A Brave New World: War's End, #2

by Christine D. Shuck

  Chris reached out a hand to her. “Carrie...I...”

  She pulled away. “I have to clean up. Just, just, please go back to bed. I’ll be fine. I, I just need to be alone, okay?”

  With each loss, the gulf between them seemed to widen. She kept the pain close to her, embraced it like a friend, and pushed away Chris, Liza, and anyone else who cared. Chris didn’t know if she was trying to spare them from it, or if retreat was just a coping mechanism, but each time his own misery grew. How much more of this could their relationship take? This terrible feeling that they were growing apart, isolated from each other, lost in their own private pain?

  Chris retreated back to bed. She hadn’t even told him this time. And how long had she been pregnant this time? A few weeks? A month? With Fenton’s passing and Liza’s new baby on the way, work on the farm was busier than ever. Usually he tried to pay attention, to know, so that he could be some kind of support for her. But he had been so busy.

  The lantern light was blown out and he heard Carrie navigate her way back to the bedroom. She moved silently across the floor—only one or two creaks gave her position away—and then she was sliding into bed beside him.

  “How long?” he asked her.

  “Two months, six days,” she replied, and her voice sounded hollow. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  Chris closed his eyes in pain and guilt. He hadn’t noticed at all. Two months, and I didn’t even notice.

  “Sweetheart, I...” he began.

  “Please Chris,” she cut him off, “I’m just really tired right now.”

  He pulled her close to him. She stiffened at first, sighed, and let him pull her against him. They lay there, unmoving, for a long time before either could sleep again.

  The next day dawned, sun bright over the tips of the trees and the warmth of the early summer sun already warming the tiny homestead. Chris awoke with a start, realizing he had slept late, later than he had in a long time. He could smell hot chicory percolating on the stove and quickly dressed. Usually he was the one who rose first.

  After splashing some cold water on his face, he walked into the kitchen, poured himself a large mug of the brew, walked into the living room and looked up. Sure enough, there she was, sketching away. She usually threw herself into a new project or series right after a miscarriage. He could see her now, intent on sketching out the details on the canvas, which she would then fill in with the paints she made from plant extracts. I’ll have to let Liza know, he thought, have her check in and see if Carrie needs any extra iron supplements and also to keep the kids away for a week or so.

  He knew he would also have to push Carrie to stop working, to eat something and even to come to bed. The painting would consume her. It was her escape, but it came with a price. She had broken her ankle shortly after her fourth late-term miscarriage. She had gone into labor at just 22 weeks and given birth to a stillborn baby boy. That had been almost three years ago. By that time Chris had finished the loft and moved Carrie’s painting supplies in there. She had gotten out of bed way too soon, insisting she was fine, climbed up into the loft and began painting with single-minded intensity. The third day of painting, with little food and even less sleep, she had tried to climb down the ladder, slipped and fallen, breaking her left ankle. Since then, Chris kept a sharp eye on her, which caused friction between them, and insisted she regularly stop for meals and rest.

  “Morning sweetheart,” Chris called, “ready for some breakfast?”

  “I’m not hungry.” Carrie didn’t look up from her sketch. Her eyes were red-rimmed and drawn tight with exhaustion. He wondered how long she had waited before slipping back out of bed and climbing up the ladder to the loft. Probably not long.

  Chris tried again, “I could make you something simple. An egg or...”

  Carrie flushed with anger; she was right on the edge, “Chris, leave it be.”

  He took a deep breath and fought the desire to argue with her. He had half a mind to go up and drag her down from the loft by force, but he couldn’t bear an argument right now. Better to go talk to Liza and see what she had to say. He knew his sister-in-law would shake her head and beg Chris to try to convince Carrie to stop trying. The last miscarriage, just seven months ago, had shaken them all. She had lost a great deal of blood, collapsed, and Liza had feared for her sister like never before. Between that and Fenton’s slowly succumbing to heart disease it had been an incredibly difficult year for everyone. And Liza didn’t need any stress either. Carl had quietly pointed that out to Chris the other day. After all, she was in her final trimester and they were expecting the baby to come any day.

  With one last look at Carrie, who sat less than ten feet from him sketching with an intensity he admired and hated at the same time, Chris left the tiny homestead and headed for the main house.

  A Time for Writing

  The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

  It had already been an excellent day for trading. David felt on top of the world. He and Jess had made it official with the kids, and even shared the news of their new relationship with a trusted few: Thurman Banks, who had dropped by unexpectedly and caught them holding hands, and Sarah Turner, who had smiled and nodded her approval.

  It was a moment in time when everything seemed bright, anything was possible, and there were no clouds or harsh words that could mar their happiness. Jess had reminded him that there was a trader leaving town soon and asked if David could find her some paper, “I’m running low. I’m finishing up with Sarah Turner, and then I’m hoping to speak to Mr. Stevens and write down his story.” Jess had been writing down the various townspeople’s stories for a while now and filled several notebooks. There was a large stack of them in one corner of her room, filled with personal stories, accounts of the invasion of Belton, descriptions of lives before and after the war, and so much more.

  Jess had earned quite a reputation around town, and residents now sought her out and volunteered their stories. She had heard heartbreak and tragedy, but also she had listened to the young and the old alike as they smiled and relayed tales of falling in love, of babies born and accounts of a world now that was harsh, simple, and, in some ways, more real than the old one. Through the people and their stories twined hope and love like threads of shining gold. She had filled countless notebooks with delicate script and was close to running out of the last battered one in the stack.

  “Whatever you can find would be wonderful.”

  David caught the trader just in time. He had been packing up, having stayed in a small room in a decrepit building across from Sarah Turner’s café for two full days. When David had asked for paper, he had rustled around in the back of a still overly full van filled with boxes overflowing with a wild medley of tools, fabric, shoes, and more. A moment later he had handed over two simple student notebooks with lined paper.

  “I think I have something more here,” he had said, and began digging further into the stacks of items. David marveled at the man’s ability to find anything; it looked for all accounts like a hodgepodge with no rhyme or reason, but the trader always seemed to know exactly where to look. He pulled out a large tote, shifted another to the left and began pawing through a third one. “Ah yes, here it is.” The trader handed David a journal encased in a soft leather case. It had obviously been handmade, was soft and supple, the pages within were thick and sturdy. It was thick as well, the paper roughly cut and of different shades of cream and pale yellow. The thick leather smelled vaguely of lemon.

  “I got a whole crate full back in Tennessee a few months ago. This kid, Joseph Perdue, lives in this hole-in-a-wall town, makes Belton look positively metropolitan, and he makes them all by hand. Traded ’em for auto parts.” David felt the well-cured leather and noticed a small raised area on the back—the initials JP were embossed on the back. “He does quality work,” the trader added, anxious for a sale.

  Neither of them had noticed Sarah Tu
rner’s face when the name Perdue and Tiptonville had been mentioned. She had turned pale and excused herself without a word. As she slipped away, Sarah couldn’t help but wonder who Joseph was. Possibly a grandchild of old Fenton Perdue? She recalled that he had a son who had moved away to New York. In a small town like Tiptonville, everyone knew everyone else. It had been years since she had been there. More than half a lifetime since she had run away in the night with her two small children and left Wes Perkins behind. For the first time in twenty years, Tiptonville suddenly felt close enough to touch. She wasn’t that frightened young woman any longer. She disappeared into the café and lost herself in making preparations for the lunch crowd.

  Neither the trader nor David had noticed her departure. David looked at the well-made hand-crafted journal in his hand and nodded. They began hashing out a trade. The trader was itching to return home after a month on the road. He had accepted five dozen eggs and three jars of preserves along with a bag of deer jerky in trade for the journal and the two notebooks. It was a good trade, and they had plenty of extra eggs these days with the expanded chicken house and yard and an overabundance of fruit to can into preserves. The trader had also given him three clean and empty jars in return.

  David brought it back to Jess that night after visiting with Sarah Turner, who seemed quite distracted and quiet; not her usual ebullient self. He had also run a handful of errands for old Mister Banks who had been having trouble getting around lately due to swelling in his knees. The old man was having more and more difficulty getting around, and Jess, David, and Jacob visited him often to help in whatever way they could.

  As he handed over first the notebooks and then the journal, David hadn’t thought much of it. Jess had asked for something to write in, and he had dutifully found it. It was paper and leather, nothing special in David’s eyes, but the reaction Jess had to it made his heart stutter. Even now, three months into their new relationship, a simple touch or look in her eyes brought on such overwhelming feelings of wonder and desire. Knowing that she returned his feelings was staggering, new, and each day he wondered when he would wake up from this beautiful dream he was having.

  Her fingers stroked the leather cover, and then opened the book to fan the pages within. She smiled, unconsciously, her eyes soaking up the thick, rich paper, and like David, her fingers found the embossed initials. “JP?” she asked, her eyes flashing up to him.

  “Trader said it was some kid in Tennessee, who made them all by hand. A Joseph Perdue, I think.”

  “David, it’s...it’s beautiful.” Her crayon-blue eyes smiled up at him. “Thank you.” She couldn’t imagine what she would write in this thing of beauty, but she knew it would have to be something special, something different.

  David had been surprised at the force in which she hugged him. Later that night, after they had made love, she had slipped out of bed. “I’m going to stay up a while,” she had said, kissing him.

  She had selected the leather journal, slipped quietly down the hall and sat down at the kitchen table. The night was quite warm, now that it was early June, and the cicadas were thrumming noisily outside. In the far distance you could occasionally hear the low of a cow. The horse and goats inside the garage-turned-barn were silent and the stars glinted in the clear night sky.

  Jess sat at the kitchen table, a small candle glimmering and expanding on the moonlight that spilled in through the window. She stared at the journal, touched the soft leather with her fingers and wondered what to do with it. Several minutes went by before she slowly opened the journal and began to write...

  “There are moments when all of it is too much, too painful to remember. Yet then I look around at those I love and realize I would not be here, with these people who I love and who love me, if those awful things had not happened to me. How do you reconcile that?”

  I Can’t Stay Here Anymore

  “Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

  The soft creak of the box springs woke Chris. Carrie had slipped into the bed quietly and, once she heard his breathing change, she slid close to him and kissed his ear softly. He shifted, turned toward his wife and pulled her close.

  “Is the painting done?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve missed you.” She had slept each night for the past two weeks in the painting loft on a small couch. It had been a compromise early on to the all-nighters she pulled when lost in a new painting.

  “I know. I missed you too.” The past two weeks had been hard. There had been words exchanged, harsh ones, mainly from her. He didn’t understand this need she had to finish a painting before returning to him, to her life and family.

  Carrie sat up, her hair reflected in the moonlight, cascading down and brushing Chris’s chest as she straddled him. He started to speak, started to object that it was too soon, but she shushed him and put a slender finger on his lips. It smelled vaguely of turpentine.

  “No more arguing,” she said, “Not tonight.”

  Her hands moved and Chris felt his body respond, just as it always did, to her touch. They made love, slowly, coming to a climax together. Afterward, they spooned, wrapping their bodies around each other, their bodies replete. They may not have children, but they had love, so much of it that it sometimes hurt. He wasn’t always sure where he ended and she began. They lay there and said nothing for a long while.

  “Chris?” he jerked awake at Carrie’s voice, having just dozed off.

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “I can’t stay here anymore.”

  “Here in this house?” he asked, confused.

  “No...here on this farm...in Tiptonville.”

  “Wait, what are you saying, Carrie?” He feared hearing the words. Had he just gotten some crazy, twisted goodbye screw? Was she leaving him?

  “I’m saying I can’t stay here anymore, Chris. Not on this farm, not in this town; hell, maybe not in this state. I’ve got to get away from all the memories—my mom, the babies, even Gramps. I see him everywhere, you know, and I miss him so.” Her body shook with emotion and he could feel her tears drip onto his arm.

  “And what about me, Carrie?” he asked, terrified of her answer.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she said, sounding affronted, “I love you, Chris. And through all of this, you have loved me and stayed by my side. I don’t want to lose that. You aren’t tied here, you know. Come with me, we can travel the roads again and be safe. The Reformation has taken care of that.”

  Relief flooded through Chris. After all they had been through she still loved him and wanted him by her side.

  Carrie continued, “Remember the trader who bought that box full of journals from Joseph and several of my paintings from the Trade Mart? The one who insisted on meeting me? He talked about the new government, about the new Capitol in Denver. He told me I could get good money for the paintings, that there has been a resurgence in American art in the past three years now that The Collapse is over.”

  Over was a bit of an overstatement. Chris had said that there were two stories going around. One proclaimed that The Collapse was over, that life was back to normal. As if by simply saying it enough, the bigwigs in D.C. could make it so. The truth was, much of the country, especially a wide swath of the central states, was not back to normal. The coasts had their electricity, more cell phone towers than ever before, and in no small part due to the European contingent in the East and the Chinese contingent in the West, back to normal was a relative term.

  “Sure we’re back to normal,” Wes had growled, “as long as you ignore the fact that the Chinese occupy California and a huge swath of the West Coast. Christ, they own us, and they’re gonna make sure they get their money’s worth. And don’t even get me started on the fuckin’ East Coast. Goddamn sellouts.”

  Chris thought about all of this, about the quiet life that he and all of the Purdue family led here in Tiptonville. He rested his nose against Carrie’s head,
breathed in her unique scent of sage and wood smoke. He thought about Missouri and home. It did, after all, hold a huge part of his heart. Mom, Dad, Jess, his friends. His thoughts drifted west, to Colorado, and his grip tightened around Carrie.

  “Yeah, baby. Let’s go. We can do this; we can head west, to Colorado, or wherever you want to go.”

  Traders and Raiders

  “Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” – Arthur Miller

  “That...whore,” Cooper fumed, as he stabbed into the hunk of meat he had taken off of a deer. It had been a perfect opportunity; the fool thing had just stood there in the clearing long enough for him to get a shot off. And it was a good shot at that; it had killed the creature instantly. “I’m going to kill her. Stick a knife right into that pregnant belly and...”

  Armando sat a few feet away from Cooper, saying nothing, his eyes on the small amount of food on his plate. There was plenty to be had, although it was a little stringy and not evenly cooked, but Cooper had only given him a small amount, commenting that the boy was useless and lucky he got anything at all. At the moment he was back on the same old subject—his cuckolding—Mama had always made sure Armando had learned plenty, despite the lack of books. And Cooper had definitely been cuckolded by his wife and her new lover.

  Cooper still wasn’t sure how she had done it, but whatever Delwen had done, it was enough to get her appointed as leader in Cooper’s place when her father suffered a series of convulsions two weeks prior. And right after that she had announced she was pregnant...with that idiot Heimdall’s child.

  “I’ll cut that little bastard out of her and shove it down her throat...”

  Armando let Cooper’s curses wash over him. He chewed on a hunk of venison. It was dry, tasteless, and Armando remembered with longing his mother’s cooking. They were never given much, despite her being the camp doctor, but what she made with those scraps of food and the wild edibles she taught him to collect for her was a feast compared to this.