The Way We Fall (12 page)

I was going past Mom’s room to the bathroom a few minutes ago, and I heard her coughing.

It still doesn’t mean anything. Lots of things make people cough. It could even be her nerves making her imagine a tickle in her throat. That happens. Psychosomatic symptoms.

I tried to talk to her, but she said she’s resting and not to worry. So I told her I was leaving the pills Nell gave me outside her room, and she should try taking one of each. She opened the door to get them as I was going downstairs.

We never ended up making dinner. The turkey’s still lying on the counter half stuffed. It’s eight thirty and Dad’s not home. Where the hell is he? The people at the hospital have other doctors. This is Mom. He should be here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Leo,

Sometimes I envy you for getting out of here before all this started. But it must be almost just as awful for you, being stuck out there not knowing what’s happening to your parents or your girlfriend or any of your friends.

I wonder if you worry about me at all?

I hope you’re okay in New York, at least. I know from TV that there’ve been a few deaths off the island that the reporters say are related to the virus, and now there’s a segment on precautionary measures on every news broadcast, but the government hasn’t tried to quarantine Halifax or Ottawa. So the situation can’t be that bad—not as bad as here, anyway.

There is some good news. Another helicopter delivery of supplies came this morning. And Dad got in late on Thanksgiving because the team he’s been working with finally figured out how to make a potentially usable vaccine. Some of the WHO people took it off the island for testing—and hopefully mass production, if it’s working. Which is great, except a vaccine isn’t going to do anything for someone who’s already sick. Like Mom.

Dad took a blood sample to the hospital yesterday to confirm. Mom still hasn’t come out of her room. I haven’t seen her since we were getting Thanksgiving dinner ready. But I hear her coughing and sneezing through the walls. Dad gave her a little of the emulsion they’ve made from Tessa’s plants, and he says her symptoms eased off a bit.

I’ve been talking to her through the door. “You just look after yourself and Meredith,” she says, “and I’ll do everything I can to get better. We’ll get through this.” But if she talks for very long she starts coughing so hard she can’t speak, so I haven’t tried as much as I’d like to.

God, what if I never get to hug her again?

I can’t think like that. It’ll just make me crazy.

At least I did something useful today. Dad said they’d gotten everything they could from the two plants Tessa gave us, so I called her up. She said the others had sprouted and were looking good. I went over this afternoon to pick them up.

When she opened the door for me, I suddenly felt awkward, because the last time I saw her was the day I found that woman in the summer house. Maybe she could tell, because she said, “I thought about calling you, but then I thought, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t want to be reminded of it. But if you want to go out again…”

Even considering going into one of those houses made my stomach clench. “No,” I said. “I don’t think I will.” But in a weird way it was nice to know that she’d bothered to worry about me. It also made me feel guilty for maybe not worrying enough about her. I just never feel like she wants anyone’s help.

We carried about a dozen pots out to the car, and this youngish man, maybe in his twenties, came sauntering down the street toward us. “Pretty ladies!” he called out. “Just what I’ve been looking for.”

Then he sneezed, but we’d have gone inside and shut the door even if he hadn’t been sick.

“And that’s why I spend most of my time inside or out back,” Tessa said.

She made lunch for both of us. I protested until she pointed out that she had more food than she could eat on her own before it spoiled.

“Normally I’d give the extras from the greenhouse to the neighbors,” she said. “I should send you home with some. There’s lettuce that’s about to go to seed, and tomatoes ready to burst, and I think some beans that are ripe too.”

“I didn’t know you grew vegetables,” I said. Somehow when I was in there before I only noticed the big exotic plants.

“Oh,” she said, “the showy flowers and things are just for my mom. She said if I was going to take up most of the backyard, I’d better make the greenhouse look nice. But my focus is common crops. Do you know the big farming companies have been decreasing the diversity of the genetic pool for almost every one? Which means if some plant disease comes along that attacks one type of corn, or broccoli, or whatever, we could lose all of it.”

She had a bunch more opinions to share about farming corporations and plant genetics while we went into the greenhouse to harvest some of her “crops.” It was strange seeing her so intense. A dead toddler doesn’t faze her, but corn and broccoli she gets worked up about.

“Wow,” I said at one point. “You must have done a ton of research.”

She nodded. “I want to help reverse the process,” she said. “I’ve been working on different strains of certain vegetables. Someday I’m going to have a whole farm, maybe here on the island, and start providing new seeds to other farmers.”

When she was talking, I sort of got why you fell for her, Leo. The way she feels about her greenhouse, it’s like you and dance. You both have this passion that most people wouldn’t understand.

My biggest goal has always been to go off into the wilderness and study arctic wolves and mountain lions. Tessa’s planning on saving the whole world.

I guess that’s how she manages to stay sane, living there alone, not knowing when she’ll see her parents again. But as we were standing in the front hall, me with my armful of vegetables, she glanced at me with those dark blue eyes, and for a second she looked lost. I had to say something.

“You know,” I said, “I’m sure my parents would be okay with you coming to stay with us. There’s not a whole lot of extra room, but at least…”
At least you wouldn’t be on your own all the time
, I wanted to say, but it seemed insulting to imply she couldn’t look after herself. And then I remembered—I’d actually managed to forget—Mom.

“Oh,” I said. “Except, my mom’s gotten sick, so maybe—she’s staying in her room, she wouldn’t be coughing on you or anything—but if you thought it wouldn’t be safe—”

I’m surprised she could follow what I was saying. I hardly could. She waited until I stalled, and then she said, “Thanks, Kaelyn. Really. But I’d rather be here. Not because of your mom or anything. I have to look after the greenhouse, and I want my parents to be able to find me as soon as the phones start working again, or if they finally get permission to come over.”

She paused. “Your mom,” she said, “is she going to be okay?”

Those words were all it took for my eyes to prickle with tears. I closed them for a second and dragged in a breath. “I don’t know,” I said.

She looked at the floor, and then at me, and said, “Well, I hope the plants help. And she’s got the best chances of anyone, doesn’t she? Your dad can be her personal doctor, and you must have realized and started treating her early on, considering you’re all so careful. If anyone’s going to get better, it should be her.”

It wasn’t a hug or an outpouring of sympathy, but that’s not Tessa’s style, is it? As I was driving home, with her words running through my mind, I felt a little more settled than I have since Mom first shut herself in her room. If Tessa the Ever Practical can be hopeful, I should be too.

It feels like there’s this wall of fog getting thicker and thicker between us and the mainland. You can’t trust what you see on the TV. There’s always spin, as Drew likes to say. On the internet there’d be real people talking about what’s really happening to them. I was hoping when the government helicopter came again, we’d get the equipment to fix the long distance and the internet, but I guess there was so much going on that the message got lost, and the parts didn’t come with the other supplies.

When I asked Dad, he looked almost surprised, like he’d forgotten we ever had internet. Probably because the hospital has a satellite dish and never lost service.

“I’ve managed to talk to your grandparents every few days, and they’re fine,” he said. “I can’t call more often because the hospital needs to keep the line open in case something important comes through.”

Which makes sense. For half a second I wondered if the hospital has the same restrictions on the internet, but it’s not as if Dad would allow me to hang out there just to surf the web.

He’s been spending most of his time in the bedroom with Mom, wearing one of those plastic gowns all the staff had on in the hospital, to keep from spreading the virus when he leaves the room. So even though he’s been home, I haven’t had much chance to talk to him.

Mom hasn’t gotten any worse. When he left for a quick trip to the hospital today, I sat beside her door and told her some of Mackenzie’s best famous-people stories, and she didn’t seem to be coughing quite as much as before. And she laughed at some of them as if she really felt okay. That’s got to be a good sign, right?

After a while she said she was feeling hot and she thought she should go lie down. Before I left, she said, “I love you, Kaelyn. You always remember that, all right?”

She’s said it plenty of times before, but it’s different now. I got choked up after I told her I loved her too.

The rest of the time I’ve been on Meredith duty. The ferrets are exhausted from getting so much playtime. We’re halfway through Drew’s
The Simpsons
DVDs. I started showing her one of my nature series, since she was interested in the coyotes, but after the first episode I decided that wasn’t such a good idea. I never realized before how depressing those shows can be. Something’s always getting hunted down, or struggling against the elements. It reminded me too much of how we’re living right now.

This evening we were getting ready for bed, and a horrible screeching sound came from outside. Thankfully this time it actually was raccoons. Two of them, dueling by the hedge next door.

“Why are they so angry?” Meredith asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably one’s defending what he considers his territory. Sometimes they sound like that when they’re looking for a new, um, girlfriend. But it’s the wrong time of year for that.”

We kept watching until they scrambled around the hedge and disappeared. Strange to think that for the raccoons, the world is continuing on as usual.

So obviously we’re not trying out Drew’s secret plan for getting off the island, since Mom’s sick. The last few days he’s spent most of his time in his room or wandering off outside. He hardly needs to sneak now—Mom’s not in any position to notice he’s leaving, and Dad’s attention is all on her. I don’t know what Drew is up to. Maybe making sure everything’s in place in case she gets better and we can go.

He must have realized it’s been tough for me to keep Meredith busy all day, though, ’cause this morning he offered to teach her how to play this computer game she’s asked about before, that he used to say was too complicated for her.

I tried watching one of my Hitchcock movies, but as soon as the first dead body appeared, my stomach clenched and I had to turn it off. I got out my math textbook, which seemed safer, and went down to the dining room to tackle the next chapter. I’ve been avoiding algebra, but I know I’ll forget the formulas and have to learn them all over again if I don’t practice. Even if life never gets back to normal here on the island, I have to assume eventually I’ll be going to classes again somewhere. Believing anything else feels like giving up.

Once I got going, there was something comforting about switching the numbers around and teasing out the answers. I could hear the classical music from Mom’s radio through the floor, and it all formed a weird sort of rhythm.

I’d gotten through a couple pages when the doorbell rang. My head was so full of numbers, I got up to answer it automatically. I had my hand on the doorknob when it occurred to me that I shouldn’t open the door to just anyone.

Since the front door doesn’t have a window, I leaned close and said, “Who’s there?” I hoped it was Nell bringing something for Dad, or Tessa with more plants. Or anyone, really, as long as it wasn’t an overfriendly neighbor with an intense desire to chat and sneeze on me.

“Kaelyn?” the voice on the other side said. “It’s Gav. We talked at the park a couple weeks ago, about your dad?”

The first thing I thought of was the grocery store. The way Quentin had smashed that window and then threatened me and Meredith. Panic jolted through me before I had a chance to think. Then I realized it wouldn’t make any sense for Gav to come looting our house when he probably had the contents of all the stores in town. And if he was going to, he wouldn’t ring the doorbell first.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I could use your help with something,” he said.

“I don’t think I’m interested,” I said. I didn’t know until the words came out of my mouth how angry I was. My hands had closed into fists.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean,” I said, “I know what you’ve been doing, and the last thing I want to do is help. Just because the government delayed one shipment doesn’t give you the right to start breaking into places and helping yourself to whatever you want.”

There was a pause, and then he said, “It’s not like that. I don’t know who you talked to—”

“I didn’t talk to anyone,” I told him before he could keep going. “I saw. And then one of your friends threatened to hurt me and my seven-year-old cousin because she dared to say something.”

“What?” he said, sounding startled. “Look, Kaelyn, that isn’t…No one should have been doing that. And I can explain the rest to you. Can I come in, or would you come out?”

He hadn’t been at the grocery store that day. I could believe he hadn’t known everything. And I was starting to get worried Drew or Meredith would hear me yelling through the door. It was so hard to get a read on Gav when I couldn’t see him.

“Go over to the window,” I said.

He was already in front of it when I stepped into the living room. With the sunlight streaming in from behind him, he probably couldn’t see much more than his reflection. But he just stood there on the porch, his expression grave and his hands tucked into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt.

I’d somehow been remembering him bigger, but he’s only a few inches taller than me. More important, he looked perfectly healthy: no rubbed-red nose, no fever flush, and no scratched-raw skin. I hadn’t heard any coughing or sneezing through the door, so I figured he was safe as far as the virus went. He had a fleck of what looked like motor oil on his forehead and a few speckles in his tawny hair, which was shaggier than it had been the last time I saw him. After a moment he turned his pockets inside out as if to say,
Look, I’m not hiding anything
.

I walked back to the door, unlocked it, and leaned out. “Okay,” I said. “You can come in. For a few minutes.”

He was very polite, taking off his shoes on the mat, scanning the house to see if there was anyone else he should acknowledge. He had this watchfulness to him, like a wild cat—calm but wary at the same time. It made me feel better that he thought he needed to be as cautious with me as I did with him.

I pushed aside the math books on the table, and we sat there. “All right,” he said. “Who was threatening you?”

I told him about seeing the guys with the truck, Quentin breaking into the electronics store, and Meredith accusing him of stealing. Gav listened silently. The only time he reacted was when I repeated what Quentin had said to us. His jaw tensed, and one of his hands folded over the other on the table.

“I’m going to talk to Quentin,” he said when I was done. “He’ll bring back everything he took. And maybe he’ll have to find someone else to hang out with.”

He spoke with this certainty, like it would be nothing to make Quentin do what he asked, as if the other guy didn’t have a few dozen pounds and at least a couple of inches on him. I wondered what exactly Gav had done to become the leader of the group.

“That still doesn’t make it okay for you to hoard all the food,” I said. “The hospital’s struggling enough trying to keep people alive without having to worry that they’ll starve if the next shipment’s late. Why should you get the extras?”

“We aren’t,” he said. “I’m trying to help. After what happened at the docks, it looked like people were starting to go kind of crazy. I figured before too long somebody would panic and start trashing places and grabbing whatever they could.”

“So you figured you’d grab everything first,” I said.

“Well, sort of,” he admitted. “But the food’s not just for us. For all we knew then, the government wasn’t going to send another shipment. For all we know now, the one that just came is the last. And the people at the town hall are handing supplies out to whoever shows up—what about the people who are too scared to come out? We have a better plan. We moved all the nonperishables into one of the warehouses by the wharf that Vince’s dad has access to. And we’ve been going around in the truck every other day, checking at all the houses, making sure people have enough to eat, giving them more if they need it. I was even here last week—I talked to your mom. The whole idea is to make sure everyone gets some of the food.”

His explanation was so far from what I’d expected, it took me a little while to find my voice.

“Seriously?” I said. “You stole all the grocery store’s food just so you could give it back to people?”

He shrugged and said, “Anytime you read about a disaster like this, it’s the same. The people in charge look after themselves first. The military’s more concerned about staying out of danger than making sure the food gets to everyone. No one at the town hall can be bothered. The rest of us can either fight each other over what’s left, or try to do something good. I figure the more people help, the more likely we’ll get through this.”

I wasn’t sure he was being completely fair, considering the government has mostly kept their end of the deal, and I’d imagine anyone with any authority on the island has their hands full dealing with the hospital crisis. But what he was doing wasn’t so different from Tessa and me with the meds, really.

“So what is it you think I can do?” I asked.

He gave me a little smile, which could have come off as cocky, but instead seemed like he was glad I was even listening. “Well, you’re the best person I know right now to get the scoop on what’s really going on, because of your dad,” he said. “But specifically today I’m here because your mom mentioned working at the gas station when I came by before. We’ve got the truck and a few cars between us, and they’re all getting low on fuel. I was hoping you could ask her to open the station for a few minutes so we can fill up.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it again swallowing hard. If I told him why Mom wouldn’t be going anywhere, it’d make the situation all awkward and I would get teary, and that wouldn’t help anyone. He didn’t need her—she’d left the key to the café by the front door after her last shift, in case one of us needed to gas up the car and she wasn’t around.

“If you want,” he said when I didn’t answer right away, “I can show you. So you can see what we’re doing. It’s only a ten-minute walk.”

That was when the stairs creaked, and Drew poked his head through the doorway. “Who are you talking to, Kae—” he started, and stopped when he saw Gav.

“Weber,” Gav said with a nod.

“Reilly,” Drew replied, his voice stiff. “Didn’t know you two were friends.”

They weren’t quite at the point of lunging for each other’s throats, but they didn’t look too friendly either. I stood up. “We were just about to head out,” I said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Once we were outside, I wished I’d brought a thicker jacket. The fall chill has settled in, and my windbreaker only took some of the edge off. Gav shoved his hands into his pockets and didn’t seem particularly bothered.

“You got some problem with Drew, or him with you?” I asked.

“It’s nothing to do with him,” he said. “He seems like an okay guy. Just one of his friends and I don’t get along so well—so, you know.”

I had to wonder if in this case “don’t get along so well” was a euphemism for “beat each other up on a regular basis.” The words fell out before I could catch them: “I heard you have some sort of fight-club thing going on. With Quentin and those guys.”

“Well,” he said, and ran a hand through his hair, “that just sort of happened. A few of us clean pools and mow lawns and other odd jobs at the vacation houses in the summer. There was this one guy around our age who came with his family every summer and liked hassling us. Trying to get us riled up, prove how much tougher he was. I always just ignored him, but last year he pissed Warren off so much that he took a swing at him, and the guy just pounded him. Broke his nose, knocked out a tooth, totally bashed him up. And to top things off, the guy’s parents tore a strip off of Warren the next time they saw him, for not finishing the job that day.”

“That’s awful,” I said, shuddering.

“I know,” Gav said. “So this summer I figured one of us should stand up to him, and since Warren wasn’t enthusiastic after the last time, it might as well be me. I started watching videos on fighting techniques online. You wouldn’t believe what you can find. I got Warren to help me practice some of the moves, and then he told a couple of our friends, and we were all practicing together on each other. Someone must have been talking about it, ’cause some guys I didn’t really know, like Quentin, started coming around asking about joining in. After a while there were about ten of us who’d get together. It might sound stupid, but you get to blow off some steam. And what could be wrong with knowing how to defend yourself, right?”

“Nothing, I guess,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t have a clue what to do if someone attacked me.”

It hadn’t occurred to me before that I might need to. But what would I do if I was out of the house and someone in the middle of a hallucination came at me? Or if a guy like Quentin really did try to take a board to my head? I’d like to feel I could protect myself, and Meredith, if I had to.

“If you want,” Gav said, “sometime I could come by and teach you a few things.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great.”

Then I realized he’d never finished his story. “Did you get to show up that summer guy?” I asked.

“Didn’t have the chance,” he said. “He stayed home this year.”

The wind rose as we approached the wharf, colder and damp and slightly fishy-tasting. Gav pointed to a row of warehouses up ahead, the ones used for storing fishing gear during the winter. Even though the buildings didn’t look like they were in the greatest shape, Gav was probably right that the food was more secure there than in the store. Their paint might be peeling and their clapboard siding cracked, but the warehouses have only a few small windows and big sturdy doors.

The truck I’d seen at the grocery store was parked around back. A figure with dark hair was sitting in the cab, his head bent over a pad of paper.

“Hey, Warren!” Gav called, and jerked a thumb toward me when the guy looked up. “Meet Kaelyn.”

Warren stepped down out of the cab, tucking the pad under his arm, and shook my hand like we were at a business meeting. He was taller than Gav, and broader in the shoulders, but at the same time softer, more panda bear than grizzly. His voice was soft too.

“Good to meet you,” he said.

“You fixing up the charts?” Gav asked, and then said to me, “We’re heading out this afternoon to do another round.”