Exchange Rate (7 page)

Mike walked slowly to the couch opposite us and fell to the cushions like weight pushed him down from above. He shook his head, dark shadows under his eyes. “It’s just me and Mary, now. The kids...” He swallowed and tears coursed down his cheeks. “The community doesn’t allow children, but that’s not a problem anymore.” His words ended as he choked on emotion.

“Did someone...” John’s horrified expression filled me with dread. Who would kill sweet kids like the Scoggins’?

“No. I could even handle that, you know? I would have someone to blame.” Mike shuddered. “No. They just... They both... So stupid, but we weren’t watching and they got into the rat poisoning and thought it was candy or something. I’m not even sure. So little. We couldn’t do anything. Even if we knew what to do. We don’t have the capabilities to pump stomachs or anything. The charcoal didn’t work. Nothing worked. They just...”

Horrified, I covered my mouth. The Scoggins children had been six and four and the smartest kids I’d ever met. But they were children. If they didn’t know the difference between the crystal candy and the crystal poison...

Their death burned more than it should have. Disconnected from my things burning and my marriage day, I couldn’t react to the loss like I should but allowed the burning grief to smolder and simmer beneath the surface. Maybe part of me couldn’t accept that such terrific kids would be dead. At least not that day.

John rushed to Mike’s side and swung an arm over his shoulders. “Oh, man, Mike. Oh, man, I’m so sorry.” The two dads cried together, their chests shaking and the sobs quiet but intimate.

Bodey claimed my hand, tracing my knuckles. He didn’t watch John and Mike, but stared at the ground, giving as much privacy as possible.

I watched his fingers dancing over my skin. The fragility of life couldn’t have been more real in that moment. We could die at any moment for any reason. At least we’d been married. At least I had my Bodey and he had me. Soon, and hopefully before we died, we would have a chance to be together. I leaned my head against his shoulder and held my gaze downcast.

The moment of grief faded into a comfortable silence. Mike had needed someone to mourn with him, understand him, maybe even understand he hadn’t done anything wrong and couldn’t do anything to save them.

“Are you and Mary okay?” John lifted up to sit beside Mike on the vinyl covered cushion.

Mike wiped at his cheeks, skin scratching on rough whiskers. He shrugged. “What’s okay? Man, we’re going nuts here. Nobody to talk to but ourselves. Mary’s been muttering to herself for a while now. I think she’s losing it. We need to be around people. This is... it’s not something all of our preparations could’ve prevented, you know? We could’ve locked up the poison, sure, but we were having problems before... before...” He avoided John’s eyes.

“Okay, yeah, I can imagine.” John glanced in our direction. He’d mentioned a few weeks back we might be more grateful for our nomadic lifestyle someday. We hadn’t seen the plus sides then, but sitting there in Mike’s living room, I could appreciate the opportunity we’d had to move around and meet other people, even when some of those people tried to kill us. I mean, seriously, not everyone’s perfect.

Too much loss dragged at me and I could feel my reverence for the situation slipping. A large part of me wanted to turn to Bodey and make out with him, make him feel as alive as I needed to feel. Another part of me wanted to start cracking jokes and be silly, because I hadn’t laughed in so long. What if I couldn’t remember how?

What if so much our humanity leached away as we struggled to say alive?

“Mike, what kind of a community is down that way?” I had to know and he seemed to want to talk like loneliness ate at him.

His eyes brightened and he leaned forward. “The rumors are that once you go in, you don’t want to come out. Every weekend, they shine lights through the entire night. Lights! They have electricity. And music? I heard they have bands playing which means they might have dancing.” Mike focused on his fingers for a minute. “Mary loves dancing. Maybe...” He shrugged. “But no children are allowed. They can’t be. I don’t know. A rumor? An unsafe rumor? But maybe...” He stared at the grains of the floor, grief twisting his features.

Electricity and music? Could it be? “Who’s running the place? Are things getting back to normal?” I couldn’t hide my hope. What would I give for fifteen minutes of comfort? A bed? A bath? A toilet? A microwave?

“I’m not sure on either account, but I do know they have fences and they have laws and people don’t want to leave.” That seemed good enough for him, that people wanted to stay. So many stories matched mine – where people got to where they thought they’d be safest at the end and wanted to leave. Nothing was as it was supposed to be.

A place where you didn’t want to leave? Could I imagine such a place? Only if it felt safe, comfortable, even some convenience. What would I give up for those things?

I didn’t have much to give up, so I guessed I’d give up everything. “I’d love a place like that, if it were real.”

John glanced at me sharply, then back to Mike. “When are you leaving?”

“This evening. It’s a sixteen hour hike on log roads through the woods. Most likely, we’ll take two days. Mary can’t walk that long in one go. So, we’ll make camp somewhere along Fernan before finishing our trek.” His eyebrows raised and he grabbed John’s arm. “Come with us. We could make a good go of it. A community, John, it could be like before.”

The magical word you said with more reverence than God.

Before.

Before.

Before the bombs and the loss of home and loved ones. Dare Before even mean before the sickness and the complete lack of control? The chaos which divided so many? Was it okay to want to go back in time to Before? Or was that being pessimistic? Would thinking like that put me in the place Mike and Mary had reached, where nothing but escaping my safety net would help me?

“You know, it sounds awesome, but the kids just got married. I was thinking maybe they could have a night where they don’t have pressures on them, you know? We lost all of our things in a fire.” John tempered the good news with our loss, so Mike would be forced to acknowledge both but with more pity than joy. I’d used the technique on my mom a few times before. Like telling her the good news and the bad so they kind of canceled themselves out.

Mike would have a hard time feeling jealous or envious when he also had to see we had bad things happening to us as well.

His emotions sprinted across his features, joy and despair. “We have extra supplies. Stay here as long as you like. And oh man, congratulations. Did you marry them?” Mike stood, opening his arms for a hug.

I leapt into them. The man was really a large teddy bear, the kind you could win at a fair. He squeezed me tight, rocking us back and forth. “That’s real good, you two, real good.”

Bodey joined us and together we moved in a soft swaying motion as he reveled in our good news. Happiness rekindled for our day, even amongst the ashes of so much loss.

“If you’re leaving tonight, Mike, do you mind if we stay on for a day or two? We need to rest after the last couple weeks we’ve had.” John moved beside us, clapping Bodey’s shoulder.

We pulled apart. I’m sure my outfit was explained by then, but did anyone care but me? I still wore my wedding dress. I wanted to be close to my husband. Oh wow, husband – I had a husband – and I was only nineteen.

My birthday might have a bed in it.

“Of course, you don’t need to ask. Take whatever you need or want. We were going to eat some lunch and then leave. Want to get there before they decide not to take anyone else, you know?” He placed his hands on his hips. “Let me tell Mary you’re here and we can all eat something together.”

“Sure, thanks, brother.” John shook Mike’s hand. Once our host left to climb the stairs, John turned toward us, a partial smile warming me. “We’re going to eat something besides bark and sleep on an actual bed tonight.”

Like Before.

Now that was a happy birthday.

Chapter 6

Eating with Mike and Mary dug a hole in the center in our happy day. We couldn’t find any topic which didn’t make Mary or Mike didn’t know
something
about
everything.
They really had changed in the few months since we’d last seen them.

Their house had lost something with the death of their two children. Shadows stretched from the corners and sadness stalked us as we walked from table to living room to the outhouse to the rooms they had for us.

Mary and Mike didn’t finish their refried beans and rice, actually pushing their plates to the center of the table to stand. Waste wasn’t common and I watched the plates to make sure they weren’t some kind of illusion.

Mike spoke, his cheeks pale and eyes deadpan. “We’re going to leave. Thank you again for visiting. Make yourselves at home. We won’t be back.” He nodded briskly, walking away from us.

His wife didn’t say anything, didn’t acknowledge us as she walked away from the table. She stopped at the chair across from me, a black plastic booster seat propped on the cushion. Her long fingernail scraped over the textured surface and she whispered. “I don’t ever want to see one of these again.”

The door closed behind them without even another goodbye.

John chewed in silence, taking a second serving from the stainless steel pots resting on bamboo trivets in the center of the table.

I shoveled more food into my mouth. Getting full wasn’t hard. One bite maybe two and I felt like I could roll from my chair. Consistent hunger will do that to your body, shrink your stomach. The rest of me wouldn’t stand for the stomach’s weakness. The too-full sensation was ignored and I continued eating. The discomfort of “full” was more welcome than the sharp pangs of hunger and permanent emptiness.

Things seemed more hopeful.

In between mouthfuls, Bodey pointed his fork at John. “Why can’t we go to the community? They asked us along with them. That might have been fun, different, you know?”

John finished chewing. He swigged some water and then put down his utensil. He considered Bodey and me. “Yes, a community does sound good. Almost too good to be true with the details they gave us. But even if it’s real, we can’t travel with Mike and Mary. They’ve suffered a significant loss and they blame each other. Any prolonged time with them would be like sitting on a box filled with grenades. They’re going to explode and we don’t want to be around when they do.”

I’d never seen Mary or Mike angry or even slightly upset. Picturing them mad, with their knowledge about weapons and guns sent a shiver of anxiety up my spine. Would they blame someone else? What if they came back to reclaim their home and we were still there. Would they remember they didn’t want to live there anymore?

What if there wasn’t a community for them to escape to?

What if there was?

“Let’s sleep here tonight and make our way to Bayview tomorrow. I’d like to confirm things with Captain Phahn, see if he’s heard about this community.” He picked up his fork. “I saw some cookies in a jar in the kitchen. It’s not a cake, but we can use them to celebrate your wedding and then you two can take the master bedroom. I don’t think it’s been used in a long time. Mike mentioned Mary slept in the kids’ room and he stayed in the office upstairs.” He shrugged. “We aren’t at a hotel, but we can pretend.”

“It might as well be. We haven’t slept in a bed in...” I couldn’t remember the last time we had. There was a house we’d broken into the previous winter, but the beds hadn’t been clean and we’d slept on the floor after attempting the soft comforter of the last place and finding a rat’s nest in the stuffing.

Yeah, fun times.

We were married and our wedding night was soon upon us. In a bed. I couldn’t wait.

John shifted in his seat. He cleared his throat and pushed the food around on his plate. “Okay, so... I know you know about... Ahem... sex.”

The topic took me by surprise and I glanced at Bodey who didn’t meet my gaze as a flush crept up his cheeks. Neither of us replied but shoved more food into our mouths.

John powered on. “Yes, so, something they never really discussed at the schools or in the books is that... being intimate with something – I mean, someone can and will cause pregnancy.” He nodded jerkily at me, like I didn’t know what he meant but that I would by the time he finished.

“Dad, we know about that.” Bodey stared at his plate, unwilling or unable to look his dad in the face.

“Okay, so you’re married now. Ahem. Before you do anything, you should have a discussion about what you would do with a baby. Kelly is a healthy enough girl. I’m sure she can get pregnant.” John glanced between us. “Unless of course, you have already, well, you know, and she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet and...” He waved his hand, returning to his dinner. “Well, anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I just... okay?”

I smiled at John and Bodey. Living with a nurse for a mother, I had more experience with the medical talks and discussing something as trivial as sex wasn’t out of my scope. “Since I’m the only girl here, I guess I should share with you that I haven’t had a period in months – literally months, if not a year – I’m not sure if I can even get pregnant in my current condition. I’m not sure how that works. However, I’m certain I don’t eat enough food for my body to be fertile.”

Too much personal information to share with the two men, but they needed to have some reassurances. I wouldn’t discuss this stuff with Mom for fun. Usually our discussions were in a more clinical setting.

Maybe I couldn’t have children and that would affect how Bodey felt about me.

Something even more important needed to pass between the three of us, a reason to trust Bodey and me. I couldn’t stand for John to think we’d messed around behind his back. “Plus, we haven’t, you
know
, yet.” I raised my eyebrows, careful to roll my eyes at the table and not meet anyone’s gaze. Complete embarrassment would choke me up and I didn’t need to add more shame on top of it.

Poor Bodey might be getting a defective wife. Yet, at the same time, would we want a child in the conditions we lived in? Or didn’t live actually, but rather survived?