Ann glanced at Maddie sitting transfixed before the television set. She looked content. In a little while, Ann would roust her and suggest that she email Hannah.
The delicious aroma of coffee warmed the room. Ann couldn’t wait for the coffeemaker to finish brewing. She pulled out the pot, poured an inch into her mug, and sipped. Weak—she’d been sparing with the grounds—but definitely coffee. She took another sip. The house was beginning to fill with heat. She could feel her muscles relax. She’d had no idea she’d been holding herself so stiffly.
Her gaze fell to the floor. In the brightness of the overhead light, she could now clearly see the scuffed brown footprints and the streaks of soot along the walls. Everything needed a good scrubbing.
The washer beeped, signaling the end of the cycle. She pulled long, sopping nylon sleeping bags out of the washer and forced them into the dryer. Now a load of towels. She mopped the floor. As soon as she was done, she was going to scrub her hair and blow it dry. The house hummed with busy noise. She hadn’t realized how muted her world had grown.
On her way through the kitchen, she picked up her cell phone from the counter. The tiny lighthouse swept its beacon from side to side. Still no connection. The towers must be out.
The coffeemaker wheezed behind her. She filled two mugs, made a cup of tea, and carried them into the den. “Anything more on the vaccine?”
“Thanks,” Peter said as she set his mug down on the desk. “I’ve emailed people at Hopkins and Harvard, but I haven’t heard back yet.”
Shazia was typing, her gaze on the laptop screen. Had Peter convinced her to stay? Ann would have to find an oblique way to encourage her to start taking multivitamins. There was a bottle in the cabinet. Not prenatal vitamins, of course, but they were better than nothing.
She put down the mug of tea. “Here you go, Shazia. It’s decaf.” Shazia moved the mouse and the MapQuest image slid away.
“Thank you.”
Peter lifted his mug and sipped. “I sent Mike a message, but Mom’s nursing home is offline. And I can’t get through to the bank.”
The last time Ann had talked to her sister-in-law had been three weeks before. Bonni had said Mike was okay, just out of range. Whatever that meant.
It wasn’t too alarming about the nursing home. They probably had more important things on their hands right now than checking their email. But the bank was another story. “Do you think they’re shut down?”
“I don’t know. I keep trying to access our accounts, but the system’s frozen. I have to keep rebooting.”
“Maybe too many people are trying to get in.”
“That’s got to be it.”
Shazia still hadn’t reached for her mug. “Everything okay?” Ann said.
“I don’t know.” Shazia sounded confused. “There’s a note here from my cousin. She says my parents didn’t make it to my brother’s.” Peter lowered his mug. “And my nephew is sick.”
“Oh, Shazia,” Ann said.
“But that was a week ago. I don’t know anything more.” She reached for her cup. “There’s a message from Harold.”
The name sounded familiar, one of Peter’s students Shazia had mentioned the other day. Ann glanced at Peter, who was looking interested.
“Floyd?” he said.
Shazia nodded. “He’s been on a farm. He’s learning how to milk a cow.” She smiled. “Can you picture it?”
A farm. That would have been a good place to stay. Fields of food, milk, no one around for miles.
Ann went to pull out armfuls of heated sleeping bags from the dryer. She dumped them on the family room floor. “You two spread these out to finish drying, okay? I’m going to put the towels in now.”
Slowly, both girls moved toward the pile.
Ann was making her bed when she heard the baby fussing downstairs. She went out to the landing and called down, “Is Jacob okay?”
“Yeah,” Kate called back. “Have you checked his diaper?”
“Ew.”
“Don’t forget your showers.”
The house was so toasty. She was going barefoot, digging her toes into the plush of the carpet. She folded clothing, fragrant and still warm from the dryer. She took Shazia’s things and laid them on her bed. At some point Shazia would be unable to wear her regular size. They could sew inserts into some of her looser pants. Shazia could wear Peter’s shirts.
Ann placed the last of Kate’s jeans in the dresser and pushed the drawer closed. Everything in the house had been scoured clean. She’d heard the girls troop up the stairs for their showers and heard them go back down again. Now it was her turn.
She came out into the hall and heard the baby crying fitfully. “Girls, what’s going on down there?”
“We don’t know,” Maddie called back.
He was probably hungry.
Maddie sat on the floor of the family room, trying to hold Jacob on her lap. She had his toys spread out in front of him, but he kept batting her hands away and sobbing.
Kate was at the kitchen table, tapping at her laptop.
“Give him his pacifier, Maddie, and I’ll heat up a bottle. Guess what, Jacob? You get warm milk today.” She opened cabinets. Where had Peter put the baby’s stuff? Not in the cabinet. There was nothing in the pantry. The counters were bare. She frowned. “Kate, where’s the formula?”
“I don’t know.”
Here were two solitary jars of baby food but no tall cans of formula.
She lifted the baby from Maddie. Walking with him to the den, she halted in the doorway. “Peter, where’s the formula?”
He stood staring down at a paper in his hand. “In the pantry.”
“Oh,” Shazia said. “I used the last of a can this morning.”
The baby was arching in Ann’s arms, wailing. Peter was focused on what he was reading. He needed to stop paying attention to whatever he was doing and start worrying about what was going on right here, right now. “Peter,” she said sharply.
He glanced up. His face was blank.
“Jacob’s hungry.”
He blinked, then frowned.
So there wasn’t any more formula. The look on Peter’s face told her he’d just realized it, too.
THIRTY-THREE
WHAT ABOUT POWDERED MILK?” PETER SAID. Ann shook her head. “There are only two jars of baby food. After that, it’s sugar water.”
Jacob rubbed his face against her shoulder. Ann patted his back and murmured in his ear.
Peter folded the paper in his hand and tucked it into his pocket. He’d find a way to tell Ann about its contents later, when they could grab a few quiet minutes alone. He went to the den window. The rain was slashing down. “Do you think they have any more?” Ann came up to stand behind him.
The porch light next door burned through the mist. There was a faint glow from an upstairs window.
“The lights are on,” Peter said.
“They came on with the power,” Ann said.
They looked at each other. Of course. “The stores are probably open,” Peter said, deciding.
“Do you really think so?”
“I’ll go check.”
Ann nodded and stepped back, biting her lower lip, holding the baby and bouncing him. “We need baby food, too.”
“Got it.” He shrugged on his coat. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
————
A LONG LINE OF PEOPLE STOOD AGAINST THE WALL. BEHIND them, light shone around the planks of plywood nailed here and there across the windows. The store was open.
Peter found an empty spot along the back, then got out of the truck and hurried through the cold drizzle.
Two men stood at the store entrance, arms crossed. Men and women, some children, huddled in their coats and hooded jackets, like moths drawn by the light. Many of them wore masks. No one looked at him. It felt strange to see a crowd, especially one that was so quiet. Peter pulled up his mask and joined them.
“Do they still have anything in there?�
�� he said to the woman in front of him.
She turned. She was round and dark-skinned, with a red bandanna stretched across her nose and mouth. The only thing that was doing was keeping her face warm. Above the fold of cloth, Peter saw her eyebrows pinch together in a frown.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m out here, aren’t I?”
He tried to see around the lengths of wood fitted across the glass. Was there enough of everything in there for all these people out here? He looked back to the line. There had to be at least sixty people in front of him. “How come we’re not moving?”
“They’re letting people in five at a time. I been waiting an hour already.” She crossed her arms as if to say, Don’t even think about butting in front of me.
Time passed. People drifted into place behind him. Peter stamped his feet to keep warm. The rain drilled the awning overhead, splashed onto the pavement. It stopped, then started again.
Down the line, there was a raised voice, then some shouting and pushing. The people in front of him hurriedly edged back. Someone stumbled to the curb and the line reassembled.
“What was that about?” Peter said.
The woman in front of him didn’t answer.
He leaned back against the wall. Another eighteen minutes crawled by. At this rate, it’d be dawn before it was Peter’s turn. They might be out of everything by then. The store door opened. The line straightened, then arced as people at the end moved out to see what was going on.
Out came a woman, pushing a shopping cart in front of her. A man walked beside her, hand on her elbow. Plastic bags sat heaped in her cart. Peter strained to see what they held. There were some long, narrow boxes of what could be pasta. A fat jug of water. Maybe a loaf of bread balanced on top, baked somewhere where there were still ovens that worked. The line shuffled forward.
Peter leaned out of line and called to the man holding the door. “Excuse me.” It came out muffled, so Peter pulled down his mask.
“Sir.”
The man stopped and looked down the line. He had the name of the store and the word Manager embroidered in red over his pocket. He also had a nasty black eye.
“Can you tell me if you have any baby food?” Peter said.
“Wait your turn.”
“But you do have formula?”
“Get back in line, sir.”
The other man had returned from walking the woman to her car. He shook out the umbrella in his hand, then walked over to the manager. The two of them went back into the store, leaving the first two outside guarding the door. Peter shoved his hands into his pockets. This place couldn’t be the only option. He thought about Jacob squirming in Ann’s arms, crying with hunger. How long could he wait for food? Now that the power was on, maybe other stores had opened up, too. He pulled his car keys from his pocket and stepped out of line.
PETER PEERED THROUGH THE SLANTING RAIN, WATCHING FOR a lighted storefront. He slowed at one, saw that it was a liquor store, and drove on. Here was a gas station awash in activity. Cars were lined up for the fuel pumps, going all the way to the road. That little store wouldn’t carry anything but cigarettes and snack foods, anyway.
The drugstore where they got their prescriptions sat in darkness.
There were lights on at the next intersection. Peter turned into the lot jammed with parked cars. He came to the end of an aisle and saw the crowd mobbing the door. He rolled down his window. Rain splattered in with the noise of their shouting. Glass shattered and a siren shrieked.
He took the highway. He turned the wipers on high and fiddled with the buttons on the radio dial. Maybe the radio had come back on with the power. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then a blip of sound surprised him and he skipped back. The music came through, a song from his teenage years. He hadn’t liked it all that much then, but now it sounded fantastic. He hummed along.
Here was the exit for the small plaza where he got his hair trimmed. A fast-food restaurant, a dry cleaner, and yes, some sort of mom-and-pop place. He’d noticed it as he’d walked past on his way to the barber’s. There were always hand-lettered signs taped to the windows offering deals on shampoo or cheese curls. There weren’t any cars out front.
A bell chimed as he stepped into the store. A man stood behind the cash register. A white mask covered his lower jaw. “Good evening.”
Peter smiled back, stamped the water from his shoes, and brushed it from his sleeves. “Glad to see you’re open.”
“You looking for anything in particular?”
“Baby food.”
“Aisle three.”
There was music playing. It sounded like the same station Peter had been listening to in the car. Peter pulled a cart from the line by the door and headed down the aisles. Here was the baby section, and there was plenty of formula. The cans stood in rows, powdered and liquid. He scanned the shelves and recognized a yellow label. He reached for several cans and piled them into his cart. Jars of strained peas, applesauce, pears, squash, green beans, a couple boxes of baby cereal.
He turned into the next aisle. Diapers. What size? The packages were labeled. Stage 1, Stage 2. He couldn’t decipher what those meant. Crawlers, Walkers. Okay, these made better sense, but where was the one for a baby who could only sit up and roll over?
He pulled one from the shelf, turned it around in his hands. Ah, it went according to weight. How to estimate Jacob’s weight? He tried to think of how much babies weighed at birth. Seven pounds? Ann would shake her head at his ignorance. Boys were probably bigger. So, say eight pounds. He’d told Shazia that Jacob was six months old. Babies probably doubled their weight by that point. Did Jacob have the feel of a sixteen-pounder? He held his arm crooked around an imaginary baby. No. More than that. Jacob had to weigh closer to a turkey. Say twenty pounds.
He reached out and selected two of the blue packs.
He turned into the food aisle. Everything looked good. He put whatever he could think of into the cart. Beef jerky. Crackers. Tuna. A bag of chocolate bars. Maddie loved potato chips. Ann didn’t like them in the house, but that was then. He set a big bag on top of everything else. Kate was fond of grape jelly. He put in a jar of that, too. Ah. Coffee.
The pet aisle was up next. Adult, midsized breed. He lugged a big bag of kibble onto the bottom of the cart, went up to the register, and began placing things on the counter.
“Find everything?” the clerk said. He held a scanner to each item, set each can into a plastic bag.
“And then some.”
“Big storm we had.”
“I’ll say. Good to have the power back on.” A nice, normal conversation, nothing doom-and-gloom about it. Inside this warm, bright place, Peter could pretend it was an evening like any other and he was just stopping by to pick up a few things on his way home. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “How much do I owe you?”
The clerk punched a button. “That’ll be three hundred and eighty-two dollars and fifty-nine cents.”
Surely he’d heard that wrong. Peter glanced down at the digital display and saw the line of glowing numerals. “Three hundred and eighty-two dollars?” he repeated dumbly. “How did it get to be so much?”
The clerk put a hand on one of the bags. “Let’s see. Tuna’s nine bucks.”
“Nine bucks?”
The guy shrugged. “Prices have gone up a little. I don’t know when I’ll get my next delivery.”
“Right.” Still, nine bucks for a can of tuna. He couldn’t even imagine what the coffee was going for. “All right, forget the tuna. How about I just take the baby food and the diapers?” He’d take them home to Ann and Jacob, then come back out and try their regular store for more groceries. A big chain like that wouldn’t do something like this. “How much is that?”
The man sighed heavily. Reaching into one of the bags, he pulled out a canister of formula and scanned it. “Thirty-five dollars.”
“Thirty-five dollars?” Peter took the canister from the guy’s hand and turned it around to see
the small label affixed to one side. “But this says twenty-one.”
The man took the formula back. “Like I told you, prices have gone up a little.”
Peter could accept some fudging with the numbers in these circumstances, but this was outright gouging. “Gone up a lot, more like.”
The man’s expression darkened. Without a word, he pulled out a can of tuna, lifted the scanner to it, and pushed a button on the register. The numbers on the register flickered.
“All right.” No use arguing with the guy. “I’ll take it.” He slid a credit card from his wallet and held it out.
The man shook his head, pulled out another can and scanned it. “Cash only.” He turned and set the can behind him.
“I don’t have that kind of cash on me.” The bank website had been frozen all afternoon. The ATMs weren’t up and running, either. “I’ll write you a check.”
“No checks. No credit cards. Cash.” The man scanned a box of macaroni and cheese.
Peter watched with a sinking feeling. The girls loved that stuff. He looked into his wallet and fingered the bills. “Look. I’ve only got sixty dollars on me. Would you give me two cans of formula for that?”
“I told you. Formula’s fifty bucks.”
“You said thirty-five.”
A shrug. “Now it’s fifty.”
The man was making some kind of point. Peter had offended him. He’d crossed some invisible line. “Fine.” Peter worked at keeping the anger from his voice. “I’ll take one can of formula and whatever jars of baby food you’ll give me for sixty.”
“I changed my mind. Nothing’s for sale.”
Peter stared at the man, but he refused to look up.
Two jars of baby food, Ann had said. After that, they’d have to feed the baby sugar water.
“We’re talking about a baby,” Peter said, biting off each word. “We’ve run out of food. He’s going to starve. Don’t you get it?”
The man shook out a now-empty bag, pressed it back into its original folds, and placed it beneath the counter.
Peter stared blankly at him. “You’re crazy.”
The man halted. He put his hands flat on the counter and leaned over. Fiftysomething, dark wavy hair, cheeks plumped up over the white of his mask. Evidently, he hadn’t been missing any meals.
The Things That Keep Us Here Page 25
