by RJ Crayton
But before she could get any words out, the man turned his head, and yelled in a thick foreign accent, “Shonda, come out. It’s your daughter.”
Chapter 23
The handsome man stepped aside, and a moment later, a woman came running toward the door. It took a moment for Elaan to realize it was her mother. Shonda, who normally wore a large afro or shoulder-length twists, had shaved her head so only an inch or so of hair remained. Her mother was wearing a sports bra, some type of flowy skirt, and no shoes.
The shirtless boytoy stepped aside with Shonda’s arrival in the doorway, but he looked on with concern. He touched her mother’s shoulder, an offer of comfort. Her mother seemed to ignore this, facing Elaan. Worry was etched on her face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Elaan stared at her mother, at the hand on her shoulder, at the state of undress she was in, then she turned, brushed past Josh, and kept walking. She couldn’t deal with this. Down the steps, up the slight slope of the ground, toward their bike. Away from the house. Away from that woman.
She got to the bike and stopped. She wanted to ride away, but she needed Josh. She turned back to the house and saw Josh was just a few feet from her.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice laced with worry.
“Lijah was right,” she said. “We shouldn’t have come.”
Josh shook his head. “You’re not making any sense, Elaan,” he said. He paused a moment, took a breath. “I know you didn’t expect to find your mom with —” He trailed off.
Elaan followed his gaze to see her mother walking toward them, apparently having taken a moment to put on a pair of sandals. Josh left his sentence unfinished and stepped away as Shonda arrived.
“Sweetheart,” she said, her voice sounding just the way it always had, yet different at the same time. It seemed like it had been a long time since she’d heard her mother speak to her that way: caring and concerned. “Are you alright?”
“Not as well as you,” Elaan spat. “Partying and fucking some random stranger.”
Shonda gritted her face and grabbed Elaan’s arm, her voice low, but fierce. “I know you’re upset about what you think is going on, but I am your mother, and you don’t talk to me that way. Do you understand?”
Elaan stared at her mother, the fury still bubbling inside her. “My mother is dead,” she said, yanking her arm loose from her mother’s grip.
She turned, side-stepping the bike, and began to walk away. She had no idea where she’d go in this crazy world she didn’t understand, but she knew she didn’t want to be here.
She heard footsteps behind her. “Elaan, your father was only supposed to tell you about me, about this place, in a dire emergency. Is he…” she started, but the rest of the words seemed choked in her throat. “Is your father dead?”
Like her mother gave a damn. She had Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome at her beck and call. Elaan kept walking and didn’t bother to answer. But her mother didn’t let it go. Shonda jogged and caught up. Now she was walking beside Elaan. “Is this really how you want to behave? You came a thousand miles just to walk away?”
Elaan kept walking, but her steps didn’t have the same fervor. Her mother had a point. They had come all this way. But they’d come all this way to see someone who was in hiding, not someone partying it up with some sexy-as-hell dude.
“Where is Lijah?” her mother asked.
Elaan stopped walking. Guilt careened through her. Lijah had come with her. Lijah was supposed to be here, too. Only, he’d stayed on a train with a psycho underground conductor, for the sole purpose of keeping her safe. She turned to her mother, and she felt nothing but disgust. Her father missed this woman. Her father, even though he knew she wasn’t dead, was grieving the loss of her presence. Her father was feeling guilty that he might have condemned this woman to death.
Yet, what was the great Shonda Woodson doing? Partying with a man half her age in her secret love nest.
“So, you’ve just been here partying this whole time? Did you even think about us, miss us for even a second?”
Shonda’s face tightened, and she blew out a long, steadying breath. In a soft tone, she said, “I have not been here partying.” She shook her head and glanced back at the house, which Elaan had managed to trek a full block from in her anger. Her mother turned back to her. “Amadu got the speakers fixed today, and he wanted to test them out. Today was an unusual day.”
Amadu. What a name. Elaan sighed and spotted the house in the distance. The front door was closed, and Josh was standing near their bike. She’d abandoned him all because she was mad. She hated that her mother was right. She was acting childish.
But right now she didn’t care. Maybe it was immature, but she was seventeen and she was tired of being mature. She was tired of having to be an adult while everyone around her crumbled. First her father, back in the compound, and now her mother, living like a hippy teen on a commune with some guy young enough to be her son. “So, Amadu’s your boyfriend?”
Shonda shook her head. “I am married,” she said firmly. “To your father, and I have never once been unfaithful to him. Amadu is an immune. I offered to let him stay with me, and he’s been helping me. He knows things about survival that I just didn’t. He’s trapped animals for us to eat, knows an amazing amount about which plants are edible, and was able to fix the broken stereo so we could dance, because dancing is better than crying over the fact that your children are out there, and one of them thinks you’re dead. Because dancing is better than worrying that you’re going to go out and make people sick. OK?”
Elaan stared at her mother, her anger slowly waning. She didn’t have a whole lot of fight left in her as she looked at her mother, who she now really looked at. Yes, the hair was a big difference, the most noticeable one, the one that immediately found you. But everything about her mother was different. She was much thinner than before. She’d lost weight, either through not having enough food, or through an anxiety-suppressed appetite. She also had more wrinkles on her face. Her eyes, a beautiful chestnut brown that always seemed to sparkle, seemed completely lackluster, as if they’d been drained of everything that made them special. Shonda looked like being here had aged her ten years.
“Please come back to the house,” Shonda said. “I want to know why you’re here. I want to meet your friend.” She gave her daughter a hopeful glance.
Elaan nodded and her mother smiled at her, a broad grin that made her look more like her old self: happy, peaceful. Or maybe that was the way her mother made her feel — happy and peaceful. At least, she thought that was it. Or had she been misremembering it? Had the feelings of loss clouded all her memories of her mother? Were they still shrouded in the veil of wanting, the veil she had worn the last three months, that of wanting nothing more than to talk to her mother again?
Shonda waited for Elaan to start moving, then walked beside her. Shonda smiled and spoke softly. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she said.
Elaan didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure she was glad to be here. It wasn’t what she had expected, and though her mother’s explanation for Amadu made sense, she still sensed there was something off about the situation, something her mother wasn’t sharing with her.
They walked in silence until they reached Josh, who stepped back as they arrived. Elaan eyed him curiously for a moment, then realized it was her mother who was causing his reaction. Her mother wasn’t supposed to be contagious with everyday contact, but given that Josh was one step away from being a carrier himself, she could see why he’d given them a wide berth.
“Mom,” Elaan said. “This is Josh Wells.”
Shonda narrowed her eyes at Josh and took a step back from him now. “Are you Kingston’s son?”
Josh nodded but didn’t speak.
“You got the trial vaccine, the same one Lijah got?”
Josh nodded again, and Shonda pursed her lips. Elaan was surprised at how much her mother knew.
“Let’s go inside so we
can talk more freely,” Shonda said, looking around at the deserted street, as if she expected someone to come along. Shonda turned down the driveway toward the house. “The garage is this way. You should park your bike inside so no one comes along and takes it.”
Elaan grabbed hold of the bike’s handlebars and guided it down the driveway following her mother. Josh walked along the other side of the bike. “We’re staying?” he asked. Elaan nodded.
His lips parted as if he intended to say something more, but he apparently thought better of it and closed his mouth. They followed several paces behind her mother as she headed down the driveway and opened the garage. Elaan’s mouth popped open. There was a car. A little blue Prius.
On the other side of the garage, at least a dozen plastic storage boxes were stacked, lining the wall. Elaan looked at her mother curiously. Shonda said nothing, simply motioning them to bring the bike inside. They wheeled it in and Shonda closed the garage door after them. The room was dark at first, but then a light came on. Her mother had electricity, too. Like Lee. Though, she should have known that from the party music they were playing.
Her mother went to the center of the garage door and did something, but Elaan couldn’t see what. “Locking it,” her mother said. “Amadu must have seen us coming back and unlocked it for us. We don’t want anyone trying to take stuff.”
“The car has gas?” Elaan asked.
“Yeah,” Shonda replied. “It’s got a full tank and a battery maintainer. I knew the car might have to sit a while, so I got one before things got too crazy. Normally, if a car sits for too long, the battery will eventually drain and die. The maintainer keeps it going. If you’re handy, you can disconnect the battery, or disconnect things like the clock. Amadu and I keep talking about taking it out for a spin, but we’re both a little hesitant about being robbed or followed back here and have someone break in.”
Shonda looked at her daughter and Josh, then said, “Come on, we should go upstairs.” Shonda walked past the boxes and the car to a door in the rear of the garage. She opened it and it led to a stairway. This made Elaan consider the house’s layout, and she realized that due to the slope of the ground, which seemed to continue downhill, the garage was beneath the living area of the house. She walked over to the door, which her mother was holding open. Josh followed behind Elaan, though he looked hesitant. Perhaps he even regretted coming.
At the top of the stairs they entered a room with high ceilings and polished wood floors. To the left was a room with sofas, an easy chair, a fireplace, a bookshelf, and a shelf with a stereo and television. To the right, the floor was tile, clearly a kitchen area. A refrigerator, stove, marble countertops, maple cabinets, and in the center of the room a small circular table flanked by two folding chairs. There was more to the house. A hallway jutted off the main room, and Elaan assumed the bedrooms and bathrooms were down the corridor.
Elaan and Josh walked toward the fireplace. Shonda came up after them, smiling broadly. It was so different, so weird to see this smile she hadn’t seen in so long.
Shonda walked over to the easy chair and sat, motioning hem to sit on the nearby sofa. “So, tell me everything,” her mother said.
Chapter 24
Elaan was perched on the end of the sofa closest to her mother. Josh joined her, but edged as far from Shonda as possible without appearing rude.
“Tell us, first,” Elaan said, as she eyed her mother, then peered toward the hallway to make sure Amadu wasn’t nearby. “Why are you living here with this guy?”
Shonda’s smile faded, but she still seemed upbeat. “I don’t know how much you know about the circumstances in which I left,” she started.
“Nothing,” Elaan said in a clipped voice. “Dad told me that you were dead. I believed him. It never occurred to me that anyone would lie to their child about that. I just assumed we didn’t have a funeral because the disease was so contagious. So, I grieved and mourned for you for the last three months. I felt awful because I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I missed you every day for the last three months. And then, a few days ago, Lijah told me you were alive, and that you were a carrier. That you could make people sick.”
Shonda sat up straighter, and looked her daughter in the eye. She reached out and touched her hand. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you,” she said softly. “I really.... I just… I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to hurt like that, baby. I just wanted you to be safe.”
Elaan slid her hand away from her mother’s. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “Just tell me what you wanted to tell me, about the — y’know, ‘circumstances’ in which you left.”
Shonda stared intently at her daughter and looked briefly as if she intended to hug Elaan or offer some other comfort or apology. But then Shonda took a deep breath and shook her head. “OK,” she said. “There will be time for apologies later. You want to know how I left. Your father learned I’m related to Mark Dayton, so, on the off chance that I might also be a carrier, too, he tested my blood and learned I was. Only, I’m a bit different from my brother. I’m a carrier of the less contagious strand, Helnoan-A.
“People tend to get it when they come in contact with bodily fluids — a lot of them. You only get that level of fluid when you’re taking care of the sick, when they’re vomiting or bleeding constantly, and it’s almost impossible to stay completely clear. For most people, I’m not going to make them sick.” She turned to Josh. “I understand your concern, and I want you to know it’s incredibly unlikely that exposure to me will turn you into a carrier. I’ll try to stay at a comfortable distance.”
Elaan asked the question that had been noodling around in her brain ever since her mother first spoke to Josh. “How do you know about Josh? You’ve been in hiding the entire time we were in the compound.”
Shonda turned to her daughter. “Until the internet went down for me last month, I was communicating with your father using email.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Elaan asked.
Shonda shook her head. “We didn’t send each other emails,” she said. “Before I went into hiding, he created an email account we both knew the username and password for. To talk to him, I’d create a draft message, but not send it. Later, he would log in and respond to the draft. We never actually sent the email. We just had lots of draft messages. He told me things about you, about Lijah, about his guilt over what had happened, how he wished he could do things differently.”
Elaan swallowed, not sure she wanted to think about her father wallowing in self-pity. What a shame her mother couldn’t have convinced him to buck up and get his act together. She looked at her mother and motioned her to continue.
“So, I was able to communicate with him until a little over a month ago. And your father knew about Amadu. He understands. He knows it’s hard out here.”
Elaan raised an eyebrow. Was she serious? “You told him you were living with a guy half your age in the middle of nowhere?”
Her mother gave her a hard look. “I told him that Amadu moved in, and he thought it was safer for me not to be alone. He knows there’s nothing going on between us.”
Elaan sighed, still not happy with that last tidbit. Maybe Amadu was the reason her dad couldn’t get his act together. He was probably depressed that the wife he’d risked everything to save was shacking up with some young stud. The anger that had surged inside her when Amadu had opened the door returned. “And who is Amadu exactly?”
“He’s a grad student at the University of Illinois. He’s originally from Ghana, but he’s been here since he was eighteen. He’s majoring in chemical engineering, and when the campus closed in May, he didn’t have anywhere to go. He was supposed to do a summer internship with one of the professors in the lab, but it got canceled because of all the sickness. The university shut down for the summer. If things were normal, they’d be open now, but I don’t know if the campuses can reopen with so many people gone.”
“Mom,” Elaan cut in, not caring whether the university was o
pen or not. “How did you meet him? And what are you two?”
“We’re not a couple, Elaan,” she said. “I’ve told you that. He’s a friend, someone who’s been helping.”
“But he’s living with you, and you’ve known him for, what, a month?”
“Amadu was alone out here, like me. When the semester ended in May, his professor, the one he was supposed to intern with, invited him out here for the summer. The professor owns a house on the other side of the lake, on Kendall Drive.” Shonda pointed to the row of windows along the back of the house. Elaan looked out, but all she saw was trees.
“Well,” Shonda said. “About three weeks after Amadu got here, the professor and all his family were dead. They’d somehow contracted the virus. That’s when Amadu realized he was immune. He’d been too close to them to not have caught the virus. Since he was alone in the professor’s house, he had to decide what to do. He buried the bodies, and stayed in the house.
“While the family had planned to buy more supplies once they arrived, they didn’t have a chance. There weren’t many supplies. The fact that they’d been too sick to eat was the reason Amadu had the amount of food he did. He took the cash the professor had and went to town to buy supplies. But he knew it wasn’t enough. To make his supplies last as long as he could, Amadu decided to fish and trap. That’s when I saw him for the first time.
“I’d driven out on one of my last supply runs. I’d been stockpiling things, and could tell I’d need to hunker down soon. People were becoming scary, dangerous, and very primal, with everyone you met looking at you as if the key to their survival was dispatching you and taking your things.