I slept most of today.
Jon still refuses to come home.
Matt went to Dad’s, but Jon wouldn’t talk to him. Dad told Matt that Jon’s angry at him for bringing Syl home. Syl’s in their bedroom, so she didn’t hear, but Matt whispered everything to Mom anyway. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear either, but I did.
Syl tried to talk to me, to explain why she did it, but Mom said I was too tired to talk about anything and Syl’s explanations would have to wait.
I know I’m going to have to talk to her. We live under the same roof, and I can’t move in with Dad the way Jon has. It wouldn’t be fair to Mom or to everyone there. Alex has to figure out what he and Julie are going to do, and the way she’s been coughing, they can’t go anytime soon. That would make seven of us there, not counting Gabriel, and three here, and that’s not a good idea.
But I don’t want to talk to Syl. I don’t want to look at her.
I’m going to start crying again. I’m going to my closet to cry there.
Alex came over. I haven’t seen him since we got home two days ago. He looked haggard.
“Mrs. Evans, you have to talk to Jon,” he said. “You have to convince him to come home. It’s not good for Julie having Jon there all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “When Jon’s ready to accept what Syl did, he’ll come back.”
“Could you talk with him?” Alex asked me.
I wasn’t sure what I’d say to Jon. I couldn’t ask him to accept Syl’s decision to let Horton go so he could die peacefully in the woods. I can’t accept it, and it doesn’t help that I was angry at Matt before we left for the convent and I’m even angrier now.
But Mom won’t go over, which I refuse to think about because it scares me when I do, and Jon won’t talk to Matt, and Dad has Lisa and Gabriel and fears of his own to deal with. And Alex looked awful.
“I’ll talk with him,” I said. “But I’m not going to change his mind.”
“Just calm him down,” Alex said.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”
Jon didn’t even know what Syl had done until Thursday. Mom sent Jon to stay with Lisa Tuesday night, and Syl let Horton out on Wednesday morning. Matt says that was to protect Jon, so he wouldn’t be there when Horton died, but even if that’s true, it wasn’t Syl’s decision to make. Mom was so worried about us, she didn’t realize Horton was gone until Thursday.
Syl told her and Matt what she’d done, and Matt went over and told Jon. The two of them looked for hours before they found his body. Matt says he was maybe a hundred feet from the house. They just didn’t know where to look.
I’m not going to cry.
Matt went back to the house and got a towel and Horton’s favorite catnip mouse. He wrapped Horton up, and he and Jon buried him in Mom’s old flower garden. That was Thursday afternoon, and no one knew where we were or if we were okay.
And I didn’t know about Horton.
I hate Syl. I hate her doing this to Horton and to Jon and to Mom. It tears me up inside to think of Horton trying to get home but too weak to make it those last hundred feet. Or maybe that was as far as he ever got.
I knew he was dying. I think Jon knew it, too. But Horton should have been allowed to die in his own home. It was more his home than Syl’s.
Charlie must have seen us as we were walking over, because he ran to join us. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said to me. “About Horton. He was…” and he paused. “He was an excellent cat.”
“Thank you,” I said. “He really was.”
Charlie patted me on the arm and then went back to Matt.
Alex turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he said, “about your cat. I never had a pet, so I don’t know how you feel, but I can see how upset Jon is.”
“Horton was a member of our family,” I said. “It’s like losing a member of your family.”
Alex is like Syl, like Charlie. They don’t talk about their pasts, their families. I know he has an older brother and a younger sister, but he’s never told me what happened to his parents. And I don’t want to think about what he’s been through to make him so certain death could be preferable to life.
I have scars. No one alive today doesn’t. But Alex’s scars have to be much deeper than mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s different. But it still hurts so much.”
Alex nodded. “I wish you hadn’t come on the trip,” he said. “You could have been home, maybe done something.”
“Horton was dying,” I said. “It was a matter of time. I don’t like how he died. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Syl. But it was good for me to go, to see what things are really like. I needed to know.”
“I thanked Christ you were with us,” Alex said. “I thanked Him for every hour, every minute, with you.”
“Do you mean that?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Miranda,” he said. “I’m not good at loving people. I know you’re supposed to want what’s best for them, but all I want is you.”
“I’m here,” I said, reaching out for his hand to touch. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But I am,” he said. “I’ve got to find a place for Julie.”
“Her place is here,” I said. “Your place is here.”
“We live on charity here,” Alex said. “Your family’s charity. The town’s charity. Charity doesn’t last.”
“There’s a difference between charity and love,” I said. “What we’re offering is love. Love lasts forever.”
“It only lasts if there’s something given in return,” Alex said. “I helped find food, the van. I gave your family things they needed. But now all I do is take. That wasn’t what I was taught, to take and not give. We have to go, Miranda. As soon as Julie’s ready, we’ll leave.”
“Just think about it,” I said.
“It’s all I ever think about,” he said. “Now come. Get Jon. It’s not good for Julie having him here.”
I followed him into the house. Gabriel was crying, and Lisa was trying to soothe him. “Julie and Jon are in the parlor,” she said. “It’s okay. Hal’s with them.”
I felt like an idiot. It took me until then to realize why Alex was so determined to separate Jon and Julie. Jon’s almost fifteen; Julie’s almost fourteen. They’re not just talking about baseball.
But when we walked into the parlor, they weren’t talking about anything. Jon and Julie were reading textbooks, and Dad was looking straight at them.
I haven’t seen Jon since I got home. I didn’t know what to say to him. All I knew was I couldn’t cry and I couldn’t tell him how angry I was at Syl.
“Hi, Julie,” I said after I gave Dad a hello kiss. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I think I had a cold, but I’ve been okay since we got back.”
“She’s been coughing a little,” Dad said. “But she’s feeling better.”
“Good,” I said. “Hi, Jon.”
Jon looked up at me. “I’m not going home,” he said. “I don’t care what you say.”
“I haven’t said anything,” I pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not going home. Not while she’s there.”
“Her name is Syl,” Dad said. “And you’re going to have to forgive her sometime.”
“I’m never going to forgive her,” Jon said. “You can’t make me.”
“Syl let Horton die,” Julie said, like this was going to be news to me. “Jon hates her for that.”
“Julie, shut up,” Alex said. “This isn’t our business.”
“Don’t talk to her that way!” Jon screamed.
“Jon,” Dad said. Gabriel howled in the background.
“No!” Jon yelled. “I hate all of you. Julie and I are going away. We’re going to a safe town. We’ll never see any of you again.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Jon,” Dad said. “You’re too young to travel on your own, and Alex won’t let Julie go. There’s no safe town in your future. You need connections to get passes. You can’t buy them like movie tickets.”
“We won’t have to buy them,” Jon said. “Alex has some. Julie told me. He’s not using them, so we will.”
I had no idea what Jon was talking about, but it was obvious Alex did. “You told him?” he said to Julie, sounding like he couldn’t possibly believe she had. But then he must have believed it because he started shouting at her in Spanish, and she yelled right back.
“Stop it!” Dad said. “All of you. Right now!”
It was like a game of frozen statues. None of us moved.
I’ve never seen Dad so angry. “You have passes for a safe town?” he asked Alex. “What are you planning to trade them for? A truck ride to Ohio while your sister coughs to death?”
Alex looked like Dad had punched him. Then he raced out of the room, out of the house. Julie jumped up and ran after him.
“Go home, Jon,” Dad said. “Go home with Miranda.”
“I won’t,” Jon said.
“Stop acting like a child,” Dad said. “I won’t have it anymore.”
“Please,” I said to Jon. “I need you. I hate it there without you.”
There was a moment when I didn’t know what he would do. Jon’s been so strong the past year. He’s grown up so much. But there’s a part of him that’s still a kid.
Jon nodded. He didn’t say anything more, but when we went outside, he ran to Julie. She took his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation they started toward our house.
Alex watched as they walked away. He didn’t move as I approached him.
“What’s all this about?” I asked. “You have passes to a safe town? Does that mean you and Julie could be living in one?”
“It doesn’t concern you,” he said.
“If it concerns you, it concerns me,” I said. “Honestly, Alex. What do I have to do to prove that to you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He reached out and held me tightly. When our lips met, I felt like I knew everything about him. But of course there’s so much I don’t know.
“The safe town,” I said, breaking away from him. “The passes.”
“I have three passes,” Alex said. “They’re for family members—wives, husbands, young children. I’m past the cutoff age.”
“But Julie isn’t,” I said. “Did Carlos know about the passes? When he decided she should go to the convent?”
“I told him everything,” Alex replied. “I hoped he’d know where a safe town was. They keep them guarded. Carlos tried to find out where one was but he couldn’t, so he told me to take Julie to the convent instead. Julie didn’t want to go and I took her side. But Carlos insisted. Julie had to be someplace where she’d be protected, someplace where he and I could find her.”
“You still have the passes?” I asked. “You held on to them all this time?”
“I kept them in reserve,” he said. “I would have bartered them for Julie if I’d had to. Then I thought I’d give them to the sisters, as payment for taking Julie. That way it wouldn’t be charity.”
“Julie’s lucky to have you,” I said.
“No one is lucky to have me,” he said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“I am,” I said. “I’m lucky.”
“Miranda,” he said, but I hushed him with a kiss.
Dad and Matt went into town today for our food. As far as I know, this is the first they’ve talked since before the trip to the convent.
After they left, Alex came over. “I was wondering if you wanted to go house hunting,” he asked me.
We got on the bikes and began riding. I led us in a new direction, and we prowled through a couple of houses, not finding much but not expecting to, either. We worked in silence, staying in the same rooms, but never touching.
“Miranda, I’ve been thinking,” Alex said at last.
“You think too much,” I said.
He grabbed me. Or maybe I grabbed him. It’s a little hazy. All I know is we were in each other’s arms, sharing a long, hard, hungry kiss.
“No,” he said, inching away. “This isn’t right.”
“You’re thinking again,” I said, pulling him back for another kiss. He wanted me as much as I wanted him.
“Come with us,” he said. “Julie and me. We’ll be a family.”
“What about the monastery?” I asked.
“That was a dream,” he said. “Like the safe town. Like the convent. But you’re real, Miranda. You and Julie and the world we’ve been handed. We can make it work. I know we can.”
“That’s what I want, too,” I said.
Alex hugged me. “You won’t regret it,” he said. “We’ll find a priest in Pittsburgh and get married there. I’ll get housing for you and Julie while I work in the coal mines. You won’t go hungry. I swear you won’t.”
“Married?” I said. “By a priest? Couldn’t we just exchange vows right now?”
“No,” Alex said. “We can’t keep on like this. It’s a sin. Either we get married in the eyes of God and the Church or we stop now.”
I reached out to him and grasped his hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t say yes, I’ll marry you, and leave everybody I love behind. I love you and I want you, but I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t think it’s what you want, not really.”
“You have no idea what I want,” Alex said.
“So tell me,” I said. “What do you want, Alex? To be with me? To be a Franciscan? Make me understand what you want.”
He stood there so silent I could hear his heart beat. “I want to be good,” he said softly. “But I don’t know how.”
“Oh, Alex,” I said, longing to hold him and knowing he’d resist if I tried. “None of us know anymore.”
He nodded and then he wept, like a little boy who’d asked for the moon and been told he could never have it.
I used to love the Fourth of July. Hot weather. Fireworks.
Today was gloomy and 50 degrees.
The guys celebrated the day by chopping firewood. Mom made her regular inspection of our food supplies. Gabriel, I suppose, cried, and Lisa most likely hovered around him.
Syl doesn’t eat breakfast. She says she never did and she doesn’t see any point starting now. This, of course, drives Mom crazy, but good mother-in-law that she is, she keeps her opinion about breakfast being the most important meal of the day to herself.
So when everyone was busy and Syl was hiding in Matt’s bedroom, I went up to talk with her. Which I’ve hardly done since I’ve come back, and which, frankly, I wouldn’t want to do except there was something I had to ask her.
I knocked on the door and told Syl it was me and she said to come in. She was lying on the sofa-bed mattress, covered with blankets even though the electric heater was going full blast.
“I’m never warm enough,” she said. “Except in the sunroom with the woodstove.”
“You could come downstairs,” I pointed out.
“I will later,” she said.
I looked at her and thought about how she’d let Horton out to die, and then I told myself not to think about that, because there was a chance Syl knew something that could help Alex and Julie. “There was something you said once,” I began. “About truck drivers.”
“What about them?” she asked, propping herself up with her elbow.
“You said they stopped sometimes when they were going to safe towns,” I said. “And picked people up.”
“Girls,” Syl said. “They never stopped for guys. And they never did on the way to safe towns. The trucks would be filled with supplies then. On the way back they might stop for a girl.”
“Did they ever stop for you?” I asked.
“What business is that of yours?” she said.
“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. I was wondering if one of them told you where he’d come from, where the safe town was. That’s all.”
“No,” Syl said. “They knew better than to talk. They could lose their jobs if they told anyone where the safe towns are located.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry if I bothered you.”
“Sit down,” she said. “I hate the way you’re standing there, glaring at me.”
“I’m not glaring,” I said, but I did as she said and sat on the mattress by her side.
“It doesn’t matter where any of the safe towns are,” Syl said. “None of us could get in. We’re not important enough. They’re for politicians, people like that.”
Syl and Lisa have gotten pretty close. If Dad had told Lisa about the passes, Lisa would have told Syl. Dad must have kept that knowledge to himself, figuring it would upset Lisa. I had to be careful I didn’t let Syl know why I was asking.
“It’s stupid,” I said. “I thought maybe because Mom is a writer, we could get in. That’s all. I remembered you mentioned them, so I thought I’d ask if you knew where one is. But you don’t, and I’m sorry I bothered you.”
For the first time since I’ve known her, Syl looked uncomfortable. “Look,” she said. “There are things I’ve told Matt and things I haven’t, but the only reason I haven’t is because he hates hearing about them. All right? I’m not ashamed of anything I did. I’m alive and I’m here because of what I did. Matt knows that. He accepts that. But he doesn’t like the details.”
“I won’t tell Matt,” I said. “I swear.”
“Scout’s honor?” Syl asked, and then she laughed. “All right. I believe you. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I was in an evac camp. This was, I don’t know, maybe a year ago. Pretty early on. The camps have guards, military police, young guys mostly. And one of them had gotten his hands on some bottles of vodka, so he and his buddies decided to party. Which they did with some of us girls. We left the camp and broke into an empty house and had a good time.” She paused. “It was important to keep the guards happy. If one of them liked you, you might get extra food or a blanket.”
I understood why Matt didn’t want to hear any of this. And I started to understand why Alex and Carlos were so desperate to protect Julie.
“There were lots of girls at the camp,” Syl continued. “The guards had their pick, so you did whatever they asked and you tried to make them feel important, like they were the star quarterback and you were head cheerleader.”
“Matt isn’t like that,” I said.
“No,” Syl said. “Matt isn’t anything like that. Neither is Hal or Charlie or Alex. The guards wouldn’t have been like that, either, probably, if things hadn’t changed. But things did change, so they were full of themselves, and if you wanted some extra food, you acted like they were the greatest people on Earth. They loved reminding you how powerful they were.
“We were all a little bit drunk that night, and they started bragging about how many people they’d killed. Then they started talking about the first time they’d killed someone. And one of the guys said the first time he’d killed people was when he’d been assigned to clear out a college to make it a safe town. It was funny, he said, because it was Sexton University and he’d applied there and been rejected, and there he was, shooting professors who were resisting. I said I hope he got the dean of admissions, and he laughed.”
“How can you remember the name,” I asked, “if you were drunk?”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” Syl said. “And I was still trying out different names, so I thought about Anne Sexton, only Anne is pretty dull and you can’t call yourself Sex. So I went with Sylvia Plath instead. I like her more anyway.”
I had no idea who she was talking about but it didn’t matter. “Did the guard say where it was?” I asked. “Sexton University?”
Syl shook her head. “He’d said too much as it was,” she said. “The next day I heard the girls who’d been at the party were being rounded up and put in a holding pen. I left before they found me.”
“But if you knew the name, couldn’t you have found it?” I asked.
“I didn’t care where it was,” she said. “I was trying to make my way east to see if any of my family was still alive. Which they weren’t.”
“You have family now,” I said.
“That’s what Matt tells me,” she said.
There was nothing I could say to that, except to ask Syl not to tell anyone I’d been asking. I didn’t want Mom to find out, I said. Syl agreed.
And now I’m in my closet, writing all this down, trying to figure out how to find out where Sexton University is and what to do if I can find out.
I have no idea how many colleges there are in the United States, or how many there were, because for all I know now there aren’t any. But Dad used to work at Denning College, so I figured there was at least a chance he’d heard of Sexton University and might know where it was.
The only problem was I’d have to give him an explanation why I was asking. It’s not like I could say, “Well, I’m thinking about applying there next year because I’ve always wanted to go to a school named for Anne Sexton, whoever she is.”
I have a feeling he’d believe me more if I said I always wanted to go to a school that had Sex in its name, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe there are still colleges out there, but unless they’re biking distance from Howell, PA, I won’t reach it in time for orientation.
I’d have to come up with a different reason why I wanted to know, and there wasn’t one. It’s not like I could say it came up in conversation or in a game of Name the Most Obscure University. And Dad can always tell when I’m lying.
I figured he could break me down in two steps, if it took that long.
Most likely Mom’s heard of Anne Sexton, but that doesn’t mean she’s heard of Sexton University. And she could break me down in one step without even trying.
Back in the time when life was easy, the Internet would have told me what I needed to know. The great thing about the Internet was it didn’t care why you were asking.
But even though we have electricity more often than not, we don’t have phone, or cable, or Internet. Maybe they do in safe towns, but I don’t live in one.
I tried to remember how people found things out before the Internet existed. They had to have questions, after all, and they couldn’t always ask their parents. Or teachers. Or librarians.
Librarians! Librarians always know how to find out things. That was their job even before the Internet.
There was only one problem: The Howell library closed months ago.
But that didn’t mean all its books were gone. Maybe there was a book that listed all the universities in the country. And if the library ever did have a book like that, it was probably still there, because who would have stolen it?
The next question was whether I should go to the library and see if I could find the book and get Sexton University’s address. If I don’t, I won’t have to tell Alex. But if I do go, it’s specifically to tell him, because why else would I want to know where Sexton University was located, except to fantasize about going to a school that had Sex in its name?
If I told Alex, he would leave. It wouldn’t matter how far away it was. He’d wait until he was sure Julie was up to the trip, and then they’d take off and I’d never see either one of them again, unless I went with them, which apparently would require the approval not just of Mom and Dad but the eyes of God and the Church.
But how could I not tell him? And how could I be certain Syl wouldn’t let something slip during Bible studies with Lisa and Charlie? Alex would hear about Sexton University, and he and Julie would leave, but he’d leave hating me.
If we were never going to see each other again, I wanted him to at least feel bad about it.
So I biked to town. I lied to Mom, saying I was going to Dad’s to play with the baby, and Mom didn’t try to break me. I guess some lies are more believable than others. My bike was in the garage, but she didn’t notice when I got it, or if she did, she didn’t run out to demand an explanation. Nobody else did, either. I biked the four miles to town all on my own.
I don’t like going to town. It’s a reminder of everything that isn’t anymore. It was never a big town, but there were places to eat and to shop and to hang out. And now it’s dead, except for City Hall, open on Mondays to hand out food. For as long as that lasts.
As I biked to the library I thought about having to break one of the windows to get in. That seemed horribly immoral, as bad as breaking a window of a church. But lucky for me, someone else didn’t feel that way, because the window was already broken. I let myself in.
It was filthy. I don’t know why that surprised me, since we scrub frantically to keep the soot manageable and there was no one at the library to do that. But there was something about the library being so cold, dark, and dirty that broke my heart. It felt like losing Horton again.
I didn’t cry, though. There’s enough to cry about without shedding tears over a building. Besides, if a miracle happened and Mom went to Dad’s and found I wasn’t there, I’d be grounded for life, which I pretty much am anyway, but this time it would be official.
I walked over to the reference section. Most of the books were still there. Of course most of the books had nothing to do with colleges. I had to dust off the covers of a lot of no longer useful books before I found what I’d been looking for: The American College Guide.
I almost didn’t pick it up. I told myself I could pretend I hadn’t seen it and bike back home before anyone noticed I was gone and forget all about it, and Alex and Julie would stay with us. At least Jon and Julie would be happy. Didn’t I owe it to Jon to keep Julie from going? And Dad and Lisa? And Charlie? And if Jon was miserable, then Mom would be miserable, and if she was miserable, she’d make Syl miserable, and that would make Matt miserable. And everyone would make me miserable.
Ignorance is bliss.
I picked up the book.
The colleges were listed in alphabetical order.
Sexton University was located in McKinley, Tennessee. It had a student enrollment of 5,500 and was best known for its agricultural and veterinary programs.
There’s something about succeeding, even at a job you don’t like, that makes you push harder. I tore out the page about Sexton University, then located a road atlas. There were five pages devoted to Tennessee, and I ripped them all out. Alex would have to find the state on his own, but once he got there, he could follow the map to McKinley.
Then, because I was all alone in a library and had already destroyed two books, I found my way to the poetry section, located an anthology of contemporary American poetry, and took it for Syl. I might even give it to her someday.
I stopped in at Dad’s on my way home. Gabriel was yelling his little baby head off.
“He’s teething,” Lisa said, like he needed an excuse to scream.
Alex, Jon, and Julie were in the parlor. Alex was giving them a world history lesson. Alex probably felt history still mattered. Julie believed Alex still mattered, and Jon believed Julie still mattered. Or maybe all three of them were actually interested.
I could have interrupted, told Alex then and there about the safe town in McKinley, Tennessee, waved good-bye as he and Julie left us forever, consoled the brokenhearted, consoled my own broken heart.
Instead I gave Alex a quick nod, returned my bike to our garage, and came up to my bedroom closet to write all this down. I’m spending so much time in here, I’m thinking about putting up curtains.
Alex told me to trust in tomorrow. Well, maybe tomorrow I’ll know what to do.
I still haven’t decided.
Instead of thinking, I scrubbed the house so clean that if decorating magazines still existed, our house would be the cover.
I didn’t sleep well last night, and when I did, I had the same dream over and over, that I was alone in the house, which was our house but didn’t look like our house. It was sparkling and new and I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was, but every room I entered was empty. The more I had the dream, the more I knew the house was empty because everybody had died and I was the only person left alive.
After a while I gave up trying to sleep.
I thought about my choices. They seemed pretty simple at first. Either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex.
Then it got more complicated. I could tell Alex now or I could tell Alex next week. Or I could decide whether or not I’d tell him next week. Or next month. Or next year. Just because I didn’t tell him now didn’t mean I’d never tell him.
Of course when you can’t be really sure you’ll be alive a year from now, postponing decisions is the same as making decisions.
That got me back to either I told Alex or I didn’t tell Alex. Because it would take him and Julie months to get to Tennessee, and winter comes early these days. Like by the end of August. If I delayed telling him until then, he and Julie would set off anyway and have a lot harder time making it to Tennessee.
For all my talk about choices, I really didn’t have any. I’d tell Alex where the safe town was, and I’d tell him right away. He and Julie would stay through Monday. Two days from now.
They’d already stayed much longer than Alex had intended. If the convent had still been open, they’d already have been gone for more than a week. My fantasy that Alex would have stayed with me was just that, a fantasy. He’d made a deal with God. Julie in the convent, Alex in the monastery. And Miranda? Miranda was just another dream.
So I’d tell him. I’d hand him his walking papers.
Nothing lasts except fear, hunger, and darkness. Five weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to imagine what I would feel loving, truly loving, a boy. I’d had feelings. I’d had fantasies. But nothing like what I’ve felt for the past five weeks. It would have been like picturing a color you’ve never seen.
Five weeks. Maybe I’ll live five more years, or five more weeks, or only five more days. But I’ve been given the gift of those five weeks, and I shouldn’t be greedy for more.
Once I accepted that, it was a matter of waiting until morning. I’m pretty sure I fell back asleep, but the dreams were gone.
I walked over to Dad’s after breakfast. Alex and Julie were in the parlor praying. I thought, I have the answer to their prayers, but of course I don’t know what their prayers are.
When they finished, I let them know I was there. “I need to talk to you,” I said to Alex, but there was still a part of me that thought I didn’t have to tell him.
He waited for me.
“Outside,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
I didn’t give Alex a chance to ask any questions. If I hesitated, I might not have gone through with it. We weren’t ten feet from the house before I handed him the sheets of paper. “Syl says there’s a safe town there,” I said. “At Sexton University.”
Alex stared at the pages. “Has she seen it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “She heard about it from someone who was there when they turned it into one. She didn’t know where it was and I lied about why I asked. I went to town, to the library. This is what I found.”
Alex read the write-up of Sexton. Then he reached over and kissed me. “We’ll go tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s Saturday,” I said. “Wait until Tuesday.”
“I hate waiting,” he said. “If we wait much longer, Julie won’t make it.”
“It’s just a cough,” I said.
“There’s no such thing as just a cough,” he said.
I held him and we kissed again.
“You’ll come with us,” he said. There was no question in his voice, just the assurance that I would.
“Alex, I don’t know,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You have to. Now that it’s real, that Julie has a place to go, I can make plans for us.”
“I’m not a Catholic,” I said. “I can’t convert for you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I don’t love you for what you believe. I love you in spite of what you believe.”
“I believe in family,” I said. “And so do you.”
He nodded. “I thought the passes were the only thing I had of value. But you’re what I value. I’ll give Lisa two of the passes, for her and Gabriel. Julie can live with them in the safe town. Hal and you and I will live outside of town. Charlie, too, if he wants. They’re bound to need workers, people to farm and clean and keep the town running. Miranda, we can do it.”
I thought about it as much as I could think with Alex’s body so close to mine. I knew the journey would be hard, but it would be harder a month from now, a year from now, whenever the food ran out and we’d have to leave here. And I wouldn’t have Alex.
If I left now, Mom would still have Jon and Matt and Syl. She couldn’t object if I went with Dad. Even if she did object, she couldn’t stop me.
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, Alex, yes.”
It was one thing to tell Alex that I would go with him. It was a whole other thing to tell Mom.
I knew I had to. I couldn’t vanish. I’d asked Alex to hold off telling Dad and Lisa until today, but once they knew, they’d come over to talk about plans.
It would be even worse if Julie told Jon and Jon told Mom before I had.
But it was Sunday, and Mom politely declined when Syl asked if she wanted to join them for their prayer service. I declined just as politely. Mom and I stood at the door and watched as Syl and Matt and Jon walked over to Dad’s. I was alone now with Mom. I had no choice.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said.
I could see Mom calculate how bad it was going to be. But she didn’t say anything, just gestured for me to sit by her side.
“Alex has some papers,” I said. “Three passes into a safe town.”
“What’s a safe town?” Mom asked.
“They’re towns that still work,” I said. “The government set them up. They have electricity, I guess. Hospitals, schools. They’re for important people to live in. People with connections.”
“How did Alex get the passes?” she asked. “Does his family have connections?”
“What difference does it make?” I said. “He has them.”
“It makes a lot of difference,” Mom said. “Because the next thing you’re going to tell me is you’re going off with him and Julie and the three of you will be fine and happy and I shouldn’t worry because you’ll be in a safe town, whatever that is. But if Alex stole the passes or worse, then I want to know.”
“I don’t know how he got them,” I said. “But I know Alex. He would never have stolen them.”
“All right,” Mom said. “Somehow these passes fell into his lap. It’s a miracle. Why hasn’t he taken Julie there already? What was all the business about the convent if there’s this lovely safe town waiting for them?”
“He didn’t know where one was,” I said. “They keep them hidden. I found out for him.”
“And how did you find out?” Mom asked.
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “I found out. I told him. He and Julie and I will be leaving day after tomorrow. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. Mom, he’s giving up everything for me.”
“You’re the one who’s giving everything up,” Mom said. “You’re giving up your home, your family.”
“No,” I said. “That’s what you don’t understand, Mom. Alex is giving two of the passes to Lisa, for her and Gabriel. He’ll let Julie live with them, and he and Dad and I will live together nearby. That’s what he’s giving up, Mom. Those passes are worth a lot. Alex could trade them for whatever he wants. But what he wants is me.”
“And where is this paradise on Earth?” Mom asked. “Where you’ll live just outside someplace with hospitals and schools.”
“Tennessee,” I said. “Sexton University, in McKinley, Tennessee. Alex says we’re sure to get work there. You can’t stop me, Mom, any more than you could stop Matt from falling in love. I’m going. I’ll be with Dad. I’ll be all right.”
“You’re not doing this to be with your father,” Mom said. “At least be honest about that.”
“I’m more honest than you ever were,” I said. “When you kept me from going with Dad last summer.”
“I had to make that decision for you,” Mom said. “You weren’t old enough to decide for yourself.”
“I’m old enough now,” I said. “And I’ve decided.”
“Does your father know?” Mom asked.
“Alex is telling him today,” I said.
“Well, he’ll be happy,” Mom said. “A safe place for Lisa and the baby. Will Charlie go with you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so.”
“I hope so, too,” Mom said. “Because you’re going to need all the help you can get, Miranda, when this blows up. You think you’re grown up but you’re not. You have no idea what love is. What you feel for Alex, it’s pity and desire, not love. Not the kind of love two people build a life on.”
“Maybe that’s what love is now,” I said. “Pity. Desire. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones because I still have feelings. I don’t know. I just know I can’t bear the thought of losing Alex. This is my chance, maybe my only chance, to love somebody. I can’t worry about what we’ll build a life on. We have today. If we’re lucky, we’ll have tomorrow.”
“What if you don’t stay in Tennessee?” Mom asked. “How will I know where you are?”
“We’ll let Alex’s brother know,” I said. “Carlos Morales. He’s in the Marines, stationed in Texas. Alex can give you all his information.”
“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” she asked. “You have no doubts?”
I had a thousand doubts, a million doubts. “I love Alex,” I said. “He loves me. I’m going with him.”
“But not until Tuesday,” Mom said. “If you do change your mind, it will be all right. Alex will understand and so will your father. Promise me you’ll think about it between now and then. I love you, Miranda, and I want what’s best for you. Think about what you’ll be giving up if you go. Think about it hard.”
“I have thought about it,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll think about it more. But, Mom, I’m going. I know what I’ll be giving up if I go. But I also know what I’ll be giving up if I stay.”
Mom took my hand. “This wasn’t how things were supposed to be,” she said. “You should be in high school, your future ahead of you. Not this.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Alex, either,” I said. “Or Matt. Or Jon. You have to fight for happiness, Mom. Maybe it didn’t used to be that way, but it is now. I’m not going to settle for sadness. That’s not what you want for me, not really.”
“I want to protect you,” Mom said. “I want to know you’re safe, that you’ll be all right.”
“Just love me,” I said. “Love me and let me go.”
I thought I knew what fear was. I thought, For the past year I’ve lived every day afraid; I must understand fear.
I understood nothing.
Last night was horrible. Matt yelled at me, told me that Alex wasn’t good enough for me, that I was disloyal and stupid. Then he and Syl got into a screaming match in their room, so loud we could all hear it downstairs.
Jon didn’t yell, at least not at me. He and Mom had a huge fight. He wanted to go with us and Mom wouldn’t let him. It was so bad she sent me over to Dad’s to bring him back to tell Jon he’d be better off staying home.
Even Charlie got in the act. He came over to talk things out with me.
“I’m glad you’re going with us,” he said. “It makes Hal so happy, and Hal’s the best friend I’ve ever had. But don’t count too much on Alex. He’s a great boy, Miranda, a wonderful boy, but that’s what he is, a boy. A boy who’s been given so much responsibility, he thinks he must be a man.”
That was last night. And awful as it was, I’d give up everything to go back to it.
Matt and Dad went out this morning to chop wood and spend their last day together. Syl hid in her room; Jon, in his. Mom and I cleaned downstairs, carefully staying in different rooms as we dusted and scrubbed.
Alex and Julie came over around ten. “Julie would like to make the food run with Jon,” Alex said. “Is that all right with you, Mrs. Evans?”
Mom nodded. She went to the staircase and hollered to Jon to come down. He did, each step taking longer than the step before.
“Julie wants to go to town with you,” Mom said. “For the food run. All right?”
Jon shrugged.
Julie took that for a yes. “Let’s go,” she said. Jon followed as she left the house.
“I’d like to go out with Miranda if you don’t mind, Mrs. Evans,” Alex said. “I’d like to look for bikes or maybe even a car.”
“It looks like it might rain,” Mom said.
“She’ll be fine,” Alex said. “I’ll look out for her.”
“I’ll get my jacket,” I said. I ran to the closet and got it, giving Mom a peck on the cheek when I returned. “Mom, don’t worry. I won’t melt.”
“All right,” Mom said. “I won’t worry.”
When we got outside, I realized I wouldn’t need my jacket. It was very muggy and close to 70 degrees. There was the smell of thunderstorms in the air. I hoped tomorrow would be better. It would be easier for Mom if I didn’t leave under stormy skies.
“We need more bikes,” Alex said. “You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we’ll need three more.”
“We only have four bikes,” I said. “Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon.”
“Your mother won’t need one,” Alex said. “She never leaves the house.”
“She will someday,” I said. “When she has to.”
“She’ll get a bike then,” Alex said. “In the meantime you’ll need a bike a lot more than she does.”
I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren’t. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.
“I want you so much,” he said, and then he laughed. “I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you.”
“You have me,” I said.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my million doubts flew away.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”
We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we really existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.
It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. “Let’s ride them back,” I suggested. “And go out again to look some more.”
“Good idea,” Alex said, kissing me again. “We’ll look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours.”
We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn’t scared anymore, just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.
We’d gotten back to Howell Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pulled him down instead, and we kissed.
What a dumb word that is, “kiss.” I’ve kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I’ve kissed other boys.
This kiss wasn’t that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.
“Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him. “In the eyes of God and the Church?”
“Does that mean you will?” he asked.
I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.
But then hail started to fall, little pellets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.
“We’ve got to get home,” Alex said as he pulled me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.
It’s been a year since I’ve seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantically down the hill, both of us falling as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.
And then I saw the twister. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.
I yelled to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn’t turn off onto the driveway. Instead he yelled something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.
In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them. And he’d shouted to me to get his missal.
I had only seconds to decide. Do I go back home, warn Mom and Syl, and ride out the tornado in the cellar with them, or do I go to Dad’s, warn Lisa and Charlie, and do the one thing Alex had asked of me?
I turned away from home, rode to Dad’s, jumped off my bike, and pounded frantically on their back door.
Charlie opened it.
“Tornado!” I screamed. “Go to the cellar!”
I didn’t stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure he understood, that he warned Lisa and led her and the baby to safety. I trusted him to do that, as Alex trusted me.
Instead I ran to the parlor and looked frantically for the missal. I went through a pile of textbooks, but it wasn’t there. I felt all the furniture, to see if it was stuffed under cushions, but it didn’t seem to be. I got on the floor, searching under the chairs and sofas. I have no idea how long I looked, maybe a minute, maybe more. But then I caught a glimpse of something in his neatly folded pile of clothes. I flung the clothes until I found the missal.
I raced back toward the kitchen, but I could tell from the terrifying sound, the way the house was beginning to shake, that there wasn’t enough time to get to the cellar. Instead I ran into the little storage closet under the stairwell, clutching the missal tightly, as though it could keep me from harm.
When we were kids, we were forbidden to go in that closet. It was the perfect size to hide in, and we’d always been tempted. But now I was grown up, and the closet was too small for me to stand. I curled up in a ball, making myself as small as possible, so the tornado couldn’t find me.
All around me I could sense the house collapsing, and I felt like a sparrow being sucked into an airplane engine. The sound was ungodly. But the stairwell held, and the tornado passed, and I was still alive.
I pushed against the stairwell door, but it wouldn’t open. I pushed harder, shoving my shoulder against it, but nothing happened. I twisted my torso so my entire chest faced the door, and I rammed my body into the door, pushing, pushing, pushing, but the door stayed shut. There was too much debris piled against it.
I was stuck in the closet, in a tiny space under the staircase. I’d survived the tornado, but now I was buried alive. If no one found me, I’d suffocate.
“Help!” I screamed. “Help!”
“Miranda? Where are you? Are you all right?”
The voice was muffled, as though it was a long way away. Then I realized it was Charlie, calling to me from the cellar.
“I’m in the stairwell closet,” I yelled. “I can’t get the door open. Are you all right? Lisa? The baby?”
“We’re fine,” Charlie shouted. “Keep still, Miranda. Don’t talk anymore. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I shook from relief. Charlie would save me. Death would be cheated, one more time.
But Charlie didn’t come. I heard thuds from the cellar and a noise I couldn’t identify, and then Lisa screamed.
I knew yelling would use up needed air, but I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?” I shouted. “Lisa?”
Lisa didn’t answer. She just screamed, “No! Charlie, no!”
“Charlie!” I shouted. “Charlie, answer me!”
But there was no answer, just the sound of Lisa and Gabriel wailing as though they’d lost their best friend.
I was too stunned to cry. Something had happened. I couldn’t be sure what, but whatever it was, Charlie hadn’t been able to get the cellar door open. He and Lisa and Gabriel were as trapped as I was. They had more room, so they wouldn’t suffocate, but unless someone came and got us out, they would die, just as I would, only their deaths would take longer.
Assuming Charlie hadn’t already died.
It was then, only then, that I realized everybody might have died. I hadn’t warned Mom or Syl. Mom could have been in the sunroom, Syl in her bedroom, when the tornado struck. Matt and Dad were outside chopping wood. And there was no way of knowing where Jon and Julie were, if Alex had gotten to them in time, and if it would have made any difference if he had.
Before I’d shook from relief. Now my body spasmed in terror and grief.
“Lisa! Lisa, are you all right?”
“Daddy!” I screamed. “Daddy, help me!”
“Miranda?” Dad called. “I can hear you, but I don’t know where you are.”
“In the stairwell closet,” I said. “Daddy, get me out. Lisa and Charlie are in the cellar. Something happened to Charlie.”
“Miranda, it’ll be all right,” Dad said. “I’m in the hallway. There’s a pile of rubble blocking the door. I’ll get Matt. We’ll dig you out. Lisa, can you hear me?”
“Hal!” Lisa yelled. “Hal! It’s Charlie. I think he’s dead!”
“Lisa, I can’t get to you,” Dad said. “There’s too much debris. I’m going to get Matt and we’ll dig Miranda out first, and then we’ll get you. All right, darling? Is Gabriel all right?”
“Please.” Lisa sobbed. “Get us out, Hal, please.”
“We will, darling,” Dad said. “You’ll be out before you know it. But first we’ll get Miranda so she can help us. Miranda, relax if you can. You’ll be out in no time.”
“Is Mom all right?” I cried. “Daddy?”
“She’s fine,” Dad said. “So’s Syl. We’ll be back in a minute. Hold on, Miranda. Just a few more minutes.”
I hadn’t heard him come in, because of Lisa and Gabriel crying. But I could hear him leave, and the sound of his moving away from me left me even more shaken.
I told myself to calm down. Dad and Matt would get me out and I’d be fine. Mom and Syl had survived. Lisa might be wrong about Charlie. Alex and Jon and Julie had to be all right. They just had to be. We all did. We’d survived worse, I told myself. We’d get through this together.
I realized then how tightly I was grasping Alex’s missal, and I thought, I can’t let Matt see this. If Matt knew I’d gone for the missal instead of warning Mom and Syl, he would never forgive me.
I knew there could only be one reason why Alex had told me to get it. The passes to the safe town had to be there.
I was in complete darkness, and I didn’t have one of my flashlight pens with me. I held the missal upside down, and an envelope fell out.
I felt it. There were certainly papers in it, and something else, something like tiny buttons.
They were pills, I realized. The sleeping pills Alex had told me about. Pills to allow Julie to sleep through her death.
I slid the envelope under my shirt and tucked the missal into the corner of the closet. Matt would never know. I’d give the envelope to Alex, and we’d go off together just as we’d planned. Dad and Lisa and the baby were fine. Julie would be secure in the safe town, and when she was, Alex could throw the pills away. He and I would make our life together. We’d have our tomorrows.
I could hear them then, Dad and Matt and Syl. When I heard Syl’s voice, I knew Mom really was all right and I would be also.
“There’s a lot of debris here,” Dad said. “Miranda, we’ll get you out, but it’s going to take a few minutes. Just let us know you’re okay, and then don’t worry about it.”
“I’m fine, Dad,” I said, crying and laughing. “Take your time.”
Dad made a sound I decided was laughter. I listened as he, Matt, and Syl worked together, clearing a pathway to the door. In the background I could hear Lisa crying and Dad calling out to her, telling her everything would be all right.
I felt the envelope against my chest. I told myself Alex was alive, that I’d give him the envelope, and if he had ever needed proof of my love, he never would again.
I don’t know how long it took before I could hear Dad pull the door open. A few minutes maybe, or forever. I felt him before I could see him. Dark as it was in the hallway, my eyes still had to adjust to the dim light. But it didn’t matter. Dad grasped me and pulled me out.
“You have to be careful, honey,” he said. “There’s garbage all around, broken glass. Hold on to me, and we’ll get you outside.”
I followed him blindly, stumbling over the remains of Mrs. Nesbitt’s house, my second home. Slowly I realized there was no house left. It had collapsed all around me, only the staircase keeping me from being crushed to death.
After we made it outside away from the rubble, I held on to Dad and let his strength pass to me. Then I hugged Matt and Syl. Nothing that had been said last night mattered. Nothing mattered anymore except that they were alive.
“Jon?” I asked. “Julie? Alex?”
Dad shook his head. “We don’t know where they are,” he said. “We thought Alex was with you.”
“He went to warn Jon and Julie,” I said. “But Mom’s all right? You said she’s all right.”
“I’ll take you to her,” Syl said. “Come, Miranda, you’ll see she’s fine.”
“Come back as soon as you can,” Matt said. “We’ve got to work on getting Lisa out.”
“I know,” Syl said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.” She put her arm around my shoulders and led me toward home.
Within seconds I was standing in the sunroom, in Mom’s arms. She held me so tightly I wasn’t sure I could ever move away. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. I know she was crying, but that was all right, too.
“Miranda, we need you to help clear out the rubble,” Syl said. “You too, Laura. Come on.”
“No,” Mom said. “I’ll wait for Jon here. He’ll expect to find me here.”
“He’ll find us,” Syl said. “You can’t use him as an excuse, Laura. Lisa’s life depends on you.”
“If Mom wants to stay here, let her,” I said.
“Stop protecting her, Miranda,” Syl said. “Laura, you talk all the time about how the baby is the most important thing. Well, prove it, and come with us.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Mom said. “I know it’s crazy, but I’m so afraid if I leave this house, everything will collapse. I feel like I’m the only person holding things together.”
“Everything has collapsed,” Syl said. “You’ve done a sucky job holding things together, Laura.” She grabbed Mom’s arm and literally pulled her out of the sunroom. “See,” she said. “The world came to an end while you’ve been hiding. Now move!”
I stood absolutely still. But then Mom began running toward Mrs. Nesbitt’s, toward what had been Mrs. Nesbitt’s but was now nothing but a mountain of rubble. Syl and I followed her. I can’t be sure, but I think Syl was smiling.
The debris around the cellar door was much higher than what Dad and I had climbed over. It was taller than we were. And it wasn’t like you could take a piece from the bottom and work your way upward.
“Miranda, get the ladder from the garage,” Matt said.
I ran to the garage, glad to have a job I could handle. The garage looked completely untouched, but when I walked out with the ladder, I looked at our house. There was a tree limb lying across the roof, and I could see windows had blown out and part of the roof was missing.
Even so, we were the lucky ones.
I walked back with the ladder. Matt placed it against the rubble mountain.
“I’ll climb up,” Syl said. “Miranda, are you up to it?”
I nodded. We climbed the ladder until we were on top of the heap and began throwing what we could as far away from the house as possible.
“Shouldn’t one of us go look for the others?” I asked. “What if they need us?”
“They probably do,” Syl said. “But we don’t know where they are, and we do know where Lisa and the baby are. We have to take care of them and hope that the others find their way back home.”
I knew she was right, but I hated hearing her say it. Being outside, surrounded by mountains of debris, made me understand for the first time how devastating this tornado had been. Mrs. Nesbitt’s house had taken the brunt of it, but there was no way of knowing how things were farther downhill, closer to town. I began to shake again.
Syl grabbed my arm and squeezed it tight. “Don’t think,” she said. “Just work.”
There was room for three, and Mom climbed up also. She didn’t say anything, just worked alongside, being careful, as we all were, to toss the shingles and roofing as far as possible from where we thought the cellar door was. The mound felt solid beneath us, which was both a relief and frightening. We weren’t about to fall through, I knew, but it was going to take a very long time to remove enough of it to make a difference.
I don’t know how long we worked, throwing things down, while Matt carefully removed what he could from the outer rim of the pile. Dad worked on the side of the house, by one of the tiny cellar windows, clearing it out, so we could talk with Lisa and get things to her until we could get her out.
The hail had stopped and the thunderstorm had moved away. We could still see flashes of lightning in the distance, but it took several seconds before we heard the thunder. It was still raining, though, and it was hard not to slide as we pushed things off. Matt kept yelling at us to be careful, to Syl mostly because she took the greatest risks, but it didn’t matter. Whatever happened happened. We had to get Lisa and the baby out of the cellar before the cellar roof collapsed. Which we all knew could happen at any time.
It was Syl who spotted Jon first. From her vantage point on the mound of rubble she could see the road and Jon running up it toward us.
“It’s Jon!” she cried. “He’s all right.”
Mom climbed down the ladder so fast she almost fell into Dad’s arms. None of us could stop her as she made her way through the fallen tree branches toward him.
“Do you see Alex?” I asked Syl. “Is Julie there?”
“Just Jon,” Syl said.
I climbed down the ladder, but Syl stayed where she was and continued to work. Matt and Dad stopped, though, and we followed Mom’s path. We watched as she held on to Jon the way she’d held me earlier. Her children had survived.
“Julie,” Jon said. “She’s hurt. Mom, she’s hurt real bad.”
“It’s all right, son,” Dad said. “Show us where she is. We’ll bring her back.”
“How bad?” Matt asked. “Is she bleeding?”
“I don’t know,” Jon said. “I don’t think so. But she can’t move her arms or her legs. And she said she can’t feel anything.”
Dad and Mom exchanged looks. Only Matt continued to focus on Jon.
“What exactly happened?” he asked. “How was she hurt? Take a deep breath, Jon, and tell us everything you know.”
“We saw a twister coming this way,” Jon said. “We tried to take cover, but there wasn’t time, so we held on to a tree. I thought I had her covered, but the wind picked her up, and she must have landed wrong because she’s lying there and she can’t move. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t carry her up the road all by myself, and our bikes are gone.” He looked around. “Everything is gone,” he said, and he began to cry.
Mom took him in her arms. “It’s all right,” she said. “Your father and Matt will get Julie. Our house is still in one piece. We’ll take care of her.”
“What about Alex?” I asked Jon. “Did you see him?”
Jon shook his head. “It was just Julie and me,” he said.
“Come on, son,” Dad said. “Matt, go into the house and get some blankets. We’ll use them as a stretcher.”
Matt ran to our house, and moments later he came out with the blankets.
“Laura, you, Miranda, and Syl keep working,” Dad said. “Jon, show us where Julie is. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Be careful,” Mom said.
We watched them make their way down the road. “Mom,” I said. “Should they move Julie? What if she has a spinal injury?”
“It sounds like she does,” Mom said. “But there are no doctors, no hospitals anymore. Not here. All we can do is make Julie comfortable.”
“No, Mom,” I said. “No.”
“You have to be strong, Miranda,” Mom said. “I’m going to work by the window, where your father was. You stay on the ground. Can you do that? Can you work on the rubble down here?”
I nodded, but I could hardly hear what she was saying. Julie was badly hurt and Alex was still missing. Charlie was in the cellar, dead for all we knew. Lisa and Gabriel were trapped, and we had no equipment, nothing but our hands and our will, to get them out.
Syl had told me not to think. I did as she’d said.
It took a few minutes before Syl spotted Jon. I stopped working and raced toward him. Dad and Matt had improvised a stretcher and were carefully carrying Julie.
I didn’t dare ask, but I looked straight at Matt, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.
For a horrible instant I thought he meant Julie had died. But then I heard Dad say, “Hold on, sweetie. We’re almost there.”
“Alex?” Julie asked.
I’d gotten close enough so she could see and hear me. “He’s not back yet,” I said. “He’ll be home soon.”
“I can’t move,” Julie said. “I tried to. I really tried, but I can’t. And I feel strange, like my body isn’t attached to me anymore. I’ve never felt like this, not ever.”
“It’s okay,” Dad said, bending over to stroke her forehead. “Your back is hurt, that’s all. You’ll be up and around in no time.”
She looked so small, so young. I kissed her on her cheek. “Alex will be so proud of you,” I said. “You’re being very brave.”
“He’ll be mad,” she said. “He gets mad at me when I do things he doesn’t like.”
“He loves you more than anything,” I said.
“We’d better get her inside,” Dad said. “Where’s Laura?”
“Working by the window,” I said.
“Get her and send her in,” Dad said. “She can watch after Julie while the rest of us work.”
I walked rapidly toward Mom, and for the first time I can ever remember, I cherished the sensation of movement. Hours ago I’d been trapped in the closet, and now I was outside and I could walk and run. Julie had lost that, most likely forever.
Mom seemed reluctant to go indoors. I guess after all those months, she was cherishing the sensation of sky and air and freedom. Dad took her place at the cellar window, and he insisted Jon work by his side. Matt worked on the ground, and I went back to the top of the mound and resumed throwing things down.
It got dark eventually, and Dad sent Jon to the house to get lanterns and flashlights. Hours later they broke through to the cellar window. It had blown out during the storm, but it was too small for Lisa to crawl through.
Still, Dad was able to talk to her, and when she held Gabriel up, he could hold him. Jon was sent back to our house to get food for Lisa.
Dad returned a while later to tell us what he knew.
“Charlie was pushing against the cellar door,” he said. “Trying to open it, but of course he couldn’t. Lisa isn’t sure what happened, because it was so dark, but she thinks he had a heart attack. She heard him make a funny noise, and then he fell down the cellar stairs. She went to him, but she couldn’t find a pulse. He probably died instantly.”
I thought, Charlie’s dead because of me. I told him to go to the cellar. He tried to open the door to rescue me.
I knew that was crazy. If I caused Charlie’s death, then I saved Lisa’s and Gabriel’s lives. If Charlie tried to get out for me, he was also trying for himself and for them. But I still felt the guilt, like the tornado was somehow my fault, and Julie was hurt because of me, and Alex missing.
“We’re not telling Lisa about Julie or Alex,” Dad said, much more softly. “I told Jon not to say anything. I told her Julie’s back in the house and Alex has gone to look for help.”
“How long can we keep that up, Dad?” Matt asked.
Dad grabbed him by the arm. “As long as we damn well have to,” he said. “Now get back to work.”
And we did. I’d be working there still, except Dad decided we should work in shifts, and I was sent back to the house to eat and get some rest and stay with Julie. Mom left as soon as I got here.
Julie’s sleeping, but I can’t. I’m too scared.
I wish more than anything that it was last night.
The rest of my life, I’m going to be living a lie, so I’m writing now to tell what really happened.
No, even that is a lie. It isn’t what really happened. It’s what I made happen. If I don’t admit that here, now, then I’ll be lying to myself just as I’ll be lying to everyone else every day of my life.
We spent all day working, trying to move the mountain of rubble that was blocking the cellar door and keeping Lisa and Gabriel trapped. We can get Gabriel out through the window, but only Lisa can feed him, so there’s no point. She has food and water, and Mom cut up a couple of Matt’s flannel shirts, for diapers. Sometimes when he cries, we hear him, and it makes us smile, at least for a moment, at least on the inside.
We hardly talk. The only breaks we take are when we’re coughing so hard we have to stop. A few sips of boiled water, and we get back to the job. It’s better that we don’t talk. There’s nothing we could say that wouldn’t make us sadder or more afraid.
All the food Jon and Julie got is gone. All the food at Mrs. Nesbitt’s is gone. We don’t know for sure, but we can’t count on more food deliveries from town. We don’t know if there is still a town.
The electricity is out, but this time it will never return. Wires are down and there’s nobody to repair them. There are two big tree limbs on the front of our house, and part of the roof has caved in. A handful of the windows shattered as well. It’s funny. Matt used to worry about us losing the sunroom roof, but that made it through. It’s the rest of the house that’s collapsing around us.
Dad had put Julie on the sunroom mattress. We took turns going in, checking up on her, making sure the fire was still burning, and eating enough to keep ourselves going, grabbing what sleep we could by Julie’s side.
We didn’t talk about Julie except once. Mom said she’d taken a pin and stuck Julie’s hands and feet with it. She told Julie to close her eyes and let her know when she felt something. Six times Julie hadn’t felt anything. Three times she said she thought she felt the pin, but two out of those three times Mom hadn’t pricked her.
“I don’t understand,” Jon said. “What does that mean?”
“It means Julie wants to believe she still has feeling,” Syl said. “But believing it and having it are two different things.”
“But she’ll get well,” Jon said. “Won’t she?”
“No,” Mom said. “She won’t, Jon.”
“Is she going to die?” he cried.
“Not so loud,” Dad said. “We don’t want Lisa to hear.”
“I don’t care about Lisa!” Jon said. “What about Julie? Can’t we do something?”
“All we can do is make things as easy for her as possible,” Mom said. “You’re not a child anymore, Jon. You know what things are like.”
None of us had stopped working while we talked about Julie. It was early evening, and the pile was down to four feet, so we stood ground level, stooping to pick up the debris. Our backs and arms were screaming in pain. But we kept flinging shingles and siding and pieces of mangled furniture as far from the cellar door as possible.
“I don’t want her to die,” Jon said.
“None of us want her to,” Dad said. “But we don’t want her to suffer, either. At least Charlie died fast. Sometimes I think that’s the only thing we can hope for anymore.”
“No, Hal,” Mom said. “We can still hope for our children, for their future. That’s all that matters, their future.”
I thought about the future I’d imagined for myself two days before—Lisa, Gabriel, and Julie in a safe place; Dad and Alex and me near enough that we could see them sometimes, know they were being taken care of; having that future Mom wanted for all of us.
It was more than twenty-four hours since I’d seen Alex. A part of me was starting to think he’d never existed, that I’d made up a boy I’d given my heart to because he wouldn’t accept anything less from me.
But I knew he was real because I missed him so much, and because his sister was lying helpless in the sunroom and we were talking about her death.
Alex had thought about her death. He’d prepared for it. He’d accepted something I had never had to, that there might come a moment when death was preferable to life and that he bore the responsibility of recognizing that moment and acting on it out of love.
He’d been so concerned about leaving Julie in Dad and Lisa’s care because no matter how much they loved her, they weren’t family. But when I’d agreed to marry Alex, I’d become Julie’s family. That’s why Alex had told me to get his missal. He knew he was risking death, biking into the path of the tornado. But he trusted me with the only possessions of value he had, the passes and the pills.
All of that came to me while I worked, every one of those thoughts, those realizations. And once they were in my mind, I thought them over and over again, like the nightmares I’d had, endlessly looping through my mind until I finally accepted the truth. Alex was gone. Julie was my responsibility, no one else’s.
I don’t know what time it was when Mom told me to go home, to send Matt back, and to get some sleep. All I know is we were working by lamplight then, and the night was so clear you could make out the full moon through the ashen sky.
I stumbled to our house, the darkness and my exhaustion making it almost impossible to walk a straight line. Matt was sleeping and I hated waking him, but we needed every hand we had. He didn’t say anything when I shook him awake. All he did was nod and walk away.
I lifted the blankets off Julie to see if she needed changing, but she was dry. I’d hoped she was asleep, but when I saw her eyes were open, I asked if she needed anything.
“No,” she said. “Matt gave me some food and water. But I wish Alex was here.”
I stroked her face. “Alex loves you,” I said. “We love you, Julie. All of us love you.”
“I wish I could see Lisa and Gabriel,” Julie said. “And Charlie. Charlie always makes me laugh.”
“You’ll see him soon,” I said. “I promise you that.”
Julie began to cough, and when she did, her body shook.
I lifted her so she was in more of a sitting position and had her rest against my chest until the coughing stopped. There were three pillows on the mattress already, but I asked if she’d like another. She said no.
“You’re like the princess and the pea,” I said, knowing what was coming but postponing it for another hour, another minute. I remember hoping that Alex would somehow fly in and Julie would be miraculously cured.
But I’d been hoping for miracles for over a year now. Another hour, another minute, was never long enough.
“What’s the princess and the pea?” she asked.
“It’s a fairy tale,” I said. “About how the only way you can tell a true princess is if you put a pea under forty mattresses. If she can feel it, then she’s a true princess.”
“What a waste of a pea,” Julie said.
“When they wrote fairy tales, they didn’t know,” I said. “They had peas to spare in those days.”
Julie giggled.
“Did your mother tell you fairy tales?” I asked. “When you were little?”
“No,” Julie said. “But she liked it when we told her about the saints. We learned about them in school and we’d tell her what we’d learned. Joan of Arc was my favorite. I wrote a report about her once.”
“I didn’t know she was a saint,” I said. “I guess I never thought about her being one.”
“She was,” Julie said. “She’s the patron saint of soldiers.”
“She’s your brother Carlos’s patron saint, then,” I said.
“Maybe,” Julie said. “Maybe the Marines have a different one. Carlos says it’s better to be a Marine than a soldier. He’d probably rather have his own patron saint.”
“You believe in all that,” I said. “You and Alex. In spite of everything you still believe?”
It was dark in the sunroom, just the glow from the woodstove, but even so I could see the look of surprise on Julie’s face. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll see Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, when I’m in heaven.”
“What’s heaven like?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“No one’s hungry there,” Julie said. “Or cold or lonely. You can see millions of stars at night, like that painting. And there are gardens. Big vegetable gardens filled with everything. Tomatoes, radishes. String beans. They’re my favorites, the string bean plants.”
“No flowers?” I said.
“You can have flowers if you want,” Julie said. “It’s heaven.”
She began coughing again, her face contorted, her body in spasms. I held her, comforted her, told her soon she’d be all right.
We could both tell she’d soiled herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll get a washcloth and clean you and change your clothes.”
She began to cry. “Don’t leave me,” she said. “Please. I made Alex promise he’d never leave me to die alone.”
I think that’s what she said. But she might have said Alex had promised he’d never leave her to be alone. I can’t be sure.
“I’ll just be gone for a minute,” I said. “Why don’t you say a prayer while you’re waiting? That’s what Alex would want you to do.”
I left her praying in Spanish. I walked upstairs to my room, got some fresh clothes, then took a washcloth and towel from the bathroom.
We’re not supposed to stay upstairs any longer than we have to. The roof could cave in anytime. But still I waited for a minute, a second, hoping for that miracle I knew would never happen.
I stopped in the kitchen, wetted the washcloth, then poured Julie a glass of water. Maybe I thought about Alex. I’m not certain. All I remember is opening the envelope, taking out two of the pills, and shaking so hard the water spilled out of the glass.
Julie was quiet when I returned. I pulled off her pants and underpants, cleaned and dried her as best I could, and put on the fresh clothes. Then I lifted her gently, raising her head and back from the pillows she’d been resting on.
“I want you to take these,” I said, showing her the pills. “They’ll help you stop coughing.”
“I can’t hold them,” she said.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “Wait a second. I’ll put them on a spoon for you.” I rested her tenderly on the bed again, went back to the kitchen, and put the pills on a spoon. Then with my left arm, I lifted her again, placing her head in the crook of my arm, and with my right hand I spoon-fed her the pills. When I was sure the spoon was empty, I put the glass of water to her lips and watched as she swallowed.
“Say a prayer and go to sleep,” I said. “Think about heaven, Julie, and your dreams will be sweet.”
I think she prayed. I think she said thank you. I think I heard her murmur, “brie,” and “poppy.” I know I kissed her on her forehead and told her she would never be hungry or scared or lonely again.
I remembered a prayer Grandma had taught me. I knelt by Julie’s side and put my fingers on her mouth so God would know the prayer was for her, not me.
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
When I couldn’t deny to myself anymore that she was sleeping, I eased one of the pillows from beneath Julie’s head. I held it down for as long as I could, until I could be certain, for her sake, for Alex’s, that she was in the healing embrace of her Holy Mother.
I returned the pillow to its place and gently kissed her good-bye.
She didn’t wake up.
She never woke up.
Syl woke me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s water coming into the cellar. We have no time to waste.”
“Julie?” I said.
“She passed while you were sleeping,” Syl said. “Freshen up, Miranda, and I’ll go tell the others.”
My diary was in my hands. I’d fallen asleep in the sunroom and never put it back in my closet.
Syl had pulled one of the blankets over Julie’s head. Two days ago Julie’d biked into town with my brother. Now she was just another of the dead.
I went to my room, put the diary in its hiding place, then returned to what had been Mrs. Nesbitt’s. We worked continuously, not even stopping to get food for Lisa.
The water was waist high when Lisa and Gabriel crossed the cellar to wait for their rescue at the top of the stairs. The moon had risen by the time Dad could pull the cellar door open. They raced out, away from the house, the rubble piled high on either side of them. One of the mounds collapsed inward, but they were already safe.
Dad told her then about Julie, about Alex. I think Lisa had already guessed it, because she was the one comforting Dad as he stood there weeping.
The roof caved in on Mom’s bedroom that night. We’d slept in the sunroom together so none of us were hurt.
Matt had carried out Julie’s body and rested it on Jon’s mattress in the dining room, but it didn’t matter. We felt her presence. Charlie’s, too. I sensed Mrs. Nesbitt with us, and so many other people I’ve loved and lost.
Alex came home.
I knew he would. He would never leave Julie to be alone.
“I was lost,” he said. “I don’t know how that happened. I wasn’t that far from here, but the wind tossed me around and I lost all sense of direction. How long have I been gone?”
Three days, we told him.
“I didn’t know where I was,” he said. “Then this morning I saw the mound of bodies. Most of them were gone. The wind scattered them in the fields, on the road. But there were enough left that I could figure out where I was and find my way back.”
I’d gotten up to be by his side, to hold him when he heard Dad’s next words. “We have bad news for you, son,” Dad said. “Julie passed away. Two nights ago. Charlie died the day before.”
I could feel Alex’s body shudder.
“She wasn’t alone,” I said. “We never left her alone. I was with her when she died. She prayed. We talked about your mother, about saints, about heaven. Julie said it was filled with vegetable gardens, with tomatoes and string beans.”
He dissolved then. Whatever strength he’d had to get through the storm, to get through the year, melted in a moment. He collapsed onto the floor, sobbing as I’ve never heard anyone sob.
I knelt beside him, held him, kissed him, but his pain was beyond anything I could say or do. When finally there were no tears left, I led him to the dining room to be with his sister.
It’s been hours. He’s still in there. The rest of us take turns, going to the flower garden to say good-bye to Horton, to Mrs. Nesbitt’s to say good-bye to Charlie. One of us is always by Alex’s side, holding his hand, praying with him. Jon stayed the longest, but Jon had his own prayers to say.
I stood in the doorway watching, listening. I heard Dad tell Alex what had happened. I can’t be sure Alex understood. He wasn’t there when Julie couldn’t move, couldn’t feel. We were trying to describe a color he’s never seen.
Mom doesn’t pray, but she knelt by Alex’s side, put her arm around his trembling shoulders. “We’re going to have to leave in the morning,” she said. “We’ll start by going west, all of us together. We’ll stop when we can find food, people, work. If we have to, we’ll turn south. It won’t be easy to leave. It will be harder for me than anything I’ve ever done. It will be harder for you, because you’ll be leaving Julie behind. But we can’t stay here. The house is falling in on us. It’s collapsing, Alex, but you have to believe the world is still there. The house is gone, Howell may be gone, but there’s a world to live in, a world that needs us. We’re family, Alex. You’re part of us. You always will be, just as Julie was, as Charlie was, as Mrs. Nesbitt was.”
Four days ago Mom was afraid if she took a step outside, her world would collapse and all she loved would be lost.
Now Mom is the one telling all of us that we have to leave.
Alex will come with us. He may not want to, but he will because I’ll tell him to and he loves me. And he’ll have to tell Carlos what happened. Carlos lost a sister, too.
There’ll come a moment, a day from now, a week from now, when Alex will ask me about the missal. Did I find it? Do I have it? That’s what’s on endless loop in my mind now: Alex asking me about the missal, the envelope, the passes, the pills.
I could lie to him. I could tell him I never found it. We’ll have our life together, not the one with Julie, but some kind of life based on family and love and lies.
Or I could tell Alex part of the truth. I could hand him the envelope and ask him to let Lisa and Gabriel and Jon use the passes. They were the people Julie loved the best outside of him and Carlos. Julie would want to know they were safe. She would offer them that gift if she could.
Alex would notice right away, though, that there are only four pills. “I took two the night after Julie died,” I’d say. “I’d lost Charlie, Julie, my home. I thought I’d lost you. I had to sleep but I couldn’t, so I took two of the pills.”
He’d believe me at first. He’d want to believe me, and maybe it wouldn’t have sunk in yet what Julie was like, that the moment he’d dreaded had come, when her death was preferable to life.
But I know Alex, in the way you can know someone only by loving him. He’ll ask me again and again about Julie’s last moments. How did she look? What did she say? Was she at peace with God?
Eventually I’ll let something slip. Or I’ll get so tired of the questions, I’ll shout the truth at him. In my anger I’ll want him to know.
Or maybe I’ll want him to know, need him to know, because unless he forgives me, I will never forgive myself.
Of course he may never forgive me. Not for killing Julie. He would have done that himself. But for not trusting that he would return, that he would live up to his responsibilities, that he would face his own damnation.
I wouldn’t tell him until after Jon and Lisa and Gabriel were safe. I can hold out until then. We’ll go together as a family, crossing Pennsylvania, making our way south to Tennessee. It will take months, but we’re strong, we’re all strong, and we have reason to live. If Alex asks me to marry him between here and McKinley, I’ll say no. I’ll say it’s too soon after Julie’s death, that neither of us is ready, that I’ll marry him only after he’s been to Texas and told Carlos what happened.
Maybe Alex will have guessed by then what happened and be relieved when I finally admit it. Maybe his love for me is deep enough to forgive me, to accept me. But if it isn’t or if he can’t, I’ll have made sure he’s free to seek solace in his Church. I have so little to give him, but I can give him that.
This is the last time I’ll write in my diaries. I’m choosing not to burn them. They’re witness to my story, to all our stories. If I burn them, it’s like denying that Mom ever lived or Jon or Matt or Syl. Dad and Lisa. Gabriel. Mrs. Nesbitt. Charlie.
Julie.
Alex.
I can’t deny them their stories just to protect mine. So when we go in the morning, I’ll leave the diaries behind. I’ll never write in one again. My story is told. Let someone else write the next one.
There’ve been times in my life when I thought I knew everything worth knowing, the sweetness of a robin’s song, the brilliance of a field of dandelions, the exhilaration of gliding across the ice on a clear winter’s day.
This past year I grew to know hunger, grief, darkness, fear. I began to understand how lonely you can feel even when all you want is to be alone.
Then the rain came. And I learned so much more.
From Syl came lessons of survival. From Gabriel, the message that despair can give birth to hope.
Charlie showed me friendship and family can be one and the same.
Without Julie I wouldn’t have remembered that the darkest sky is filled with stars, that the sun casts its warmth on the coldest day.
“Miranda?”
That’s Alex’s voice, Alex calling to me. I’ll put the diary away now, hiding it with all my others. I’ll go to him, stand with him, hold his hand as he takes his first steps toward life.
He taught me to trust in tomorrow.
“Yes, Alex,” I say. “I’m coming.”