The Things That Keep Us Here

by Carla Buckley

  She shuddered. “I would so never drink that water.”

  “Oh, yes, you so would.” Ann brought up the shirt and squeezed. She switched on the water and rinsed the garment. “Did you reach Michele?”

  “She didn’t pick up. No one did.”

  That was a bad sign. That was the one thing people did, if they could: they answered the phone. And Kate knew that. “Try not to worry. They were probably on the line with other people. She’ll call you back.”

  “She had that party, remember? Maybe you were right.” She wouldn’t meet Ann’s gaze. “Maybe someone came who was sick.”

  It had been painful for her to admit it. Ann wanted to put a reassuring arm around her daughter, but Kate would see that as confirmation of her worst fears. “That was over a week ago,” she said instead, keeping her voice light. “Michele wouldn’t be getting sick now.”

  “I guess.” Kate didn’t sound convinced.

  “You’ve been talking to your other friends, right? And everyone’s okay.”

  The phone rang and Kate’s face lit up. “Maybe that’s her,” she said, and went toward it.

  Ann fervently hoped so. She pulled the plug and watched the dirty water swirl away. Into a fresh soapy sinkful, she plunged jeans.

  “Mom,” Kate called, “it’s for you.”

  She heard the disappointment heavy in Kate’s voice. Sighing, she tugged off her gloves and hung them over the faucet. Her fingers ached. She curled them and pulled down the cuffs of her layered sweaters. Shazia sat folded into the armchair, staring out the window at who-knew-what, Maddie curled beside her, turning the pages of a book. She’d read it a dozen times. Now she was just looking at the pictures.

  “Mommy, can I color these?”

  Ann put a hand on Maddie’s head. “Let me think about it, okay?” She hated the thought of Maddie marking up her books.

  “You’re so spoiled,” Kate said to her sister. “Mom would never let me draw in my books.”

  “Leave me alone,” Maddie said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Leave me alone,” Kate said, mocking. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Maddie looked up at Ann, scowling. “Mommy,” she began, and Ann patted her head.

  “Ssh,” she said, and took the phone from Kate. Maybe it was Libby. She was still refusing to answer Ann’s calls, but Ann had caught glimpses of her through her kitchen windows. Libby never waved back, never ventured out onto the patio to talk.

  “Hello?” Ann said.

  Beth said, “Mom’s sick.”

  Ann sank onto the couch beside Kate, suddenly boneless. “With what?” she asked her sister. But she already knew. Shazia glanced over.

  “Stop it,” Beth said. “You know with what. GW and Sibley are full up, so I’m driving her to Charlottesville.”

  Charlottesville was over a hundred and fifty miles away from where her parents lived. All those hospital systems in the DC area, and yet they had to go all the way into the heart of Virginia? Ann started to ask why, then stopped. The implications were too worrisome. And Beth had enough on her hands now.

  “I have to hurry, Ann, but I wanted to let you know.”

  “How’s Dad?” she said, but Beth had already hung up.

  Kate had her chin to her chest, flipping her cell phone open and closed. Ann reached over and put an arm around her and squeezed her daughter close. Surprisingly, Kate allowed this. Ann breathed deep. It was Kate’s smell, with the underlying fruity fragrance of the perfume she still rubbed behind her ears every morning.

  Years ago when they’d been living in North Carolina, a storm had swept through one evening, coating tree branches, telephone wires, cars, sidewalks, and streets with ice. In the morning, she and Peter had strapped Kate onto a sled and pulled her around the block. Nothing moved, not smoke from a chimney, a car, a curtain, at their passing. The entire world, it seemed, had fallen into an enchanted sleep, suspended in crystal. They marveled at the laciness of tree branches, the way the sidewalk glittered as though made of crushed diamonds. They rounded a corner and discovered a huge fallen oak with its enormous root system exposed, pale and vulnerable. The layer of topsoil had been too thin to hold the shallow roots. All that week, more trees succumbed to the weight of the ice pulling them downward. There had been fender benders, a house fire from a snapped electrical wire, but the only real casualties of that storm had proven to be the elms and oaks of Greensboro.

  It had seemed like such a calamity then. Peter had grumbled about traffic being diverted around closed streets, but it had really just been an annoyance. Normalcy had soon reasserted itself. They had all known it. Everything would be fine soon. It was just a matter of time.

  Ann pressed her lips to her daughter’s temple and felt the pulse beneath the skin. Dear Kate, opening her bottle of perfume each morning and looking in the mirror.

  Someday her girls would tell their children that they lived through the Pandemic. With any luck, this would be just a memory for them, too.

  ————

  THERE WAS NO JOY IN FOLDING THESE THINGS. THE NAP WAS rough, the cloth unyielding, and here and there, a faint smokiness lingered. Ann flattened a sleeve, brought it over and made a rectangle. She set it in Peter’s basket. The jeans were the worst. The denim was so stiff that she weighed it down with books to force the fold and make a tidy square. This pair went into Kate’s basket.

  A gentle rattling told her the water had begun to boil. She glanced at the fireplace and saw steam rising from the pot at last. It’d taken almost an hour. It had been so much faster on the grill. The next time, they’d have to start the process earlier.

  “Peter,” she said, picking up the plastic bowl, “it’s ready. Shazia, would you put dinner on the fire now?”

  Shazia rose and walked into the kitchen, where the pot stood waiting. Spaghetti and meatballs. Their last can.

  Peter lifted the big pot from the flames and carried it up the stairs, water slopping up the sides and over. She worried that he’d burn himself, but he met her gaze, reading her mind, and smiled.

  “Girls,” Ann said, “we’re coming in.”

  Kate and Maddie stood in the bathroom in their bathrobes, looking equally mutinous. Peter stepped to the bathtub and emptied the pot to mix with the cold water already there. He gave Ann a nod and shut the door behind him.

  “Why can’t I have some privacy?” Kate snapped.

  Ann hated to deprive her of this, too. Kate had looked horrified when Ann had torn off four squares of toilet paper that morning and pressed it into her palm. Ann had stood outside the bathroom door and after the toilet flushed, opened the door and came in to measure out the dollop of liquid soap.

  “We can’t waste the hot water.” Ann dipped in two washcloths. The water was warm and gentle on her skin.

  “We have tons of water.”

  “But not tons of firewood. Come on, my little ones. You know how you love bathtime.” Ann rubbed the cloths in the bar of soap and squeezed to make suds. She sang, “Rubber ducky, you’re so fine …”

  Kate groaned. “Please, Mom. Stop. We’re not babies anymore.” But she untied her bathrobe and let it fall to the floor.

  “Don’t look.” Maddie tugged the belt of her robe.

  “As if.” Kate tugged off her socks.

  “You too, Mom.” Maddie was beginning to shiver.

  “I won’t,” Ann said, though it was impossible not to catch glimpses of her daughters’ pale, slender forms. She was shocked to see how skinny they both had become.

  It had been years since she’d seen either of her daughters naked. At least two since Maddie announced she was taking her showers by herself from now on, eight years for Kate. Ann couldn’t recall the last time Kate had stripped with abandon and stepped into the tub, her baby self focused on the bubbles and not the parent crouched watchfully beside her. Now Kate stood there shivering and hunched, her back to her sister and Ann, her arms crossed over her top and bottom. Kate was thirteen and a half, and she hadn�
��t menstruated yet. Her pediatrician had told them it could start any time now. Of course that was then.

  Ann handed a washcloth to Kate and ran the other cloth down Maddie’s back. Her shoulder blades protruded, her spine rounded bumps of bone. Now Maddie’s tummy, so flat, her hip bones little scoops.

  “Mom,” Maddie said, “are you looking?”

  “No.”

  Now Maddie’s arm, thin in Ann’s grasp, the knobby shoulder, the pointed elbow, the little vulnerable wrist. “Turn around,” she told Maddie. “No one’s looking.”

  She scrubbed one leg, then the other. Maddie’s skin was all gooseflesh, the downy hair golden.

  “I’m done,” Kate said, her teeth chattering. She climbed into the tub.

  Ann handed Maddie the washcloth. “Do your toes,” she said, then stood and dipped the bowl. She brought up a wave of water and poured it down one side of Kate, then the other.

  “My turn,” Maddie said. “Hurry. It’s getting dark.”

  Kate stepped out and wrapped herself into a towel.

  “Tomorrow, you two can wash in front of the fire,” Ann told them. “We’ll make sure Daddy and Shazia stay in the den. And maybe we can do your hair in the powder room sink.”

  “Yippee.” Kate stepped into her room and slammed the door.

  “I’m done,” Maddie said. “You can go now.”

  “Your clothes are on your bed,” Ann said.

  This was what she wouldn’t give up. Neatly folded clothes, warm baths for her children, their nightgowns waiting on their beds.

  On her way downstairs, she glanced through the window to the shifting colors of the sky. Streaks of orange and lavender along the dark horizon, weighed down by navy. When had she last stopped to watch the sun set? She’d always been so busy at this time of night. There had been after-school activities to shepherd the girls to and from, dinner to prepare while she caught up on the day’s worth of phone calls and emails, lunches to assemble for the next day, homework to supervise. Now there was nothing to buoy her, nothing to keep her from sinking into thought, and memory. Picking up a blanket from where it lay over the back of a kitchen chair, she slung it around her shoulders and went outside.

  Her skin felt taut with the cold, and she drew the wool tighter around her. But the chill felt good, welcome. A sharp reminder that she’d let down her guard. Again.

  The quiet slide of the door behind her released a burst of noise—the girls squabbling and Shazia’s low, interceding voice—then the door closed again to silence. Footsteps crunched toward her.

  “Mind some company?” Peter said, coming close but not touching.

  A narrow strip of salmon pulsed along the horizon, broken by the dark shapes of her neighbors’ houses. A delicate web of clouds floated above. Now only the barest shell pink remained above the spiky treetops, and higher still, a deep band of violet.

  “Beth hasn’t called.” It was a three-hour trip, and it had already been seven hours. Beth knew Ann would be watching the time. Beth knew Ann would want to hear the moment they’d arrived.

  “Maybe she’s not there yet.”

  “What can they do for Mom?”

  “Put her on a respirator. Give her antiviral medication.”

  If they had any. And maybe not even then. Her mom wasn’t in a category to merit special consideration. She wasn’t a first responder. She wasn’t a politician. She wasn’t a scientist working on a cure. She was just a retired schoolteacher. A nobody. Just like everyone else Ann loved.

  TWENTY-ONE

  PETER STEPPED OUT ONTO THE PATIO.

  Three days had passed since Beth had called. Ann had been phoning every hospital between DC and Charlottesville, with mixed results. Sometimes the phone rang endlessly; sometimes it was answered but no assurance given that Ann’s mother had checked in. Yesterday afternoon, she’d picked up the receiver to make another round of calls and had turned to Peter with an expression of mute horror. He’d grabbed the phone from her and pressed it to his ear, hearing for himself the dead silence on the other end. The dial tone had vanished, taking with it their sole remaining lifeline to the outside world.

  “Oh, Peter,” Ann had said, her voice hushed. “What will Kate do now?”

  Crusted snow squeaked beneath his boots. He took a few steps and leaned to look at the far window at the back of the house.

  Ann was doing laundry again. That was all she did these days, it seemed. She was keeping herself busy. It was a mindless task, yet she’d be so fiercely intent on it, measuring out the soap, dropping the clothes to bob in the sink, that she wouldn’t be looking out the window. Still, he checked the laundry room window, then the sliding glass door in case one of the girls was walking past, and finally the row of family room windows. The glass panes stared blankly back through a freckled film of frost and soot. No one stood behind them.

  A small grating noise made him glance toward the street: Kate, opening the mailbox for what had to be the tenth time that day. Of course, the box was empty. They’d have heard the irregular rumbling of a mail truck making its rounds. The sound would have galvanized them all. He saw her shoulders slump. Then she turned and trudged back to the house.

  When he was sure she was back inside, he stooped and reached beneath the stiff khaki of the grill cover. Dragging the bowl forward, he discovered it filled solid with ice. The water had frozen before the dog could get to it. But the second bowl had been licked clean. Peter crouched and scraped the insides of the cans he’d smuggled into the bowl, tapped the fork on the rim, and straightened. He checked the windows again. No one.

  A gust of wind whipped past, carrying the odor of smoke. Someone had their chimney going. He sniffed. Not wood smoke. This had a bitter tinge to it. He turned around and lifted his gaze. There, above a peaked roof, he saw a plume of black smoke bullying its way into the sky.

  The cans clattered to the patio pavers. He ran around to the garage, grasped the handle, and heaved the door, shuddering, upward. He plunged inside. The hose was around here somewhere.

  Ann appeared in the doorway, the cuffs of her sweater pushed up, soap bubbles clinging to her knuckles. “What is it?”

  “The Guarnieris’ house is on fire.”

  She went pale. “I’ll try the phone again.”

  He spied the garden hose lying in great loops on a back shelf. He yanked it free and raced across the street. Neighbors were collecting.

  Singh appeared. “Use mine.”

  They ran between the two houses. The reek of smoke grew dense. Singh threw himself to his knees to twist the hose onto the spigot and turn the handle. Peter stood back, gripping the nozzle, and stared aghast at the smoke billowing behind the windows. A pane snapped, then cracked. The flame was out, licking at the sill. Orange raced along the eave.

  Water sprayed from the nozzle, a pitiful stream useful for watering a lawn, useless to quell a conflagration. Still he aimed the hose at the roof. The water splattered against the siding and dripped down. He pressed a thumb to the nozzle to intensify the flow. Not good enough. They couldn’t wait. He thrust the hose to Singh and stepped forward to force his way inside.

  “Peter.” It was Ann. “No!”

  The front door was locked. The metal handle was hot. Peter lifted the heavy, dirt-filled flowerpot squatting beside the mat and heaved it at the window beside the door. He raised his foot and smacked his heel against the crazed glass. Crooking an elbow over his face, he reached through, fumbling for the lock. He found it, twisted it, withdrew his hand, and swept the door open. Smoke billowed around him. Blinded, coughing, he pushed forward. The heat shoved him back.

  Someone had his arm and was pulling, screaming at him. He stumbled down the steps and fell to his knees.

  Ann was beside him, wiping at his cheeks and forehead with her shirttail. She hissed, “What were you thinking?”

  He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Singh stood aiming the hose at the house. Other neighbors had their hoses going, standing far apart on opposite lawns, eyeing ea
ch other nervously as they soaked the roofs on either side. He looked back to the small brick house. Flames leaped in every window. The entire roof was ablaze. Helpless, he watched the fire engulf the front door. A timber on the porch collapsed in a shower of sparks.

  A gasp went up.

  He’d been standing there only moments before. He felt for Ann’s hand and squeezed it hard.

  A kind of hopeless frenzy filled the afternoon. Everyone ran around, yelling, aiming hoses, dumping buckets of water, smacking at errant sparks with brooms. But the flames were ravenous. They whooshed across the bricks and leaped to the bushes lining the front path, driving everyone back. The fire roared and hissed and sputtered, and finally subsided. All that remained was the eerie outline of a home, the doors and walls and windows still standing but the roof and floors gone, the interior burned down to ash and tall spectral things poking skyward that had once been pipes and beams. Al and Sue had never appeared. Maybe by some miracle they’d escaped unharmed. They could have gotten in their rental car late one night while everyone was sleeping and headed somewhere else, somewhere with fewer painful memories. But even as Peter had the thought, he dismissed it. He’d seen the hulking thing in what used to be the garage; he knew it was a four-door sedan with Nevada license plates.

  Dusk arrived. One by one, neighbors picked up their hoses and buckets and dispiritedly traipsed back to their dark houses. Peter came around the house and saw his daughters standing between Ann and Shazia on the sidewalk. His heart leaped at the reassuring sight of them.

  Maddie began jumping and waving. “Daddy!”

  His precious child, made so joyful by such an ordinary thing, her father appearing out of the gloom. He smiled tiredly at her. “Have you been standing there this whole time? You must be freezing.”

  “I’ve been looking and looking for you.”

  “I told her not to worry,” Ann said. “I told her there was no way you’d get too close.”