The Gift of Remembering

by C. L. Shaffer

  Natalie smiled back. “Does this mean you’re taking Roger’s offer?”

  “Oh, you knew about that, did you?”

  “Of course.”

  Irene paused for a second. “I am taking his offer, but you probably knew that already as well."

  “Of course,” she said again.

  Chapter 6

  Irene stood with her notepad in hand. It seemed its long list of tasks, both checked and unchecked, was always with her now. But she didn’t mind. It reminded her of a time when she ran a much smaller operation of a husband and three children.

  Glancing up from the few unchecked items, she spotted Harvey Smith, one of the warehouse's maintenance men coming from the hallway. "Smith," she shouted, "I'm afraid the sink in Room 12 is clogged again. And before they left, the Reevers told me the toilet in Room 8 isn’t flushing.”

  Smith was carrying his heavy toolbox that made him hunch forward to the right. He didn't bother straightening up to look at her but pivoted on his heel back toward the rooms.

  Irene exhaled, feeling the same exhaustion. If she'd known that her responsibilities were mainly going to be of the plumbing sort, she would have declined Roger's offer.

  “A full crate of watermelons came back in the capsule today,” Natalie said as she hurried by Irene.

  “What am I supposed to do with a crate full of watermelons?”

  "Irene."

  Irene looked back to see Dave, one of the warehouse's team leaders. He was a tall, fit, and more than capable man, but he kept his focus on the cement floor as he walked. He then shook his head at her

  Irene attempted to keep her disappointment in check, but it must have shown on her face, for Dave rested his hand on her shoulder. "We'll try again tomorrow."

  The night in town was the last time Irene had seen Chris. She wondered if guilt had caused him to leave the safety of the warehouse. Whatever the reason, she hoped he would be successful in doing more for the warehouse. But as the days turned into weeks with no sign of him, Irene sent Dave to track him down.

  Dave stepped back as he dug into his pocket. “I did come across this, though.” He outstretched his hand with what appeared to be a business card. It was navy with the letters UG stamped in gold on the front. Irene flipped it over where she found two words that had also been stamped—Join us.

  “Where did you find this?”

  "I didn't. It found me. Some guy handed it to me as he hurried by on the street. After reading it, I tried to follow him, but he disappeared around a corner.”

  “Have you ever heard of them before?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  Irene turned the card over again. “Well, let me know if you plan to start moonlighting," she said, handing the card back to Dave.

  “No worries there. I’ve got enough on my plate here between tracking Chris down and trying to find a way into The Firsts' new locations.” He patted her on the shoulder. And as he walked away, Irene felt her energy drop once more. She glanced down at her notepad and decided she needed a break.

  …

  After ordering breakfast from Gwen, Irene found a spot in a corner away from a family waiting to board the first-morning run. She uttered the same prayer she said every morning before eating, asking God to help her find her family. When she was through, she placed her arms on both sides of her meal tray and glanced at the Bible next to her.

  Saying the prayer was difficult enough.

  It had been a long time since she’d opened a Bible. She could argue it was a luxury to find time to read anything, let alone study a book to gain some spiritual benefit. But that wouldn’t be the truth. As she’d told Roger, her faith hadn’t escaped her, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit it had gone lukewarm.

  But discovering the town had done its work. It had gotten her to pray again—perhaps not the best of prayers, but pray nonetheless. And it had even caused her to reach into her bedside table this morning for the Bible within.

  After taking a sip of coffee, she opened the leather cover. Not having any particular destination, she thumbed through the pages. Stopping to read a few passages in Isaiah, she felt the familiar emotion of disappointment coupled with doubt form within her. She quickly closed the book. In doing so, she noticed a piece of paper at the edge of the thick volume. She pulled it out and realized it was the note Roger had given to her when she'd gone back to accept his offer.

  "Memorize this address," he'd told her. "But only go to it when you truly need to. It should be a last resort."

  “How will I know when that is?”

  “You’ll know.”

  In taking over the warehouse, she failed to memorize it and had slid the note into the Bible for safekeeping. She decided it was time to commit the address to memory.

  Crumpling the paper in her hand, she looked up to see Charlie stomping into the cafeteria.

  “Get that gear cleaned up for the next team,” he snapped at his men. With his massive frame, which was not unlike a football player, Charlie could be intimating, but because of his soft-spoken nature, he rarely was.

  Coming toward her, he straightened his back and cleared his throat. “I’ve got some bad news.”

  “I guessed as much.”

  Charlie glanced back to the spot where his team had stood. "I'll apologize to them later. I'm just a bit on edge right now. The electricity is coming back on in the West End. And The Firsts are beginning to take people at night. It seems they want to speed up emptying and processing the city. Fortunately, the lights are only working on certain streets. My guess is soon they’ll have the power on throughout the entire city. If that happens, we won’t be able to rely on the cover of night to get the families out who’ve been referred by those we’ve already rescued.” Charlie rotated his back as if to relieve some pain.

  It was evident to Irene that the day's stress had taken a physical toll even on Charlie. She reminded herself that he and those who volunteered to help rescue others possessed neither military nor policing experience. They were just ordinary people willing to help. She needed to look for indications of breaking points.

  “I suppose we could set up a series of safe houses,” Charlie suggested. “When the time comes, we could work by day then.”

  “That may work. I’ll talk to Harvey about it. He knows the city better than anyone. He’ll have some good ideas on which locations, particularly rentals or boarding homes where people are used to seeing strangers coming and going.”

  Charlie rubbed his back as he nodded.

  “You and your team rest up for now,” Irene ordered. “The next team will keep to the areas that don’t have power yet, and we’ll get this new system in place for those that do.”

  Chapter 7

  The house stood on a typical city street. But there was nothing typical about this part of the city. It was clear The Firsts’ marketing campaign was in full force. From a building’s façade to a random telephone pole, nearly every surface was riddled with their propaganda. The message was generally the same: Put your trust in The Firsts, and when they come to collect you—be prepared to journey to a better life and location. One sign even listed the items one should pack for the journey, which included a toothbrush and warm clothes.

  In addition to this, the lights were back on in this part of the city, and it made the task of rescuing the referred families living there much more risky. This pressed on Irene's mind as she and Charlie entered the back gate to the family's property. Despite the apparent danger, rescuing this particular family was the right thing to do, even if it was during the day. The homeowners were relatives of an extremely malnourished family that The Opposition had rescued two days prior.

  Nearing the back door, a man in a bulky, blue sweater hastily waved them into a galley-style kitchen. After rubbing his hands together to warm them, he outstretched one and shook each of their hands. “I’m Ted Allison.”

  Charlie pointed at Irene. “This is Irene, and I’m Charlie.” Charlie looked beyond Ted to a
long, dark hallway. “Where is everyone? We were told there were four of you.”

  "My wife, Francis, and our daughter, Samantha, are upstairs gathering their belongings."

  Charlie pursed his lips. “You can’t take anything but the clothes on your backs. I thought that was communicated to you. We need to walk out of here in the middle of the day. Carrying suitcases will just draw attention to us.”

  Ted’s expression turned from concern to outright alarm. “I’ll go tell them.” He hustled down the hall, but Charlie called his name, causing him to stop halfway. “Where is person number four?”

  Ted pointed to a door under the stairs. “Margaret, our tenant, is down these steps.”

  Charlie motioned to Irene, and the two descended the narrow stairwell to a musty, cluttered basement apartment filled with every chotski ever produced.

  “Knick . . . knack,” Charlie said as he moved off the last step.

  Margaret was sitting in a rocking chair near an unlit fireplace. She seemed too busy knitting a winter hat to notice either of them.

  “Ma’am,” Charlie said as he approached. “Are you ready?”

  Irene walked over to a small window that looked out onto the street. A black van was parked on the other side. Three uniformed men stood beside it. Two were conversing in an apparent serious conversation, pointing about at the houses while the third seemed preoccupied, eating a sandwich. "Charlie, we have company," she said as her anxiety grew.

  Charlie nodded and quickly turned back to Margaret. He explained to her what was happening. But Margaret remained silent, knitting away.

  “Maybe she’s a bit—” Irene said, tapping the side of her head.

  “Young lady, I can assure you, I am in full possession of all my faculties.”

  “Then you do understand what The Firsts are up to?” Charlie asked with a growing tone of irritation.

  “I do,” Margaret said, “and it sounds good to me.”

  Not convinced that Margaret had fully understood, Irene knelt in front of her as the woman continued to rock back and forth in her chair. For emphasis, Irene pointed to a group of framed photos surrounded by a collection of cat figurines. “Once you’ve been processed, you won’t remember your family.”

  Margaret stopped mid rock and leaned into Irene. “Good. They’re all dead anyway.”

  Irene slowly stood. Her chest tightened as she realized that Margaret was not unlike Kent, who'd hoped that processing would artificially heal his emotional wounds.

  “I’m sorry,” Ted said from behind. “I thought Margaret might give us a fight about leaving.”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said, “maybe we should just pick her up—rocking chair and all—and carry her out of here.”

  Margaret lifted her chin in defiance. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m staying.”

  “Ted, The Firsts are across the street, and they’re taking the Sullivan family,” a woman, presumably Ted’s wife, said as she hurried down the stairs.

  Irene glanced out the window again to see the three uniformed men escort a family of four down their front steps. A tinge of horror struck Irene as the men conversed and laughed with the family as if they were all just going to a picnic.

  “It won’t be long until they move to our side of the street,” Ted said to Charlie, taking hold of his wife’s hand.

  Charlie huffed at Margaret, but she just kept knitting.

  “If we force her, we’ll be no better than The Firsts,” Irene inserted.

  “It’s just that she reminds me of my grandmother. That’s all,” Charlie said, placing his hand on the stair railing.

  …

  Irene drew her scarf over her head as the snow began to fall. Ted’s daughter, Samantha, jumped haphazardly into the air, trying to catch the snowflakes with her tongue. She was oblivious to what had occurred back at the house with Margaret and with what was happening overall, so Irene gently redirected her away from the curb. “You can do that when we get to the house.”

  “I want to do it now.”

  Irene glanced across the street. An older man had stopped midstride and was looking in their direction. Samantha seemed to notice the attention. She giggled with delight and exaggerated her play by jumping more wildly into the air. Irene pulled her scarf forward, worrying that the man might recognize her from her days at the White House. But the concern was perhaps absurd. Most would probably not remember.

  Possibly finally hearing the commotion behind her, Samantha’s mother, Francis, turned about, snapping a quick rebuke. She pulled Samantha to her side.

  Ted mouthed an apology to Irene as he took Samantha’s hand. His wife gripped the other, keeping their daughter in the middle as they continued down the street.

  As Irene watched them, she thought of her own family. Memories seeped in from further back in time to her first date with Kent.

  It had been a blind date. When the doorbell rang, she’d opened it, only to be greeted with a look of disappointment on his face.

  Later, Irene learned that Kent had a thing for redheads. His friend, Martin, who was also Irene’s co-worker, had sworn up and down that Irene had red hair. Not knowing the deception, Irene spent the rest of the evening forgoing to laugh at Kent’s jokes, figuring that was the female equivalent of a man showing his displeasure in a woman’s looks.

  After the disastrous evening, Irene assumed that was the end of it. But at a company picnic where Kent was suspiciously Martin’s guest, Martin admitted what he'd done to both of them, as they stood across from one another, unwilling to look the other in the eye.

  “She’s a good woman,” Martin continued after confessing.

  Irene pretended to be more interested in the fruit salad on a nearby table than in the conversation.

  “And she’s a beautiful one at that. I assumed you’d figure that out, Kent.” Martin then walked away, leaving Irene and Kent to struggle in the uncomfortable moment.

  The awkwardness brought a tension to the forefront, which if Irene was honest, had never gone away even after they married. Instead, it transformed, over time, to a more desirable one.

  Kent coughed, possibly to break the silence between them. He then fixed his eyes on Irene’s hair.

  Noticing, Irene smoothed her hand over her blonde hair, feeling ridiculed once more.

  “Well, I do know a great hair colorist.”

  Irene didn’t stop herself from laughing that time.

  “Oh, so you do have a sense of humor,” he said.

  Savoring the long-ago moment once more, which eventually had led to establishing her family, Irene kept her attention on the one walking in front of her. Charlie pulled her hand to his and smiled, drawing Irene from her recollections. “We’ll find your family soon.”

  …

  Entering the safe house, Samantha and her family headed for the orange glow of the kerosene heater in the middle of the room.

  Harvey was kneeling next to it, adjusting the knobs. "That should keep you nice and toasty," he said to Samantha, who had carelessly thrown her hat and gloves to the floor. She laughed from the unexpected warmth.

  “Where did you get the heater?” Irene asked.

  Harvey grinned as he stood, wiping his hands with a rag. “I know a guy.” He gestured toward the adjacent kitchen, which was nothing more than a few cabinets and a rusting sink. “There’s some canned food in the kitchen if anyone is hungry.”

  “I think we’ll just enjoy the heat for a while,” Francis said, helping Samantha take off her bulky winter coat. She then removed her own.

  Irene and Charlie did the same until they'd amassed a pile of jackets on one of the few scattered mismatched chairs in the room. The family of three huddled in a half-circle about the heater and conversed softly about their good fortune.

  "You'll have about a two-hour wait here," Harvey spoke in a hushed tone to Irene, motioning Charlie into the conversation. “It will take The Firsts that long to do their daily walk-through. That should begin within the hour. Their next
walk-through brings them back to this part of the city again at about 3:30 a.m. After your two-hour wait here, you’ll move on to 12 Waters Street. Along the way, I suggest you pick up some food at The Firsts’ government-run market. The only reason anyone goes to that section of town is to stop at that food distribution site. If you have groceries in-hand, you’ll blend in better as you move to the next safe house.

  “Once you arrive at 12 Waters Street, you’ll stay there overnight. The following morning, set out east toward the warehouse, which is just a dozen blocks away.”

  “Thanks, Harvey,” Charlie said as he exhaled.

  “You bet. Now, I have a few more sites to look at near the north end of town. Be sure to turn that heater off when you leave.”

  “Okay, we will,” Irene said.

  “You won’t forget? Right?”

  “No, I’ll be sure to do it.”

  “Okay, cause I hate to waste kerosene.”

  “No, I understand,” Irene added, feeling slightly irritated.

  When Harvey had gone, Charlie collapsed into the only comfortable-looking chair in the sparsely furnished living room. It wasn’t long before he was snoring. Samantha covered her ears and tossed one of her gloves at him, which failed to end the sawing noise.

  Unlike Charlie, who seemed to have grown used to such tense situations, Irene found she couldn’t rest; her nerves were on edge. She moved to one of the two long windows that looked out over the street, thinking the neighborhood’s activity would distract her.

  Of course, it was her own fault that she was even there. She’d insisted on coming along and checking out the new safe houses. She could have taken her team’s word for it, but she wanted to be the kind of leader who was willing to do the same things she asked her team to do.

  As she continued to observe the street from her high vantage point, a group of men came into view. Dressed in black military-styled uniforms, each man held a semi-automatic rifle in his hand or had one slung over his shoulder. Irene peered down at her watch. The walk-through Harvey mentioned was coming sooner than expected.