The System #2 (19 page)

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said back.
 

But Ethan hated when people responded to empathy with that comeback. He frowned. “I’m not sorry because I personally
caused
your pain. I’m sorry because I understand it is an awful situation.”

Ainsley nodded, and then she looked right at Ethan. While bringing her curly hair into a ponytail, she said, “But your father did cause it. So. That’s the elephant in the room.” Immediately after saying that, Ainsley shrunk backward on the couch and covered her face with her hands. She splayed out her fingers and looked at him through the web of digits. “Bad Ainsley,” she mumbled. “Normal people would find a way to build that into natural conversation. It’s just been on everyone’s mind. The subject of conversation, actually. Oh, I have to stop. I’m stopping.”

The expression of it being an elephant in the room took him by surprise. He hadn’t really thought that his personal albatross was causing grief among the outsiders. Other than basic curiosity or, he imagined, anger, he had a hard time envisioning Spencer, Joey, and Doctor Krause dedicating much time to discussing his relationship to the release of the virus.

Now he knew he was wrong.

“Okay, well, now you can’t just stop there. Spill it,” Ethan said and he adjusted himself on the couch so he could lean over and pry Ainsley’s hands off of her face. She groaned and fought him and then relented, curling her hands into her lap, picking at her cuticles.

“I think Spencer wants—” Ainsley paused as if she heard something, craning her neck and peering out the den doors.

“He’s not anywhere near the house. I would be able to smell his bullshit a mile away.”

As if on cue, Spencer appeared around the corner of the den. A sick smirk plastered on his scruffy face. He held an easel and a white flip chart under his arm; he cocked his head and stared at Ethan and Ainsley. Then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, settle in, chief. I’m bringing my bullshit in
presentation
form,” Spencer said and he tapped his office supplies with his free hand.

“You have a presentation?” Ethan asked incredulously.

“Gather the troops,” Spencer replied. “I’ve got something to say.”

Before he worked his way into administration, Spencer was a social studies teacher. He spent his hours lecturing children on World War II and the principles of the New Deal. He taught about mob mentality in Sociology class and the effects of a bull market in economics. In his tenure as an educator, Spencer developed an affinity for the flip chart. As he stood before his neighbors in the Whispering Waters complex, he blinked a red laser pen on and off against a title page that read “Spencer’s Plan” in thick strokes of Sharpie.

He’d clearly given this a lot of thought.

“What’s this about?” Darla asked, with Teddy on her lap.

Joey and Doctor Krause had gathered in the den as well, waiting for Spencer to begin his big announcement.
 

“I’ve prepared my little speech with some visual aids, which I think will be helpful to your comprehension.” Spencer said. He held a hand on the first sheet of paper, ready to turn it over. “May I begin?”

“You’re calling the shots,” Darla replied, rolling her eyes.

Spencer cleared his throat. “Great. Just the way I like it.” He flipped to his first page. Written at the top it said:
Why are we here?
Drawn in the middle was a stick figure with one leg. Dripping from the missing appendage was blood, drawn with a red marker.
 

With a quick click, Spencer trained his laser pen on the image. “As you can see, I’ve answered this question with a clear drawing of Ethan.”

Ethan groaned. He looked around the room and he saw that everyone was staring at the chart with interest, so he settled in and crossed his arms.

“We are here because of Ethan. All of us, in some way, are connected to him. He helped you,” Spencer nodded toward Darla, “or he needed you.” He looked to Doctor Krause. “Okay?” Then he flipped to the next page. A smaller version of the same one-legged Ethan had been relegated to the bottom part of the page and an arrow pointed upward to a larger stick figure: A man in a lab coat holding a test tube. Spencer labeled him plainly as: Ethan’s father.

They all looked at the drawing and waited for the commentary.

“Right,” Spencer continued. “And Ethan’s father is
this
guy. His role in the virus that killed our world is contested, but it’s clear…he did have a role in it.”

He paused, and then flipped the chart again. Spencer had drawn an outline of the United States of America. There was a circle over Oregon and a circle over Nebraska with two sets of dotted lines connecting the two. Taking his laser pen again, Spencer traveled the first line. “Ethan’s sister and a friend took off to Nebraska to contact the people there. It is with great hope that everyone in this house waits for the people from Nebraska to,” he ran his pen the other direction, “come back to Oregon and…”

He shut the pen off. Waited. And then he flipped the chart. Drawn on the next page was just a single, solitary question mark. “Do what exactly?” Spencer asked.

Teddy, who had been sitting patiently in his mom’s lap, reached up and tugged on her shirt. “Mom, I’m hungry,” the boy complained at full volume. Spencer shot Teddy a look and Darla shushed her child.

“Wait, Teddy. Just wait,” she instructed and Teddy, pouting, collapsed into her side.

Spencer continued. “So, what happens when the guys from Nebraska come back for Ethan?”

Ainsley raised her hand. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“I hated school,” Joey added.

Doctor Krause said nothing.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Spencer said, ignoring them all. He flipped the chart. This time it was a picture of a couple other people holding vials, a few others holding guns, all of them frowning—and a collection of dead stick people, drawn in a heap of circles and lines and X-ed out eyes. “We are waiting around for a bunch of people who tried to
kill
us to try and kill us again. This is not some farfetched concoction. No, no, I am guaranteeing that there is no way in hell that Ethan’s welcoming committee is gonna look at two middle-aged professionals, an awkward teenage girl, a lesbian with a superiority complex and her whiny kid…”

Darla raised both her middle fingers in salute to Spencer, but he shrugged it off.

“Hey…what about me?” Joey called from the back.

Spencer pointed to the back of the room and clicked his laser pen on Joey’s chest. “And
that
guy. Who continues to flip on light switches when he enters the room even though we haven’t had electricity for weeks now.”

“Light!” Teddy cried triumphantly.

Darla patted Teddy on the head and then turned her attention back to Spencer, “First of all, you’re an asshole.
Middle-aged professional
? Maybe you won’t make the cut because you’re a power-hungry psychopath. Second of all, we have leverage.” She looked around the room and pointed at the doctor. “Doctor Krause
saved
Ethan’s life. Before that,
I
saved Ethan’s life. And you think they’re going to kill a child? Teddy’s just a little boy.”

“They already killed millions of little boys,” Spencer said and he crossed his arms in front of his body.
 

Darla turned to Ethan who had been quiet for the duration of the presentation. “Well? You want to weigh-in here, chief?”

After a pause, Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’re arguing as if they’re on their way…or as if we know they’re coming tomorrow. Maybe no one is coming for me. Maybe this is all just a waste of Spencer’s drawing abilities.”

“I have more,” Spencer added.

“He has more,” Ethan repeated and pointed to the chart. “By all means…”

“Mom!” Teddy called out. “I need a snack. A snack!”

Growling under her breath, Darla looked at Teddy and then pointed to the back of the house. “You know where all the snacks are,” Darla told him. Teddy grumbled, but then relented, scampering out of the room and toward the back patio where the crew had turned the covered porch into a pantry—easily accessible for everyone, with ample room to organize by occasion and type.

Once Teddy had disappeared, Darla spread out her limbs—stretching her legs outward and leaning back on her hands. She motioned for Spencer to continue. He flipped his chart and there was a picture of the outside of the house. Ethan was outside; there were two circles over two of the second floor windows looking down into the yard; and three stick figures stood in the doorway.

“This is the plan,” Spencer said. “I think we stockpile bombs and weapons. We prepare as if a war is coming to Whispering Waters. If it becomes clear that Ethan’s people have come back for him, we set up me and Darla as snipers. Joey, Doctor Krause, Ainsley hold back inside the house and wait for the all-clear.”

“Teddy?” Darla asked, confused.

Spencer cocked his head and frowned. He reached over and grabbed a pen off of Scott’s desk and drew a smaller stick figure next to the character that was supposed to be Darla upstairs. “Teddy hides with his mother.”

“A sniper and the five-year-old. Perfect plan,” Darla snorted.

He ignored her and continued. “We are prepared to attack at all times. We do not let our guard down. They can take Ethan, but they don’t get near us.”

Ethan shifted on the couch and leaned forward. “Wait, wait. This is ridiculous.”

“I agree,” said Doctor Krause from the back of the den. “If they are coming back for Ethan, there is a good chance that they are not here with the intent to
kill
us.”

Spencer slapped his forehead. “If you were students in my history class, I would be failing you for an inability to see the larger picture. What part of
they already tried to kill
you
did you fail to understand?”

“We have no evidence that Ethan’s father was responsible. Only that he knew about it,” Joey said. “Right? Ethan?”

Ethan remained silent.

Spencer ran his laser pen over the whole sheet in wide circles. “I don’t give a shit if this is the plan…we need something though. Because I’m telling you…there’s no way I’m dying for this kid. You hear me, Ethan?”

“You’re paranoid,” Darla mumbled. “You’re crazy and paranoid.”

With a smirk, Spencer flipped to the last sheet of paper in his presentation. It read in large letters: I AM NOT PARANOID.

“Bravo,” Ainsley said and couldn’t help but smile. “But I think the principal doth protest too much.”

From the dining room, Teddy meandered back into the group. He held a candy-bar in his hand and munched happily on the melting chocolate; it covered his face with smears of mud-colored brown. Plopping himself down next to Darla, he took another bite, and Darla acknowledged his return without glancing in his direction.

“Look,” Darla said, putting her arm around Teddy, “and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but…I understand the worry. I do. But you’re taking this off the deep end. Setting up snipers? Preparing bombs? Because they’re really going to want to take us back with them when they find out how well we’ve welcomed them to Oregon.”

Darla scooped up Teddy and put him in her lap.

“It’s reactionary,” Ethan added.

Joey opened his mouth to speak and croaked out a few syllables of agreement before Darla interrupted him with a growl.

“Ewww,” she groaned. Darla held her hand out away from her body and looked at Teddy’s face and hands. “What is this?”

“Chocolate,” Teddy replied with his mouth full. He grinned and flashed her blackened teeth.

“You got it all over me!” Darla exclaimed and she set Teddy upright and scrambled to the box of tissues on the bookshelf. “And chocolate?” She paused and then reached down. Grabbing the candy bar wrapper from Teddy’s hand she held it up to the group. “When did we find a collection of chocolate bars?” she asked the room.

The group looked at her.

“Chocolate? News to me,” Joey exclaimed. “I inventoried last night and we definitely didn’t have any candy.”

“Maybe he found it in the kitchen?” Ainsley offered. She yawned and turned her head toward Ethan. He gave a subtle wink and she nodded her head toward Spencer’s display. Ethan shrugged.

Darla, still holding the crinkled wrapper in her hand, leaned down to her son and looked at him. “Teddy,” she said in a slow, firm voice. “Where did you get this chocolate from?”

Teddy shook his head and clamped his mouth shut. He looked to the ground, his lip starting to tremble.

“You’re not in trouble,” Darla added. “But we don’t know where you got it from and we’re just all confused. Can you tell us? Please?”

With everyone waiting for his answer, Teddy leaned in to his mom and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to say,” he mumbled. “Everyone’s looking at me. I’m embarrassed.”

“Teddy—” she continued and she lowered her head and her eyes expectantly.

“The man.”

The room took a collective intake of breath.

Ethan snapped his head back to Ainsley, but her eyes were trained right on Teddy. Joey took a step forward and Doctor Krause sat up straighter. And Spencer’s hand went to the gun he kept perpetually in the waistband of his jeans.

Clearing her throat, Darla tried to steady her voice. “What man, Teddy?”

The child wiped his mouth. “The man in the backyard.”
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Her mother said to be ready at nine for brunch in the Sky Room. She brought in a sundress and a hot pink cardigan, instructed Lucy to take a shower, and even handed her a steaming mug of green tea. Maxine kissed Lucy’s forehead, paused in the doorway, hesitant and unsure, and then ushered her other children away, leaving Lucy all alone to get ready, without any idea of what the Sky Room was or why she had to wear a dress.

Their underground apartment was tiny compared to their two-story home, three counting the basement, back in Portland. And even though Lucy couldn’t get Grant out of her head—
where could he be? Did he think she had abandoned him? Was he hurt? Afraid?—
she still managed to fall asleep in the bed assigned to her in a small room designed for her and Harper. Late into the evening, after the lights in their room dimmed and the wall night-lights clicked on a soft glow, Harper left her own bed and crawled under the covers with Lucy. Her body filled the empty spots left by Lucy’s own body with a natural flexibility. Harper tucked a leg under Lucy’s legs, pressed her back against Lucy’s belly, and twisted her hair between her fingers. The six-year-old also sucked with ferocious vigor on her thumb; it was a habit Lucy thought her little sister had outgrown.