The Divide

by Jolina Petersheim

  Sal nods immediately, but I pause, knowing I can’t return to the militia until the risk of contaminating my men is past. However, I could never just walk away, knowing what’s inside. I nod as well, and Charlie steps to the right to let Sal and me move past him.

  Placed in a circular pattern, thirty yards apart, the cabins appear like the set of a play, even down to the clotheslines strung between them that seem more for decoration than everyday use. Someone—possibly Charlie—recently attempted to shovel a pathway between the cabins, but the snow is packed so high outside the last five doors, it seems those families haven’t gotten out for days. The community itself is so devoid of people, I would think it deserted if I couldn’t see a pair of boots leaning against the door outside one of the shoveled cabins. No one would leave boots behind. Sal asks Charlie, “Where’s the Ebersoles’ cabin?”

  Charlie points to the cabin next to the one with the boots. “But Colton’s not staying there,” he says. “He’s staying with the Zimmermans because Eunice is so bad.”

  Frowning slightly, Sal says, “Which one’s theirs?”

  Charlie points that cabin out as well, and Sal walks toward it. She knocks and the door opens, revealing a sallow thread of a woman in a drab brown dress. A few seconds pass, and the woman extends her arm, inviting Sal inside. I stare at the door after Sal closes it between us and I hear the rudimentary latch slide into place.

  Not sure where to go, since Charlie’s disappeared too, I stand on the platform tucked inside that circus ring of cabins, waiting the same as Sal and I waited outside the gate. The wind rocks a wooden bucket on a rope suspended above a well, the fibers binding the rope creaking against the strain. A sloe-eyed Guernsey bellows in the paddock beside the barn. Her protruding hip bones make her look far too scrawny to produce milk. The barn seems solid, even though I’m sure the men had neither the materials they needed nor the time to construct it well.

  Then Jabil appears, coming out of the Ebersoles’ cabin, and a cold bolt of jealousy runs me through. He walks toward the well, a spring they dug out, its rim stacked with rocks. The top is layered with boards to keep dirt and animals from tainting the water. His plodding steps hesitate when he sees me standing on the platform, but I can’t read his expression since it’s hidden by his wool hat—a warmer version of the straw one he used to wear. He lifts the gloved hand not holding the bucket. “I had a feeling you might show up,” he says. It doesn’t sound like it was a good one. From the bucket, Jabil lifts a large rock tied with a rope and tosses it into the spring. The thin plate of ice covering the water cracks. Jabil hauls up the rock and lowers the bucket. It returns, water darkening the wood and sloshing over the rim.

  Without looking at me, he says, “Eunice is dying, Moses.”

  I wince, though I already knew. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks.” He nods. “But I’m not the one who’s taking it hard.”

  Concern makes it difficult to speak. “Leora and Seth—are . . . they okay?”

  “Not really. It’s a good thing Anna doesn’t understand.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Jabil studies me a moment, his eyes scanning my face. I see a resignation in his own that I don’t understand. “Yes.” His grip tightens on the bucket. “Come with me.”

  Leora

  I CAN SEE ANOTHER MAN standing in the filament of light visible between Jabil’s body and the doorframe. Straightening, I squint but can’t make out the man’s features due to the distance and the gloom. But the atmosphere of the room changes as tangibly as the pressure drops before a storm. My body responds to this unseen shift. The hair rises on my arms, and sweat breaks out on my skin beneath the many layers I’m wearing to help insulate myself against cold. Jabil steps into the room and sets the bucket of water on the table. The other man steps in behind him, and I perceive that it’s him: Moses. Looking down, I take a breath, desperately trying to maintain control. Everyone but Grossmammi is watching me, even Anna.

  Tell me, what are you supposed to say or do when you come face-to-face with someone you love—or have loved—but never thought you would meet again? I lift my gaze to Moses’s. “How are you?” I ask. “It’s been a long time.”

  Words are insufficient, but they are all I have. All we have. I want to embrace him, and strike him, and kiss him as hard as I kissed him that night in front of the fire. I can do nothing. I can say nothing but parlor talk to this man who saved our community and then broke my heart by not coming back—by not returning to me as he promised he would.

  Moses clears his throat. The room is silent except for Grossmammi’s unending death rattle: a composition that unpredictably crescendos and decrescendos, like the classical music our driver, Ronnie, used to listen to when he would take us into town.

  “I’m doing well,” he says. “Thank you, Leora.” He pauses and stares at his boots, a puddle of melted snow pooling around them, which will turn our earthen floor to mud. I am calloused, I find, as I mutely rejoice in his discomfort, but I know enough to realize it cannot be a balm for mine. “I am sorry not to find you under better circumstances,” he adds.

  I reply, “She will soon be at peace,” and reach for my grandmother’s hand.

  Her skin is cold, and growing bluer by the hour, as her failing body uses the last of its energy. I glance up, looking over at Moses and Jabil, and marvel at the difference between my grandmother and me: my twenty-year-old body is at the peak of its performance; however, the heart within me is so full of disappointment and sorrow that it already feels dead. Will it—will I—ever find peace?

  Just as I never knew how much responsibility my brother assumed until he left, I also never knew how much security I found in my grandmother until she died. For hours after she seamlessly slipped from one life to the next, I sit up beside her and cry while watching my brother and sister sleep. They look young and beautifully naive in the firelight. I see that Seth tucked the dividing sheet behind his headboard, so I wouldn’t feel alone as I kept watch. This display of thoughtfulness makes me weep harder. He and I haven’t had the chance to talk about what happened on the mountain, nor about his experience among the militia in Kalispell, but I have been observing him. All day, Seth tended our grandmother’s dire physical needs with a sensitivity that took my breath. Or, rather, let me catch my breath for the first time in a week.

  Wiping my face, I rise from the mattress and pull the bedsheet over my grandmother’s body, that single gesture seeming to confirm her demise even more than the moment her pulse slowed beneath my hand. I move into the kitchen and open one of the drawers in the rustic cupboard Jabil made. Feeling along the back, my fingers touch the edge of the dead soldier’s identification card. I pull it out and angle the picture to best catch the light. His swarthy features haunt me, as does the horrific comparison of what he must look like now. Every day, I do this; every day, I force myself to face what I have done, though I surely don’t need to keep the card as part of my penance, for—wanted or not—his shocked expression will forever remain.

  Returning the card to the drawer, I push the wooden utensil divider to the back, pinning the card into place. I pull my worn sweater off the back of the kitchen chair and spread it across the floor in front of the fire. Lying down on top of the meager padding, I curl my body toward the heat in an effort to thaw the foreboding that has crept over my spirit regarding so many things. Most of all, though, is the harsh reality that Seth may be growing up, but Anna never will. How am I supposed to care for her on my own? Yes, the community has been good to my family, and will continue to be, as long as it’s possible for them to do so. And yet the members of our community are barely able to care for those beneath their own roofs. I cannot blame them for their partiality. If the situation were in my hands, I would likewise lean toward helping the ones who share my blood.

  Someone rests a hand on my shoulder. I awaken, trapped in that fluid amalgam between dreaming and consciousness. Turning from my right hip to my back, I look
up. Brown eyes instead of Moses’s blue, dark hair instead of blond, a scar cleaving the smooth, square chin, as if dividing into hemispheres the unsmiling face. Jabil. I immediately sit up from the damp floor, where I somehow slept all night, and his calloused fingers pull away.

  “I came to check on you,” he says. “Seth let me in.”

  Mortified, I look at the table, where my brother and sister are sitting at breakfast. I glance over at the bed. The sheet is still covering Grossmammi’s body. “I—I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  “It’s okay,” Jabil soothes. “I see that it’s over now. You can rest.”

  Pain blocks my throat. I stare at the gray coals of the fire pit. “How are we going to bury everybody?” I ask. “There are too many. The ground’s too hard.”

  “We’re looking into it,” he says. “I don’t want you to worry.”

  “But—” I lower my voice and Jabil leans down, innately sensing my need for Seth and Anna not to overhear—“what am I supposed to do until we figure it out?”

  His jaw throbs. I can tell he’s as unsettled as I am. “Charlie found a cave when he was trapping.”

  At my shocked expression, he looks to the side.

  “I’m sorry, Jabil. It’s just so—”

  “Philistine? Barbaric?” he interrupts. “I know that. But the deceased are being stored in the barn right now, as your grandmother will be. Is that truly any better? The cave is the only solution, Leora. My uncle and I have been going over this for days.”

  “What about Deacon Good? Have you asked him?”

  Jabil flinches at the name.

  “Don’t tell me,” I say. “He passed away too?”

  “No,” he replies. “But he’s not well. Deacon Good must’ve caught it caring for his son.”

  “Then how come I’m not sick? How come you’re not sick? We’ve all been exposed. Why does the illness pick and choose who it’s going to cut down?” Tears spill from my eyes. I wipe them with my palms, but more tears immediately replace them. In my anger, I forgot to moderate the tone of my voice. I glance over at my sister and brother. Seth has reached across the table to try to soothe Anna’s stimming hands.

  Jabil lifts his shoulder in a gesture of incomprehension. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know why this’s happened, but we’ve got to get through it.” He pauses, crouching, and lifts my chin until my panicked gaze meets his. “We have no other choice, Leora. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. But it will get better,” he promises. “The winter will pass and spring will come, and we will have an entire season to get prepared.”

  “‘To get prepared’!” I cry. “Do you even hear yourself? We wait all year for spring and summer, but we spend spring and summer just hoping we can store up enough food to get through until the harvest season comes again.”

  “That is our life now!” Jabil says. “Do you hear me, Leora?” He rocks my shoulders firmly in his hands. “That is our life. But it will be a good one; it will possibly even be a better one because we will never take it for granted.”

  I lean forward, pressing my wet face against his wool coat, which never fully dries. Shifting his body, he puts an arm around my waist, scooping me and the sweater up from the hearth. I curl my arm around his neck while acutely aware of how filthy I am, since I haven’t had the chance to bathe while caring for Grossmammi. He adjusts his grip—his fingers poised on the piano keys of my ribs—and walks toward my bed.

  Over his shoulder, I see Seth and Anna watching us, their eyes wide. I want to go to them. I want to tell them it’s all going to be all right. But despite Jabil’s declaration of hope, I don’t know anything. Jabil’s heart thrums against my side, the beat a reverberation of my own. He lays me on the bed and pulls the quilts over my body. Our eyes meet, and even after everything that’s happened, I can see the glimmer of desire in his. I look away to hide my fear.

  He asks into the silence, “Do you love him?”

  His frankness stuns. “I don’t know,” I murmur, picking at the quilt. It is the truth.

  Jabil tucks the blanket around my legs, entrapping the warmth. “I’m going to give you all the space you need. But I’m staying right here.” He pauses. “Because Moses is not the type who does.”

  Moses

  Two days after the death of Grossmammi Eunice, Deacon Good dies from the same disease.

  Grossmammi’s death was heartbreaking. But she was ninety years old. At forty-five, Deacon Good was considered, in the old world, a man still in his prime. He also left behind a wife and their brood of children, half of whom are too young to know they are now fatherless.

  With his death, the community can no longer dismiss this mysterious flu as something that only kills young children and the elderly.

  Bishop Lowell stands on the platform. His face has been pared of all excess flesh, making his cheekbones knobby and eyes sunken, so I can nearly see the definition of his skull. “Thank you for coming today,” he begins. “We have tried to avoid a group meeting, to keep those who are ill from infecting everyone else. But it seems we have moved beyond that cautionary measure, so we will have to enforce a new one.” He pauses. “We are quarantined. No one can leave without a written pass.” He looks to the side and takes off his black hat. “But we have neither pencils nor paper.” His smile is as thin as his hair. “So you can only leave with verbal permission, which will be given by me or . . .” He looks out at the community to the two deacons who are so pointedly avoiding his gaze. He turns from them to Jabil, who nods, that single motion placing him in Deacon Good’s shoes. Donning his hat, the bishop clears his throat. “Or it will be given by Jabil.” He stops speaking, his bloodshot eyes beseeching his nephew. “Could you tell them about our burial plans?”

  Jabil steps onto the platform and concisely explains that this morning he and a few men were planning to use sleds to transport the deceased to a nearby cave, but those plans have been postponed until tomorrow so that Hannah Good and her children have time to prepare Deacon Good’s body and, more importantly, to grieve.

  At this news, Esther Martin—who has been inconsolable since losing her infant daughter, Claudia—begins to weep. Leora puts an arm around the woman’s frail body, but I notice she is crying too. She leans close to Esther Martin’s ear and asks something. Esther nods. Leora addresses the bishop, “Will there still be a service?”

  “Of course,” Bishop Lowell says. “But we will have a service here, before the men depart, so that everyone can attend. The journey to the cave is long and difficult.”

  Benuel Martin, Esther’s husband, asks with an edge to his voice, “And what if someone else dies tomorrow, how long are we going to postpone the burial then?”

  Jabil glances at his uncle, who wearily lifts a consenting hand. “This is a very trying situation,” Jabil says to the grieving father, and then turns his attention back to the group. “For everyone involved. I understand that you all have been waiting to bury your loved ones, and I understand that this waiting period has been agonizing for you.” He pauses and looks down, then reaches up and presses the bridge of his nose. “These are unprecedented times. There is no rule book, no Ordnung, no hierarchy of bishops to tell us how to proceed, so we will need your grace—and your patience—as my uncle and I try to navigate these uncharted waters.”

  Soon afterward, the community disperses. The Goods’ cabin is silent as I pass; there is no mournful dirge resounding from the poorly insulated space, though I suspect that if Hannah Good could set aside her duties as a single mother and open the floodgate of her emotions, the young widow would mourn her husband the way he deserves.

  But nobody is receiving what they deserve.

  I find Sal standing by the Zimmermans’ cabin—two over from the Goods’—with Colton on her hip. The child is snotty-nosed but happy and red-cheeked, cuddled against his mother as if no time’s been lost. Smiling, I walk toward her. “Looks like someone’s glad to have you back.”

  She k
isses the top of his capped head and then glares around the community. “I thought it’d be better for him up here. I thought Leora would keep him safe.”

  “Hey, now.” I reach out and touch Sal’s shoulder. “She did the best she could.”

  “Well,” she says, “it wasn’t good enough. I wouldn’t have even known about the flu if you hadn’t come for me. I mean, Colton . . . he could’ve . . .” She covers her face with a dirty hand. I move toward her, understanding that the anger she is directing toward everyone flows from the same current of anger she is directing toward herself. It’s one thing to be separated from your child when you can tell yourself he is warm, dry, and well; it’s an entirely different matter when you see the condition in which he’s lived without you.

  I wrap my arm around Sal’s back and pull her into a loose hug. She leans against me for one second, emitting a sob that racks her small frame, and then straightens and smooths back a greasy hank of hair, and I can tell she’s dammed up her current of anger, which causes me to wonder what she would look like if it suddenly broke loose.

  Smiling shakily at me, Sal begins to walk around the Zimmermans’ cabin, where she’s been staying since we came. “You moving to Leora’s tonight?” I ask.

  “I guess.” Her shrug is redundant. “Just until Colton and I can leave.”

  “You’re taking him to the warehouse?” I ask, surprised.

  She nods. “There’s no way I’m letting him stay here.”

  I wait until she and Colton are inside before heading back toward the barn to see if I can help build the numerous coffins when Jabil appears out of nowhere.

  He seizes my upper arm. “Come with me.”

  When Deacon Snyder speaks, you do as you’re told. The closer we get to the small building, the more potent the smell of smoke becomes. I can see the steady plume of gray rising from the roof and streaking across the sky as it hits an atmosphere shift, making the smoke appear like clouds. “Go inside,” Jabil says, so I enter the smokehouse. He steps in behind me, leaving the door ajar so we don’t asphyxiate. He wraps his bicep with his left hand and uses his right to prop his anvil chin, watching me with such intensity, I try not to flinch.