Consider (15 page)

The skates dig into my ankles. Before we hit the ice, Rita taps me on the shoulder. She pulls a pink box out of her backpack and flips open the lid. Inside are three gorgeous pink lemonade cupcakes with fluffy white frosting and candy lemon slices on top.

“Happy birthday. We know you’ll be celebrating with your family tomorrow, so we figured it would be a good surprise.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” I say and take a cupcake.

“Oh, shut up and eat,” she says.

I take a huge bite, rolling the soft, sweet tartness across my tongue. “Ohmygodit’ssogood.”

“What was that?” Dominick teases.

I grin and swallow. “So good. Thank you.”

“Time for presents.” Dominick and Rita hand me two small gift bags.

I open Rita’s first. It’s a silver charm bracelet with one heart charm that says
FRIEND.
She holds up her arm. The word
BEST
dangles from her wrist.

“Awesome.” I hug her in gratitude. “We always talked about getting them.”

“I know. I figured with the world ending . . .” She chuckles.

I look at Dominick, and he hands me his bag. My stomach aches. We usually give each other gag gifts, but our relationship has shifted.
What if he gives me something ridiculous? What if I hate it? Should I pretend to like it so I don’t hurt his feelings? What if it shows that he doesn’t really feel what I’m feeling?

I reach into the bag and pull out a small box. Inside sits a silver ring with a ruby heart stone.

“I love it. It’s my favorite color.” I slip it onto my ring finger.

“I know you don’t like to wear necklaces, so—”

“It’s perfect.” I kiss him until Rita starts fake coughing.

“Enough with the pecking, lovebirds, and finish your cupcakes. I want to skate.”

We laugh together, scarf down the remaining desserts, and step onto the rink. As I glide across the ice, I’m not as afraid as I used to be even though I’m just as rocky. Usually I cling to one of them for support. Today, I put my arms out in mock
Titanic
-style and glide across the ice. It lasts a few glorious minutes until I stumble over and fall on my butt, taking them both down with me. In the past, the embarrassment would have triggered my anxiety. Instead, I find myself laughing and laughing until I can’t breathe.

So what if I fall? SO WHAT? The world’s ending.
I never thought that annihilation would free me to live. That’s kind of pathetic. Kind of sad. Kind of awesome.

The next day,
my family gathers for my eighteenth birthday. Even Benji shows. Since Penelope’s arrival at our house, Dad has disappeared more and more, spending time in the backyard, in the basement, at work. Wherever she isn’t. It’s funny how Penelope traveled to be closer to family, and instead we are spending more and more time apart. Except for my birthday.

Mom bakes me a gorgeous pineapple cake with almond-coconut frosting, my favorite. And yes, Penelope gives me socks and terrible perfume, and I act surprised and grateful. Mom and Dad give me a new phone. Just what a girl needs during an apocalypse. Benji hands me a folded twenty without a card. Nice, I guess.

I thought I wanted to spend less time with my family, but with the pending disaster, I need to know they’re there. I’m worried that the comet will come when I’m stuck in public somewhere, and I will die surrounded by strangers. Dad’s right in one respect. If I’m going to die, I want to die surrounded by people I’ve always known, even if I don’t necessary like them.

That afternoon, I
find Dad hiding from Penelope in the basement sorting through supplies. With his supermarket and military knowledge, the basement has been stocked, shelved, and categorized. Canned items, including soups, vegetables, beans, and processed meat that I would rather die than eat. Cereals, pasta, rice, and nuts and liquids, like dry milk, juices, sodas. A whole section is devoted to bottled water, and of course there are other supplies, such as matches, batteries, oil, and—I notice today—gasoline in containers. That can’t be safe. Add a cash register and we might as well be a mini-store ourselves.

“Wow,” I say, impressed.

Dad immediately covers up a pile with a sheet and clears his throat. He knows he’s gone overboard.

“Shelves keep emptying faster than we can refill them at the store,” he explains. “Shipments haven’t been arriving on time, people not showing up for shifts. Shoplifting’s been rampant since there’s just not enough manpower to control it. The gas station at the store has cars lined up around the perimeter of the lot. Bet they’ll be outta gas soon enough.” He points to gas containers in the corner. “I don’t like storing it down here, but we don’t have a garage or a shed. I should’ve built a fallout shelter years ago.”

As he pulls another sheet over a section of canned goods, my heart acknowledges how hard he’s trying to protect us and how much time he’s wasting.

He clears his throat again. “I’m trying to prepare for anything. I keep thinking that I forgot something.”

I hate to admit it, but he sounds like me.

“Dad, you can’t prepare for everything. It’s impossible. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“True. But serious trouble’s brewing. Have you heard the saying ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures’?”

“Yeah, so?”

He pulls the corner of another sheet to cover his treasure. “We can be our own worst enemies. Our own sources of destruction.”

His comment carries with me for the rest of the day. Despite how much I want to refute or ignore him, sometimes Dad strikes a note that resonates and cannot be unheard.

One of my
earliest memories is hearing that Dad had been discharged and was coming home. Benji and I spent the morning coloring a huge Welcome Home banner in a rainbow pattern to hang across the porch. I remember waiting in the front window, holding a bouquet of handpicked wildflowers from our backyard. By the time he walked through the door, most of them had wilted.

“Daddy!” I cried.

He crushed me in an embrace. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too. But the flowers . . .”

He took them from me and tossed them on the coffee table. “Alex, flowers die.”

He moved over to hug Benji, and I was left staring at the table, wondering what happened to the daddy I remembered, the one who loved when I gave him flowers, who would squish and dry them in books and save them in a cigar box.

Sometimes I still feel like that girl in the window, waiting for Daddy to come back.

Chapter 12

Day 109: November—1,810 hours to decide

Question: What do you do with people who break the law? Do you have a judicial system? Do you have prisons?

Answer: Most people do not break the law because they are happy. If someone is exhibiting violent or other disturbing behavior that infringes upon the rights of others, we have medical knowledge of the brain’s thought pathways to reroute the misfiring neurons. It’s called brain regulation mapping and thought reconditioning. It’s rarely used. It’s rarely necessary.

Each state has
been asked to vote on a timely debate.

Should prisoners have the right to decide whether or not to leave through a vertex? If not, should they be forced to stay? Or should they be forced through a vertex?

The last one has been popular in North Korea and parts of Africa.

The question also has variations depending on crime and sentence. Since I just turned eighteen, I’m allowed to vote. I never thought my first ballot would be about choosing whether or not to let convicts travel to a future parallel universe or fry in an apocalypse.

I make a serious list of crimes in my journal to help me decide how to vote. Who deserves a chance to leave, and who faces a comet?

Terrorism/Hate Crimes
First Degree Murder
Second Degree Murder
Involuntary/ Voluntary Manslaughter
Kidnapping and False Imprisonment
Rape and Sex Offenses
Larceny
Burglary
Fraud (Identity Theft, Credit Card Fraud, other)
Aggravated Assault and Battery
Arson
Drug Distribution/Possession
Criminal Possession of a Weapon
Solicitation
Other?

The voting will take place in one week. I thought the list would help, but it’s making me realize that it’s just another decision I don’t feel qualified to make.

And I want to be a lawyer.

Thankfully, I find out on social networks that the voting won’t list specific crimes, but instead will be based on the amount of time sentenced.

Dad says they should all stay, but he thinks everyone should stay put. Mom thinks that only heinous criminals with sentences over ten years should stay. That seems like an arbitrary number to me. Dominick thinks we need to let the prisoners decide, especially since the holograms say they deal with crime through brain regulation mapping and thought reconditioning, whatever that is. Maybe the prisoners can be reformed.
What if it’s alien rhetoric for forced lobotomies
? I grab for my prescription.

I guess it’s good that the government is allowing us to vote on the issue, letting people decide what’s ethical in a world apocalypse versus exodus situation, but at the same time there are some things that no one is qualified to answer. I think the government just wants us to decide to take the guilt off their conscience. The good old Pontius Pilate approach. And we know how the masses voted in that decision.

Maybe there’s something to the meritocracy in the other world. They make the hard choices. They keep all the blame.

After dinner that
night, the debate begins.

“Vote no. No choice. Period. Easy decision.”

Dad has spoken. Benji nods his head in male agreement. Mom stays silent as usual. I take the bait. I can’t just let his obstinate opinion go unchecked, especially when Benji’s present.

“Are you saying that someone addicted to drugs deserves to die in an apocalypse?” I question.

“Yes,” Dad says. “Absolutely.” He sips his beer.

“Fine,” the debater in me thinks up an argument. “Let’s say it wasn’t vertexes and holograms and a comet. Let’s say an area is flooded. Would you evacuate the prison in that situation, or would you let all the prisoners drown?”

Dad stares at me. His authority is being ruffled. “There’s a big difference.”

“Yeah, big difference,” Benji echoes.

I look from Benji to Dad and back again. Apparently, we’re playing on teams. Two on one. Boys against girl. Mom begins to clear the table. She’s not even bothering to play referee. Where’s Penelope when I need her? Napping. Figures.

“What’s the difference?” I ask. “In both cases, their lives are in jeopardy.”

Benji traces his finger on the kitchen table like he’s writing an invisible battle plan.

“First of all, yes, we evacuate during flooding,” he illuminates. “There’s time. And prisoners would be evacuated in a timely way, all at once, under guard.” He slides his finger down the table and back around again. “They would then be relocated and put back in prison to finish serving their sentences. But in terms of the vertexes, you are allowing choice, allowing them to escape one at a time before the threat of danger even becomes real. And then you are allowing them possible asylum on another world.”

Dad takes a long, proud swig of his beer. I want to knock it over and spill it onto both of their laps.

“But if the comet is real,” I continue, “then the threat is coming. We don’t know if the government’s plan will work. If it fails, then what? They just blow up? Shouldn’t prisoners have the right to live? To at least get to choose?”

My face is hot. I’m starting to wonder if I’m fighting for prisoners’ rights or mine.

“What about murderers?” Benji goes off. “Rapists? Terrorists? You would let them have a choice? Most of them should have life in prison or death sentences anyway.”

“Bingo.” Dad eggs him on.

I burn with frustration. They’re not listening. They’re playing their military loyalty card. I can play that game. “In some countries, people would consider you a terrorist.” I point in Benji’s face. “Did you ever kill anyone?”

Dad turns red in the face. “Alexandra, you never ask a soldier that question. Ever.”

I’ve never seen Dad so flustered. He takes a sip from his beer, slams the bottle on the table, and doesn’t release his grip. Then he takes another long gulp.

Benji stares at the table. Then he whispers, “No.”

Dad slams the bottle down. After a pause, he replies, “Count yourself lucky.” Then he walks out of the room. The empty bottle sits on the table.

“You had to go there,” Benji whispers and follows Dad’s exit.

I’ve cleared the room. I think this is called winning the battle but losing the war.

Late that night
I wake up to noise coming from the kitchen. Groggy, I stumble down the hallway and find Mom pouring boiling water into a mug from a teakettle. A tremendous weight lifts from my chest, accumulated worry that Zombie Night had returned.

“What are you doing up?” I ask while I rub my eyes. The time on the microwave reads 2:54 a.m.

“Your father had a nightmare again. He hasn’t had one in years. I think it’s because of seeing Benji again, knowing that he’s still manning the vertexes after those bombings. Don’t tell your brother that, though,” Mom adds quickly. “I think seeing him return from duty is bringing up old wounds.”

I nod as if that’s true, but I know it’s because I pushed the limit. Maybe Zombie Night is coming next.

“Want tea?” she offers.

“No thanks. I just heard noise and wanted to see who was up.”

“Alexandra,” she pulls out a chair and sits. “I’ve been wanting to discuss something with you.”

“What?” I ask and join her at the table.

“How do you really feel about the vertexes?”

It’s a loaded question. It’s choosing between living and dying. Between lover and family. Between fact and faith.

“I don’t know yet. I just know that I want to decide for myself. I don’t think it’s a decision that should be made for me.”

She smiles. “We are more alike than you know.” She means it as a compliment, but it’s not what I want to hear. I want to be independent. I want my thoughts and decisions to be completely separate from her. Her focus has always been on Benji. And now, after all these years, she thinks we’re alike? No, we’re not alike. I never would’ve become so self-sacrificing. So damn invisible.