The Things That Keep Us Here (20 page)

TWENTY-SIX

W
HAT HAD THEY TOUCHED? ANN STARED AROUND THE
kitchen. She’d left them alone down here for hours. Right now, viruses could be swarming over the faucet, countertops, cabinets. Pick up a sponge, it was on your hands. Rub your eye, blow your nose, now the virus entered your bloodstream and raced to your lungs.

She’d have to assume everything. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the medicine bin. The bigger risk came from directly inhaling the virus. A sneeze could spray droplets as far as three feet. Should she put on a mask? No, not yet. Not unless she heard one of them sneeze or cough. A horrible thought. She couldn’t think that.

She pulled out the bottle of bleach. Only a few inches remained. She poured some into the bucket and added water. She scrubbed everything, even the refrigerator and oven handles. One of them might have rested a hand there. The baby might have coughed. She could spend an entire day going around, scouring those places the girls might come in contact with—toilet handles, doorknobs, banisters.

She glanced into the family room and saw Jacob sleeping in Shazia’s arms. The baby curved into the girl’s body, the round top of his head showing above the blanket, his small hand splayed against the front of her sweater. What if he had the flu? He might seem perfectly healthy now, but with every breath he could be expelling billions of lethal viruses. Shazia hummed as she rocked him in the chair. She wouldn’t be so calm if he got sick. All the misery of a sick infant, the sudden spikes in temperature, the eyes squeezed shut, the clenched fists and stiff back, impossible to console. You couldn’t put him down and back away. You had to hold him close and wait for the medicine to take effect. You had to watch.

Ann crushed granola bars into bowls, dropped in a handful of dried cranberries. She tapped out the remaining flakes of powdered milk and stirred in some water. It had been ages since they’d had fresh milk or cheese. She once read that to dogs humans smelled like sour milk. What did they all smell like now?

She carried the bowls upstairs and set the tray down on the nightstand. There was only one narrow lump in the bed. She sank down on the mattress. “Maddie.”

Her daughter groaned and buried her head beneath the pillow.

Ann pulled the pillow from Maddie’s grasp. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

Maddie rolled over and blinked. Then she smiled up at Ann. “Morning, Mommy.”

“Hi, honey. I brought you breakfast.”

Maddie struggled to a seated position and took the bowl Ann held out. “Where’d Kate go?”

“She must be in the bathroom.”

Maddie looked into her bowl. “What
is
this?”

“Cereal.”

“It looks weird.” But Maddie fished out a granola bit with her fingers. “We’re not allowed to eat up here.”

“Jacob might be sick,” Ann said. “Remember? So until we know for sure, I want you girls to stay in here.”

“So, we can’t play with him?”

The first spark of hope she’d heard in Maddie’s voice for days and here she was, quashing it. “No.”

The light went out in Maddie’s eyes. “For how long?”

“Until tomorrow morning.” Ann reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Maddie’s ear. “I thought maybe we could make sock puppets today.”

“What about Daddy?”

Daddy can’t come near you. He’s a walking time bomb. Daddy’s put you at risk, not to mention the rest of us
. She’d stood against the door and Peter had opened it. He knew the risks and he’d still brought the baby in. If the baby was sick, they’d all get it. There would be no escaping the virus then. “He went out for wood.”

“It’s really cold up here, Mommy.”

“I know, honey.” Ann pulled the blanket up around her daughter’s shoulders. She’d never imagined a situation in which she’d be denying her daughters warmth. But there was no question about what was right. She never would have guessed that she’d turn her back on her best friend. Life was hard. Life demanded impossible choices. You never knew who you truly were until you had to make them. “The baby’s littler. He needs to stay downstairs.”

“I guess.”

Kate shouldn’t be taking so long. It had to be absolutely freezing in the bathroom. Kate should have scurried back to bed as soon as she was able. Maybe she was sick. Ann stood and almost ran to the bathroom door. She knocked. “Kate?”

There was no reply. She knocked again. “Kate?” She turned the knob and pushed the door wide open. Sunlight streamed into the tiled room, revealing the white sink and tub, the toilet beyond. Kate was nowhere to be seen.

Ann hurried back into the bedroom. Maddie had set her bowl down and was looking worried.

“Kate?” Ann called, going out into the hall. She checked the girls’ bedrooms, their bathroom, even went down to the guest room. She ran down the hallway. “Shazia?”

“Yes?” Shazia came to the foot of the stairs, Jacob in her arms, and looked up at Ann. “What is it?”

“Is Kate down there?”

Shazia shook her head.

“I can’t find her.”

Shazia looked puzzled, then her expression cleared and something like guilt swept over her features. “Ah.”

“What?”

“I heard the door close a few minutes ago. I thought it was Peter, returning. But when I went to check, no one was there.”

“Kate’s gone?”

Shazia bit her lip and bounced the baby in her arms. “Maybe.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

A
N OLD MAN HUDDLED IN THE SHADOWS OF HIS FRONT
porch. White-haired, a brown coat parted around a big gut, tan hunting cap with furred flaps. Peter lifted his hand in greeting.

The man leaned forward in his chair. “They making any food drops?”

His voice sounded thick with phlegm. Was he sick? “I don’t think so,” Peter replied.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the drone of a plane overhead. One of those small daily annoyances that he’d always taken for granted. He’d be happy enough to hear one now, though.

“The plows never did come.”

“They never did.” Peter looked at the man. “Are you alone?”

The man shook his head. “Everyone’s asleep.”

Still Peter hesitated. “You need me to bring you something?”

“Nah.” The man sat back. “I’m good.”

Straggly eskers of snow marked the passage of the sun as it slanted over the roofs. Peter trudged on, the sled scraping along the pavement behind him. It was a solitary feeling, pulling an empty sled.

He spotted a stick poking up from the grass beneath a gingko tree. It was small, more like a twig. Something to spear a marsh-mallow with, not something to warm yourself by. Still, he picked it up and placed it in the sled. Here was another one, lying across the path. It was pale green inside and tipped by buds. A young branch. Someone or something had torn it from the tree. He placed it in his sled. It’d have to dry before he could light it. He followed the path into the woods.

The air felt good and clean. It forced the stuff up from his lungs. He coughed. They’d all been walking around in a haze of wood smoke. He smelled it on his daughters’ hair, his clothes, the blankets they used at night. Ann tried to keep up with it, but he didn’t mind it so much. It was a comforting smell, one that reminded him of the good part of his childhood. Every fall, his dad would take him and Mike up to the cabin to go hunting. At night, they’d build a bonfire and look out over the water. Their dad would start to talk. His voice would be scratchy after a day of not speaking.

They’d hear about the hills of Kentucky, blue with dawn, eight of them crammed into two rooms. Building the railroad through North Dakota, losing a thumb when the hammer skidded. Sailing to Europe on a transport ship at the end of the war and rescuing French maidens. Wrestling a bear in the Black Hills, made an honorary Navajo in Minnesota.

Peter and Mike recognized fiction blended with fact. The stories didn’t matter. The sound of their father’s voice did. How often had he told them a man is measured not by what he says but by what he does? He’d never once told Peter that he loved him. He’d just loaded up his old pickup and taken his boys out hunting.

Peter wandered deeper into the woods.

Sugar maple and black walnut, red oak and hickory. Cold and shadowy, a burst of sunlight across a clearing. The smell of wet earth and moldering leaves. He came to the creek bubbling over the rocks, the muddy bank dotted with coiled brown lumps of fern, stiff marsh grass, slick slabs of creamy gray limestone. A willow bush arched gracefully amid a cobweb of brown.

He snapped off a branch. It would look pretty in a vase on the kitchen table. Later, when the catkins had shriveled and dropped off, they’d use it for kindling.

From the narrow bridge, he could see down into the clear water and the pebbles that lined the bottom. There, just beyond the first curve, he spied a sizable branch half in, half out of the stream. He grasped the wood and tugged it free from its nest of vines. He raised a boot and stomped, breaking the stick into usable pieces. Enough to heat the room for fifteen minutes.

Here was another prize, a fat, knobby limb. It had the look of age, a white smear of mold along its side. It released a puff of decay. Enough to heat a can of soup. He swiped his face on his jacket sleeve.

A random series of turns and he found himself in a different neighborhood. The houses were large and set well back from the street. Peter glimpsed a covered swimming pool in the backyard of one, a pond in another. The Scioto ran behind these houses, a dark ribbon of water unspooling in the distance. Oaks and redbuds and locusts spread a canopy of branches across the avenue. These were mature trees, and they’d dropped dead limbs to the ground. A bonanza. He gathered all he could, quickly stacking them in the sled, taking care to pack them as close together as possible. He straightened.

Across the street, an iron fence ran along the road. The house behind it stood three stories tall and had stone archways, twin chimneys, a paved courtyard, tennis courts on one side. The heavy metal gate sagged crookedly across the driveway, bent in the middle as though something had rammed it from its moorings. It was a disturbing sight. Farther on, someone had painted a bold black circle onto the stone gatepost with a slash mark through it. It didn’t appear to be a typical kind of graffiti. This symbol seemed to have some sort of purpose. He glanced around but saw no other evidence of vandalism other than the busted gate.

“They went away,” someone said.

Peter spun on his heel and saw a little girl watching him from across the street. She looked about Maddie’s age, with a similar disheveled appearance. He smiled at her.

She came closer, picking her way around the lumps of icy snow and beaten grass, coming up to the fence that bordered her yard. “The big truck took them.” She curled her fingers around the metal bars. Her blond hair hung in straggles to her shoulders. She wore a white wool coat with a broad black fur collar. “If the truck comes, you have to let them in.”

She must be talking about some sort of moving truck. Maybe the driver had overshot the entrance and accidentally rammed the gate. But that didn’t explain the painted circle.

“I see,” he said.

She studied him. “You’re not allowed to come in. Mommy said.”

He nodded. “Your mommy’s right.”

“Amelia!”

A woman came running down the wide lawn toward him. She came up to the girl and grabbed her arm and yanked her back. She crouched, ran her hands down the girl’s coat. “Did you touch her?” she said to Peter. She gave Amelia a little shake. “Honey, did he come close to you?”

Peter said, “No, of course not.”

She rose and glared at him. “Shame on you. You should know better.”

The way she stood there, so pure and self-righteous, so sure in her conviction. And then the traitorous thought slithered in, forming itself before he could stop it—
just like Ann
.

What kind of person didn’t rescue a baby?

TWENTY-EIGHT

A
NN RAN DOWN THE STREET, HER BOOTS SLIDING IN THE
half-melted slick snow, her unzipped coat flapping, searching frantically for a glimpse of a slim girl in a bright red coat. “Kate!”

Past the burned-out house, no one there, just the terrain bumpy with black and broken things, past the Foxes’ house with its Christmas display frozen in mid-frolic and looking ludicrous, looking so terribly sad, past Finn’s house—Kate wouldn’t have ventured anywhere near him—all the way down to the end of the street. Mr. Nguyen was out doing something to the side of his house. He merely shook his head at Ann’s shouted question—no, he hadn’t seen Kate—and went back to work.

Had one of Kate’s friends come and picked her up, persuaded her parents that Kate had permission? Surely Ann would have heard the car. Surely, even inside the house, she would have heard the growl of a car engine. The sound would have seemed to split the air. Still, she ran out into the avenue and scanned both directions for a departing car. But there was nothing.

She turned all around, despairing. Then she thought,
the park
. Ann ran the whole way, dodging the piles of snow along the curb, the trash, an abandoned bike. She made the final turn and the park spread out before her: the snowy field, the abandoned tennis courts, the playground, and yes! Kate, hunched on the swing, her head against the chain, pushing herself idly back and forth with the toe of one boot.

Ann halted by the stone pillars, not daring to believe Kate was truly there, alive and whole and
alone
. She put her hands on her knees and panted, trying to collect her breath. Her headstrong daughter. Thank God she had found her in time.

Kate didn’t look up when Ann marched right up and stared down at her bent head.

“What were you thinking?”

Silence.

“I thought we’d talked about this. I thought you understood. My God, I was so worried.” She wanted to shake her child, hard enough to rattle the words right out of her. She wanted to fling her arms around her and never let her go. “Kate. Talk to me.”

Kate slowly swung back and forth.

“Are you okay?”

She looked okay. Had anyone else been here with her? Ann scanned the area, noted the heap of twisted cigarette butts beside the sandbox, saw with relief how dirty and soggy they were. They’d been there a while. The round metal trash can lay on its side by the water fountain, spilling black soot onto the slush. Someone had lit its contents on fire, but no smell of soot lingered. So that had been a while ago, too.

What was her daughter doing all the way out here in this deserted park?

Ann sat down on the swing beside her. She thought about what to say.

“Been a long time since I sat on one of these things. I can’t say I miss it.”

Kate had her hands folded in her lap. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and her knuckles were white with the cold. Ann wanted to take her hands in hers.

“Remember how you wouldn’t swing unless I sat on the swing beside you? My rear end would go numb and I’d walk funny all the way home.”

Kate pushed her toe against the ground.

A car rolled slowly past on the street. Ann kept her gaze trained on it until it turned the corner and disappeared. Maddie had promised she’d stay in the bedroom. Shazia had nodded agreement: she wouldn’t venture upstairs. She wouldn’t let Jacob anywhere near Maddie. But Ann had seen the flicker of doubt in Shazia’s eyes.

“The only thing worse was when you made me play in the sandbox. It wasn’t enough for me to sit on the side like all the other moms. No, I actually had to get into the sandbox so you could make me into a castle or something.” The sand would creep into her shoes, her socks, somehow even into her hair.

Leaves rotted inside that wooden box now. Every spring, the park people dumped fresh sand on top of the old. How many times had Ann dug down through the layers of sand with Kate’s toy shovel and unearthed a cicada shell or a girl’s little plastic barrette? It was like an archaeological dig.

The chains creaked as Kate swung back and forth.

A gust of cold, wet wind. Ann pulled the lapels of her coat closer about her neck. “Looks like they’ve finally fixed the slide. Thank goodness. That old one was so cracked, I was always afraid you were going to get hurt. I tried to talk you into going on the monkey bars or the whirligig, but you never did.”

“I hated that slide.”

Ann closed her eyes with relief. So Kate was going to talk. “I know. You just went down it to make me crazy.”

Voices made them turn their heads. There by the tennis courts stood three figures, two women and a boy. They stopped, catching sight of Ann and Kate at the same moment. Ann held her breath, ready to grab Kate’s hand. A long moment, then the older woman nodded, and the three of them turned and walked in the other direction. A minute later, they stepped off the path and vanished into the woods beyond.

They needed to get home. “Kate,” Ann began, and Kate said, “I thought Libby was your friend.”

Was that what this was about? “I know.”

Their friendship was over. Ann didn’t know what stood in its place. Even as she thought this, she knew better. Libby had been sick enough to risk everything. She’d been sick enough to wrap up her child and abandon him on a porch to freeze. Sick enough to leave him behind. That hadn’t been the product of fever. That had been Libby seeing the future and trying to change the outcome. She took a deep breath. People
did
recover. Half of them survived.

“She asked me to do something I couldn’t do, Kate. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t.” How could she make Kate understand that things weren’t always black and white, that there were endless variations of gray? But Kate was thirteen, that jagged sliver of time between childhood and young adulthood. Thirteen-year-olds saw the world very clearly. People were good or mean or stupid. Things were right or they were wrong. There was no
maybe
about it.

“Dad did, and she wasn’t even his friend. She didn’t even like him.”

Ann heard the confusion in Kate’s voice. A bubble of anger rose to the surface. Peter had just gone ahead and brought the baby in.

“I know.”

Kate rolled her toe in the slush. “I would be there for
my
friends.” Her breath fluttered out in a small white cloud. “I know you would.”

“Michele never did call.”

It had been weeks since Kate last talked to her friend. “They must have left town.”

“You always say that.”

Maybe Ann did. But it was so much harder to think of the alternative. It was so much better to offer Kate hope than despair.

“She would’ve let me know,” Kate said. “She would’ve put a note in the mailbox or something.”

So that’s why Kate had been constantly checking the mail. Ann had thought it had been searching for contact from the outside world, but instead it had been from one very small piece of it. Michele.

Kate said, “She hated that slide, too.”

Ann smiled, remembering the two girls at the top of the curving yellow slide, arguing over who had to go first. “But she still went down anyway.”

“She was my best friend.”

“We don’t know, Kate. Michele could be perfectly fine.”

“No one is.” Kate leaned her head against the chain of the swing. “I’ve been waiting, but no one came.”

“Your friends have been meeting here?”

Kate gave her a sidelong glance. “Some of them.”

Ann tightened her grip on the chains. She’d come so close. Kate could have caught up with them. “Let’s drive over to Michele’s house. We can honk the horn and see if someone comes to the door.”

“And what if no one does?”

“Then we’ll check Scooter’s house, and Claire’s …”

Kate was shaking her head. “Stop it, Mom.” Her voice was weary. “You can’t fix everything.”

No, Ann couldn’t fix everything. Some things were completely out of her grasp. Some things were just broken forever.

“Listen.” Ann turned her swing so she was facing Kate. Their knees gently bumped. “You can’t do this again.” She tilted Kate’s chin up, forcing her daughter to look at her. “Got it?”

After a moment Kate said, “All right.”

She’d never survive losing another child. Never.