Children of Paranoia (32 page)

“Listen, Mom,” I finally said, breaking away from her grasp. “I'm going to show Maria around tomorrow, maybe take her up to Rocky Point. Besides, I need to get some sleep. I'm exhausted.” I stood up and limped toward the stairs. My leg was throbbing.

“Okay, Joe,” my mother replied. She never asked for more information about my injury. She knew not to ask me about the details of my job. “Good night,” she said, not budging as I slowly made my way to the stairs. When I was about to place a foot on the first step, she called out to me. “Joseph?” I could tell from the tone of her voice that there was something she'd been waiting to say, something she'd been holding back.

I turned around. She was sitting on the couch, her hands folded in her lap. She looked nervous. “Yeah, Mom?” I asked.

“She's pregnant.” I don't know how she knew. She just knew.

“I know, Mom.” I stood for a second at the bottom of the steps debating whether I should say anything else. I decided against it. Then I limped up the stairs and went to bed.

I woke up in the morning to the scent of frying bacon wafting up from the kitchen. I felt like it was Saturday morning and I was twelve again. I climbed out of bed. The leg felt better. It still hurt but it felt better. I grabbed painkillers from my bag and swallowed a few without water. I got up, got dressed, and began to head downstairs. On my way, I knocked on your door to see if you were awake yet. I didn't hear anything, so I thought I'd let you sleep. I walked down the stairs alone. The walk down the stairs was twice as painful as the walk up had been, but there wasn't much to do now but grit my teeth and bear it.

I was surprised, upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, to hear your voice echoing out of the kitchen. Apparently, you were already awake and bonding with my mother. Now that my mother knew that you were pregnant, the bonding frightened me. I don't know why. It was a classic case of paranoia. I should have remembered to trust it.

My mother had you hard at work, mixing pancake batter as she flipped the bacon in the frying pan with a fork. You both looked happy, free of worries. At least for the time being, I decided to join in the fun. I smiled and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Nice to see that my mom is already teaching you how to domesticate yourself.”

“Morning, Joseph,” my mother turned and said to me as I stared at you, hard at work. It was the first time I'd ever seen you cook. You looked dangerous.

“Forget that college education, forget working, all you need to know how to do in this man's world is cook and clean, right, Ma?” You shot me a dirty look. My mother walked over and slapped me on the shoulder with a dish towel. “How long have you two been up?”

“I got up early to run to the store to make sure I had some food for breakfast. When I got home, Maria was already awake. She was kind enough to offer to help me cook.” My mother wore an apron as she cooked. She looked like a Bisquick ad from the fifties.

I walked over to the frying pan and picked out a piece of bacon with my hands, reaching in quickly to try to avoid being burnt by the bubbling grease. “Can't you wait ten minutes?” my mother cried out as I popped the sizzling bacon into my mouth.

“I could wait three days,” I replied, “but I'd rather not.” You hadn't said anything yet. “Has my mother been treating you okay?” I finally asked you, only half teasing.

“It's been really nice,” you said, your tone much more serious than I expected. You almost sounded sad. Someday maybe you'll tell me what you were thinking about.

We sat around the table together and ate breakfast. Once again, my mother barely ate and you ate twice as much as I did. The conversation over breakfast moved from one inconsequential subject to another, each of us hoarding our own secrets. Mostly we discussed our plans for the day. I told my mother how we had a few errands to run and then I was planning on taking you up to the top of Rocky Point, an old rock ridge above town where Jared, Michael, and I used to camp when we were kids. You seemed genuinely excited to see some of my history firsthand.

“You sure that's a good idea,” my mother chimed in, “considering”—and then there was a pause. The pause spoke volumes. It said quite clearly, “Maria's condition.” Eventually, however, my mother finished by saying, “Considering your leg.”

“We'll be fine, Ma,” I responded. “The fresh air and exercise will be good for both of us.” I placed my hand on top of yours on the table. It just felt good to touch you.

Soon the food was gone. Shortly after that, you and I climbed into the car and headed into town. We left our things upstairs, knowing we'd be back in only a few hours. My mother stayed at the house, alone.

The first thing that we had to do was to gather supplies for when we left New Jersey. We went to a bank and I used the cash machine to take out four hundred dollars, the maximum amount that the machine would let me take out in a day. The account was my spending account. I had the ATM card and the pin number but the account wasn't in my name and I didn't have any control over it. The actual account was controlled by headquarters. I'd go to get money and money would be there. We were told not to spend extravagantly. If we did, we'd be cut off. That's all I knew. Along with the ATM card, I had five different credit cards, each under a different name. I never saw a single credit card bill. They went straight to headquarters. Again, I never had a problem using any one of them. The rules were the same as the ATM card. Do your job and keep a low profile. We couldn't live like James Bond. Allen made that clear enough, but we never had to worry about money. It was something that I had always taken for granted, but I wouldn't be able to do so much longer. The plan was to take out four hundred dollars every three days until we had over sixteen hundred in cash. We'd do all our spending on the credit cards, buying supplies that we could use while on the run. I hoped that the spending wouldn't raise any red flags. After all, I was supposed to be on vacation. After two weeks, we'd throw everything away, abandon it all. The free ride would be over, because as long as we used their ATM card and their credit cards, they'd know where we were. As long as we kept using their money, we couldn't be free.

After the bank, we headed to the grocery store. We shopped like we were going on a camping trip: no perishables; lots of things that we could prepare easily; lots of things we could eat without cooking; lots of bottled water. We bought granola bars, beef jerky, ramen noodles. I also picked up enough prenatal vitamins to get us through your entire pregnancy. Now was the time to spend.

We filled up most of the trunk with our supplies from the grocery store. Then we headed down the highway to a camping supply store. We brought two sleeping bags, two flashlights, a first-aid kit, and a tent.

The shopping took up the rest of the morning and started to eat into our afternoon. Still, I wanted to show you around before we left so that you could see the world I knew when I was still innocent. I wanted you to see the best of me. I parked the car at the end of a small cul-de-sac. We cut through the backyard of an old house and hiked through the woods for a bit. I checked to make sure that you were doing okay, but it quickly became clear that my leg was holding us back more than your condition. You were full of energy. We crossed a small stream and gradually started making our way uphill. Nothing had changed. It was like the forest had been frozen in time. I had changed. My world had changed. The forest hadn't. As we headed deeper into the woods, the trees grew taller and farther apart. The woods opened up, only the random beam of sunlight finding its way through the forest canopy. “It's beautiful,” you said as we hiked up the ever steepening slope.

“You haven't seen anything yet,” I replied. My leg throbbed with each step but it was worth the pain. After covering in thirty minutes what used to take me fifteen, we reached the base of the rock. From its base, the rock shot straight up, nearly a hundred and fifty feet. You craned your neck and looked straight up to the top as it jutted just above the top of the tree line.

“Wow,” you said when we reached the rock, holding the word in your mouth. You walked up and touched the rock, feeling its texture. “This is amazing. How high is it?”

“Almost a hundred and fifty feet,” I replied. “We used to climb it growing up.”

“Really?” you asked, surprised you didn't know this about me already.

“Yeah.” I remembered the first time I climbed it like it was yesterday. Jared had read all the books and had done all the prep work, so he volunteered to man the rope during the first climb. It fell to me and Michael to see who got to climb up first. I offered to shoot for it. Michael wouldn't have it. “It's your rock, Joe. You brought us here. You go first.” The first climb took over two hours. I made my way up slowly, dangling a hundred feet from the ground, holding on to tiny rock ledges. Jared and Michael yelled out the whole time, encouraging me upward. We were still more than a year away from our eighteenth birthdays. The world was still simple.

“So how do we get to the top?” you said. There was mischief in your eyes that I hadn't seen since the first weekend we met.

“There's a path around the side. It's pretty steep. Do you think you're up for it?”

“You think you can hold me back, Gimpy?”

We hiked on. My leg burned. A few times you had to turn around and reach your hand out to help me. I tried not to pull too hard on your hand, worried what it might do. Eventually, we made it to the top together. From the top, it felt like we could see half of New Jersey spread out beneath us. We walked up to the edge and sat down, dangling our legs over the hundred-and-fifty-foot drop, the tops of the trees barely reaching our feet. You leaned against me and rested your head on my shoulder.

“How long have you been coming up here?”

“Since I was seven. I'd come up here whenever I wanted to get away. After my father died, I came up here all the time. I'd ride my bike over from our new house. When me and Michael and Jared found out about the War, all of us came here. When we came here, it was just us. No War. No death.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was.”

We spent another twenty minutes just gazing out over the world, watching the little matchbox cars move along the street, watching the miniature people move about their yards. We sat up there, your head resting on my shoulder, looking at the world we weren't a part of anymore. As the afternoon wore on, it started to get cold and we decided that we had to head back.

We pulled up to the house in the early evening. When we walked inside, I went up and gave my mother a hug. She hugged me back, but her heart wasn't in it. Something was wrong. I ignored it. I didn't want to get into it with her. We walked into the living room. You sat down on the couch and I turned on the TV. I excused myself so that I could go to the upstairs bathroom and check on the hole in my leg. I went into the bathroom and pulled off my jeans. I stared at my leg in the full-length mirror in the wall. There was no blood and no pus. It seemed to be healing well.

I was in the bathroom for maybe five minutes when there was a knock at the door. “Who is it?” I asked.

“It's your mother, Joseph. We need to talk.”

“Hold on a minute. Let me get my pants on.” I pulled my jeans back on and opened the door. My mother was standing there, not more than three inches from the door. Her eyes were full of tears and her upper lip was trembling. Everything was crashing down. Time froze.

“She's seventeen, Joseph,” my mother said through trembling lips. The last time I saw her cry like that was when Jessica was killed.

“How do you know?” I responded, trying to stay calm.

“Her passport,” my mother responded coldly.