“In any case he and your mom was meant for each other like sparks and gunpowder. She was always treating him like the miscreant he was, something the others lacked the balls to do, and he behaved even worse in front of her just to get her attention. I do think they cared about each other on some level, but neither one would ever admit it to the other. Even once they was together, they tried to act like they weren’t, like making that choice was a discredit to them both. And maybe it was.
“Her family, they weren’t too fond of her decision either, being as your daddy had a reputation of being cracked in the head. She was still living at home and they did try to stop her from seeing him, but shortly after that her parents—your grandparents—was killed in a car accident. Your aunt had already gotten married and moved out over the way with her husband, so Lauren got the house and it wasn’t too long before he was shacking up with her, which didn’t go over too well with a lot of people. Your mother was supposed to be a civilized kind, what with her college degree. But your daddy . . . he just wasn’t.”
“What was wrong with him, specifically?” Lynn asked, now knowing if she wanted the answer.
“Nothing you could put your finger on, exactly. He was the kind of crazy that hid itself well, ’cept in the eyes. That’s where you can always see it, if you know how to look.”
“What’d he do that was so crazy?”
“Well, now, that’s the funny part, really. He’d seen some documentary about how we was running out of freshwater and the government was trying to keep it a secret, so as to avoid a panic. All over the globe, he said, people was running out of water and the news, they was putting a different spin on it, so we wouldn’t know what was going on. All the violence in third-world countries was over water, he said, but they kept telling us stories about tribal wars and religion to keep us distracted, and them poor countries didn’t have a way of telling people any different.
“Pretty soon, he claimed, the east would be going down. There was too many people over there and not enough water. Then we’d be next. He said the whole environmental movement had shit-all to do with caring about the planet and everything to do with people giving their money to green programs so that desalinization plants could be built for the rich people to survive the coming shortage. It got so bad with him talking about the freshwater shortage that people started avoiding him out of just plain annoyance along with the fear. Nobody took him serious until the Aswan Dam was blown up.”
“Mother told me about that.”
“It was a big deal,” Stebbs said. “That dam had always been a political problem for Egypt, but the rest of the world was always told it was about power, not water. Well, when the guerrilla group over there took it down, a lot of people over here sat up and took notice. Your daddy finally had an audience.
“He took a group of us up to the lake, Lake Erie, you know?”
Lynn nodded.
“He took us up there to show us this plant that had been built brand-new on the Canadian side to clean up the lake water. We rowed out in a boat, pretending to be fishing, and he pointed out there was armed guards all along that plant’s walls, and ‘what was a water purification plant doing with a private army holding M16s?’ he asked me.
“It was a good enough question, I thought, so once we came home, we started taking him serious. By then he’d knocked your mom up—uh, I mean, Lauren was pregnant with you—and the two of them weren’t getting on so well. She needed help at home, but he was all in love with the fact that he had men to lead. He kept saying that the regular army was too busy overseas, and when the time came it was up to militia like us to defend what was ours. Or, in the case of the lake, keep what he felt was Ohio’s away from Canada.
“In any case, as it turns out, the crazier he sounded, the closer to the truth he was. One morning, our taps had all been turned off, and we was told if we wanted water we’d have to go into town to buy it. Now, buying water was no new thing—we’d always had to pay for our water, unless you were lucky enough to have a well. But now the water companies was saying they couldn’t afford the upkeep of the water lines, and if you wanted it, you’d have to come and get it.
“That’s how the Shortage came to be, and it went from there. At first, you had to go into the nearest town with a utility office to get your water. Then pretty soon they said it was too much of a bother to keep those open. So if you wanted your water you had to come to the city to get it, and eventually they just said if you wanted water, you had to live in the city. People started leaving, piling into their cars and going to the city limits to pile on top of each other there. Those of us out here with wells or access to water stayed, and there were bad enough stories coming out of the cities after that to make us glad we did.”
“Like what?”
“The cholera, for one,” Stebbs said. “Pack all those people together, you’re bound to have sicknesses of some kind passing around. They forced a bunch of sick people out of the cities, I heard, but nothing can stop a burn like that once it gets going. Wasn’t just the cholera either. Every now and then, people would pass through here that your mother didn’t shoot and I’d learn a thing or two. Made it sound like the Black Death had come back again, nearly. But out here, with less people, the illnesses weren’t the worst. Out here we mostly just managed to be threats to each other.
“Not long after they drove the sick from the cities, your daddy and I, we had a falling-out. I tried to stop him from taking the men up to the lake to take that water plant by force. He said it’d be a proper war, fought by the militia like the first one in our country was. Enough of the men were on his side that I backed down. He had everybody eating out of his hand by then, and I wasn’t half certain that he didn’t have it in for me, seeing as he was always looking over his shoulder and wondering who was causing problems in his little kingdom. So I cut my losses, decided to set up on a little piece of land I owned that had a decent vein of water running under it.”
“Across the field,” Lynn said.
“That’s the place.”
“You just happened to be able to keep an eye on Mother from there?”
Stebbs shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, here’s the part I’m not so proud of, kiddo. Your dad, he said good-bye to your mom, even though her belly was as big as the world with you inside, and he took a bunch of the men up north to the lake, armed to the teeth. Not a one of ’em came back. Not long after I got set up, your mom came walking across that field, gun in one hand, your tiny body in the crook of the other elbow. She said she didn’t much see the point in me living in a shack when she had a whole house to offer, and two guns was better than one anyway.
“I could tell she had thought a lot about what she was going to say ahead of time, and made it all come out right so that it sounded like it would be the best thing for both of us, and not like she was asking for my help. I took one look at you, with your eyes so big they filled up most of your face, and your little bare feet so small it looked like they’d fall right through a crack in the ground, and I told her I didn’t need no more work than I already had and that responsibility for one was all I had left in me. Your mom, she walked away without asking twice, and I didn’t talk to her again until I stuck my foot in a trap.”
Stebbs swirled the now-cold coffee in his cup and threw the dregs in the fire, where they sputtered into steam. “I turned my back on her same as her family had done, and the same as your daddy did once there was work involved along with the play. Your mother raised you right, but she raised you hard, and I can’t help but think if I’d been around maybe you’d have some softer edges. Maybe you could’ve actually had a life, and not just survived if I’d been here. But here you are, and it seems you don’t need any help.”
Lynn snapped the stock back onto her rife. “Nope, I don’t.”
“So that’s why I give it elsewhere, I guess. Making amends.”
“I remember you being here, after your foot,” Lynn said. “I think I might’ve liked it, if you’
d stayed.”
“I think I might’ve liked that too,” Stebbs said quietly. “I tried, Lynn. I promise you I tried after I got hurt. I wanted that woman to see sense so bad. . . .” He trailed off, lost in memories made in the very room he was sitting in.
“So why not?” Lynn asked, her voice small. “Why couldn’t it happen?”
“She wouldn’t have me. It’d taken more out of her than I could’ve known to ask the first time, and when I shot her down I think it killed everything that was left in her but pride in herself and love for you. She wasn’t always a hard woman, you know. It’s what she became. You told me once not to speak of her unless you asked—”
“And I’m asking,” Lynn said.
“So I guess I’ll go ahead and tell you—don’t be making the same mistakes she did. Or hell, the ones I did either. Don’t be afraid to care for that little one, and don’t be too proud to let that boy know what you feel. Otherwise you might end up with neither of ’em.”
Lynn propped her rifle in the corner and tossed her own coffee onto the coals. “Seeing how it’s pretty late now, you might as well stay here, I guess.”
“That’s all you got to say after that?”
Lynn gave her rifle a last rubdown with a cloth, hands moving slowly while she thought out her sentence. “I don’t know that there’s anything to say. I can’t change the way Mother raised me.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to be more than she was. Be strong, and be good. Be loved, and be thankful for it. No regrets.”
Lynn sat quietly for a moment, watching the firelight flicker on her oiled rifle barrel.
“‘Yet am I changed; though still enough the same
In strength to bear what time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.’”
Stebbs watched her carefully. “That’s not you talking, I take it?”
“No, that’s Byron. Mother always said the winters are long, but poetry anthologies are longer.”
Stebbs shot a glance at the bookshelf, where some of the spines were thicker than his hand. “Ain’t that the truth. Your mother had something else she said—‘It is what it is.’”
A smile spread across Lynn’s face at the words, dissipating the sadness. “That’s familiar, all right.”
“You know well enough what it means, then?”
“Mother always said it when something happened that couldn’t be undone, like when I lost that bucket in the pond or broke a canning jar. Means you can’t change it.”
“Like the past. You can’t change the things you’ve done. It’s now and the here on out you’ve got control of.”
Lynn stood up, cracking her back. “All this talking is wearing me out, old man. You gonna stay or not?”
Stebbs got up and stretched as well. “I’ll stay, and thank you.”
Lynn nodded at him and crawled into bed beside Lucy, curling her body protectively around the little girl. “All right then, good night.” She left him to find his way to her cot by the stairs.
She felt tense with an extra body in the room. Stebbs drifted to sleep easily, and she found herself watching him by the waning light of the stove, tracing the fine lines of his face and the spiky grays of his hair, something she would never let him catch her doing while awake. Her affection and gratitude were too subtle and burned away under the harsh light of day. But in the familiar darkness of the basement she let her unspoken feelings pour out of her like water and hoped that somehow the flow would reach him while he slept, and he would know without her having to say. Not long after, the slow, steady breathing of the three filled the basement, in stark contrast to the wild whipping of the wind outside.
Fifteen
Winter came viciously. The snow fell in slanted sheets, sticking to the trees and rocks. Lynn would run outside to deliver more wood down through the basement window into Lucy’s expectant little hands and come back inside with a coating of ice on her hair. Weeks passed where they saw no one else, and Lynn would anxiously peer toward the stream to be reassured by the puffs of gray smoke that rose over the trees. Stebbs she could see through her binoculars, when the cold was bearable enough for her to look.
Lynn taught Lucy to play simple card games and they spent many hours making up their own. Lucy demanded a bath, and so Lynn brought in buckets of snow from outside to warm on the stove so that the little girl could have a sponge bath at least. She caved into the temptation herself and even washed her hair, something that Mother had always warned against during the winter, fearing that Lynn would catch cold. But they kept the fire burning brightly and Lucy would hum quietly while putting tiny braids in Lynn’s hair and fixing them up with little bows that she’d found among some dolls in the attic.
The little fingers eased through Lynn’s hair, coaxing her into a doze that she fought against. Even with the chance of attack at a minimum, she kept her handgun within reach at all times. Lucy hummed a little song while she played with Lynn’s long hair.
“Have you ever cut it?”
“Every now and then Mother would, usually just to sprinkle in the yard to scare off the coyotes. Not often.”
“I like it long.”
“Me too.”
Their conversation dwindled off and each fell into their own thoughts as the short daylight hours drifted past outside. Lynn watched Lucy making shadow puppets in the firelight and wondered how Neva was holding up. If not for the little girl, it would’ve been Lynn’s first winter alone, and she wasn’t sure how she would have handled it. The long hours of the night could not all be filled with sleep, and the companionship of another was the only thing to alleviate boredom. But Neva had Eli, and Lynn quickly chased the question away of how they might be filling their hours together.
Her heart rejected her mind’s attempts to control her emotions, and she tossed without sleep for a long time in the dark. Lucy’s rhythmic breathing rose and fell, but the little girl’s peace didn’t extend across the room. Lynn tossed a few times before slipping her coat on and heading up the steps. At least on the roof she would be forced to be alert, and her mind couldn’t wander places she didn’t want it going.
The next day dawned cold but clear. For the first time in a while there was a cloudless sky and the sun warmed the air enough for it to be bearable.
“Would you like to go outside?” Lynn asked Lucy.
Lucy bounced off her cot and dressed in layers in a second, eager to be out of the basement. Her thoughts were contagious; they had not been outside long when Lucy shouted up to the roof for Lynn and she saw Eli making his way through the snowdrifts toward them. The snow was sticking, bunching to his clothes in every place that came in contact with a flake, but he kept coming. Lynn climbed down from the roof and walked out with Lucy to greet their visitor.
“Hey, little lady,” Eli cried out when Lucy jumped into his arms. “You’ve gotten big!”
“Lynn says I’m growing,” Lucy said proudly. “She’s been checking my height on the wall, and I’ve grown an inch and a half. Do you know what an inch is?”
“I do,” Eli said seriously. “That’s good work.”
“Hey, I want to show you something, c’mon!” Lucy bounded away from them over the drifts toward the corner of the house where she’d begun a collection of bird nests that had been blown from the trees during the fall. Lynn and Eli followed slowly, pushing their way through the heavy snow that went past their knees at times.
“How are you?” Eli asked.
“We’re okay, we’ve got plenty of wood and food stored up. Water too.”
“I meant, like, how are you? How’s your day?”
Lynn’s brow furrowed. “Well enough, I guess. I’m happy that we’ve got food to eat and wood to burn.”
Eli shook his head and smothered a smile. “It’s okay that I came, right?”
“Of course it is. You haven’t seen Lucy since you handed her off to me, and she’s family.”
“I came to see you too, you know.”
“Well, I’m here,” Lynn said, not able to find any other words.
Eli sighed and stopped walking, but Lynn kept struggling through the snow.
“Hey,” he called after her.
“What?” Lynn turned and was hit directly in the face by a snowball.
“That’s what.”
Lynn sputtered as the snow on her face melted and ran in icy rivulets down her neck, finding no words for her surprise.
“Snowball fight! Awesome!!” Lucy came flying at Lynn and knocked her flat on her face in a drift, shaking what was left of her composure completely. She grabbed the little girl by the ankles and pulled her up into the air, tossing her headlong into a drift. Lucy emerged, soaked and laughing, with a freshly rolled snowball in each hand and revenge on her mind.
Lynn ducked the first one, but the second hit her square in the chest. She ignored it and began rolling her own arsenal until Eli knocked her on her side and hijacked her stash, pelting her with her own weapons at close range. She yelped and took out his ankles. Lucy landed on both of them with enough force to knock the breath out of them all. They laid in a breathless heap for a solid minute, soaked and laughing.
“Never thought I’d see one of them in your yard,” Stebbs said when he arrived later, motioning toward the snowman standing guard by the wood cord.
Lynn pushed her hair out of her face and shrugged. “Lucy wanted to, and I thought maybe if I put a coat on it, somebody looking might think there was a person standing out there, keeping watch.”
“I suppose the carrot sticking out of his face was a tactical decision too?”
“I got a well-stocked root cellar, and that one was not looking great. So don’t start thinking I’m as sentimental as you.” Lynn delivered a punch to his arm hard enough to penetrate the layers and make Stebbs wince.
“Easy, tiger, don’t go beating on the old man.”
“The old man needs to hold his tongue.”
Not a Drop to Drink Page 14
