“Okay. Okay. Everything is all right. Lay back there and let me stitch you up, and you can be on your way.”
Emily's heart thumped and even she didn't understand why this was making her feel so pissed off. They’d both been kind, and all she could do was writhe inside and want to scream at them. She tried to breathe, to stare at the lights on the ceiling, and not to think.
“Adam says you thought you heard someone scream.”
Emily growled. “Because I heard someone scream.”
“Is that,” Barbara cleared her throat, “is that the first time that's happened?”
Emily could feel her shoulders shuddering with the restraint it took to keep from shouting. “What do you mean?”
Barbara sat back while she prepared the needle and surgical thread. “Well, it sounds to me like maybe you had a panic attack.”
Emily rolled her eyes so hard her whole head moved. “I don't have panic attacks.”
“Okay. Hold still now. This will hurt a little.” Emily clenched her fists as Barbara put five stitches in her calf and tied them off.
“All better. Sit up now. We'll get you your shot, and you can go as you please.”
Emily looked at Adam in the corner. He was staring at her with his eyes in such stiff concentration he seemed to scowl, but he wasn’t angry. He was concerned, almost tender.
Emily clenched her fists again. “Sometimes. . .” She hesitated.
Barbara smiled. “Sometimes what?”
“Sometimes, I get these memories. Sometimes I dream.”
“That happens to all of us. It’s okay that it happens to you too.” Barbara was trying to sound very comforting, but the effort echoing in her voice had quite the opposite effect.
Adam sat up rigidly in the chair. “What kind of memories?”
“I remembered a girl I knew. I'd forgotten. Her name was Danny. Todd thought I was crazy, but I wasn't. She was a person. I found her. I buried her.”
“That was kind of you, Emily. Give me your arm now. A little pinch. This will be sore tomorrow, but it shouldn't be too bad. If it gets bad, if it hurts too much or swells up more than you think it should, you come back and see me.”
Emily wiped her eyes and chewed her lip again. “Todd wouldn't like it if I came back. Can I go now?”
“Sure.” Barbara said taking off her gloves. “Feel better, okay?”
Adam shot Barbara a look of irritation. “Wait.” He stood up too quickly, put too much weight on his ankle, and ended up falling back into the chair. “You came all this way. Let me show you around at least.”
“I don't know if that's a good idea.” Barbara frowned and amended herself. “Both of you should keep off your feet.”
“I'll take the golf cart. I think maybe she should see.”
Emily twisted her hands together. “I don't want to see anything. I want to go home.”
“We've got a pool table, and an espresso machine,” Barbara offered.
Emily shook her head.
“What about the garden?” Adam tried standing up again, this time more slowly. “You said you grow things. We grow things too.”
“You have a garden?”
“Well not me personally. I could kill a house plant just by looking at it, but there’s one here. Lots of people take care of it and use what they need.”
Barbara smiled at Adam. “We’ve managed to get quite a collection growing.”
“I’ll look.” Emily said guardedly. “As long as I can take Red.”
“Sure. He can pee on everything.”
Emily sort of laughed. Red would not wait for permission to pee on anything, but it was good that she didn’t have to worry about it.
“First, that foot. Your turn.” Barbara patted the table, and Adam and Emily switched places.
It didn't take Barbara long to figure out that Adam had a bad sprain and needed to take it easy for a few days. She told him to keep ice on it whenever he could, gave him some anti-inflammatory medicine, and wrapped his ankle in an ace bandage. Then she gave Emily some pills to keep infection at bay.
Barbara shook Emily’s hand like they were at a real doctor’s office somewhere in the city. “Take care, Emily. I hope you'll come back and see me if. . . well if you need anything.”
“Okay.” She didn't know what else she was supposed to say. “Thanks.”
Adam led Emily and Red out a side door where a golf cart was sitting with the keys in the ignition. Emily climbed into the front seat and Red jumped into the back and prepared to feel the cool wind in his ears, though she feared the ride would not quite live up to his canine expectations. They pulled around the corner of the building and Adam pointed out things as they passed. There was a huge field of solar panels, which he told her had been installed as a way to diversify the plant's power production before it closed. She wondered if Todd had installed any of them but couldn’t remember him mentioning working at a plant. There were people milling about. Inside, away from the towers and the guns, the people seemed quite normal. Occasionally, Adam would stop and introduce her to someone which was about as comfortable as setting her on fire. She was glad for Red again, because he was a furry shield between her and the others. Red was social where she felt only awkwardness. The fact that Red's face was covered in gore made little difference to his charisma, but Emily shrank away and only tried for some of a smile while the rest of her worried about reeking of garbage and not knowing what to say.
By the time they reached the plant's garden, she was more tired than she ever remembered being. She told herself it was the loss of blood, but after so much anger at Todd for lying, she couldn't believe her own lies. It was being around the others that made her feel this way, drained and slow. Even listening to people’s conversation was exhausting.
At first glance, the garden seemed worth the effort. It was huge, at least ten times bigger than her own, and they were using fresher fertilizer. Todd explained they had livestock, a small herd of cattle, chickens, pigs, rabbits, even a few horses. He liked the rabbits, especially, he said, and couldn’t eat them on principle because they were adorable. Emily wandered through fragrant herbs and stopped to breathe in the mint and rosemary. Adam noticed the attention she lavished on these two. “You can take some home with you if you like. We won't miss it.”
“No.” Emily said firmly. She'd already accepted more of their help than she preferred. “I just like the smell is all, it makes me think.”
Adam leaned in for a snoot full of basil. “About what?”
“I don't know.” She thought she sounded distant, or high, or both.
He laughed. His front two teeth were kind of crooked. “Do you often think about what you don't know?”
She scowled at him. “Yeah. Sometimes.” She grunted with frustration. “It just makes me think. It's like a farm almost.”
“Yeah, minus that special brand of garbage stink we’re adding to the mix.”
“No, even the garbage. We used to compost. There was always a pile of rotting garbage and pig crap behind the sty, but when the wind would blow. . .” Emily felt her knees turn into pudding, and she saw with too much clarity the image of her childhood home, rows of wheat for what seemed like eternity, her house, small and white with yellow shutters on the windows, and her father in his overalls slinging hay bales onto a truck bed. Her mother in jeans and a sweatshirt, dumping a bucket into the troth for the hogs and calling them to come and eat. It was painful to think of, but she didn’t want to stop. She could have shut down right then, stayed in that space in her brain until she died.
“You grew up on a farm?” Adam’s face was at once curious and disinterested.
She could only assume that a blend of those two things required some deliberate effort on his part. “I want to go home.”
“Sure. I’ll drive you back to your car.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. I want to go home to the place I’m thinking of.”
Adam shifted uncomfortably, keeping off his ankle. “I’d d
rive you there, if I could.”
She felt a tear slip down her face and turned from him to brush it away. He wasn’t as stupid as Todd. He knew to stay silent.
She didn’t have anything else to say to him and was grateful when he didn’t ask her any more questions. The drive back to the car was a blur of colors and voices. When they got back, Adam told Red goodbye and thanked them both again for saving his life.
Emily didn’t tell him she wished she had never gone to the dump that day, that she was glad he was alive but sorry for it all at the same time. She felt that place had lit a fuse inside that was burning slowly, and she had no idea how many explosives were waiting in her soul at the other end.
Adam told her to come back anytime.
16
She didn’t know how long Todd’s dinner sat on the counter getting cold before he opened the front door. She wasn’t sure if she remembered to wash her hands before she made it or if he was going to eat half a garbage dump. She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the sofa, letting the stink permeate while she stared out the patio door into the garden. She was wandering through a farm in her brain, finding her way into familiar corners and secret places she had known since she was a little girl. She knew Red followed her everywhere, yellow fur still stained, and he let her stroke him for what seemed like five minutes or forever or both. He was the only thing she let in from the present. The only thing worth keeping.
She didn’t look up when Todd came into the room, and she knew it was because he was the last face in the world she wanted to see. Even the thought of Mr. Johnson’s shriveled member flopping around on a stripper pole would be easier than having to spend five minutes in Todd’s company. She wanted to go home, but the place they lived would never be home, no matter how much she decorated, no matter how much she swept and dusted and cleaned.
And yet she’d made him dinner, like a drone hovering on autopilot around the kitchen. That had to mean something, but she wasn’t sure what. She heard him call to her from the kitchen, but she didn’t answer. She heard the plate slide off the counter, and the silverware drawer open, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She was afraid, if she twitched so much as a muscle, she would run away and keep running until there was no place left to run.
She heard him come into the living room, and she could feel his eyes digging a mineshaft into her. She couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t imagine how she and Red looked, disheveled, filthy, covered in blood. She wished she’d showered. She wished a lot of things.
She didn’t know how long he stood there staring at her because all she had to measure the passage of time was a light breeze outside shivering the leaves. Finally, Todd walked across the living room floor like he was afraid the sound of a footstep might echo and break her, and then he sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. “What’s for dinner, baby?”
Why did people insist on asking her so many questions? How could he pretend that everything was okay? He always asked her, and she always had to think of something. But not today. Today, nothing. She could think of nothing.
“Em, what did you make?”
She blinked.
“Sweetheart.” His voice had the kind of command her brain found irresistible, but she tried.
Her body fought itself not to turn, and the motion felt like pulling bags of sand through the mud. “What?”
“What did you cook for dinner, Em? It looks really good.”
Nothing. He was going to say nothing. Here she was, looking like she’d scrambled through hell and feeling like she’d just watched the world burn, and he was going to pretend it wasn’t real, like nothing happened. She wanted to hurt him, to throw something at him, to claw his eyes out or bash his head in, but all she could do was watch the wind and shiver. She wished she could pretend he wasn’t real, the way he pretended. “It’s coyote, Todd.”
“Em?”
“Every day, the same fucking question. It’s coyote. It’s always been coyote. It always will be coyote. There’s nothing else. You bring it home wrapped in plastic with a sticker like you just went down to the supermarket and put it in a cart. But there are no supermarkets. There’s just coyote. You make me pretend every day that it’s something else. Every day I think of something stupid to say and we eat and pretend. I’m tired of eating, and I’m fed up with pretending.” The walls around their living room seemed to shudder like a stone in a pond.
“Emily. . .”
“Don’t speak.” She held up a grimy hand that had definitely not been washed. “I saved someone’s life today. If I had listened to you, if I’d have let you make me think I was weak and crazy, he’d be dead now. But he’s alive because of Red and me, and all you want is to know what I made for dinner, like it doesn’t mean anything. You treat me like there’s nothing out there, like this house is the center of the planet. But you’re not the only person in the world, and neither am I.”
“Emily, you can’t keep going out this way.”
“Why don’t you zip tie me to a cash register? There are others. So many others. They live. They grow things, but we don’t grow, Todd. We only shrink.”
Todd scooted toward her with the most ridiculous look on his face, like he was going to try and hold her, or comfort her, or something that would mean nothing like everything else.
“Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything.” She wasn’t sure how it happened, but her legs moved, and she stood up from the sofa. She’d been sitting so long the garbage had dried and cracked on her jeans. “I’m tired of remembering.”
He didn’t listen. He set his plate down, and came swooping at her with his arms out, wanting to know what happened, but he was too late. Too late to ask and too late to try and hold her to keep the world away. It was already inside, even the ugly parts.
She moved for the stairs and Red followed her, cutting Todd off and almost making him stumble. She was half way up the stairs when Red caught up to her heals. She floated past the closed doors in the hall of empty things and locked the bedroom, so Todd couldn’t follow her. She heard him banging on the door, begging to be let in, begging to help her, to hold her. She only wanted him to go away. She didn’t remember getting in the shower, or scrubbing the dog, and crying because she couldn’t lift the horrible red stain. They soaked the sheets together, neither of them really dry and both too exhausted to care. She shuddered on top of the blanket, staring at the ceiling, and the shapes in the plaster that underwent metamorphosis every time she closed her eyes. Emily hoped she didn’t dream; she hoped she did.
17
It was almost like she’d gotten her wish. When she opened her eyes, it seemed like she was lodged firmly between her pillow and a dream. Everything was different, just like in dreams that mimic life.
Other than laying there, watching shadows crawl across the ceiling, mimicking life seemed like the best thing to do. She reached for routine like well-worn jeans, comfortable, broken in.
In the mornings, she snuck outside to tend the garden. She crept in the grass and bent to pull the weeds. She did this because it was the way she remembered things to be. Red raced, and slobbered, and peed on things. He was awake, even when she didn’t want to be.
There were so many weeds, it was like she hadn’t pulled them up in days. But that couldn’t be. The garden was every morning, the same thing. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?
She sat back and watched Red snapping his teeth at a bee, aside from him dancing around, the garden was perfectly at peace. Next door, Mr. Johnson moaned a song she didn’t recognize, but she was glad he was having a pleasant enough day to try and sing. Not that she wanted to talk to him, but glad all the same. When the weeds were gone, and the fruits obtained, she opened the garden shed to put some things away. It looked like someone had ransacked the place. She sat down her basket and grunted at herself. This was her fault, this insane disarray.
She stacked up the boxes in the back of the shed where they’d always been, sneaking them as silently as possible into a pil
e out of the way, but one of the boxes caught the corner of a screwdriver and it clattered into a metal bin on the floor.
Mr. Johnson sighed with glee.
There was no avoiding him now. If she was determined to live in this imitation, then she would do as she had always done. She paused for a deep breath, not feeling much like a morning chat, but she reached for the stepladder all the same. “Good morning, Mr. Johnson.” Her voice sounded cartoonish with how much force it took to sound neighborly. She sat the stepladder up near the fence and climbed up to see him face to face.
Mr. Johnson shuffled over in all his half-naked ingloriousness and lifted an arm to wave. Other parts of him always waved. She tried not to make a disgusted face. ‘He’s dead,’ she heard a voice whisper in the back of her brain. “Isn’t this weather great? I love it when the seasons start to change.”
Mr. Johnson dipped his chin then lifted his face. He’d never struck her as a man to admire much beauty in the world; he was more appreciative of comfort than aesthetic things.
‘You’re talking to a dead man.’ The voice in the back of her head tried to scream. Emily blinked the idea of it away and focused on Mr. Johnson. “Did I tell you we got a dog?”
He made a sound of disapproval deep in his throat, and it made Emily shudder. She’d never been afraid of him before.
Mr. Johnson was her friend, even if she hated admitting it. Emily waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, don’t worry. He’s a good dog, very sweet, and it’s so nice to have the company. You know, I’m over here by myself most days.”
Mr. Johnson stretched both arms toward her, a look of sadness, of hunger on his face.
‘Hunger?’ She thought, and her heart skipped a beat. Why would she think of that?
“I appreciate the gesture, but I can’t expect you to keep me company all day. You’ve got things to do.” People to flash. She smiled at him and hoped he couldn’t read her mind.
‘He is a dead man.’
She wished she could stop reading her own mind. He twisted his neck and clenched his teeth. Emily felt her stomach lurch with disgust and her knees tremble. She couldn’t be afraid. It was Mr. Johnson. Dick. Just like it had always been.
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