Dust (27 page)

I nodded and said, “I know. It’s almost as if we aren’t allowed to mourn too long.”

Rod interjected, “But no one said not to. It’s the circumstances. We know we can’t.”

“I don’t know about you guys,” Tanner said. “But I kind of feel cheated out of the whole mourning process.”

Wisdom found its way into our conversation, via a fifteen-year-old boy. “That’s because you were cheated out of the ritual,” Davy said. “Death isn’t special anymore.”

We all looked at him with question.

He continued, “Before the bombs. Before all this, let’s say Denny died. Man, we’d be all around Rod. Denny’s death would have been special. We would have felt bad, see, because our lives were normal and Rod’s wasn’t anymore. His grief would stand out. Get it? But now, Rod’s not the only one who lost a friend. Tanner’s not the only one who lost a child. My mom’s not the only one who lost a husband. No one is normal. We may have lost the ritual; we didn’t lose the grief. We’re still grieving, we’re just doing it differently, that’s all.”

Behold the truth … out of the mouths of babes.

The subject of death was placed in a different perspective right then and there. I couldn’t speak for Rod, or Tanner, but to me, Davy’s words added a sense of ‘placement’ to a topic that was so displaced.

I was proud of my son. I’d forever remember the bright words he spoke at the end of a very dark day. I grasped on to what he said, and then I grasped on to my son and embraced him.

23. Where Were You?
 

Seventeen days AB – Dear Mona: Tammy is finally starting to walk around. She joined us for breakfast but didn’t say much. Craig braved the radiation. Levels are still high. The data suggests four or five days of this. This is day four. Hopefully tomorrow it will be over. I pray you are waiting this out as well. Jo

I didn’t close my notebook; Burke’s banging caught my attention. He was doing something he hadn’t done yet in the shelter—cook. Taking over Dan’s ‘self proclaimed chef’ position, Burke merely stated that we needed something to lift our spirits; we had been cooped up long enough. Since we couldn’t veer from the current circumstances and go outside, we could steer off course and break the rations rule.

He said we had plenty, and even more at the cabin.

I agreed on all accounts and let Burke take control. From the supplies he took four cans of sliced beef with gravy, then nearly doubled our normal rations of rice and beans.

We had other dry goods stored, but rarely used them. Burke pulled them out and started mixing up, an old-fashioned ‘Great Depression’ pancake.

Burke’s impression of Harriet Homemaker even caught Simon’s attention. When Simon questioned what Burke was mixing, Burke told him a birthday cake … for Molly. As if it were the best news he heard in his three years of life, Simon, excited, took off to get Rod so they could get Molly ready for her party.

Though he hadn’t done so since we had been in the shelter, seeing Burke conjure up a meal wasn’t all that odd of a sight to me. Multitudes of backyard barbeques came crashing into my mind. Summer after summer, Sam and Burke would become master food manipulators. Firing up the grill. Sharing glaze recipes. Cooking tips on how long to make the perfect steak. Getting drunk. Laughing until the sun came up. They were great times, but ones I would never see again. They had become distant. Gracing my memory like an old favorite movie, or story, somehow they weren’t real anymore. Realism became the paneled basement in the home of my former next-door neighbor.

God, had I reached the point where shelter life had become normalcy? I prayed it would never be normal to me. With all my heart I wanted to get out of the basement, out of the city and go. Run. Never look back.

Soon.

Very soon.

I thought I caught Tanner saying my name. I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t respond. I was still locked in the flashback of the one day Burke and Sam built the mega barbeque pit and caught my backyard on fire. I probably would have basked in that memory for a while too, had it not been for my daughter’s voice. My ears perked.

“God!” she snapped. “It’s sick. Really sick.”

I looked up, how long had I been in my own world?

Tanner had sat across from me at the table. “Jo? You OK?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, then turned to see Matty storm into the room.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. “Sick. Just sick. I can’t believe Simon, dresses, plays and sleeps with a sex toy.”

I nearly choked. “Matty.” I struggled her name out in my shocked laughter. “What?”

“Molly.” Matty climbed on the couch.

“She’s not a sex toy.” I explained.

Matty’s little face scoffed at me. “Yeah, right.”

My mouth hung open and I glanced to Tanner.

“I thought she didn’t speak?” Tanner queried.

“She doesn’t.” I shrugged. “Except to bitch.”

“And draw satanic pictures of Dan.” Tanner said.

“True.” I snickered and then looked up when Rod entered the room.

He wasn’t speaking to us. In fact, he emerged through the door and yelled back toward the hall. “Bring her in. Show everyone. She looks lovely.” Rod smiled at us. “Wait until you see. Right Matty?”

“Sick.” Matty shook her head.

The pitter-patter of Simon’s feet running down the short hall, announced his impending entrance into the living room. “Happy Birthday to Molly!” he called out joyfully, then came to an abrupt halt just as he crossed the threshold. Simon turned his little body around, and tugged on Molly’s arm. “Come on.” He beckoned the blowup doll that lay on the floor, her sideways body unable to fit through the door. Simon wrestled with her, perhaps thinking if he tugged hard enough she would fold and slip through.

Laughing, I stood up. “Here.” I made my way to him. “I’ll get her.”

“Jo,” Tanner called me. “You dropped your …”

Tanner didn’t finish the sentence.

Lifting Molly, I turned around. “I dropped my what?” Then I saw, he held my notebook, I must have knocked it off the table when I stood. Tanner’s eyes were glued to my page. “That’s an invasion of privacy.” I told him, carrying Molly to the couch. I had to say something; after all I wasn’t in the mood for another person to make a comment about how crazy I was for writing to Mona. After perching Molly correctly, I fixed her dress. “There, Simon. Now she’s ready.”

“She’s hungry.”

“She can wait.” As I turned, Tanner approached me.

“I’m sorry.” He handed the notebook to me. “I wasn’t being nosey. I noticed the date.”

“The date?” I asked. Through the corner of my eye, I saw Simon leap on the couch. “Don’t jump.” I told Simon.

“Yeah, the date,” Tanner said. “I just thought it was odd that you were behind in your journal.”

“I’m not behind in my journal. I write in it everyday.” I looked at the page, double-checking, thinking he was looking elsewhere. But he wasn’t. “No, it’s right.”

“Jo, it’s just that the bombs fell about twenty-some days ago. You have seventeen Days AB.”

“That’s right … Simon, quit jumping on the couch.”

“That’s right?” Tanner asked confused. “Today is seventeen Days AB?”

“Yes.” I chuckled. “Of course … Simon stop.”

Simon stopped, smiled, and then began to jump on the couch again.

“You look baffled.” I told Tanner.

Rod decided to clarify, “I think Tanner thinks AB means ‘After Bombs’.”

“Doesn’t it?” Tanner questioned.

“No,” I replied. “It means After Burke. I started keeping track of days after Burke arrived. But now I’m used to it. And I couldn’t very well change it now, could I?” I snickered. “Boy would Mona get confused.”

From the kitchen Burke called out, “Mona’s toast.”

 
“Stop that” I snapped at him, “You don’t know.”

“I know more than you,” Burke retorted.

“Oh, please.” I scoffed. “You didn’t even know the bombs were coming.”

“Like you did?” Burke retorted.

“Um, yeah.” Childishly, I replied.

Burke laughed. “No. Where were you?”

Simon, in the midst of his jumping, answered. “Aunt Jo was waiting for me to pee. She heard then.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Simon.” I smiled arrogantly. “Simon was peeing. I still heard. However …” Smug I walked toward Burke. “Where were you … when the news of the bombs were reported? Huh?”

Burke returned to cooking.

I saw Tanner glance at Burke then back to me. He shook his head a couple times with a lost look. “I’m confused,” Tanner said. “Where was he?”

***

Somehow, someway, it became a topic of interest, one that started at dinner but was quickly voted a conversation to be saved for later on in the evening. It was the very first time that anything brought all of us together in one room at the same time. Even Tammy, who chose not to eat with us, slipped into the living room and joined us. She didn’t say anything; she just sat there listening.

“Where was I when I heard the news of the bombs?” Dan reiterated the question we all would take turns answering. “Where was I?” He sighed out dramatically, like the actor he was. I was certain he was going to turn his answer into the monologue of the century, giving us all a standard of storytelling to uphold. “I had come off of the omelet bar. I swear I had made more omelets that day. Anyhow, I went to the back to get more eggs. The radio is always on in the kitchen and I heard. How ironic, don’t you think, I was holding something as fragile as eggs, when the news of the bombs was reported. I dropped them. Everyone was running everywhere. Chuck left the stove on, and a fire started. Ernie was putting that out. He yelled to me, ‘Dan, can you help?’ But I couldn’t move. Still standing in the freezer door, broken eggs all around me, I did the only thing that came to mind. I stepped back and closed the freezer door.”

Craig spoke up, “That was smart.”

I chuckled snidely. “That was cowardly. He could have helped Ernie.”

Disagreeing, Craig shook his head. “Why? The bombs were coming. Take cover, be a hero later.”

Rolling my eyes, refrained from saying, ‘he didn’t even do that’, I just began my brief story. “I didn’t work. I hadn’t since I worked with Rod at the security firm. So I was home. You would think, what a great place to be especially when I had everything pretty much prepared.” I shook my head. “To be ready. To hit that shelter. You have to know it’s coming. I wasn’t even watching TV. Mona called to tell me. And no …” I hurriedly looked at Burke. “She isn’t toast. I know. Her cell phone was breaking up. She was underground. That’s what I think.”

Burke shook his head. “You think maybe her phone was breaking up because, gee, I don’t know … a nuclear war broke out?”

“Nope.” I was firm. “She was underground.”

Craig was next, “I was driving. I wasn’t in the best mood, because I had to travel so far. I remember thinking, it was bad enough that I had to drive so far out of my way to play store detective, but did my radio have to be on the fritz as well. It was. Strangely enough, all I could pick up was the Christian station. Just when a religious song came on that I could bob my head to … they interrupted with the news. I swerved the car. To be honest, I panicked a little. But I took a second to think, made the first turn off the main road, and stopped at the first house that looked empty. I kept on thinking, ‘Jo says if my car is running when the bombs hit, it won’t start back up’. So I shut off my car, grabbed the battery, and broke into the house.” Craig chuckled, “Little did I know Bruce was there. I thought I was giving the old guy a heart attack. But once he realized what was going on, he got some things to the basement, and I ran back to the car for my Jo-pack. We buckled down. I have to stop and go check on Bruce. I’m surprised he didn’t want to join us.”