by Cameron Lowe
Looting had already started, he told them after he guzzled half a bottle of water, and the city was burning. They didn’t step foot outside Gwen’s parents for two full days while all around them sirens blared and the masses took to the streets. They existed within a bubble, listening to an old boombox’s AM radio while they huddled together. Either the cell towers were down or there was too much activity to get word in or out. Morristown was lucky in that the land lines came back relatively fast, and they finally managed to get calls out to Malcolm’s hysterical parents and Hugh and Charlie.
A few hours later, their phone rang for the twentieth time that day, and Daphne answered, glanced at it, and asked, “Cal?”
It was indeed Gwen’s ex-boyfriend, and strangely enough, he didn’t want to talk to Gwen or the Caplans, though he did quickly ask after their well-being. Instead, he wanted to talk to Malcolm.
“Calvin, hey, it’s good to hear you’re okay,” Malcolm said, rising and heading into the kitchen.
“Thank you,” Calvin said. His voice was smokier now, and he sounded exhausted. They all did, he supposed. “I’m calling to ask for your help. My wife and I are opening up the warehouses to survivors. I know you’re the manager for a Matto Furio’s. I’m hoping to speak to the owner and you, and see if we can convince you to help out with cooking meals and making sure these people are fed.”
“Let me get in contact with Dinah and see what we can do. Even if she says no, give me the address and I’ll try to help you out if I can get down there.”
Calvin rattled it off, and Malcolm dialed his boss. If Dinah was within the city still, the call would probably either get a “we’re sorry” message or voicemail. But she picked up on the first ring. She explained she was in Billings, staying with a relative, and they talked quickly about opening the Matto Furio’s to Calvin’s makeshift shelters.
“Do it,” Dinah said. “Do whatever you need to. If the power went out, you’ll still have the dried pastas and the sauces. Get whoever you can and do whatever needs to be done. I can’t make it back to the city, not for a while, but when I can, I’ll be there.”
Elliot and Malcolm managed to retrieve the van the morning after that. Someone had tagged it with a great reddish-orange figure in the shape of a man, of all things, but apart from that, it looked untouched. They weaved their way cautiously through the suburbs to Gwen and Malcolm’s apartment, a half-hour journey normally but which now was a five-hour odyssey. The building seemed relatively unscarred, and the neighbors told Malcolm while he gathered things for the toddlers and Gwen that a neighborhood watch of sorts had been formed to make sure things stayed calm in the surrounding area. It was more than the police or National Guard could do in that moment, and when he and Elliot came back to the Caplan household, Gwen agreed it was probably okay to head home. Her parents were worried, terrified even, but Hugh and Charlie were on their way to help with the relief efforts and would need to stay there at least for the short-term.
Gwen and Malcolm led the efforts from the Matto Furio’s at providing pizza and pastas to the survivors staying at Calvin’s warehouse. With dozens of hungry mouths to feed, they worked from morning until nightfall to cook, clean, and gather what supplies they could to start it all over again in the morning. In a few days, Dinah showed up with an entire refrigerated truck filled with boxes of supplies from a dozen similar pizza and Italian places out of Billings, with more to follow. For the first time in Malcolm and Gwen’s adult lives, bills were not a worry. Only life mattered. They kept the kids with them, setting up a playpen in the corner of the dining area, and Winnie became their little rock star, watching over not just their children but the young toddlers of two of the employees who joined them.
The city began to find a normalcy again by Thanksgiving, but the chaos wasn’t done quite yet. Like everyone else in the Flats, they watched, numb and afraid, as wave after wave of violence upended their city. It seemed like every other month some new tragedy befell the Flats. Through it all, Gwen and Malcolm talked about leaving, but with the violence came a citywide resolve. For every nutjob, there were a hundred, a thousand residents standing up and fighting back. After the tornados, the devastated communities joined together to rebuild and to heal. Good people were forged in fires that should have incinerated them. The Irvings maybe should have fled like so many others, but there was an honest pride that came with staying and defying the ugliness of the world around them. They brought the kids downtown to watch the construction crews rebuild skyscrapers. They helped bring meals to the residents of trailer parks flattened by the second tornado. They might have had next to nothing in their pockets but they chipped in when they could for charity events for the loved ones of the first responders lost to the city’s plague of terrors.
They stayed, and slowly the world around them settled into a new normal, but for Gwen and Malcolm, the worst was about to come.
Chapter 39
Holidays were never easy around the Irving household. Gwen and Malcolm made the hard decision early on not to lie to their kids about Santa Claus, because there was no guarantee they could provide Winnie – and later Roslyn and Marley – any gifts at all, let alone some from a man who promised them to good little boys and girls. It took away some of the magic of the holiday for both of them. They wanted the silliness of Christmas traditions, of milk and cookies left out by the tree, of Charlie or Hugh calling the kids and deepening their voice to ask if they’d been good kids that year.
Poverty, though, could make the traditions seem almost cruel. Certainly Marley had his fits, but overall, their kids were good and decent, and seeing their children measure the yardsticks of the toys brought to other kids by jolly old Saint Nick against their own socks and throws and whatever few cheap toys they could find throughout the year on clearance aisles would have broken their hearts.
The grandparents were all more than a little upset over this decision. Not wanting their relatives to realize how bad things were for them, Gwen and Malcolm played it off like they just didn’t think the traditions were healthy or wholesome, pretending to take a moral stand as opposed to a monetary one. Malcolm’s parents just ignored their wishes, sending a few packages each year to the kids with Santa’s name on them. Malcolm and Gwen replaced the stickers with their own, writing the grandparents’ names on there, often while Gwen tried to hold back tears and Malcolm fought back the gnawing sensation in his gut that he was the world’s most massive fuckup of a parent. He knew consciously he couldn’t blame himself and that they were trying to do their best, but it didn’t ever stop hurting when the kids asked curiously why other kids believed in Santa Claus and they didn’t.
That winter was tighter than most, even by their own standards. By Thanksgiving, they knew they could only afford a few things for the kids from the dollar store along with a trio of new jackets Gwen bought that spring on a deep going-out-of-business sale, hoping and praying the kids wouldn’t outgrow them by the time Christmas came along. They cut every corner they could. Malcolm brought home food from Matto Furio’s every night he could get away with it until the kids – and themselves – were sick of pizza. What kid was ever sick of pizza? They both picked up what hours they could, but the debt collectors were howling outside the windows, so close that it gave them both nightmares.
The flu hit Gwen midway through December. She fought through it, going through enough cough drops that it wrecked her stomach. She had to keep working, though. Without both their incomes, they couldn’t pay the bills in January. Forcing herself to stay upright over the next few days left her worn down, beaten, unable to speak much when Malcolm came to pick her up.
The cough kept getting worse and worse until the force of it nearly dropped her. Malcolm encouraged her to go to the hospital, but one more bill on top of their pile and they were done. She thought about asking Charlie for a loan but Malcolm would be vehemently against that. They could do this. Next month they’d be free of Dr. Ditmore’s latest bill until her next appointment in May. They cou
ld hopefully use the money they would save from that to pay down the credit cards, and maybe have those paid off by 2020 or so. It was doable. She just had to stay healthy and out of the hospital.
So of course she got pneumonia.
* * *
“Baby, please,” Malcolm said dully, rubbing his forehead. “You have to go to the hospital.”
Gwen lay on the couch, a cool wet rag on her forehead. It helped alleviate the fever. Winnie was in the kitchen doing homework while Marley and Roslyn played in a corner with some action figures Hugh sent on for their birthdays that year.
“I don’t want to argue about this,” Gwen said, her voice thick as syrup. Malcolm had never heard her sound so sick.
“I don’t either. So let’s go.”
“Don’t get mad at me because I’m sick.”
“I’m not.”
She drew an arm up and over her eyes. “But you are mad.”
Malcolm stood up from the kitchen table and started pacing. “Yes.”
“Gonna tell me why?”
“Because we have this stupid argument every time you need to go to the hospital, Gwen. You need antibiotics and steroids and rest and… whatever else it is, I don’t know.”
Gwen started to speak again, but it turned immediately into a wet cough. When she finally managed to spit out a gob of phlegm, she said, “I need to go to work tomorrow.”
“I’m picking up twenty hours extra hours this next week.”
Gwen sat up, the cloth over her eyes falling away. “What? Where?”
“Thea Margolis needs a driver for her store.” Thea was another manager for a different Matto Furio’s, and she’d once put a move on Malcolm. It rankled Gwen just to hear her name. “Five shifts, four hours each. She’s paying me time and a half.”
“Honey…”
Malcolm crossed over and squeezed her shoulder. “We can’t afford not to take her up on it. And I’m going to pick up a few hours day after tomorrow.”
“On Christmas?”
“Yeah. That’s kinda why she wants me there. She has no one for the holiday and it’s going to be double overtime,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You need to take care of yourself. I’ll be fine.”
Gwen nodded slowly. Her mouth opened, but whatever she was about to say was interrupted when Marley stood up. “Mom, I’m hungry,” he complained.
“You know I can cook you dinner too,” Malcolm said, amused.
“Okay,” Marley said, huffing. “What are we having?”
“I think Mom was planning on spaghetti. How’s that sound, buddy?”
“Spaghetti?” Marley reared back and kicked one of his action figures. It skittered across the yellowing laminate floors and rebounded off one of the cabinets.
Malcolm folded his arms and said, “Hey, stop that!”
“I hate spaghetti!” Marley shouted. Roslyn stared up at him, her lip quivering. “We have spaghetti all the time. It’s so stupid! It’s all Mom ever makes. Why can’t we eat something good?”
“Okay, that’s enough of that attitude,” Malcolm said.
“I hate this stupid family!” Marley turned and stormed for the bedroom he shared with his sisters, sobbing loudly. Roslyn started crying too, and Winnie poked her head out.
“I got him,” she said quietly. “Spaghetti’s fine. We love spaghetti.”
Roslyn nodded frantically, wrapping her arms around herself. She got up and ran into the bathroom, flinging the door shut. They could hear her hushed sobs through the thin walls.
“Jesus,” Malcolm said and plopped down on the couch next to his wife. He rubbed his jaw and stared at the silent old television, one of the boxy kind no one in their circle seemed to own anymore.
“We’ve got rice. I think I could do them in little balls with the hamburger.”
“Rice and hamburger or spaghetti. Kid’s kinda got a point.”
The words punched right through her defenses, and Gwen swallowed hard before she muttered, “Thanks.”
“Aw shit, Gwen, I didn’t mean…”
“Didn’t mean what? That I’m a crappy mom who can’t put better food on the table?”
Malcolm wrapped an arm around her. “Please don’t.”
“Stop it, Malcolm. Stop trying to make everything okay.”
“Then you stop wallowing in this self-pity crap and let’s get you to the hospital,” he snapped. “Because the longer you mope around and put this off-”
“Mope around?” she asked incredulously.
“-the more we end up kicking ourselves in the ass in the end. We keep doing this same loop time and time and time again because you think you need to play a martyr and I’m just so tired of it. I need you to get checked out so we don’t wind up having to rip out a lung or something.”
“I’m so glad you care,” Gwen said, biting the words off.
“Damn it, Gwen, of course I do. You know that. But you have to want to take care of yourself. How many times have you shouted at me to grow up? Well, take a look in the mirror. Because you’re not getting better, and if you stay sick like this, your little hospital stay is going to wind up being two weeks instead of a few nights. And that, sweetheart, we can’t afford.”
“You’re being a prick.”
“Oh really?” Malcolm asked with a sneer. “You think I’m the one being a prick? If you’d have stayed home and rested, your flu would’ve been gone by now. No question. But I think you wanted to be sick. I think you wanted an excuse to be the center of attention, Gwen. It could’ve just been cough syrup and Vicks and now it’s going to be steroids and antibiotics and fluids pumped into you for a week because poor noble Gwen can’t go-”
The bathroom door banged open, and little Roslyn, wild-eyed and her hair shooting in every direction, shouted, “Stop fighting! Please stop fighting!”
Malcolm’s mouth hung open but his words stopped. His sneer shrank, disappeared. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered, and winced at the unintentional swear in front of his daughter. She stormed into her shared bedroom with the others, and Malcolm turned to his wife “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“Let’s go,” she said, standing up. She moved too fast and wavered, not sure if she was going to fall or not.
“What?”
“Let’s go. To the hospital. Right now.”
“Gwen…”
“No, I mean it. Now.”
“Hey, come on…”
She sniffed and brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re right. It’s all my fault. All of it.”
“No, I didn’t say that-”
“Yeah, but that’s what you were going for, right? My fault because I love the drama?”
He jammed his thumbs into his pockets. “I didn’t… I was an idiot. I didn’t mean any of it.”
“Yeah. You did. We only say what we really mean when we’re angry. So let’s recap. I’m a horrible mom. I’m a shit wife. So let’s go add more to the giant mountain of debt I’ve brought home which I can barely help pay back because I’m completely worthless.”
“I never, ever said you were worthless.”
“Maybe it’s something I think about myself,” she shouted, or would have if her illness would have allowed it. Instead it came out as a loud gasp. Quieter, she added, “Maybe I’m tired of b-being the reason you have to work hundred-hour weeks now or why my kids can’t eat a good dinner.” She shook him off when he tried to grasp her arm. “Don’t. I’ll ask Winnie to watch the other two and we’ll call my mom on the way.”
“I was an asshole.”
“No,” Gwen said, and smiled. It was broken and full of glass shards. “I think you finally told me the truth I needed to hear.” She turned and embraced him, staring up into his eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Malcolm. For all of it.”
He brushed the tears away with his thumbs. “I’m the one that should be sorry.”
It was the strangest make-up conversation they’d ever had, and it left Malcolm feeling uncomfortable and
scared when he finally left her hospital room after she fell asleep that evening. That night, he read the two little ones a story and kissed all three on the head before drawing the privacy curtain on Winnie and Roslyn’s side of the room. He tried to lay in bed for a long, long while, but wound up seated at the kitchen table, watching the snow flutter down past the halogens of the streetlamp below and thinking about his wife who’d never seemed further away.
There he fell asleep, and there he woke up the next morning to a text about some bicycles.
* * *
“They’re nice bikes, but come on, Taylor, you know I can’t do two hundred. Not even close.”
Malcolm stood at the entrance to a storage unit, his breath misting in the cold air. Taylor was a cop friend of Hunter’s and loved to pick up storage units at auction like he was one of those people on HGTV. This time, he’d picked a real winner, stocked full of sporting goods and winter gear. The five bikes were one of the few items he wasn’t interested in for himself, seeing as how he was two decades too old for some of them and the others were a bit pink and frilly for his taste.
They had them all out in a row. Two blue ones would work well as unisex bikes, and were about Roslyn and Marley’s size, though they’d need training wheels. The other three were distinctly feminine and larger. They might be too big for Winnie now, but in a year or two when she grew, they’d be about perfect well into her later teenage years.
“I can go one-fifty on them, but that’s it,” Taylor said. “Otherwise I can sell them to my cousin down in Wyoming.”
“Well, you’d better give them a call. Sorry, bud.” Malcolm turned around and started walking for his van, wondering if he had time to swing by Memorial to see Gwen before he went into work. He was still haunted by that smile and apology of hers last night, and he wanted to tell her again how sorry he was.
“How about payments?” Taylor called after him.