by Diane Cook
“Where Nana lived?”
“Yeah, when she grew up.”
Stories from her mother’s childhood formed a dreamlike picture that entered her mind, a series of snapshots rather than movies. Bea clung to them, perhaps because they were so far away and strange. So unattainable. When her mother had grown up on an oak-lined street of single-family houses, the world had been a very different place. They had been in the middle of a timeline, rather than at the precipitous end of it. It allowed for the memories to seem sweet. They were benign fables. She tried not to indulge Agnes with stories of the City, even though her daughter asked often to be reminded of it. But Bea didn’t want the City to become mythic. They lived here now, and Agnes shouldn’t have to wonder about life elsewhere. But these descriptions of a house in a place that no longer had houses were like favorite bedtime stories, the colors worn and the pages frayed. Something for the imagination. Harmless, she thought.
She said, “Sit next to me.”
Agnes crawled closer.
“Your nana used to tell me all about it. It was pretty, as you guessed. The houses were old and they had lots of lovely ornate things on the doors and the ceilings. They had these things called fireplaces, and that was a thing where you make a fire inside a house.”
“That’s weird.”
“It is. But it was really nice. The houses had big front yards, and the people who lived there planted flowers and pretty bushes and trees and in spring everything smelled good. And birds and bees would come, and skunks would amble from the bushes and scare Nana, and squirrels would chatter at her when she walked by their tree.”
“Like here.” Agnes was amazed.
“A lot like here. Now this was a long time ago. But Nana used to go to a park down the street and there was a big pond and there were geese that lived there and she would watch them.”
“Near where she slept?”
“Yes, just down the street from her house. And she would watch the geese and think how lucky they were to have such a lovely pond, so quiet. Sometimes in the early morning she’d go down and there’d be mist on the pond, the lily pads would look silver in the light.” It was as if she were describing a picture, or something she herself had seen. Bea didn’t know where her mother’s memories ended and her own began.
“We’ve seen that here,” Agnes said, an edge creeping in. Trying not to be impressed.
“We have. We’ve seen many beautiful things. That’s my point. I look at the geese here, and I see the view they have. So dramatic, so unique. They must feel lucky. They must know other geese don’t have it as good. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, guess.”
“Are there geese other places?”
Bea assumed there must be geese elsewhere, just not in the City. But now she didn’t know. And what of those other lands in heavy use? The cities of greenhouses, the rolling landfills, the sea of windmills, the Woodlots, the Server Farms. What of the lands that had long ago been abandoned? The Heat Belt, the Fallow Lands, the New Coast. Was it possible they were dramatic and unique? Many of them had been at one time. It was hard to believe they still could be. She hated to think about all those places, what they once were, what they were now. Bea shrugged. “I only know about the geese right here,” she said, pointing. “And the only difference is that the geese on Nana’s pond were safe. They were stupid in their behaviors. Waddling on people’s lawns, in the road. Leading goslings across the road. Trucks would have to stop for them. They weren’t scared. Where she lived, there were no predators, and people tended to protect animals. I think the geese knew that. Here, the geese are cautious because they have predators and we’re one of them.”
“What happened to the pond?”
“The pond was filled in and the geese left and Nana left soon after.”
“Before you were born?”
“Long before I was born.”
“Where did the geese go?”
“I don’t know. Nowhere. There wasn’t anywhere to go. Maybe here. Maybe that’s them.”
“They’d be old.”
“Maybe.”
“I wonder if Nana could recognize them if she were here.”
Bea felt a flash of anger at her mother for not being here. Something she had not felt before. Mothers ought to be with their children, a voice in her head argued. Yes, she was an adult, but what else did they have but one another, the family, this line of women? It had destroyed her mother that her grandmother had not come with her to the City at first. That sharing a life in the City had seemed to be a life not worth living for her grandmother. Here she was with Agnes. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she was doing it. Her mother, Bea thought for the first time, her jaw set, should be here.
Bea raised the sling and placed a good stone in the band. The two geese were so enamored with their view and with each other they didn’t even hear it snap. It wasn’t until it landed in a poof of feathers that the other leapt into the air honking out a distressed call, now alone.
Agnes waded out into the water to get the bird.
“Will you make me a pillow?” she asked when she returned, smoothing the feathers, smearing the blood around.
Bea took the bird from her, slit the throat to make sure it was dead, and drained the blood there.
“I’ll make you the softest pillow, my love.”
* * *
As they licked their fingers clean, Bea saw Agnes shiver. It was going to be a cold night, and Bea didn’t have all the skins they usually slept with in her bag. The bulk of their gear was carried by Glen. The fire wasn’t keeping the cold at bay any longer.
Bea said, “Maybe we should try to find the others?”
Agnes shook her head. “I like it here with you.”
Bea’s heart leapt. She searched for some sizable stones and put them into the fire to warm them for bed.
“Why did we live in the City if it’s so bad?”
“Because it’s where everyone lived.”
“Except your nana.”
“Well, my grandma lived there when she was forced to leave her house. She lived with us for a little while. Until she died.”
The first star blinked in the sky. The moon crawled farther out of its den.
“Do you like the City?” asked Agnes.
“Sometimes,” Bea said.
“What do you like about it?”
“Oh, the fun parts.”
“Like?”
“Well, the food. Food is different in the City. It’s more for pleasure than for fuel. Of course now, all that’s changing, but when I was your age, food was the ultimate pleasure.”
Agnes looked down at her hands and Bea realized the girl might not even know what pleasure was. Or she knew it but hadn’t the language for it. So much of what they did day-to-day was simply life. They put no words to it.
“You know what pleasure is.” She pulled her close and rubbed her back. Agnes closed her eyes. “See how nice that feels? I bet you feel warm and safe. That is a kind of pleasure.” Bea slowly moved her hand under Agnes’s arm and tickled. Agnes shrieked, playfully dove into Bea, laughing. “That silly feeling is also pleasure.”
Agnes kept her face buried in Bea’s belly and slid her skinny arms around her waist. Bea felt her shallow hot breaths through her clothing and on her skin. “There are all kinds of pleasure between comfort and thrill,” she said, squeezing her daughter. “Food can be either.”
“What food did you like best?”
“Well, I guess it depends. If you’d asked me when I was your age I would have said pizza. Do you remember pizza?”
Agnes shook her head.
“It’s big and round, warm, chewy bread and stringy cheese? Do you remember cheese? And a paste made from tomatoes? Do you remember tomatoes?”
Agnes smiled. Now she remembered those things.
“But now, I think I miss vegetables.”
“Which vegetables?”
“All of them. We’ve f
ound wild greens and wild tubers. But you can’t imagine the vegetables we used to have. All sorts of colors, but I miss the green ones most. I’d love just a plate of vegetables right now.”
“Me too.”
“And some fried potatoes. And anything creamy. I miss cream. I miss milk. I’d love a glass of milk. You used to love milk. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I loved ice milk.”
“You love ice cream.”
Agnes bit her lip and fell silent again. “Why don’t we live there?” she finally asked, struggling to remember.
“Living there made you sick.”
“I’m not sick anymore.”
“That’s true.”
“Is that the only reason we live here?”
“No.”
“Why else?”
“Well, Glen really wanted to be here. The whole thing was his idea.”
“Did you want to be here?”
Bea laughed without meaning to.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because that is a big question.”
“Are there small questions?”
“There are big questions and small questions. And big answers and small answers. And that is a big question with a big answer.”
“Does that mean you won’t tell me?”
Bea smiled. My perceptive daughter, she thought. “You needed to be here, and I need to be with you,” she said. “And so, I’m here.” That was her small answer. And the big answer was more complicated. And probably unimportant.
Agnes frowned. “But since I’m better, does that mean you’re going to leave?”
Bea frowned back. “Of course not.”
“But don’t you miss the City?” Agnes asked again.
“I told you, sometimes.” Bea knew this was unsatisfying, but what more could she say? “Do you want to live there?” Bea asked her daughter.
Agnes shrugged. It was such an honest gesture. How could she begin to have an opinion about it?
“What do you like about living here?” Bea asked.
Agnes shrugged again, but this time it was less honest. She had answers to this but no way to begin to explain them.
“Let’s try this. What don’t you like about living here?”
Agnes thought. “I didn’t like the cougar.”
“I didn’t like the cougar either.”
“And I don’t like snakes,” she added.
“All of them or just the rattlesnakes?”
Agnes frowned. “All of them,” she whispered, as though afraid they’d hear.
“Well, there are no snakes in the City,” Bea said and then wondered how that could possibly be true. How unlikely it seemed that a place could be devoid of snakes now that she knew all the secret places where snakes lived.
Agnes didn’t seem moved by this information. She knew snakes were a small answer to a big question.
“I think we should sleep,” Bea said. “It’s so cold and you’re shivering.”
Agnes nodded. “I’m cold.”
Bea took the stones from the fire and wrapped them in two pouches she emptied. “Hot,” she said.
They squirmed under the only skin they had and Bea curled around Agnes and each of them held a hot stone to her chest.
Bea woke several times in the night as the moon took up new positions in the sky. It seemed to be calling down, wanting her to notice it. Look, I’m over here now.
In the midst of her fitful sleep, her eyes snapped open and she became awake and alert. She listened and then heard again clearly what she’d heard from under her broken sleep. Something moving nearby. Something big. She thought, Bear maybe. That’s bad. Cougar. Even worse, but I wouldn’t hear a cougar, would I? If it’s a bison, at least it won’t try to eat us, but it could trample us. It’s tall, whatever it is. It stepped again and she thought, Not so big. Wolf perhaps? Elk?
She tensed in preparation to grab Agnes and run, or fling herself over the sleeping girl.
Then she heard a snap and then, “Ow.”
“Who is that?” she whispered.
“Bea?”
“Carl?”
He stumbled toward them and all at once was nearly stepping into the ash of their fire.
“Here,” she said, and held her hand up to stop him from stepping on her. He grasped her hand, leaned in, and peered.
“It is you,” he said, relieved.
“Did you think I’d be a bear who knew your name?”
“After today—” he began, but he didn’t finish the statement. Bea understood.
She could see now that he had his pack. She got up and took it off him. Inside was a larger, warmer skin. “Oh, thank you.” She laid it over Agnes.
“I don’t have food,” he said, and she caught in his voice utter weariness.
“Why didn’t you bed down somewhere?”
“I ran into some trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“I’m not sure, but I knew something was on my trail.”
“And so you came here?” Her voice rose and she instinctively crouched again by Agnes.
“It’s fine now, but I had to keep moving and then I just didn’t know where to go. I saw a goose fly up overhead and so I tried to find where it had come from.”
Carl sat with a groan.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not really, but I think I’m cut up from stumbling in the dark.”
“Where’s Val?”
“I don’t know. I told her to stay by my side, but of course she didn’t.” He broke a twig into small bits and tossed them into the fire circle, and in a moment little flares erupted where the pieces met with the hidden heat of the coals.
“Well, I’m sure she meant to,” Bea said.
He laughed a short sharp laugh. “Yeah, she meant to, but couldn’t quite manage it.” He shook his head, and Bea snorted in surprise that he’d take a swipe—and such an apt one—at his ally. She covered her mouth and glanced at Agnes, who really did seem to be asleep, her breathing relaxed in her throat. That was the first time she’d thought of Carl and Val like that. They were a couple, sure, but more, they were allies, and the distinction felt important.
“What a crazy thing that was,” Carl said, sounding frightened of what they’d seen.
“I was terrified.”
“Bea, I was too. I was never so scared in my life,” he said, a catch in his breath. “But then, it was so incredible. The landscape was utterly changed.”
The moon broke from the clouds.
Bea peered at Carl’s silver-lit face. He had two bloody lashes across his forehead. She resisted the urge to reach out to them, touch them, tend to them. “Someone must be injured,” she said. “Or worse.”
He nodded. “Are you worried about Glen?” he asked.
“I am. Are you worried about Val?”
He sat up straight. “Not really.” And Bea thought that could mean any number of things.
They were quiet. Bea listened to the frog’s throaty bellows at the pond’s edge. It seemed to gloat of its size, each croak bigger than the next. Its mate from earlier had vanished.
“You know, Agnes thought you’d caused it.”
“Caused what?”
“Caused the dust storm. Because you’d told us to be prepared to split up and then we had to split up.”
Carl laughed a delighted laugh. “I hope you told her I did.”
Bea chuckled.
Then he made his voice serious. “I didn’t, of course,” he clarified.
“I know.”
More ducks landed on the pond, and Bea pictured their landing V splitting open the water’s surface.
“Bea?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” He sounded concerned and wounded at the thought, but also certain.
What could she say? She didn’t like him very much. And she was sure he didn’t like her either. There was something sly about him normally, but tonight that felt put aside. Tonight, things fe
lt different, like there were new rules, or, rather, no rules. She breathed, preparing to speak.
“How about don’t answer that,” he interrupted. “I just want you to know that whatever you think, or how about whatever I’ve done, I’m not a bad guy.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” she said. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was a child, a bully, dim in everything except survival, and so here he was a king because survival was king. It irritated her that different people thrived in different places. It irritated her that Glen, who romanticized this life and knew its history, was not particularly good at living it. If he were easier to disappoint, he might give up on it. Agnes wasn’t sick anymore. So they might go home. If home even seemed like a good idea anymore. Good ideas were so relative and hard to discern in the dark, with goose blood gurgling in her gut, an animal skin warming her own.
“Well, I’m glad. I admire you and what you’re doing out here with your daughter. You’re very important here.”
“I don’t know about that.” She chuckled.
“Well, I do.” His sincerity silenced her.
The moon had moved and was now tipping its contents into the sky. The stars pouring from it.
“It is damn cold, though,” Carl said, finishing a conversation aloud that he’d been having in his head.
She looked down at Agnes and thought of the warmth her small, thrumming body was creating beneath the new blanket.
“We should sleep,” Bea said. “On that tree, we’ve hung some goose we caught and cooked up. There should be some good chunks of meat there for you.”
“See, you’re the best one out here,” he said, his voice thick with false flattery. This was the Carl she took lightly. The one always seeming to be angling for something. The one who wanted her vote in some imaginary election.
She lay down and listened to him step carefully to the tree. The sound of his footsteps now so unmistakable. How stupid to think he was some animal coming to eat us, she thought. The steps were so obviously human. Funny that out here that’s a comfort. She tried to imagine waking in the City to the sound of some uninvited human creeping near where she slept. How relative terror was.
The clouds overhead stretched thin in the air, crossing one another haphazardly like a mess of power lines.
Carl returned and crawled under the skin he’d brought that lay over them all. It was big, and he was able to be covered by it without touching Bea.