The Things That Keep Us Here (15 page)

“Just get away from me.” Libby climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Smith caught the door. “Calm down, will you? You’re overreacting.”

Tires churned. Exhaust swarmed blackly into the air. “Mom, call the police,” Kate pleaded. “I don’t know if they’d come.”

Smith wedged himself behind the SUV’s door and reached back to fumble with the lock.

Libby smacked at his face, his shoulder and arm. “Get away, I said!”

Smith pulled himself along the side of the SUV to the back door and grabbed hold of the door handle there. It swung open. Now he was crawling inside.

Libby almost fell out of the vehicle. She grabbed the opened door and banged it against her husband’s legs.

“Libby!” Ann took an involuntary step toward them. “Smith!”

Smith backed out, clutching a car seat. A baby’s cries sailed out, thin and high-pitched. The blanket slid, revealing Jacob, his mouth in an open howl, his cheeks red and eyes squeezed shut.

“He’s hurting him, Mom.”

“It’s okay, Kate. Jacob’s fine. He’s just upset.”

Libby grasped the handle of the car seat. “Don’t you
dare.”

“You’re acting crazy.” Smith swung away from her, still holding on to the baby.

Libby pounded his chest with her fists. She flailed at his shoulders. He elbowed her aside and tramped back to the house, lugging the car seat with him. Libby stood staring after him, her chest heaving; she looked wildly all around. Her gaze halted at Ann and Kate standing there on the porch.

Ann yearned to go over and put her arms around her friend. “Libby, are you all right?”

“Go away.” Libby slid into the driver’s seat. After a moment, the engine silenced. She leaned forward and rested her forehead on her crossed arms.

“Mom?” Kate’s voice trembled.

Ann drew her daughter to her. “It’s all right, honey.” Maybe this sort of thing happened all the time between the two of them. What did anyone know of someone else’s marriage? She wouldn’t have expected Libby and Smith to brawl like this, but then she wouldn’t have expected Peter to walk out on her.

Libby had abandoned the SUV. She was trudging up the driveway toward her house. After a moment, she disappeared from view. Ann heard the garage door rattle down, and then all was quiet.

“I thought Libby and Smith loved each other.”

“They do. Of course they do.” Kate sounded so disconsolate. Ann squeezed her daughter close. “But you know, honey, marriage is complicated.”

An inadequate comment, and Ann felt the weight of it.

Kate threw off Ann’s arm. “So why do people even bother to get married in the first place?”

She wheeled around and swung open the front door. The soft click of the latch as the door closed quietly behind her was as loud to Ann’s ears as if her daughter had slammed it.

ANN WAITED UNTIL IT WAS ALMOST TOO DARK TO SEE BEFORE
lighting the candles. Shazia fed the fire and they all ate dinner at the kitchen table, accompanied by tiny orange points of flame. Libby hadn’t answered the phone. All was silent from the house next door.

“Why is Daddy taking so long?” Maddie tapped her fork against her plate.

Ann reached out a hand to quiet her. “He’ll be back soon.” Even she heard the lack of conviction in her voice. Peter had been gone all afternoon. What should have taken minutes was consuming hours. Maybe he’d stopped to help someone. Maybe he’d had engine trouble. Or gotten stuck in a snowdrift. The possibilities were endless. There was no use worrying through them. Still, she found herself listening hard for the sound of Peter’s truck. “So, what else did Hannah say?”

“She hurt her ankle playing kickball.”

“Ouch. What was she doing playing kickball?”

“Well, it wasn’t really kickball. It was more like snowball. Get it? Snowball.”

Ann smiled, happy to see that afternoon’s recrimination gone from her child’s face.

“Hilarious,” Kate said flatly. “If the power comes back on, can I dye my hair, Mom?”

If
, she’d said, Ann noted sadly. Not
when
.

“What color?” Maddie was fascinated.

“The power
is
coming back on,” Ann said, “and why would you dye your hair?”

“Michele’s having Claire and Hilary over tonight to do makeovers. She asked me, too, but I knew you wouldn’t let me.” Kate stabbed a piece of food with her fork.

That couldn’t be true. Kate had to have misunderstood. “Are you sure about that?”

“Uh-huh.” Kate pushed the food around on her plate. “Everyone
else’s
parents said it would be okay.”

Meaning Ann was the only mean one. “I’m sorry, Kate, but it’s too risky. We all need to sit tight for just a while longer.”

“That’s what you always say. I don’t want to sit tight. Sitting tight is
boring.”

“Oh, Kate. A little boredom never hurt anyone.” Ann was bored, too. Bored of washing clothes by hand, of cooking in a fireplace that had never been intended to be anything but ornamental, of worrying about having enough food and how her parents were doing.

“So, I can’t go?” Kate dropped her fork and crossed her arms.

“Of course not.”

“Mom, come
on
. Michele says since no one’s sick, it’s okay.”

“That’s my point, Kate.” How many times would she have to explain this? Perhaps Kate couldn’t be expected to grasp the concept, but she had to learn to accept the fact. She couldn’t be around other people. Period. “Michele can’t know that no one’s sick. People can be sick and not know it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kate rolled her eyes.

Ann bit back a sharp response, exasperated. She and Shazia exchanged a glance, then Shazia leaned forward. “Your mother’s right, you know. People are the most contagious the day before they show symptoms.”

Kate refused to look at her. “You’re a grown-up, too,” she muttered. “You don’t understand.”

“Daddy’s home!” Maddie cried.

Ann cocked her head, listening. Now she heard it, too, the garage door groaning along its tracks. “You’re right,” she said, pushing back her chair with relief.

Maddie flew at Peter as he came in through the back door.

“Hey,” he said, stumbling a little. “Was I gone that long?”

“You were gone
forever.”

“It seemed like forever to me, too.” Peter swung Maddie down, kissing her as he did so. “Hey, Katydid.” He leaned over and ruffled her head and she smacked at him, stepping back to smooth it down again.

Katydid?
He hadn’t called her that in years. Ann watched him. Something was wrong. There was something he was holding back, something that he wasn’t going to volunteer. “So, did everything go okay?”

“I ran into a guy working on the substation down in Hilliard.” Peter bent to untie his boots. Pulling them free, he thumped them against the tiles and stood them up to drip-dry.

“That’s great.” Hilliard was only a few miles south. “Is the power coming back on?”

“It could be a while longer. They’re having trouble getting workers. But they did manage to get downtown up and running for a few hours.”

Ann smiled at Kate. “You hear that? The power company’s working on it. The electricity should be coming back on any minute now.” Kate put her hands on her hips. “That’s
downtown
. What about
us?”

“They’ll get to us,” Peter said. “But they have to follow a certain order. Everything’s linked together. First they have to fix the substations, then they’ll get to the individual power lines.” He hung his jacket on the hook and dropped his keys onto the counter. “I’m starving.”

Ann sat down across from him so she could watch his expression. Maddie climbed onto her lap, and Ann wrapped her arms around her daughter’s small, warm body, pressed her cheek to her daughter’s hair, a little stiff with residue from last night’s shampoo. Maddie had refused to stay still for one more cupful of icy rinse water.

“I saw lights on at Finn’s house,” Peter said. “So I stopped to pay him a little visit.”

“No way. He just invited you in?” Walter Finn was the last person Ann would have expected to stop and chat. Just the other day, he’d practically set the sidewalk on fire in his haste to get away from them.
Wait
. Just how close had Peter come to the man? “You wore a mask, didn’t you?”

“And gloves,” Peter mumbled through a mouthful of pasta.

Shazia looked around the table. “Who’s Finn?”

“Our neighbor down the street,” Kate said.

“He’s mean,” Maddie said. “He never gives out candy for Halloween. He
yells
at you if you walk on his grass, even if you didn’t mean to.”

Peter wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Turns out the guy’s some kind of survivalist. You should have seen his place. He’s got water, batteries, every kind of food you could possibly imagine.”

“Like candy?” Maddie’s eyes were round. “Like grape jelly?”

Ann smiled into Maddie’s hair.

“Probably,” Peter said.

Maddie sighed. “Lucky.”

“Peter.” Shazia tilted her head. “What did you mean when you said you saw the lights on at this man’s house?”

That’s true. Peter had said that. Ann looked at him.

Peter paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Finn has a generator.”

Ann sucked in her breath. Kate looked at Peter, then at her mother. “So?”

“That means this man has electricity,” Shazia said. “Hold on,” Kate said. “He’s got TV?”

“TV?” Maddie squealed. “No fair.”

“How come we don’t have one of those things?”

“They’re expensive, for one thing. And they’re all sold out, for another.”

Shazia said, “Did you go online?” The Internet. Of course.

“That was the only reason he let me in, so I could prove to him there really is a vaccine in the works.” He chewed, swallowed. “This is great, Ann—I could eat a bear. The President’s asked Congress to authorize emergency spending toward additional vaccination research. And he’s set up a national database to track outbreaks and identify where to channel federal resources.”

“Like food drops?” Ann asked.

He held her gaze for a moment. “Possibly.”

So he was worried about their food supply, too.

“What about manufacturing the vaccine?” Shazia said. “And with the gas shortages, how are they going to distribute it?”

“He’s negotiating with other countries on both those fronts. There was some talk that he’d open the national fuel reserve, but that wasn’t confirmed.” He lifted his fork to his mouth, then paused. “He’s bringing the troops home. He says we need them more here.”

“The war’s over?” Ann asked. “Mike will be coming home?”

“Uncle Mike?” Maddie clapped her hands. “Yay!”

Peter smiled at her, then turned to Ann. “No one’s talking about war. It’s all about the pandemic.”

There it was. Her heart skipped a beat. He’d actually used the word.
Pandemic
. Things had gotten that terrible.

“So, listen,” Peter said to his daughters. “You know that snowstorm we got? They’re calling it the storm of the century. It went all the way up the East Coast. Buffalo got over six feet.”

Maddie said, “That’s a lot, right?”

“That’s a whole lot.” Ann tightened her arms around her daughter. Maddie leaned back to push her head against Ann’s shoulder. She smelled of wood smoke and crayon. “That’s almost as tall as Daddy.”

Peter turned to Shazia. “You’ll never believe what I read on the WHO website. There’s an Aboriginal tribe in Australia that’s showing immunity.”

Shazia blinked. “But that’s fantastic! Do you suppose it has something to do with their avian migration patterns?”

Australia had a huge migratory bird population, Ann remembered. Peter had always talked about doing a sabbatical there, and taking her and the girls. Another time, another place, and they could have been there right now, safe in a little bubble where people didn’t get sick.

“Aborigines?” Maddie twisted in Ann’s arms and looked up at her. “The same ones who do dot painting?” Ann smiled down at her. “Maybe.”

“So, wait.” Kate looked from Ann to Peter. “You mean there are people who can’t get sick?”

“Apparently,” Peter said. “But … how?”

“No one knows. WHO’s sent a team of biologists to try and figure it out.”

“Dr. Antony’s in Stockholm.” Shazia pushed back her chair. “He might be on the team. It would be good to talk to him. Would Mr. Finn let us get online?”

He shook his head. “We’d have better luck phoning.”

Shazia glanced at her watch, then stood. “The long-distance charges—”

Ann waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that.” At this point, she’d be thrilled to get a phone bill with a whopping charge on it, anything to signal someone was out there, someone was keeping track.

Maddie slid from her lap. “Are you done eating, Daddy? Can you read to me now?”

“Sure,” Peter said.

“You’re eight,” Kate said. “You’re old enough to read to yourself.”

“You’re thirteen,” Maddie retorted. “Old enough to butt out.”

So it was official now. They were in a pandemic. Ann thought of those haunting photographs in the books on the 1918 pandemic, the ones that depicted rows of anonymous white cots spreading out as far as the camera’s eye could see, all of them filled with the sick and the dying. Somewhere, maybe even in this city, were rooms filled with sick people. But they wouldn’t be enough to contain all the sick from this pandemic. They would have to use warehouses. Air hangars. All the cornfields of Ohio couldn’t hold them all.

She watched her children leave the room, the man she’d married pick his plate up from the table and turn to talk to the young woman who’d been orphaned by circumstance. As long as they remained within these walls and as long as they kept others away, there was no way they would end up nameless in a photograph for future generations to page past and wonder.

————

ANN WAS SMOOTHING THE BLANKETS ACROSS THE SLEEPING
bags when Peter came into the room. The girls were at the kitchen table with Shazia, playing some sort of game that involved slapping cards and a great deal of argument. “Peter,” she said in a low voice, “we need to keep an eye on Kate. I have a feeling she’s going to try and sneak out.”