, in high school. It’s a reproduction of a photo of the two of us. He’s tall and dark-haired, dressed in faded 80s jeans, holding my tiny two year old, then blonde self, balanced on a petting zoo fence. Dusty ground, goat nearby. We’re grinning ear to ear, squinting in the sun, our spring jackets matching navy blue. I’m wearing red sneakers. In real life, my mother took this picture right before a cow walked up behind me and started eating my then hay colored hair. It’s one of our favorite family stories.
Stacks of books teeter all over the small antique settee in the corner, nowhere for a human to sit. Several of them are open to places my Dad was researching or reading. Multiple copies of his most recently published poetry book, Inferno Return, sit in neat piles in a cardboard box under the window.
As I bend over to pick one up, a flash of shadow against the snow outside catches my attention. I freeze, moving only my eyes toward the glass and the bright snow beyond. Movement makes me blink. I press my palms against the glass, staring. Just beyond the barn, where the cow fence meets the endless woods. I watch, not believing. Did I just see someone? I bang on the glass, and then feel startled by my own stupidity. I jump back inside the room, ducking, remembering the grocery store shimmer.
Who is out there?
What is out there?
I peek again and see nothing. Just the familiar, blue-lit, snow-covered backyard farm. I don’t even see footprints.
I twist the lock open on the top of the window and gently tug the sticking, old wood upward, trying to stay to the side, out of view. I want to hear, I want to sniff.
For what?
For roses.
I want to be closer but not be known about. I want to spy, not be spied upon. The antique frame creaks a little and I stand like a statue. I realize I may be making the wrong decisions. Even if it is another person, and not the shimmer, why are they standing outside my house in the woods, at night, all creepy like?
The shadow shifts, lengthens, behind another tree.
I hold my breath.
There’s no denying it. Something is there.
A bear, I think. No. Hibernating. A deer, then. That makes sense. There are more than thirty thousand deer in New Hampshire, and it’s not uncommon to see them in the back, picking at the crab apple tree.
The radio cackles to life, and I yelp in fright, falling down hard on the floor.
A voice booms in the room.
A man.
Singing.
“Halfway there, uuuuhhhoohhhh! Livin’ on a praaaaaayer!”
I reach up, yank the window closed, and cringing, I stand, exposed for a moment before pulling down the shade. Too fast. The shade snaps back up, spinning, slapping against the wood. I fumble with it, control the pull, until it’s back in place, hiding me from the presence outside that absolutely now knows I’m here. But I barely think about that as I lunge back to the desk and the voice of a potentially drunk man.
“Take my han’, make it, I swear, uhhhhhhohhh, livin’ on a praaaayer!” The vocal sounds of guitar riffing follows.
Definitely drunk, and singing Bon Jovi.
I depress the button on the microphone and yell, “Hello? Hello! Can you hear me?” Then I release it.
“…used to work on the docks, union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck,” and then a quiet pause. I listen, my finger above the microphone button, but he was just catching his breath.
“Ooooohhhhhhh, halfway there, uuuhohh! Livin’ on a prayer!” and more vocal guitar sounds. I’m also assuming air guitar at this point.
I try the microphone again. “Hello? Maybe you could stop singing long enough to hear me? The song can’t last forever. I’ll just keep talking for a bit and maybe you’ll stay on this frequency and hear me. My name is Poe MacDowell. I’m in New Hampshire, in the United States. I am alone. Sort of alone. I’ve got a dog and all these…fucking animals, and some weird shimmery thing is lurking at the grocery store. I just saw something creeping around out in the woods, and I don’t know what to do.” I release the button.
“…workin’ for the man, she brings home her pay for looooove, oooh, foooor loooove…”
I speak into the microphone again. “And you sound like you’ve had a few too many, huh, pal? Yeah. And everyone here is dead.”
“Livin’ on a prayer!”
“And. I’ve got a baby growing inside of me. I think it’s a girl.” Warm tears run silently down my cheeks. “Her name is Squirt. For now.”
I release the button,
listening to him sing. He hasn’t stopped yet. He hasn’t heard me. I have been talking to myself, in my father’s office. I turn up the volume on the speakers and lean back in my chair. From the sounds of it, he’s careening around the room, bumping into things. I imagine him holding the microphone almost lovingly, really performing, you know? Really getting into it. Swaying, dancing. I wonder what he looks like. I wonder where in the world he is. A laugh burbles up, unbidden, through my tears. He’s not the worst drunk singer I’ve ever heard, and I admit to having heard many. I let myself listen to this other human, this person that is not me. Such a relief, like a fever breaking, these other, not-alone sounds. His voice is deep, a little scratchy.
God, he’s ridiculous.
Suddenly, the man’s ‘wooaah,’ sounds like genuine surprise, and the song is cut short by a loud thump. Static follows. I jump from the chair, shout into the microphone.
“Hey, you there? You still there? Can you hear me?” I wait and listen.
Static.
“Hey, pal, you there? Fuck, did you pass out?” Where did he go? I look at the frequency on the dial, dig around in the desk drawer for a pen, find one, and scrawl the numbers on the back of my left hand on top of the other, fading notes. Just in case.
Both hands pull at my hair. “No, no, no, no, no. You still there? Hey!”
I pace the room, sweating terror and irrationality roiling over me, a tidal wave, unavoidable. I picture him passed out drunk in his man cave, right across from his model rockets or whatever the hell. His long, greasy hair strewn across his face. He’s wearing sweatpants and his fat rolls over the waistband. Now I hate him, now that he’s probably passed out in a puddle of his own puke, never having heard me. Before, he was singing to me. Just me. Now I know he was singing to himself, his stupid self. Before, he was my friend, and we could have gotten along.
The Distance Page 10