As I near my parents’ white farmhouse, two colorful figures move in the front yard. One is Luke, his red leaping unmistakable.
I pull into the driveway, snow blustering around the windshield. The other figure tromps through the snow to me as I open the door and step out. She lobs a tennis ball with her one good arm—the other hangs loose, like her arm is pulled up inside the jacket...or missing mid-bicep. Luke chases the ball down. He frisks through the snow, then digs under to find it.
I stand there, stupefied.
“Hi,” she says. “I’m Leila.”
22
POE
“Um,” I say, still standing beside the big truck, its engine crackling as the engine cools. The wind whips our cheeks red. She’s like an apparition, a slightly askew normalcy, a shift in perception. A woman throwing a ball to a dog. That happens every day.
But not anymore.
“Are you real?” I ask her. I can’t help but feel I’ve gone insane, that the fissure has reopened without my knowing. But why would I hallucinate an unfinished woman? I’ve never even met an amputee before.
In response to my question the woman smiles and plucks the tennis ball from Luke’s mouth as he returns it. She throws it again and Luke is off and running. First of all, hallucinations can’t throw balls. Second, Luke was in the house—behind locked doors.
Granted, I’ve let myself into a house, a grocery store, a fire station and this propane truck, but this feels different. Why my house? It’s unremarkable. No different than a thousand more in the area.
The footprints.
She knew I was here.
But I need to give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s a survivor. A real and present human being. Who cares if she followed my footprints, waited for me to leave the house and then broke in to play with my dog? The old world me cares. A lot. But this isn’t the old world. Everything is different. She might have been afraid of me. Maybe she was snooping? Trying to find out more about me and then found Luke and decided that anyone with a golden retriever couldn’t be bad? But I’m the same person who left the German shepherd locked up, and she knows it. I’m also the person who lopped off that dog’s leg and let it bleed to death. But she doesn’t need to know that. No one does. And, I decide, she doesn’t need to know about August. Not yet. Not until I really trust her.
“Sorry,” I say. “I—I just wasn’t... I didn’t think there were any other survivors in this area. It’s really, really good to meet you, Leila.”
I extend my hand, though I almost want to hug her. For a moment, she just looks at my mitten and I realize my mistake. Her right arm is missing. Oh, God, I think, I’m an asshole.
The woman—Leila—puts me at ease a moment later, chuckling and taking my right hand in her left. “It’s nice to meet you...”
“Poe,” I say. “Like Edgar Allan.”
With a speed matching that of the angry German shepherd, Leila wraps me in a one armed bear hug. I’m not much of a hugger with people I know, never mind with a suddenly appeared stranger on my front lawn after a cataclysmic event. I’d much rather give people a friendly punch on the shoulder, a little harder for the close ones—the ones I know can take it. But I lean in and embrace back. We’re in this together. I’m dwarfed by her. She has to lean down to hug me.
Her warmth makes me shiver.
“Poor thing,” she says. “What happened to your jacket?”
When I don’t answer, she pats me heartily, once, twice, pulls back and smiles at me. “I’m sorry I was lurking in the woods yesterday.” She laughs, big, hearty and out of place. As an artist, I’m intuitive. I observe everything. Her gray eyes, framed by crow’s feet from many years of smiling, don’t blink enough. She’s staring at me. It was her in the woods.
“That was you?” I force out a chuckle, part forced, part real, and wave away my discomfort. She was just checking me out. Like me, she’s probably terrified and alone. “It’s cool. Things are...strange now.”
I walk past her, toward the house. Luke follows me. I feel badly about this sense of foreboding I’m experiencing around this woman. Who knows what she’s seen?
“Very strange. Talk about an understatement!” She laughs her exuberant laugh again, and I find myself smiling back. So nice, another human, other emotions besides fear, depression and anxiety.
I let my worry go, just like that, like dropping a snowball into a warm puddle. Watch it melt away. “Do you want to come inside? It’s ridiculous out here.” I open the door, forgetting that she may have already been inside, when she let Luke out. How did she get past the lock? I think, but don’t ask. There’s probably an unlocked window somewhere. Maybe the bulkhead. I’ll have to check later.
Move on, Poe. She’s a survivor, like you. That’s what matters.
We head into the kitchen, shed our gloves, boots, all our winter gear. I put the kettle on, bustle around as best I can getting tea supplies, honey, cups, spoons. I plop a box of crackers on the table. Leila sits quietly, looking at her hand. Graying hair and shallow wrinkles suggest she’s in her fifties, fit, maybe an athlete. The sleeve on the side of her missing arm dangles loose. I wonder why she doesn’t tuck it in or something.
“So, what do you do, Leila?” I’m terrible at small talk. I usually just launch into philosophy, art and books, but over the years I’ve picked up the social cues that other, more adept people use, and I figure now’s as good a time as any to put someone at ease. I know I don’t feel like talking about what’s happened, and perhaps she doesn’t either. I just want some normal.
She looks up, bright smile, nodding her head. “I’m a climber. C and C.”
I squint. The only C and C I know of is C&C Music Factory, and I doubt she’s an 80s pop singer.
She notes my confusion and says, “Caves and cliffs.”
I turn around from the cabinets, lean against the sink. “Oh, I see.” But I don’t see. How could a woman with one arm be a rock climber?
“I play the piano, too,” she says. “For fun.”
My ankle and bitten leg are both throbbing, calling out for pain meds. But I resist the urge to dull the pain. Anything that puts Squirt at risk, even just a little, is no longer acceptable.
I focus past the pain, on my guest. I want to be present for this woman. I want to know her. I want to feel hopeful.
She doesn’t offer any more information, and like I said, I’m terrible at small talk, so I sit down with the tea stuff, open the cracker box, slide it toward her. “I’m a painter. I play guitar, so I guess we’re both daydream musicians.”
Leila smiles and prepares her own tea and eats some crackers. The grinding crunch of her teeth on the crackers feels unbearable, like the grinding that signified my parents’ deconstruction. The weirdness of this situation overwhelms me. But who is more uncomfortable, me or her? What is expected of us?
Leila wipes her face with a napkin, scouring crumbs from the corners of her cracked lips. Finished, she folds the paper square twice, halving its size, and then stands. With an aristocratic air, tea cup in hand, she heads for the living room like she knows her way around—she might—and pulls the bench out from under the piano with her foot. She places her tea on a coaster atop the piano, sits down on the bench and opens the fallboard protecting the keys. She gasps slightly and says, “Oh my. Ivory keys.”
I like to think I’m observant, but I never knew the piano had ivory keys. I always assumed they were plastic. That my romantic father would have an instrument built with pieces of a poached animal surprises me. But it’s just as likely that he had no idea the secondhand instrument was made with elephant tusks.
With her one hand, she flickers a few notes from the piano. I can tell she’s good. How long since the injury, I wonder? It was recent, I decide. How could this woman have been a rock climber and pianist with just one hand?
I lean to the side, watching her sit, look at the keys, and then with a flourish of energy, play.
There’s a tune to it. A melody.
The sound, so alive, draws me to my feet. I walk into the living room, slight upward curve to my lips, trying to identify the piece. But it’s incomplete.
And once I’m in the living room, watching, I realize why. Whatever this song is, it requires two hands. But Leila seems to not notice. In fact, the way her head is moving, the slight pauses in the music where there should be high notes, and the awkward twitch of her nubby right arm, make me think she’s not only hearing a complete song, but believes she’s playing it with both hands.
Who am I to judge? If she comforts herself by playing one handed music, who cares? I really am an asshole, I think, but have trouble believing it. The amputated arm, twitching, insect-like, freaks me out.
My mind flees from the image of the woman’s arms and invisible piano-playing fingers, and I suddenly remember August. I need to call him. But first, I need to plug in the phone. Let it charge. “Leila, I need to grab some stuff from the truck. I’ll just be a few minutes. Make yourself at home.”
After throwing on my boots, I head outside and squeeze my arms across my chest. It’s a short walk to the propane truck, but my skin stings from the cold and I feel more awake. More aware.
Leila, despite being a fellow survivor, hasn’t given me much hope. She’s a broken person, requiring care, physical and probably mental. A fresh addition to my personal island of misfit toys.
I retrieve the phone and its charger from the truck and head back toward the house. In past years, my father and I would make bonfires in the backyard. When I was a kid, we’d roast marshmallows. When I got older, my father, the former hippie turned poet would smoke pot through a long pipe, like he was Gandalf. I joined him, of course, warming by the fire, trying our best to make smoke rings, but never quite succeeding. Mom never partook, but she didn’t know it was pot, either. Our little secret.
Like August.
As I sneak back inside, I close the door with one hand and position the phone and charger behind me with the other. I’m not ready to share this yet. I feel relieved when I make it to the stairs without being spotted, and breathe easier when I reach the second floor. I head to my father’s office and put the charger down beside the Ham radio. On hands and aching knees, I find a free outlet and plug in the charger. Without standing, I take the phone and snap it in place, waiting a moment. Nothing happens. It will take time, I tell myself, remembering that some devices won’t work until they’re fully charged, or at least until they’ve reached a minimum charge. I’ll come back later and check.
I climb to my feet and suddenly feel an odd trepidation. I turn around to find Luke sitting behind me. When our eyes meet, his tail wags. Sneaky, but no. That’s when I realize the one-handed piano playing has stopped. I take the stairs one creaking step at a time, moving slowly, more because of the pain than caution. But there is nothing to worry about. I find Leila standing in the living room, looking at the books on the bookshelves.
“What was that you were playing?” I ask with a smile. “It sounded familiar.”
“What were you doing?” She asks, sliding a book back onto the shelf.
I’m taken aback. None of your business. But then, I think, she doesn’t know me. She has no reason to trust me. Why are we both survivors? She is suspicious of me for good reason. But I know myself, know that I’m trustworthy, and don’t know her. Again I am struck by the complications of survival. Life before the end was easier, despite sharing the planet with seven billion people.
“I went outside for some...toilet paper. I was going to the bathroom. Upstairs.” It’s a horrible lie, but who is going to ask for proof of such a thing. So much for trustworthy.
She turns and stares at me. “Didn’t hear you flush.”
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow,” I say with a half-smile, limping over to the couch and sitting down. My father’s acoustic guitar, a fire pit companion, rests to my left, in its open case.
“Uh-huh,” she says, and points to the guitar. “Pick it up.”
An order, not a request. But I oblige her and lift the old guitar onto my lap.
“What kind of music do you play?” she asks, settling herself at the piano again. “You really do play the guitar, right?”
“Just about anything, none of it very good. I just like to mess around.” I strum a little. “Do you know any U2?”
“Mmm…not really. What about Dylan?” She plays a few bars of The Times They Are a Changin’, with the one hand, the tune recognizable despite lacking half the notes, a fact of which I’m still pretty sure she’s not aware.
Hoping the music will pull this woman out of whatever mire has claimed her mind, I do my best to join in. I hunt for chords, but keep up. And then, at once, I’m struck by the ridiculousness of what we’re doing. It’s crazy. We need to be preparing. Plotting. Rationing. Something. Winter is still upon us and will be for another few months. But we’re just going to sit around playing horrible sounding rock songs?
Freed from the music’s allure, but still playing along, I suddenly feel like I’m being watched. The sense is so strong, I stop playing with an abrupt wrong strum and turn around, looking out the window behind me.
The piano falls silent. “What’s wrong?” Leila asks, her voice an odd sing-song melody, continuing the music. I realize that before, when I felt watched, it was her in the woods, and I involuntarily shiver. But it’s not her now. Someone else then? Or something? That’s one secret I will have to share with Leila, but not until I’m sure she can handle it.
“I’m just getting this feeling like we’re being watched,” I say. No harm in being honest, I decide. In what I now recognize as something Leila does, like a quirk or habit, she stares at me, unblinking. I decide to stare back. My house, honey. Luke seems to feel the uncertainty in the room and walks over to me, schlumps into my lap, knocking the guitar to the side.
Leila, without blinking, wearing a bright smile, says, “I’m hungry. Time for another snack?”
So much for feeling watched. She either lacks the weird sixth sense or really just doesn’t feel it, which I suppose is possible, since she didn’t see the thing in the grocery store and wasn’t attacked by the German shepherd. Maybe I have a few more reasons to feel paranoid?
But it needs to stop at some point. Weird or not, we’re in this together.
I need to either trust and befriend her, because she might be all I have, or to not trust her and kick her ass to the curb. But I don’t see that ending well. Images of the dog’s severed leg and spinning body flit through my mind. No more conflict, I decide. August is on his way. Will be here in days. I can handle her until then, and we can figure this out together.
“Fine,” Leila says, lifting her good arm and stubby arm to slam them down, one hitting the piano bench, the other swinging through empty air. “I’ll just help myself.” She pushes herself up with her one arm, but spills to the side, clearly expecting her weight to be held by the missing limb.
Images of the dog return to my mind. How much like the dog is she? Is that why the dog spared her? Kindred spirits? When the woman growls, I suspect that’s the case.
23
POE
“Ahh!” Leila shouts, and I clench my fists for a fight. But she doesn’t come at me, she’s just frustrated by her stumble. She looks around for the cause of it and finds nothing. She shakes out her arms, the rotating stub ridiculous. “Sorry. I’ve been such a klutz lately. Dropping things. I’m not sure what the problem is.”
With a final huff of expelled aggravation, she heads for the kitchen, really making herself at home. It’s funny, that expression, how uncomfortable it would be if someone really made themselves at home, helping themselves to everything. What’s yours is mine. Maybe it’s because this is my parent’s house, not mine, that her comfortable cupboard rummaging feels off.
But it also gives me the chance to slip away, to check on the charging phone. I excuse myself again, rubbing my arms. “I’m a little chilly. Going to grab a sweater.”
I take the sta
irs two at a time, alone, but feeling pursued. Upstairs, I lean over the satellite phone in my father’s office. No change. The screen is blank. There are no small lights to reveal a charge. Feeling impatient, I snatch the phone from its cradle and push the power button. Nothing. No, I think. I give it a little shake, like that will help. I want to slap it. Then it hits me—I plugged it into an outlet that works only when the light switch on the wall is turned on. All this wasted time. It wasn’t even charging.
I flip the wall switch up and the phone blinks, alive but not charged, and it won’t be for a while longer, I’m assuming. Leila is going to get suspicious if I keep sneaking away, but can I wait until tonight to call him?
And what’s the big deal if she finds out?
Why do I feel like I need to keep August and this phone to myself?
I pull up my sleeve and look at August’s number scrawled safely on my wrist. I write the numbers on a wrinkled piece of paper and tuck it away. The ink on my skin will eventually fade. Still impatient, I try the phone. It blinks at me, still too weak to call anyone. Hours, I think. Give it a few hours. I sigh and run my fingers through my hair, and leave the room. Then I gently close the door behind me before going back downstairs.
I really don’t want Leila to know about the phone. Is this just my old extreme need for privacy kicking in? One person in my life, and I’m ready to be rid of them? Could I really prefer the horrible solitude? I’m not sure. As I walk down the stairs, I make the quick decision to just talk to her, find out about how she survived. What her story is. What am I waiting for? The elephant in the room is stinking up the place.
She’s sitting at the piano again, a cookie in her mouth. She bites a piece off, clutching the rest of the cookie with her lips while she chews. When she sees me coming, she flips the rest of the cookie into her mouth and quickly devours it.
“Not cold after all?” she asks, looking down.
The Distance Page 15