This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) (7 page)

"Tomorrow morning," Matt said. "And back Friday.

After that Syl and I wil never be separated again. Is that understood?"

"Nobody's suggesting otherwise," Mom said. This time Syl knew better than to laugh.

So tomorrow Matt and Jon wil be leaving again.

Who knows. Maybe when they get back, Jon'l have a wife of his own.

May 16

Syl and I went house hunting right after breakfast. I guess she was glad to be away from Mom. I know I was.

"Matt tel s me you keep a diary," Syl said as we biked down the road.

"Yeah," I said. "It's only for me, though. No one else reads it."

"I know," Syl said. "It's just funny to think of someone writing about me."

"Didn't you ever keep a diary?" I asked.

"For school once," she said. "But I made up stuff."

"Why?" I asked. "Were things going on you didn't want people to know about?"

"Nothing was going on," Syl said. "Nothing ever went on. But I felt if I put my thoughts down on paper, they wouldn't belong to me anymore."

I'd never thought of it that way, and I didn't think I wanted to. Mom, Matt, and Jon have always respected my

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privacy, or at least the privacy of my diaries. We don't have any other privacy. It feels strange sharing the sunroom with Jon but not Matt. Less crowded but more intimate somehow.

"I can't get over your hair," I said. "How long it is.

How pretty."

"Hair is an asset," Syl said. "You should grow yours."

"Maybe someday," I said. Someday when water isn't gray.

We rode silently for a while, and I waited for Syl to ask me questions the way Jon said she did. But I guess I wasn't as interesting as basebal .

It didn't matter. Once we started breaking into houses, I could see how good Syl was at things. At Mom's insistence we entered each house together, but thanks to Syl, there wasn't a wasted moment.

We went through a dozen houses, top to bottom, inch by inch, garages and sheds included. We didn't find that much, and we didn't celebrate when we did find something. No bursting into song over half a rol of toilet paper.

We did find two electric space heaters, though, one for each of us to bike home with. Now, if we ever have electricity, we'l be able to warm up the kitchen and the dining room.

When we got back home, I went up to my room and hid al my diaries in the back of my closet.

They're my thoughts and I want to keep them that way.

May 17

I wish Syl hadn't said anything about my diary. I can't blame Matt for tel ing her, but I real y wish he hadn't.

I'm writing this entry in the kitchen using one of the flashlight pens Jon found for me. Mom's asleep in the sunroom, not that it ever mattered before. I've written in

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my diary with her and Matt and Jon in the room for months now. But even though I know Syl's in Matt's room probably asleep, I feel like somebody's looking over my shoulder.

Last summer Dad and Lisa were here, on their way out west. With six of us in the house I felt more private than I do right now with just three of us here.

Not that I have anything to write, except to say these diaries are mine, for my eyes only.

May 18

Today's the first anniversary of the asteroid hitting the moon.

A year ago I was sixteen years old, a sophomore in high school. Matt was in his freshman year at Cornel and Jon was in middle school. Dad and Lisa had asked me to be godmother to their new baby. Mom was between book projects.

I know I've gained a lot in the past year, but I woke up this morning and al I could think about was everything I've lost. No, that's not right. Not everything, everybody. Everything doesn't matter, not real y. After a while you get used to being cold, and hungry, and living in the dark.

But you can't get used to losing people. Or if you can, I don't want to. So many people in the past year, people I've loved, have vanished from my life.

Some have died; others have moved on. It almost doesn't matter. Gone is gone.

I was lying on my mattress in the sunroom, thinking about how today was the first anniversary and whether I should mention it to Mom. I know dates because of my diary, but calendars vanished along with everything else during the past year.

Somehow I felt the anniversary was

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like the mound of bodies, the kind of thing you keep to yourself.

But the one thing I've gained this past year is a sister-in-law, and over breakfast this morning (a shared can of sweet potatoes, not the breakfast I had a year ago), Syl brought up the subject.

"Today's the first anniversary," she said.

"Of what?" Mom asked. "Oh, it's been a week since you and Matt exchanged your vows. Wel , he'l be back tomorrow and you can celebrate then."

"No, Mom," I said. "Today's the first anniversary of when everything happened. It happened a year ago today."

"Has it only been a year?" Mom asked. "Time sure passes when you're having fun."

"May 18th," Syl said. "I've been keeping track of the days for a while now. I felt I should do something significant on the anniversary day."

"Significant like what?" I asked. "You got married a week ago. It's hard to be more significant than that."

"Something more global," Syl said. "Maybe an offering to the moon goddess."

"Not my firstborn," Mom said. "He's not available."

Syl laughed. "I'm not about to sacrifice Matt," she said. "But there must be something we could give up. Something that matters, that Diana wil accept."

"Diana's the goddess of the hunt," Mom said. It always amazes me she knows stuff like that.

"She's also the goddess of the moon," Syl said, proving she had every bit as much useless information as Mom did. "Apol o, god of the sun, is her brother."

"Maybe he's the one we should make an offering to," I

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suggested. "We need sunlight a lot more than we need moonlight."

Syl shook her head. "It al began with the moon,"

she said. "We should start there."

I looked around the sunroom. Horton was sleeping by the woodstove. He's gotten thinner the past couple of weeks, but I wasn't about to offer him to any goddess.

"Maybe Jon's basebal card col ection?" I said.

"Diana might like a Mickey Mantle rookie card."

"No," Syl said. "The offering has to come from us.

We're Diana's handmaidens."

"I know," I said. "We'l give Diana some fish."

"No," Mom said. "We need that fish. Diana can eat out on her own dime."

Syl looked at us. "What do you cherish most?"

she asked.

"My children," Mom said. "After them my home.

And they're al off limits to Diana, Apol o, and any other god who might happen by."

"My diaries," I said.

"No," Mom said. "Off limits also."

I had mixed feelings about that. Mrs. Nesbitt, I remembered, burned al her letters before she died.

Not that I'm planning to die in the immediate future, but if I burned my diaries, I wouldn't have to worry about Syl reading them.

"I don't mind," I said.

"I do," Mom said. "Your diaries are the only record of this family's existence. They're our link to the past and the future. I won't let you destroy them. Not on a whim."

"I don't have anything else," I said, thinking about how pathetic my life was, that I didn't have a single possession worthy of an offering to a goddess I hadn't known existed

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ten minutes before. "Oh, I do have some trophies, from when I skated. Maybe Diana would like those."

"One trophy," Mom said. "That third-place one you got. The tacky one."

I ran upstairs to my bedroom and found the tacky third-place trophy. I clutched it for a moment, thinking about that competition. I'd fal en twice. If I'd only fal en once, I might have come in second, but the girl who won was real y good, and there was no way I could have gotten first.

I'd been ten. Mom and Dad were there, and even Dad, who loved to encourage al of us to do better at our sports, could see the difference in quality between me and the girl who won. On the drive home, instead of talking about my practicing more and harder, he said how proud he was of me, the way I'd gotten up after both fal s and continued to skate wel enough to medal.

I held on to the trophy and thought about what life had been like when Mom and Dad were stil married, when I thought the worst thing that could possibly happen was fal ing during a competition. I'd been so young, so dumb, upset only that fal ing twice had cost me the silver.

I went back to the sunroom and found Mom and Syl discussing the appropriate ceremony. "I can't believe you're agreeing to al this," I said to Mom.

"I don't see why not," she said. "I did sil ier things in col ege. I've decided to sacrifice my first book contract. Stay here while I go look for it."

I put the trophy on the floor and sat on my mattress.

"Your mother is amazing," Syl said. "I thought she'd be al righteous about this. No pagan practices, if you know what I mean."

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I shrugged. "I don't think Mom believes in much of anything," I said. "And it's not like we real y think the moon's going to zip back into place just because we give it a tacky trophy."

"It's a beautiful trophy," Syl said, walking over and picking it up. "You must have been very proud when you won it."

"Not real y," I said. "Mom's book contract is a much bigger offering. First book, firstborn, that kind of thing."

"I have to give up something as wel ," Syl said.

"You didn't come with a lot of stuff," I said.

Syl laughed. "I travel light," she said.

"I'm sure Diana wil understand," I said. "Besides, she'l be so dazzled by my trophy, she won't notice anything else."

"She'd better notice my contract," Mom said, joining us. "At least she should appreciate how quickly I found it. You may not believe this, Syl, but I used to be a very organized person."

"I know what I can offer," Syl said, her eyes lighting up. "My hair."

"No!" I cried. "You can't cut your hair. It's an asset."

"I don't need it anymore," Syl said. "Matt loves me, not my hair. Wel , not just my hair. Where are your scissors?"

"Do you real y think you should?" Mom asked.

"Your hair is so beautiful."

"So is Miranda's trophy," Syl said. "So is your contract. They're things that matter. Where do you keep the scissors?"

Mom shook her head, but I got the scissors and brought them to Syl. "I won't be able to cut your braid," I said. "It's too thick."

"Don't worry," Syl said. She unbraided her hair and then took the scissors from me and whacked away. By the

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time she was finished, her hair looked ragged, the same as Mom's and mine, but her cheekbones looked even better. Life real y is unfair.

"Now what?" Mom said. "We can't make a burnt offering out of Miranda's trophy."

"Let's bury everything," Syl said. "I'm sure Diana wil understand."

I wasn't too sure about that. The last thing I want is for the moon to get any closer because of a simple misunderstanding.

"I have a gift bag somewhere," Mom said. "Left over from last Christmas. No, Christmas before last.

I keep bows in it. Hold on, I'l get it."

"I'm going to the bathroom to look in the mirror,"

Syl said. "It's been years since I had short hair."

Horton and I stayed in the sunroom until they got back. Horton didn't seem at al interested in offerings, so I didn't ask him if he'd be wil ing to give up his favorite catnip mouse.

Mom and Syl came back, and we put the trophy in the bag first, and then the contract around it, and stuffed in Syl's hair.

"There should be a shovel in the garage," Mom said. "Miranda, get it, and you girls can bury everything by the window. I'l stay inside where it's warm."

"Join us--" Syl said, and she stopped in such a funny way, Mom and I both understood the problem immediately.

"Cal me Laura," Mom said. "And thank you, but I'd just as soon watch from here."

I went to the garage and got the shovel, and then Syl came out with the bag. We picked a spot where it would be

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easy for Mom to see us, and we took turns shoveling. Al the snow is melted now and the ground is soft, so it didn't take much effort. Besides, I folded the bag over, so it wasn't very big.

I thought about how hard it had been for me to pray by the mound of bodies, and I realized if I couldn't pray there, I didn't want to pray to a goddess. "You say something," I said to Syl. "I'l pray silently."

"Al right," Syl said. "Oh, Diana, goddess of the moon. Take our offerings and return peace and wholeness to our planet."

I thought about the earth then, real y thought about it, the tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes, al the horrors I haven't witnessed but have changed my life, the lives of everyone I know, al the people I'l never know. I thought about life without the sun, the moon, stars, without flowers and warm days in May.

I thought about a year ago and al the good things I'd taken for granted and al the unbearable things that had replaced those simple blessings. And even though I hated the thought of crying in front of Syl, tears streamed down my face.

"That's good," she said, gently wiping my cheeks.

"Your tears are the best offering of al ."

May 19

It was an awful day.

It started raining last night and it never stopped. It was cold and windy, and the combination made me realize we haven't had electricity in a week or more.

Al those lovely electric heaters are useless.

We had no idea when Matt and Jon would get back, but we knew they'd have a hard trip because of the rain. Mom

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checked on the cel ar to see if it was flooded, and she cursed so loudly, Syl and I could hear her from the sunroom.

Horton's hardly eaten since Jon left, but in spite of that he managed to throw up a hairbal . Even though we've been cooking the shad on the barbecue outside, the sunroom stinks of fish. Two aspirin did nothing for my headache.