Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
ALEX
As we walk back to our duplex, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re at some kind of family camp, or on one of those low-budget all-inclusive vacations. Dinner was a muted affair, but we got dessert—canned fruit cocktail, swimming in syrup, the kind I haven’t had since I was a kid. Michael Duart stood up to make an announcement, welcoming the latest residents. I wondered how many there are besides us. Tom nodded at us as we left, and his wife smiled shyly. I managed a smile back, wondering if one day we’d be friends.
I don’t know what to make of seeing William Stratton next to Michael Duart; he can’t have arrived much before we did, and yet he was already chummy with the mastermind of this place, which is, I reflect, exactly the kind of guy I thought he was. But where are his wife and son? I think of Nicole, the bleakness I saw in her eyes, the despair that bordered on indifference, and I hope she’s okay.
But in the meantime, I have my own family to worry about. Phoebe refused to eat the casserole, despite Mattie’s patient cajoling; I’m uncomfortably aware of how silent and withdrawn she has become at only four years old. I don’t know her well enough even to guess what might draw her out of her shell, and in any case Mattie is so possessive of the little girl, and seems to resent my poor attempts at interference. Maybe I’ll just leave it to her, I think wearily, even if it doesn’t feel right, to hand off my mothering to a fifteen-year-old.
As for the others…like Phoebe, Sam seems subdued, and he still isn’t looking at me. Ruby has yet to speak today, at least in my hearing. And I’m worried about what we’re all going to do here—what are these jobs they’re going to give us? What if we can’t do them well enough? We’ve found a safe place, but everything about the North Bay Survival and Resettlement Center feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable, like a scratchy blanket I have no choice but to wrap around my shoulders, because I am that cold. I just hope in time I’ll come to appreciate and savor its warmth.
That night, I lie on the uncomfortable mattress, the sheets rough, and stare up at the squares of ceiling tile that look like something out of a low-budget office. Next to me, Daniel breathes slowly, already asleep. In the girls’ bedroom, I hear the squeak of springs every time one of them turns over, and in the distance the smack of a screen door opening and closing. Everything feels so strange, especially after where we’ve been, what we’ve seen and endured. I want to feel relieved, to breathe out an at-last sort of sigh, but I don’t yet. I can’t. I tell myself it will come tomorrow.
The next morning, just before the first sitting of breakfast, another brisk and bland-faced official taps the door and then hands us “an NBSRC Welcome Pack,” which is just a few stapled sheets outlining the expectations of our existence in this place. I’m impressed at the mediocre bureaucracy of the endeavor; in times like these, a typed sheet detailing tedious rules is almost admirable. We don’t have time to read all the information before breakfast, but we do discover the jobs we’re meant to report to immediately after the meal—Daniel is in accounting, Sam in warehouse, Kyle in farming, and Mattie helping at the school. I’m working in the kitchen, while Phoebe will be in the childcare program, Ruby enrolled in school.
We walk to breakfast feeling a cautious not-quite-excitement at this new phase of life, with jobs we report to, something that feels like a novelty. Breakfast is a cup of watery instant coffee, a bowl of just as watery oatmeal, and a single sugar sachet for flavor. It’s still more than I’ve had in a long while, and I eat every last bite, savoring the sweetness. I look around for William Stratton, and, more importantly, Nicole and Ben, but I don’t see any member of that family anywhere.
After breakfast, Mattie takes Ruby and Phoebe to the educational facility—she’s made friends with some kids her age, so she knows where she’s going—while Sam, Kyle, and Daniel all head off to find out where their jobs are, and what exactly they will be doing. I stay in the mess hall for the second sitting, since I’m pretty sure being on kitchen duty means I’ll be working here.
As the building finally empties out, I feel a weird loneliness sweep suddenly through me—I’ve been cheek by jowl with my family for months , all of us working together for a common goal—survival—and it’s strange and somewhat unsettling to be on my own now, doing something most likely mundane.
Admittedly, at the cottage I had plenty of alone time; I went for walks, or out to pick berries or check traps, but even when I was on my own we were still all working together, toward a common cause. And while I know that’s the kind of thing that is meant to be happening here, right now I feel untethered. Maybe a job will help anchor me to this new life. I take my bowl and cup to the plastic basin by the kitchen hatch and look around for someone to report to.
The kitchen is a hive of activity, and definitely not big enough to serve four or five hundred people, even though that’s what it is doing. I hover in the doorway uncertainly until a solid- looking woman with an apron swathed around her middle and a mesh cap covering her salt-and-pepper curls gives me a firm nod.
“New?”
“Yes—”
“You can start here.” She nods toward an industrial-sized sink. “Rinse and load,” she tells me. “Rinse and load.”
I spend the next hour doing exactly that, finding a comforting numbness in the repetitive mundanity of the actions. I’m also more than half amazed that I’m actually running a dishwasher. I wonder if the novelty of having electricity will ever wear off, become commonplace again, the way it once was, but right now I am simply enjoying the ease of it.
There are a dozen women in the kitchen, applying themselves to various tasks, and yet no one really talks. I’m glad; I don’t think I’m capable of conversation. For months, conversation has revolved around the practicalities of survival, and when those are taken away it feels as if there’s no longer anything important or interesting to say.
By mid-morning, we are finished, and we get a short break before we need to return to start prepping for the evening meal.
I leave the steamy heat of the kitchen for the cool air of outside; it’s only as I stand by the door to the mess hall that I realize I have no idea what to do with myself. The idea is novel, both liberating and scary. I could try to find Daniel or Sam or Mattie, check in on Phoebe in childcare or Ruby in school, but I don’t know where anything is. All around me bland, anonymous-looking buildings stretch and loom, each one as innocuous and unremarkable as the other. There are no signs to anything, anywhere, and there is, quite literally, nothing to do.
A few moments ago, I was content simply to exist, but already I feel restless, unsure. I decide to explore my surroundings, limited as they are, for, as comforting as all that barbed wire is, it’s still fencing us in. As I head down Duxford Road, I also realize that while the base is fairly sprawling it’s unremarkable too—flat and mostly treeless, like a giant corporate park. I wander past houses like ours, warehouses that are shuttered, a massive hangar being used as a garage, with men unloading large plastic crates from trucks. I start to relax, a flicker of interest, of curiosity, awakening within me. It is, I realize, a nice feeling, to be both curious and safe. I watch the men for a moment, working in tandem as they unload crate after crate, passing each one along a line to a warehouse. What are they unloading and where did they get all that stuff?
Then a man with a stern expression and a military bearing heads toward me with purpose. “Ma’am?” he barks. “Can I help you?”
“No.” I’m startled, apologetic. “I was just walking around.”
“It’s best you move on,” he tells me in a tone that brooks no opposition. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
I hurry away because I wouldn’t want to get hurt either, but somehow I doubt that’s why he didn’t want me around. Was there something they didn’t want me to see—or am I being paranoid?
This is not some disaster movie or spy drama, I think, irritated with myself and my stupid paranoia. There doesn’t have to be something top secret and nefarious going on, and there probably isn’t. I’m probably being ridiculous.
“Alex?”
I stop at the sound of my voice, and then do a double-take when I see who is coming toward me, carrying a stack of neatly folded sheets. Nicole Stratton.
“You made it,” I exclaim, and she lets out a huff of laughter that sounds like disagreement.
“And so did you.”
“I saw your husband at dinner last night, but I didn’t see you or Ben,” I tell her. “I was worried something might have happened. ”
She arches one elegant eyebrow, clearly skeptical of my concern.
“We weren’t hungry,” she says flatly, which I find hard to believe, although admittedly she is stick-thin.
“How are you?” I ask. “And Ben? Was your trip here okay?”
For a second, her face softens. “Ben’s okay. He’s made some friends, which is good.” She pauses, her expression distant. “You just want them to be happy, don’t you? Even when the world is like this.”
“Yes.” I think of Mattie, Ruby, Sam, and Kyle and Phoebe too. “Yes, you want them to be happy. And safe.”
“Well, this place feels pretty safe.” Her tone is so darkly wry that it makes me wonder.
“So how does this compare to the bunker?” I ask, and she lets out a hard laugh.
“It’s paradise,” she replies, and I can’t actually tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. She flashes a hand at me. Her once-perfect nails are chipped and broken, the polish flaking off. Considering everything else, this is far from a tragedy, and yet it seems indicative of so much.
I nod toward her armful of sheets. “What’s your job?”
“Housekeeping. That’s what ten years of experience in interior design gets you in this place. What about you?”
“Kitchen. I think they saw stay-at-home mom and decided that’s where I belonged.”
“Some things never change.”
We both laugh then, giving each other knowing, complicit looks.
“So what does William think about this place?” I ask Nicole. “He got in with our supreme leader pretty quickly.”
Nicole’s lips twitch at my lame joke. “He always does,” she replies, and the edge in her voice makes me wonder—about both their marriage and the man himself. What’s going on there that I haven’t figured out yet?
“I know it’s too early to say,” I tell her, “but do you think…do you think being here is a long-term thing? I mean, when is the rebuilding going to start?”
“Who knows?” She sounds as if what she really means is who cares, and really, why should I? If my kids are happy, if I am safe and fed…is there anything more to want? To hope for? I’m not sure there is, and yet somehow it doesn’t quite feel like enough, or, at least, like it shouldn’t be enough. I should want more…but maybe I don’t.
Nicole nods toward the sheets. “I need to go make up some beds for the latest arrivals. Do you know, in my former life, I had a housekeeper and a cook?” She tosses her sleek ponytail over her shoulder. “But you’d probably already guessed that.”
“I had,” I admit, and she flashes me a quick smile before moving away.
Feeling weirdly energized by this conversation, I decide to go find Mattie and Ruby. I walk down several streets, all of them seeming the same—a parking lot, a swathe of grass, a building with a number but no other indication of what it is—I pass Building Four, Building Six, Building Eleven. I turn a corner and come across an area with more of a neighborhood feel—modest houses with a playground and basketball court in the middle. I can hear children’s laughter and I start to feel a little better. This looks a little more normal, or what normal used to be.
I see maybe two dozen children on the playground—running around, laughing, playing the usual childhood games. It’s both heartening and strange to see. One boy falls onto his knees, scrambles up, and keeps running. I glimpse Phoebe on a swing with Mattie pushing her and my heart gives a little hopeful twist. On the other side of the playground, Ruby is standing near but not with a couple of girls who look around her age. The girls are chatting, but Ruby isn’t, which is not surprising, but still I want more for my girl. While I watch, she edges a little closer to them, her way of making an effort.
The scene is so normal, and yet so not. If I lift my gaze from the playground to the houses beyond, I glimpse a raggedy fence of barbed wire bordering their backyards. Some of it looks hastily erected but no less forbidding; I’m guessing they tightened the security around the entire base after taking it over.
But if I don’t look at the barbed wire, if I close my eyes and let the children’s laughter drift over me, I can almost imagine I’m back in Connecticut, volunteering at Ruby’s old preschool, and life is easy and good, a thoughtless rolling into the future, one day blurring into the next.
“Mom?” My eyes snap open. Mattie is striding toward me. Another girl is now pushing Phoebe on the swing. “What are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to see where the school was.” I point to a single-story building with beige aluminum siding nearby. “Is that it?”
“Yes.” She shakes her head, impatient. “It’s kind of creepy, to have you just standing on the edge of the playground, you know?”
I try not to feel stung. “I was worried about you.”
She frowns, her eyes flashing ire. “I’m fine.”
I do my best to ignore her irritation. “You’ve settled in here, Mattie?” Like Nicole, I want my child to be happy.
She shrugs dismissively. “We’ve been here, like, five minutes, and you’re asking me that? Yeah, it’s okay. I mean, better than being killed, right?”
My lips twitch with suppressed laughter. Typical Mattie. “Were those the only options?” I quip, although part of me is serious.
Mattie folds her arms as she stares me down. “Mom, don’t go deep on me, okay? We’re here. We’re fine. That’s it.”
I nod slowly, accepting. Maybe I needed this metaphorical slap across the face. We’re here. We’re fine. That’s it. This is what I wanted, after all. This is what I chose.
Besides, Mattie does seem fine, and so do Ruby and Phoebe. I don’t need to poke holes in our happiness, our hope. I don’t need to make more problems for any of us, just because I’m having a little trouble settling in, trusting this new normal. I will trust it, I decide. I want to.
“Sorry,” I tell Mattie. “I’ll see you at dinner, I guess.”
“Yeah, okay.” For a second, her expression softens. “I know this all feels weird, but it’s good, right? I mean, we couldn’t live in the woods forever, eating, like, weeds.”
“No…” That much is certainly true; we were all semi-starving back at Kawartha, even if we tried to act as if we weren’t. But the cottage, I think. I could have lived at the cottage forever. Happily, or almost. And I’m not sure I realized that until I burned it down.
Mattie touches my arm, the barest brush of her fingers. “It’ll get better. You’ll get used to this. We all will.”
I manage a laugh. She’s being so wonderfully mature, but it’s making me feel kind of pathetic. “Yes, I know I will, but thank you for the pep talk.”
“Anytime.” She lopes back to Phoebe, and I hear her laughter as she says something to another girl who looks around her age. I imagine the conversation— That was my mom, being weird. Ugh! I know, right? Mothers.
I drift away from the playground, the children, feeling like a leaf on the breeze, bowled along, going nowhere. I should get back to the kitchen eventually, but I don’t want to yet. I don’t know what I want, and maybe that’s the issue. Everything is finally going right for us, and, as I trudge down the empty street, all I know is that it’s taking all my effort not to cry.