The Way We Fall (20 page)

You might have noticed I haven’t been talking about Dad very much, Leo. The fact is I hardly see him. Everyone who’s left at the hospital looks up to him as the boss, and he’s pretty much living there.

Which in a way is safer for everyone, because he doesn’t risk bringing the virus here to Meredith or Tessa. He calls most nights just to check in, but he can never stay on the line for more than a minute or two. It’s nowhere near the same as having him here. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where he is, and he feels almost as far away as Mom or Drew.

I don’t know how he keeps going. He smiles when we pass each other in the hospital, but the exhaustion is plain on his face. It must be quieter at the research center, so maybe he catches some naps over there. I hope so. At this rate, he’ll make himself sick even without catching the virus. I can’t lose him too. I just can’t.

I finally got a chance to really talk to him this evening. He came into the hospital kitchen while I was putting away the food Tessa and I picked up in the afternoon, and started making himself a bowl of instant soup. At least now I know he’s eating occasionally.

“Have you heard anything from the mainland?” I asked. “Is the radio picking up anything at all?”

He hesitated, and then he sighed. “Nothing productive’s come of our attempts so far,” he said. “But we’ll keep trying, of course.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I said, “I took a look at the harbor the other day—it’s deserted. And the boats…”

I could tell from the way Dad’s jaw tightened that he already knew about them.

“I know you want to come to the hospital and help out here, and I think it’s good for you,” he said. “But I’d rather you didn’t go anywhere else on your own, even in the car, all right? There’s safety in numbers.”

“Yeah,” I said, which wasn’t a promise, because I wasn’t going to make one. I can’t drag Tessa and Meredith with me everywhere. “So what happened to the boats?” I asked.

“The soldiers,” he said as he tipped the kettle over the noodles, steam rushing up between us. “The ones who were stationed in the harbor. As far as we can tell, they became so afraid of catching the virus that they decided to disobey their orders and leave. But first they wanted to make sure no one here could follow them.”

I swallowed. “So they destroyed all the boats,” I said.

“Not all of them,” Dad said. “You know some people keep smaller ones on their own property. If we wanted to send someone across the strait, we could. I just don’t think it’s worth risking the reception we’re likely to get from the patrol boats. I suspect the military as a whole has taken a shoot-first stance toward anyone from the island.”

What would they have done to Drew if they caught him? The image of his body washing up on the shore flashed through my mind, and I winced. Dad put his arm around me, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.

“Things have to get better, don’t they?” I said. “This can’t keep going on forever.”

“Nothing’s forever,” Dad said, but the words weren’t as comforting as I wanted them to be.

It’s true, though. The epidemic has to end eventually. I need to focus on that—on the day in the future when the virus is gone, and all we’ve lived through will be just a story about something bad that happened a long time ago.

Gav made lunch for us today. He’s a really good cook. Who’d have thought?

I hadn’t planned it, but right after we finished the morning food run and waved good-bye to Warren, who’s helping get the orphaned kids settled at the church, Gav said, “This probably sounds terrible, but I’m always hungry after we do this.”

“You should come over to Tessa’s and have lunch with us,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said. My cheeks started to warm up. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, I gave his shoulder a little shove.

“Unless you think our grub isn’t good enough for you,” I said.

“I guess I’ll have to see,” he said, arching one eyebrow.

The moment we walked into the kitchen he gravitated to the cupboards. In five seconds he was pulling out cans and poking through the spice rack while Tessa and Meredith and I just stared. He picked up a pot and then thought to check with Tessa. “You don’t mind?” he said.

“Go ahead,” she said, looking amused. Our idea of fancy cooking has been dumping a handful of frozen peas in with instant rice, so we weren’t in any position to complain.

Compared to what we usually eat, the casserole Gav threw together was a miracle, even though he said he should have used Parmesan cheese and fresh salmon instead of the canned. It’s the first time I’ve enjoyed anything I was eating in ages. I let each bite roll around in my mouth before swallowing, ignoring my grumbling stomach, because at dinnertime we’ll be back to basics again.

The moment would have been perfect, except that partway through the meal my hand bumped Meredith’s glass. Her pre-boiled water spilled all over her lap and the floor, and the whole time we were mopping it up she kept saying sorry to
me
. After the twentieth time, I snapped.

“Meredith,” I said, “it’s not your fault. I knocked over the glass. Stop apologizing.”

And then she did stop, because she started crying instead. I felt like I was about to win the worst-cousin-of-the-year award.

I wasn’t really angry at her. But I’m so worried about her all the time, and of course that gets to me. Ever since I got back from the hospital, she’s been all meek and cringing, apologizing for anything that’s wrong, even if it’s nothing to do with her.

Maybe she figures we’ll be happier if she makes everything her fault. Like the documentary about wolves I saw a couple years ago that talked about the different rankings in the pack, with the omega way at the bottom. If the other wolves were pissed off about something, they’d take it out on the omega. But the omega didn’t mind because it chose its role. It wanted to be the scapegoat so punishment could be dealt for whatever the pack was upset about and everyone could calm down. Maybe that’s how Meredith’s thinking too.

Or maybe she’s so shell-shocked she’s starting to believe everything really is her fault.

I don’t know. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, and all she does is smile in this stiff sort of way and say she’s fine, she’s just happy she’s still with me.

I wish Mom was here, so much. She would have known what to do. Better than me, anyway.

What I did do turned out not to be the greatest idea ever, but it seemed good at the time. “Let’s take a little trip,” I said. “You haven’t gotten out of the house in ages.”

“Can we go see the coyotes?” Meredith asked, still sniffling but sounding brighter.

I remembered the coyote I’d seen gnawing on the body outside Uncle Emmett’s house. “I don’t think they’re feeling very friendly right now,” I said. “We could go to the beach.”

It was gray and windy outside and absolutely the wrong weather for beachcombing, but Meredith said, “Okay,” gulped down the rest of her lunch, and ran to get her shoes and jacket. Tessa bowed out, saying she needed to do some work in the greenhouse. Dad’s special nerve-medication plants might have been a failure, but she’s still devoted to her own crops. Gav offered to come along.

“We’ll take my car,” he said. “I need to fill it up anyway.” I gave him the keys to the station and showed him how to work the pumps a few days ago, since he’s more likely to need the gas than me.

Once we got in the Ford, Meredith was quiet, and the silence felt too heavy.

“The casserole was really good,” I said, to break it. “Did your mom teach you how to cook?”

Gav smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You could say that,” he said. “As soon as I was old enough to put together a sandwich, meals were basically a free-for-all. Everyone just made their own thing. After a while I got sick of sandwiches. There were cookbooks around. And I kind of liked that it bugged my mom if I made something better than what she’d thrown together for herself, and then ate it all.”

“Oh,” I said. I can’t imagine being a kid and not knowing dinner at least will magically appear on the table sometime every evening.

He shrugged and said, “I didn’t really mind, once I got used to it. You learn a lot when you know no one else is going to do things for you.”

Watching him, I felt like he’d just handed me a piece of a puzzle I hadn’t realized I was putting together. Suddenly I could see exactly how he’d become the guy I talked to in the park two months ago, who laughed at the idea of government aid and calmly went and emptied out a grocery store to provide his own kind of assistance.

I wanted to say something deep and sensitive to show I understood, but right then we drove past a row of stores, and instead I was shouting, “Wait, wait, stop!”

The gang’s obviously worked over Main Street pretty well. Most of the store windows were broken, the sidewalk crunchy with glass. They’d gone into the garden shop, but I could see packets of seeds and bulbs on the shelves, and it occurred to me that I’d have to come by with Tessa sometime so she could grab anything she thought was useful.

But what had really caught my eye was Play Time.

I’m sure the gang assumed there’d be nothing useful in a toy store. Which is probably true, for them. The window with the swirling painting of two kids on a magic carpet ride was intact, if a little dingy looking. Beyond it, a huddle of stuffed animals peered out from one corner of the display, an army of action figures commanding the other.

It was better than the beach. It was, I thought, just what Meredith needed.

I tried the door and it opened. Whoever had come in last hadn’t bothered to lock up. Maybe they’d assumed they’d be coming back the next day. I didn’t want to think about the most probable reason they hadn’t.

Gav had gotten Meredith out of the car. She walked up to the store hesitantly. “Can we really go in?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Of course we can. You can pick out five things to take home. And we’ll get some toys and games for the kids who are on their own now, too.”

Gav looked up and down the street. “I’ll take the car down to the station,” he said. “Should only be a few minutes.” But then he just stood there.

“We’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s a toy store. Go on.”

I pushed open the door and switched on the lights. It was like stepping through a portal into Narnia.

I used to love Play Time. When I was a kid, it felt like the hall of a fairy-tale palace, with the painted-stone floor, the mock-fur rug where volunteers would read from a book every afternoon in front of the gas fireplace, and the sweet cedar smell rising from the shelves lined with boxes and bins of treasures. I bought my minnow net there, and the big book of nature stories I read until the cover fell off, and those bird figurines with real feathers glued to their wooden bodies. But I hadn’t gone in since before we moved back.

The shop seemed smaller now, more cozy cottage than palace hall, because, of course, I’m bigger. But there was still something magical about it. It was so untouched. A little piece of the life we used to have, hidden away in the middle of town.

Meredith just stood there staring, which wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted excitement, dancing, laughter. So I picked up a bottle from the counter by the cash register and blew a stream of rainbow bubbles at her. She waved her hands at them and one of them popped on her cheek. Then she giggled.

“I want to try!” she said, and for a couple minutes, everything was spectacular.

I popped open a second bottle and we filled the store with bubbles, then ran through them from one end to the other, sending them whirling around us. A bunch of Disney Princess dresses were hanging on a rack near the back. I found Ariel’s and tugged it over Meredith’s sweater. She spun around in front of the mirror, grinning like I hadn’t seen in months. We raced back to the rug and dove onto the beanbag chairs. While Meredith blew more bubbles into the air, I bent over the gas fireplace and tried to figure out how to turn it on.

When I heard the door open behind me, I assumed it was Gav back from the gas station. I didn’t turn around until Meredith made a sort of startled squeaking sound, and then I froze.

Quentin was standing in the foyer.

He looked rough. His hair was bristly and uneven, as if he’d taken an electric shaver to it without a mirror, and his skin was sallow except for a broad, scabbed scrape on his cheek. Gang life doesn’t seem to be treating him very well. But he still managed to sneer.

“Aren’t you the one who was telling me off for stealing?” he said to Meredith. “What do you think you’re doing now?”

Meredith’s only answer was another squeak. She scrambled off the beanbag chair. I started toward her, but Quentin moved faster.

He lunged forward and grabbed her arm, wrenching it behind her back. She whimpered and went still.

Quentin was looking at me. “I hear you had the virus,” he said. “They cured it.”

I didn’t have to wonder how he knew. All the guy with the shotgun would have had to say was he’d talked to some girl with light brown skin, which narrowed the options down to one.

I’ve felt uncomfortable and out of place before, but that’s the first time I’ve outright wished I was the same color as just about everyone else on the island.

“I survived,” I said. “They didn’t cure it. I was lucky.”

“Yeah right,” he said. “The scientist’s daughter just happens to get lucky?”

“My mom
died
,” I said. “You really think if they knew how to cure the virus they wouldn’t help everyone?”

He hesitated for a moment, still holding Meredith’s arm. His grip had loosened enough that she didn’t seem to be in any pain. But she was too far away—if I made a move he’d see me coming and hurt her before I got to him.

He wouldn’t expect anything from a kid, though. If Meredith could get away from him, we could run for the door.

Making sure she was watching me, I rubbed my eyes, trying to be obvious without looking unnatural. She kept staring at me, her own eyes shiny with fear.

“So when’s the government going to do more than fly by?” Quentin asked, swaying his weight from foot to foot. “When are they going to get us out of here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They’re waiting until the island is safe, and no one knows when that’ll be.”

“So they’re really just leaving us here until we die, then,” he said.

He glanced toward the window, scowling. I didn’t know if I’d get another chance. I spread my pointer and middle fingers into a
V
and mimed poking them at my eyes.

That time Meredith got it. She looked from me to Quentin, who turned back toward me when she moved.

“They can’t leave us here forever,” I said, repeating the words that might as well have been my mantra the last few days. “We just don’t know how long it’s going to take.” I held Meredith’s gaze and nodded as subtly as I could. She bit her lip.

“They better fucking come,” Quentin said, his voice rising. “I’ve got a buddy who’s sick, and he’s already—”

Meredith twisted around and jabbed her fingers into his eyes.

The rest was a blur. Quentin swore and let go of her to clutch at his face. I pointed to the door, already running. Meredith darted out ahead of me. I stopped for just a second to slam my foot into Quentin’s shin as hard as I could, hoping that would slow him down if he came after us.

Out on the sidewalk, I realized I didn’t know where we should go. Gav still wasn’t back with the car. I grasped Meredith’s hand and tugged her along in the direction of the gas station. Behind us, Quentin shoved open the toy shop door, muttering.

And then the rumble of an engine sounded from around the corner.

I think at first Gav only saw us, looking terrified. He stopped the car in the middle of the road and leaped out. Then he spotted Quentin.

They scrutinized each other, about twenty feet apart, Quentin favoring the leg I’d kicked, his eyes red and watering. Gav’s jaw had tensed, his hands clenched at his sides. He took a step forward.

Quentin wavered, then turned and ran. If he’d had a tail, you could tell it would have been tucked between his legs.

My knees wobbled, and I sat down hard on the edge of the sidewalk. My chest ached as if I’d just run a marathon, even though we’d hardly come half a block from the store. Meredith clutched at me. The taffeta of her princess dress rasped when I put my arm around her.

“Are you okay?” Gav said. “Both of you?” He moved toward us, and then stared after Quentin, his hands opening and closing like he didn’t know what to do with them.