The Things That Keep Us Here (19 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

T
HEY’D GONE THROUGH
so
MUCH FOOD.
Ann counted the cans and boxes once again, as if by doing so she could magically multiply their number. Of course she’d thought she’d be feeding three, not five. “Tell us another story, Shazia.”

“Like what?”

“Tell us about your family.”

All the food she’d tossed out over the years without the least bit of remorse. The leftovers too scant for a meal. The lengths of spaghetti used to carry flame from birthday candle to birthday candle. Altogether, a dinner’s worth. The lettuce gone limp in the bottom of the refrigerator drawer. Maybe she could set everything on a table on her front lawn and barter with her neighbors. One jar of pine nuts for one jar of grape jelly or, hell, an apple. She craved the sensation of biting into sweet crispness, the flood of juice filling her mouth. A glass of cold milk. Broccoli. Green, the color of life.

“Well, let’s see. My father’s a pediatrician, and my mother’s a beautician.”

“What’s that?”

“A beautician? She does people’s hair and makeup. Mostly women. Egyptian men don’t tend to wear much makeup.”

Christmas. One day since the fire, four without phone service, twenty-eight since the power had gone out. A series of losses that she tracked, marking off each day and fixing it in her mind. Today was Wednesday. Tomorrow would be Thursday. All the cues that normally kept the calendar for her had vanished, and she had to keep it for herself.

“Did she show you how to do your makeup?”

“A few tricks, like curling your eyelashes before you put on mascara. And if you line your lower eyelids, you will make your eyes look smaller.”

Shazia was counting off the days, too. Ann had come upon her studying her planner, moving her finger along the small squares, her lips soundlessly forming the numbers. Now she sat with the girls cross-legged on the floor in the family room. They’d pushed aside the sleeping bags and pillows and arranged themselves in a semicircle. In a little while, one of them might come into the kitchen and get a cup of water. Or they might go to the front door and look out through the glass. They brushed their teeth in the tiny powder room, got dressed in there, stood in front of the mirror and ran a washcloth around their face and neck. No one ventured upstairs anymore. No one went down to the basement. Their whole world had shrunk to these few rooms.

“Why didn’t you become a … beautician?”

“Well, when I was a little girl, we had a dog. Her name was Fila. I loved her very much. She would eat her food right out of the palm of my hand, and when she wanted something she would lift her paw and cock her head. She was very cute. At night, she slept on a pillow beside my head.”

Ann leaned her forehead against the sliding glass door. Nothing moved outside. Everything was painted in dreary shades of black, brown, and white. She was so tired of looking at the same houses, the same trees, the same empty sidewalks. She should have gone with Peter.

“What happened to her?”

“She got sick. The doctor said there was nothing he could do about it. She got very thin and then one day she died. I was quite sad for a long time. So my mother suggested that maybe when I grew up I could become a doctor who would help keep little girls’ dogs from getting sick.”

“So, that’s what you do?”

“Not exactly. I wanted to study with your father. So I changed my field of research. Your father tells people he talked me into leaving Cairo and coming here, but that’s not how it happened. I talked him into taking me on.”

Ann had stood on the porch as Peter drove up and down the street. No one had come out to help. They’d been watching, though. She’d seen the curtains twitch and shadows move behind the glass. That’s when she realized that there was no risk of Peter’s plan to coordinate supplies and resources working. She wouldn’t have to say a word. The silence from the neighbors would say it for her.

“Because he’s so smart?”

“Your father’s more than that.”

She could have run across the lawn and caught him before he pulled away, opened the truck door and climbed in beside him. Shazia could have stayed with the girls. She could have leaned back in her seat and felt something move other than the sky. But in the end the opportunity to go with him had come and passed. She couldn’t risk both of them being exposed. There were the girls to consider. Always.

MADDIE RAPPED HER PAINTBRUSH AGAINST THE RIM OF THE
drinking glass.
Tap. Tap. Tap
. Papers were spread before her, revealing splotches of emerald grass and blue sky.

Ann put a hand on her daughter’s arm. “Maddie, please. Stop that racket.”

But Maddie just hit the glass harder.

Ann sat up with a start and realized she’d been dreaming. The room was dark, the fire in the hearth reduced to glowing orange embers. The rapping noise was still there. It was coming from the front hall. She looked around. Everyone was fast asleep—Kate, Maddie, Peter, Shazia.

She unzipped her sleeping bag and crawled out, stepping unevenly onto the quilted fabric. Who would be knocking at this time of night? She felt a sudden surge of hope. Mom, Dad. Beth.

She ran to the front door. The floor was cold against her stockinged feet. Moonlight gleamed through the window on the landing. A dark shape moved behind the glass inset beside the door. Someone was standing there. Ann automatically reached for the porch light switch, but of course nothing came on. She pushed her face to the pebbled glass and peered out. “Who’s there?”

“Ann?”

A woman’s voice, familiar, but not her mother’s. “Yes?”

“Ann? Oh, thank God.”

Libby!

“Where have you been? We’ve been so worried.” Ann lifted her hand to the sliding bolt. So Libby and Smith hadn’t driven off to Arizona. They’d been trapped here all along, just like them.

“Let me in.”

“Of course! You must be freezing.”

Ann slid the dead bolt almost all the way, then heard it—the thick, wet coughing on the other side of the door. She froze. “Are you all right?”

“Can you let me in? It’s so cold.”

“Are you … sick?” In the narrow space of quiet, Ann heard another noise. Someone was crying. Jacob.

“Please, Ann.”

A shuffling sound, and Ann turned to see Peter emerging out of the gloom behind her, yawning. “Who’s out there?” he asked. “It’s Libby. She’s got Jacob.”

“Well, let them in.” Peter strode over and reached past her, toward the door.

Ann put her hand on his forearm. “Hold on.” Libby coughed that awful croupy cough.

Ann felt something dark grow inside of her. She reached up and shot the dead bolt home. The sound filled the hall. The doorknob rattled.

Peter frowned, confused. “Why’d you do that?”

“She’s sick.” My God. Libby.

“But … we can’t just leave them out there.”

Libby’s voice was hoarse between coughing fits. “Jacob’s okay. I promise. He’s already had it.”

“If he’s already had it, he’s immune,” Peter said.

In Libby’s place, Ann would say the same thing. Her heart was thumping. She needed to think. Could she possibly take the baby? He was so small. She could confine him to one room, but not downstairs. All the rooms there fed into one another. She’d have to take him upstairs. But it would be too cold up there for the baby. Maybe she could stay downstairs, while Peter and the girls moved up. What if she got sick? How could she keep the girls safe then? Her mind whirled with possibilities. One by one, she discarded them.

“Mom?”

Kate and Maddie stood in the hallway, Shazia behind them.

“Who’s at the door?” Maddie said, rubbing her eyes.

“Shazia,” Ann said, “take the girls into the other room.”

Shazia hesitated, looked at Peter.

“Please, Shazia,” he said.

She put an arm around the girls and led them away.

The knob rolled back and forth more urgently. “Ann? Please!”

“If he really did have it, he’s fine,” Peter said. “Let him in, Ann.”

“What if she’s lying?”

“What if she’s not?”

She chewed her lips; she tasted blood. “I just can’t take that chance, Peter. I just can’t.”

“We have to.”

Now Libby was thumping against the wood.

“Ann,” Peter said.

The dark thing inside swelled and filled Ann completely. Her head buzzed. “I won’t risk our children’s lives for someone else.”

“It’s not just someone else. She’s your best friend.”

“She’d never risk Jacob for the girls.” Was that true? She couldn’t think.

“You don’t know that.”

Wait. She did know it. She did. What mother would risk her children’s lives for anything? No, Libby would do just as she was doing; she was certain of it, no matter how it hurt her to do so. “We are not opening this door.”

“This is wrong.”

“Peter.” He had to hear her. His eyes were dark chips. “Listen. It kills half the people who get it. You know that. One out of every two. That means we’re sacrificing one of them.” Her eyes ached, her throat. She saw Jodi, just eight years old, jumping on the trampoline, her hair flying up and down, her laughter sailing into the sky. She was suddenly so furious she couldn’t breathe. She needed him beside her, not against her. How could he not understand? “Kate or Maddie. Which one of your daughters do you want to die?”

“For Christ’s sake, keep your voice down.”

She pressed herself back against the wood, horrified by her own words. The wood vibrated. Easy enough to fight when the monster kept its distance, easy enough to draw the line. But when the monster was literally outside the door, that’s when your actions mattered. The hard choice wasn’t opening the door. The hard choice was keeping it closed. Peter couldn’t see that. He never would.

“Just go back to sleep.” She’d never felt more alone. “Let me handle this. As usual.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You always take the easy way out. Our marriage, your mother. You’re weak. Just like your father.” He flinched.

“I’ll go away,” Libby pleaded, scrabbling at the door. “Just please help Jacob. Ann, please. Please help my baby.”

The flu had taken so many. It wouldn’t take Kate or Maddie. Ann leaned against the door with all her weight. She wouldn’t let Kate or Maddie be hurt any more than they already had by this unspeakable thing.

Peter said softly, “And you think this makes you a good mother?”

Her gaze floated to his face, rigid with anger, his lips thin, his eyes narrowed. She hated what he saw. “It’s all I know,” she whispered. The thumping stopped.

“Just take my baby.” Libby’s voice receded. “I’m in the yard. I’m in the yard.”

Ann’s legs couldn’t hold her. She slid down the length of the door and bowed her head, clenching her eyes shut and pressing her hands over her ears. The monster raged all around. She was the monster.

Silence.

She lifted her head. The hall was empty. Peter had left. She rose shakily and looked out through the window at the empty landscape. All she saw was the snowy slope of yard and the line of dark houses beyond. Libby was gone. Her gaze dropped to the porch. What was that?

Libby had left the baby. He lay in a laundry basket mounded with blankets, with just the tip of his nose peeping out. Ann pressed her palm to the window. Her breath frosted the glass. In the fitful moonlight, she thought she saw a tiny foot push against the curve of blanket.

Libby, come back
.

Everything outside was still. Even the trees were holding their breath. Libby was nowhere in sight. What if Ann was wrong? What if Libby had told the truth? All Ann had to do was twist the dead bolt. He lay right there outside her door. She wouldn’t even have to step outside. Maybe he wasn’t sick.

Libby, please. I can’t do this. Come back and take this burden away from me
.

Ann put her face into her hands.

TWENTY-FIVE

P
ETER LOPED AROUND TO THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE
looking for Libby. No sign of her standing by the front door, but there was something on the porch. He stepped closer. She’d left Jacob.

He crouched, slid his hands beneath the blanket. The baby had been there only a few minutes. Not long enough for hypothermia, but he was so still. Peter brought him to his shoulder and patted the small back. A tiny hiccup. He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He’d come back for the baby’s things later.

He stepped into the kitchen and found Ann standing there.

She stared at him, hollow-eyed. Her gaze dropped to the baby in his arms. She looked back at him. “Girls,” she said in a choked voice. “Go upstairs, please.”

“You and Daddy were
yelling.”
Maddie was tearful. “Why were you
yelling
like that?”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Ann said. “I want you both upstairs.
Now.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “Don’t tell us anything. Treat us like babies. You always do!” She whirled around and stomped up the stairs. Maddie followed, her hand trailing on the banister as she looked back at him and Ann. “You’re coming, too, aren’t you, Mommy?”

“I’ll be right there.” Ann kept her gaze on Peter.

“I don’t get you,” Peter said. The baby squirmed, and he shifted him to his other arm. “Your priorities—”

“Our daughters are my priority.” She said it flatly. “They should be yours, too.”

“They don’t have to be the only thing.”

“Yes. They do. And they always will be. Even if you never understand that.”

He watched her march up the stairs. She was a stranger to him. He couldn’t believe they’d ever shared a life together, made plans, raised children.

Shazia said, “Are you all right, Peter?”

He glanced at her standing there in the gloom, a blanket draped around her shoulders. She looked fragile, buffeted by the anger between him and Ann. “I’m fine. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. No sense in both of us staying up.”

“Let me know if you need me.” She turned and went into the family room.

After a moment, he heard the rustle of covers as she settled herself onto the sofa.

Peter patted the baby’s back and paced.

Murmuring drifted down the stairs. Ann was talking to the girls. Maddie’s voice. Now silence.

A log broke apart in the hearth. A shower of bright gold sparks. It was the last of their wood.

The baby relaxed. Peter carried him into the family room. He started to lower himself into the chair and the baby stiffened. Up Peter went.

The baby twisted his head, trying to look at Peter.

“You know I’m not your dad, don’t you, buddy?”

There was no mucus, no sound of labored breathing. He put his fingers to a soft, cool cheek. The baby balled his little fists against Peter’s shoulder and reared back. He opened his mouth to wail. Peter pressed the baby to his shoulder and drummed his back. Up and down, up and down. They walked the house in a dreary circuit. Dining room, kitchen, front hall. Dining room, kitchen, front hall. Around and around and around.

The baby slumped. Peter sat down. Jacob’s eyes flew open. Peter groaned and stood back up. He’d forgotten these times.

They walked to the dining room window and looked out. Moonlight bathed the stripe of the street and the shapes of the trees. The baby raised his head. Searching for his mother?

“She’ll be back,” Peter murmured against the soft ear. He swayed the baby from side to side. “She’ll be back,” he promised.

A THIN GRAY LIGHT SEEPED THROUGH THE WINDOWS. DAWN
. Shazia was sitting up in the family room, blankets tented around her. He’d kept her up.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I took care of a baby.”

“It’s all right. I’ll help.”

“Would you hold him? There’s some stuff for him on the porch. I need to disinfect it.”

“Sure.” She held out her hands.

Just like that
. Why couldn’t Ann see that?

Crouching on the front porch, he scoured the jars and spoons and toys with a towel dipped in bleach solution. So much stuff to take care of one little baby. He dropped the clothes into the bucket of soapy water and pushed them down. He’d let them soak for a while. Nothing could be done about the disposable diapers and the baby wipes. He hoped a night in the open air had killed any viable viruses. The house next door was dark. Was Libby standing by a window? Could she tell the basket was gone?

He lifted his hand. If she was watching, she’d see. She’d know Jacob was safe.

Going inside, he found Shazia standing by the fire, jiggling the baby up and down.

“He probably needs changing.” Peter took the baby and lowered him onto a swirl of blanket. Jacob arched his back and waved his arms, whipped his head from side to side. “Hold on there, little man. I’ll make this super-quick. Shazia, want to get me a diaper from one of those bags?”

“Sure.” She rummaged around, pulling things out. At last she lifted a package of diapers. “So, how old is he?”

Peter didn’t know. He tried to recall when Jacob had been born. He remembered coming to visit his daughters and seeing the blue helium balloons bobbing out front next door. There’d been tulips around the mailbox. Had to have been April or May. “Six months. I think.” He unsnapped the sleeper, reached in for the plump little legs and pulled them free. Off came the sodden diaper. No need to bother with a wipe or ointment. Peter spread out the diaper, grasped the baby’s ankles, and lifted, hoisting the little bottom into place. He pressed the sticky flaps into place, tugged up his sleeper, and snapped the front. Sliding one hand beneath Jacob’s head and the other beneath his bottom, Peter put Jacob to his shoulder. He sat back to find Shazia staring at him with amazement.

He smiled at her. “I’ve done this before.”

A step creaked. He glanced over and saw Ann standing there at the foot of the stairs.

Her arms were crossed, and she was watching them impassively. “How is he?”

“No coughing. No fever.”

“But he could still have it.” Her gaze lingered on the baby.

“We won’t know until tomorrow night.” Forty-eight hours was the standard incubation period for this virus. Unless, of course, it had mutated. The baby gnawed his fist. “Libby left jars of baby food, some diapers and things.”

Ann’s frown deepened. “We’ll have to sterilize everything.”

“I’ve already done that. The clothes and bibs are soaking. I’ll rinse them later.” He gave the baby to Shazia.

“Come, baby,” Shazia crooned. “We can read a book while we wait for the girls to get up.”

“No,” Ann said.

Shazia looked at her.

“My daughters don’t go anywhere near Jacob. Not until we know he’s not contagious.” Shazia glanced at Peter.

“Look at me, Shazia,” Ann said. “I’m the one who’s talking. This is my home.”

Peter rose. He didn’t trust himself not to say something that would only make things worse. He avoided Ann’s demanding gaze. “We need firewood.”

She moved aside to let him reach his jacket on the hook. Shutting the back door between them, he scanned the interior of the garage and spotted the sled balanced on the rafters. That would do.

Ann had called him weak, but she’d gotten it wrong. He didn’t run away from things. He accepted them. There was a difference.

As he strode past Smith and Libby’s house, he glanced over. The front door was shut. No one stood at a window. So far as he could tell, Libby hadn’t crept back to check on her son. And he hadn’t seen Smith at all.