by Lou Cadle
He had quit screaming and thrashing by that point, but he said, as she finished, “I want my mom,” and when she looked up, the caretaker shook her head. Coral gave the boy a hug. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.” He was streaming tears as he left the room, and Coral turned away from Edith to hide her own welling eyes.
Couldn’t fool her, though. “It’s okay,” Edith said. “It’s okay to cry.”
Coral half-laughed, and swiped at her tears. “Poor kid. I miss people, too.”
“We all do.”
“I know. I know.” Edith had lost more than any person should have to, and Coral felt ashamed of her moment of self-pity. “This world sucks sometimes.”
“That it does.”
Maybe it was wrong, and maybe she was doing it out of feeling so alone right now, but Coral made the decision in a snap. She turned and said, “Someone came to me in private. A woman. She’s pregnant and wants to terminate.”
“Aw, crap,” said Edith.
“I’m just not comfortable doing that surgically.” She saw something in Edith’s face. “Has this happened before?”
“Once. A woman was pregnant, but before I could think of what to do, she miscarried.”
“I don’t know that we’ll be so lucky this time.”
“Lucky? Maybe it’s time to reconsider the policy,” said Edith. “I could talk to Levi.”
Coral shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll reconsider. And I don’t think he should, honestly. The food is running low. The fuel is running low. If a woman could manage to carry through the first trimester, I’m almost entirely sure she’d be consigning herself and the baby to a terrible death.”
Edith sighed. “I know, but I don’t like the idea of abortions.”
“I don’t know that anyone ever has liked the idea. But now, it seems the lesser of evils. Or would be, if there were someone to perform a surgical abortion. That can’t be me.”
“Nor me.”
“I can’t think of a thing to do anyway to cause the miscarriage. Can you?”
Edith took a moment to think. “Well, I heard when I was a kid about someone taking long hot baths and miscarrying from it. And when I was pregnant, my doctor didn’t want me to fly on a commercial jet. And it seems I heard someone say she was told not to have a bunch of orgasms in the first trimester.”
“Hot long baths would mean people knowing, and I wonder if that really would work anyway. I’m all out of functioning jet airplanes. But the orgasm thing, if it’s true, might work.” She could suggest it. “Are you sure that’s not an old wives’ tale?”
“I think it was for high-risk pregnancies, like the woman had miscarried before…?” The doubt was clear in her tone.
“Better than anything else I have. The only thing I’ve been able to dredge up from my memory is that smoking doubles the risk of it.”
“I’m sure there are no cigarettes left. The smokers have used them all up by now, gone through withdrawals, and come to terms with never having another.”
“I should remember to put it on my list of medical supplies, to tell Levi or Parnell about. Like if they find some cigars out there, they should bring them to me.”
“Yeah, smoking does other things, right? Like it constricts blood vessels, or dilates them, or whatever.”
Coral came as close to laughing as she had all afternoon. They were both stumbling around in the dark. This ignorance was deadly serious, but right now, it struck her as funny. “We should probably figure out what cigars do before we rely on them for that.”
Edith said, “Maybe it’s in one of the books.”
“No reason to look it up until we have some cigars on hand. But for now, I’d like you to think about whatever you’ve heard about miscarriages. And please don’t talk to anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t. I understand confidentiality.” She was offended.
Coral patted the air. “I know you do. I trust you, Edith. I’m saying, in the hope of learning more, you might start talking with your friends, asking them. We do too much of that, and people will figure out someone is pregnant. I’d like to spare her gossip and conjecture about who it is.” Though if her morning sickness continued, Abigail’s secret would be revealed.
“Okay,” Edith said.
“I’m glad I told you. Maybe you can come up with something where I’ve failed.”
“How long do we have?”
“I don’t think she’s as much as four weeks along.”
“The sooner, the better, for a miscarriage.”
“That’s true.”
“Women used to throw themselves down steps.”
“Really?” Coral shook her head. “I don’t see how that would get you anything but a broken bone. A broken neck, if you’re unlucky.”
“I think they were trying to hit themselves in the abdomen. Like maybe if you got kicked there several times—”
Coral held her hand up to stop her, though the image was already in her head. “No. Not an option.”
“Of course. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. I didn’t know there was so much in my head about it. Maybe I overheard my aunts talking when I was little.”
“I appreciate it. Keep remembering and thinking. We need something safe and certain.”
“Maybe she should quit eating. If she were starving, maybe her body would know and would reject the baby to keep her alive.”
“Maybe,” said Coral. “But everybody is already on the verge of malnutrition. The long term consequences….” She trailed off, remembering that she didn’t think Abigail would survive long out there anyway. But she had to be given the chance. Pregnant, the chance was zero. With Doug at her side, and a miscarriage safely behind her, it rose a few percentage points.
The bell at the front desk rang, and Edith went to see who their next patient was.
The rest of the afternoon, Coral managed not to worry about Benjamin, but as she walked to supper, her mind returned to her suspicions about him and Kathy, and what it meant for her. The table was busy with conversation already when she arrived. People were quizzing Benjamin on the trip. The other person in the room who also went on long scavenging trips pulled his chair over and joined in.
Coral listened, but not only to the content of the discussion. She wondered how many of these people were guessing that their situation was growing more and more dire, and she tried to pick it up from the hints in their comments. The scavengers, yes—she thought they had an inkling of how uncommon replacement supplies were. How many of them had wives, husbands, sisters, and best friends that they shared their concerns with?
Some people had to know. Kitchen workers knew the food was disappearing, Levi’s inner circle would know. But the people here seemed relaxed, and more than one made a joke about a luxury item they’d like to see found. Maybe even the ones who did know didn’t really understand. She thought some of them had not thought it through to its logical conclusion, of people fighting over the last scraps, of the armed inner circle closing ranks and driving the others—the ones least likely to have survival skills—away into the cold and empty world.
She thought back to the woman she’d seen in Levi’s apartment. She probably knew. She was positioning herself for the best chance of survival. Coral didn’t know whether to admire that or despise it.
And when she thought of stealing some MREs and sneaking away in the night with Benjamin this week, she didn’t know whether to admire or despise herself. Until now, she’d seen herself as one of the good guys. She didn’t think she was any more. A good guy would stay here, and doctor them, and starve with them.
She wasn’t a good guy. She just wanted to live.
Chapter 24
The four of them walked back to the apartment and stayed up talking, the topic drifting from one thing to the next. Coral suggested to Doug that he give up on the 19th century novel research and look at the early 20th century instead. “Maybe ones about poor people, who had to do their own doctoring.”
He l
ooked crestfallen.
Abigail laughed and said, “He prefers the 19th century.”
“And if I were looking for farming techniques, I’m sure that’d be more useful. But they had a totally different idea than we do of medicine. All blood-letting and diseases we don’t even acknowledge any more. The vapors. Seriously?”
“Maybe there’s something in Moby-Dick,” Doug said.
“I think you’d have that memorized by now,” Abigail said, looking fondly at him.
Coral felt a wave of anger that this nice couple couldn’t have the life they had a year ago. She hated Fate right then, hated the asteroid or whatever it was that had caused this, hated that Doug wasn’t happily ensconced with a pile of old books, working on his thesis, that Abigail wasn’t making plans for their first baby. They were decent folks. They deserved a decent, long life.
But they weren’t going to get it.
She tried to turn her feelings off. She didn’t need to increase her sympathy for any of the townspeople. She needed to sever herself from them—emotionally, and then physically. She looked to Benjamin, listening intently to something Doug was saying. Without her partner by her side, she didn’t think she could survive alone, either.
Three hundred was too many. But surviving took two. Maybe she could ask these two to go along with them? Doug might pull his weight…but Abigail, nice as she was, could not. That was a problem. Everyone had to work hard out there. A person injured, or ill—well, you made allowances for that for a time, knowing they’d be back to speed soon enough. A person who simply couldn’t cut it? That person was a liability. That person was like an anchor sunk through a hole in the ice, and if you stayed connected, stayed tangled up with her, she’d pull you down to your death.
Kathy could make it, though. Coral tried to imagine the three of them, her, Benjamin, the new girlfriend going off together. No. It’d require a fourth person, too. Another male, she supposed. Someone for her.
She didn’t want that. What did she want? Here, she was fed. She had a job to do. Tomorrow, she could keep on as she had this past week. But after that? The day would come—and soon—that she had to leave.
Benjamin had always been part of that plan—or at the very center of it. But if he were drifting away…if he wanted to start a relationship with someone else….
Coral didn’t want that to happen. She looked at Benjamin and tried to imagine survival without him. She couldn’t.
The three of them went up to bed, and Coral said she was going to stay and flip through Doug’s books. She didn’t, though. She sat and watched the candle burn down and tried to get her head clear. She had to talk to Benjamin. But what to say to him?
The candle was flickering when he came down the stairs. “You coming up?” he said.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah, I figured.” He sat in a chair. “What’s up?”
She took a deep breath. Get it out there. “I was watching you and Kathy. Are you involved with her?”
His eyebrows shot up. “I—no.” He was obviously surprised.
“Would you like to be?” Before he could answer, she pushed on. “I don’t want to stop you from being happy.”
He was shaking his head slowly. “What brought this on?”
“I was watching the two of you. There’s something there.”
“Just friendship. Or no, not even that, really. Companionship on the road. On the job.”
“I think it’s more. On her part, I’m pretty sure of it.”
“Really?” He had a half smile.
“If you need my permission….”
“Gee, thanks.” The smile was gone.
“I mean, I won’t stop you from being happy. It’s a horrible world, and if you can find someone to—you know—keep you warm for a little while, you should.”
He stared wordlessly at her.
The longer he did, the more exposed she felt. And nervous. She wanted to speak to fill the silence, but she didn’t have anything to say that would sound any less stupid than what she’d said so far.
Finally he said, “That’s it? That’s what you’ve been worried about?”
“Well yeah.” And all the downstream effects of it. What it meant about their future, when they left, if it was going to be two or three of them leaving together. Or the two of them alone, not including Coral.
“Okay.” He got up. “Coming up to bed?”
“In a second,” she said. She watched him go partway up the stairs, and then the candle spat and guttered out. Well. What the hell had just happened? She should feel relieved, but if anything, she was more confused than before.
She tried to straighten out her thoughts, but they were twisted up and kept looping around each other, leading her in circles.
She waited in the dark until she thought he might be asleep, and then she went up. Quietly as possible, she removed her boots, unzipped her jacket and crawled under the covers. Normally, she would move up against him and share warmth. Now that felt awkward, wrong. She settled down on her half of the futon, alone, and stared into the dark.
She lay like that for long minutes, assuming he was asleep. When he spoke, she jumped in surprise.
“I forget how young you are sometimes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I could see it back at the house, you know, at the beginning. You were young then. Young and afraid. But over the months, you’ve changed. You’ve grown up. Hell, in some ways, you’ve become middle aged like me. I got used to that. I forget you’re still a teenager.” He made a sound that was not quite a laugh.
“I don’t feel like one,” she said. She didn’t, either. She felt like she had lived half a lifetime this past year.
“No. And you aren’t a kid, not in most ways. But you should be. It breaks my heart sometimes that you missed that. You should be in school, and dating, and having wild weekends with your first great lover.”
“I was thinking the same thing myself—but about Doug and Abigail. They should be reading books, and starting a family, and shopping at IKEA for a crappy bookcase.”
“I’m talking about you, not them. They had some good years. You didn’t get your chance. That’s why I haven’t pressed you to leave sooner. Here—this place? It’s the last of civilization. Here, you have a chance to have the career you had dreamed of. You have an apartment, and moments like tonight, BS-ing with this other young couple.”
“That’s why we’re still here?”
“Yeah. It’s part of it. I couldn’t ask you to leave this. There’s going to be nothing like this out there, not for a long time. Maybe not ever again.”
“I haven’t been deluded about that, not since early on.”
“Back then, you wanted to find something just like this. You said so more than once. I thought this was still what you wanted.”
“I did then. But I’ve changed. I don’t want this now. I liked how we were before, you and me, fishing and hunting. I don’t regret a thing.”
“Then let me regret for you, okay? I regret the life you’ll never have. It’ll make me feel better.”
“You don’t sound like you feel better. You sound sad.”
“I am, Coral. I am.”
She reached for him and pulled herself close to him. “You know how I feel, don’t you? You’re my family. You’re everything to me. I love you.”
“But not like that.”
“Like that is gone. It’s as much history as the flippin’ IKEA. Romance is for people who have time for it. For people who are well-fed. Like those silly women in Doug’s novel. Embroidery and whist and country dances. Stupid.”
“You’d rather have gutting rabbits and ice fishing and hauling a sled like a workhorse?”
“I would! That’s exactly what I want.”
“It can’t be.”
“I mean, maybe not if all things were possible, but that’s not the world we live in. In this world, I liked those things. I liked them way better than this. I liked the two of us being ou
t there, on the move, making our way together. This place? It’s doomed. But even if it weren’t, it’s not what I want any more. I want to get back to the life we had. With just the two of us.”
There was a long silence, where he felt his chest rise and fall with every breath. “Okay. We’ll start gearing up for it tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Really. Before a week has passed, we’ll be gone.”
“Thank you.” She clung to him, loving him more than ever. Her heart felt like a big open wound. “Oh, thank you.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t make a big deal of it. We always knew the time would come. Boise wasn’t forever.”
“It is a big deal. It’s huge.”
She kept clinging to him, trying to work up her courage. It took so long he grew restless. “So we’re okay? That’s it?”
“Not quite,” she said.
“What, then?” he said.
“This,” she said, and she rolled onto him and began to kiss him. Not because she was afraid of losing him to Kathy. And no, not from some romantic idea out of the old world. But because they were a family, and they were partners, and they both deserved something more than the endless straining to survive.
He hesitated at first, but she was certain now, certain of the rightness of it, and she convinced him of her certainty. By morning, their bodies had forged a covenant together, and they were as married as they’d been claiming to the townspeople all along.
The next morning, when she went downstairs, Coral’s attention was drawn back to Abigail. She whispered to Coral that she was afraid she couldn’t control her nausea in public, so she’d skip breakfast Luckily, Doug’s mind seemed elsewhere, and after kissing his wife’s forehead, he left early, mumbling to himself. Coral was worried about Abigail not eating, but she couldn’t think of a solution to that. Abigail would just have to skip a meal.
Benjamin held her hand as they walked to breakfast. He was being terribly sweet, and Coral thought he was the one with romantic tendencies he had wished upon her. For herself, she felt as if she had skipped right over romance and courtship and into a comfortable middle of a marriage, where a deeper love had already replaced infatuation. It seemed like everything should have changed after last night, but it hadn’t, not for her. She loved him yesterday. She loved him today.