Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NORA
By the time Nora arrived at the medical bay, Loretta, the onboard pharmacy technician, was already checked in, a package of toilet paper on the bench beside her. She gave Nora a quick smile, patting the rolls. “Don’t worry—I got us covered.”
“I guess you’ve gotten the news about the freighter.” Nora pulled the sandwich out of her bag, willing her knee to stop shaking. “Roast-beef sandwich?”
Loretta’s head swiveled so fast that her glasses slipped down her nose.
“Roast beef?” She shoved a roll of toilet paper into Nora’s hand and snatched the package with the other.
A fair trade, Nora supposed. Loretta pushed the smudged glasses up her nose to read the label.
“This is from DC.” She gave Nora a suspicious look. “With real meat. How’d you get this?”
“My uncle’s doing weird things with the H-Gates again,” Nora explained.
She set her bag on the workstation beside Loretta’s and swiped her ID card to boot up the system.
Holding the sandwich with two hands like it was a precious baby, Loretta rushed to the kitchen, stowing the sandwich in the fridge.
Nora swiped the inventory software open on her tablet, her chest squeezing at the red alerts for low supplies, with insulin at critical levels. In two days, they’d be totally depleted, and there were four workers with diabetes who depended on it.
The medical ward was designed like an ordinary Earthside medical office, with calm pastel colors and nondescript pictures of mountains, boats, and flowers.
The two of them worked quietly through the morning—Loretta preparing medication bundles for staff with active prescriptions to be filled, and Nora clicking off boxes on her tablet, confirming that their supplies were dwindling.
Every so often, Nora would return to the supply room, rearranging boxes, looking for a magic box of insulin to materialize.
By midmorning, maybe as a distraction, Loretta switched on an Earthside radio station that was replaying a late-night conspiracy segment. The signal cut in and out as she adjusted the tuning module.
“I bet it’s that weird solar storm that’s been going on all week,” Loretta said, tapping the speaker when the sound stabilized, as if it had done a good job. “I bet that’s why the freighter’s late.”
“That makes sense,” Nora said, knowing that it didn’t.
She didn’t mind it as she updated the quantities of injectable medications on her tablet. At one point, she found herself turning up the volume, needing something to focus on besides the yellow columns indicating the medicines needed replenishment. The insulin row was dangerously close to red.
“Hi honey,” the pretty voice from the conspiracy show said as Nora moved to the pill-form medicines, which thankfully were better stocked.
Despite the stupid things the host said, she had a pleasant voice. She greeted each new caller with maternal warmth, even though half the words out of her mouth were either praising Jesus or cursing sinners.
After an advertisement for a self-assembling life raft that was somehow also impermeable to nuclear fallout, a panicked woman called in, claiming the family next door had gone missing the night before.
The police had broken down the door to find half-eaten breakfasts still on plates and chairs pulled away from the table.
“They’ve been…” She could barely speak through her sobs.
“Taken! I bet it was one of the Ascended—I swear I saw one last floating in the sky. He was so beautiful—like an angel. But the Devil appears enticing, so I invoked the Lord’s Prayer… ”
Oh god. Nora tuned out the rest of the show while she finished unpacking a box of bandages and gauze, hearing only snippets about beautiful, tall, stone-gray angels that had been sent from God to reap worthy souls.
I’ve got nothing to worry about, then, Nora thought with a morbid smile. No one’s saving me.
At lunch, Loretta spread a placemat next to Nora in the tiny break room. The cramped space filled with the smell of spice and fresh food—a rarity aboard the Abeona. Nora sipped water and nibbled on a nutrition bar, sitting with her back to the calendar on the wall.
“I booked my kids’ day passes yesterday,” Loretta said, eyeing the unwrapped sandwich as if planning her attack. “After paying for everything, I’m almost as poor as you are now.”
Nora looked down as Loretta took her first bite. “I didn’t realize I was the benchmark for destitution.” She tried to laugh, but it came out wrong.
Loretta didn’t notice. “Don’t use too many big words when you meet them. It makes you sound weird.”
“Using appropriate vocabulary is weird?”
Her coworker continued tearing into the sub, crumbs falling onto her orange uniform and placemat. “When you do it, it is. It makes you sound less nice.”
Nora stiffened. Her awful ex, Nathan, who’d locked her beloved orange idiot of a cat in her closet when they’d broken up, had said she talked too much and wasn’t nice.
“Relax—I’m joking.” Loretta patted her arm. “I can’t wait for you to meet them. They’ll love you. Maddy will gush over all that pretty hair of yours. She’s been trying to grow hers out.”
Her chair creaked as she leaned toward Nora across the table. “When’s your mom finally going to visit? You know they’re going to stop day trips once the Ark’s loading, right?”
Nora took a bite of the raspberry nutrition bar. Though it was her favorite flavor, she set it down, feeling sick. “Yes, I know. She’s still not coming.”
“Really? But she’s your mom.” After another bite, Loretta asked, “You’re an only child, right?”
“I—” Nora hurried to take a sip of water, suddenly parched. “I’m an only child,” she confirmed.
“Well then, is it the money? I’m sure Joe will pitch in to help.” Her coworker dabbed her mouth with a napkin and smiled. “It’s just that I know I’m going to worry about you here all alone. Your uncle doesn’t count—he’s nuts.”
She stared at her fingers curled around the water bottle, a drop of condensation sliding down, spreading over the edge of her finger. “You don’t need to worry about me, Loretta. I’m okay.”
“You’ve been up here for eight months with no visitors and no Earthside leave. If you need the money, I’m sure we can pool together—”
“I don’t need the money,” Nora insisted, keeping her gaze down. “I’m not going back, and she won’t be leaving Earth. I’ve already asked.”
Loretta sat back, crossing her arms. “Your mama is really gonna leave you up here all alone? She doesn’t even want to know what you’re up to?”
“She’s not leaving me all alone.” The smell of the ocean overcame her. “I have Joe.”
“Hmm.” Loretta made an exaggerated nod, considering her. “Do you know what I think?” She pursed her lips. “I think your mom is a bitch.”
Nora jerked her head up to face Loretta. “What?”
“That’s right, I said it. Your mom is a bitch. I can’t imagine leaving any of my babies all alone in space.”
She tilted her head, a little stunned at Loretta’s shift in demeanor.
The thought occurred to her that she should say something.
That if her mother was a bitch, it was because Nora was the source of unimaginable pain for her family.
That every single person Nora touched was bound to suffer in one way or another.
That she herself suffered the most, and for that, she was glad.
But it had also been a long time since Nora remembered what it was like not to be angry with her mother. Or not to miss her. Or to feel like she mattered to someone other than Joe, who himself bore guilt that should have been Nora’s alone.
Her lip pulled into a smile against her will. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “My mom is kind of a bitch.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s what it seems like.” Loretta balled the sandwich’s wrapping. “I can’t imagine not seeing my babies, and you’re her only one. You’re her only baby.”
Nora shook her head, letting out a small sigh. “I’m hardly a baby.”
Loretta raised an eyebrow, sweeping Nora from head to toe.
She clapped her hands together, done with conversation.
“All right, fine. Help me prep these rooms so we can get out of here earlier. I’ve been looking forward to Friday Night Pizza since Tuesday, and the Lord knows I’ll go through the H-Gate myself to pick it up if the supplies aren’t here yet. ”
Within a few minutes, they’d both prepared the exam rooms for the afternoon’s wave of patients and prescription pickups.
As their day wrapped up, Loretta left early to use the SkyText terminals in the cafeteria. With still half an hour of her shift left, Nora refreshed the inventory to see if the freighter had arrived and if someone in the loading dock had scanned the replenishments.
She gulped, facing a line of red flags that stretched the length of their medical supplies. Every new depleted item sent a jolt of unease down her spine.
Leaning back in her chair, Nora checked to her left and right. The main clinic was separated from the supply side of the med-bay, so the nurses and onboard doctor couldn’t see her.
She jumped from her seat and grabbed a small zipper pouch. She filled it with what could be spared: antiseptic cream, a packet of quick-dissolving vanilla mint–flavored antihistamine strips, gauze, three small tubes of petroleum jelly, five packets of anti-inflammatories, and three suture kits.
On a whim, she threw in a few packets of shelled chocolate candies.
If she were dying a slow death because aliens had hijacked Earth the way the radio show had made it seem, it’d be nice to taste something sweet one last time.
She shoved the pouch deep into her purple work bag, proud that, for once, she’d taken some initiative to care.