In Another Life

by Liesel Browning

  “Ah, yes, you’re her…her stepmother, right?” Pastor Travis asked.

  Sadie couldn’t help bursting out laughing. In a way, he wasn’t wrong, but it just sounded strange when it was put like that.

  Sadie sat down in the handmade armchair. “I hope you don’t mind if I stick around,” Amelia said. She got a chair from the table and brought it to the living room, placing it right next to Sadie’s armchair. Sadie gave her lover a grateful smile.

  “It’s good to see this,” Pastor Travis said. “Family is so important.”

  “We think so, too,” Amelia said. Sadie couldn’t believe her lover’s boldness.

  Pastor Travis pointedly turned his attention to Sadie then. “That’s part of what we wanted to discuss with you,” he said.

  Sadie frowned. “I’ve already said it. I really, really don’t know what happened with Johnny and the others.”

  “Oh, no, we’ve nearly ended that investigation,” Nancy said quickly. “You should know that we found a resident who admitted to copying a key for your husband. We believe it was your key that was copied.”

  Sadie shook her head. “I’m really sorry, if that’s the case,” she said. “I never thought he’d do something like that.”

  “No,” Pastor Travis agreed. “We like to think the best of the people we love.”

  “That being said,” Nancy went on, “They’ve been looking to cut down on the mechanics in the auto shop, anyway. In light of recent events, it would be for the best if you were reassigned.”

  Sadie hadn’t heard anything about cut-backs in the auto shop. They were kept busy every day. Sadie wondered if a lot of the armored cars were heading north to check out mining prospects…

  “I’m being punished?” she asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “There were many factors that went into play in this decision,” Nancy assured her. “We need far more people in construction…”

  “Construction? I don’t know how to build anything,” Sadie said. “I know cars and trucks. Have them take my key, I don’t need to access the garage…”

  “The decision’s already been made,” Nancy said. Her attempt at a sympathetic frown was even phonier than her smile. “You’ll be trained. You’re a smart, capable young woman.” Sadie didn’t point out that Nancy didn’t know her, but she just crossed her arms and nodded. She felt Amelia’s hand on her knee for a moment, far more comforting than any of Nancy’s false smiles.

  “It’s a lot of change that you’re going through right now,” Pastor Travis went on. “I heard that you have a happy change coming soon. Your brother is being released from treatment for the virus.”

  Sadie couldn’t help smiling a little at this reminder. She tried not to let her guard down, though. “Yeah,” she said. “In just a few days.” She looked at her lover. Amelia, too, was smiling at the thought. She was preparing the sofa in her living room for him until they were officially moved to their new house.

  “I wanted to take the time to reach out to you, Sadie,” Pastor Travis said. Sadie’s smile instantly fell away. He was going to give her a literal “come to Jesus” speech. She was more grateful than ever for her lover’s presence, because she didn’t think she’d have the strength to get through it without either laughing or yelling in this guy’s face. Or both.

  But he ended up surprising her, a little. “We have a lot of activities at the church for single individuals,” he said. “You can break curfew to come to those, of course,” he added with a smile that made Sadie want to strangle him. “We’re not exactly ‘rolling doobies’ or anything, but we have a good time. There’s good people who come to those events.”

  “What’s a ‘doobie’?” Sadie asked, and Amelia giggled beside her.

  Pastor Travis shook his head. “It’s some expression I heard my dad use one time. Anyway,” he hurried on, “It might be nice for you to get out. With the curfew, you know, I’m sure it’s hard to be all by yourself every evening.”

  “I…I’ll think about it,” Sadie said, hoping to put him off. But Pastor Travis was determined.

  “I hope you do,” he said. “That’s how I met my fiancée.” He was referring to Sophie, of course, and that just annoyed Sadie even more.

  “Wait a moment,” Amelia cut in. “Are you saying that Sadie should go out and find another husband?”

  Sadie blinked at the pastor, who looked momentarily startled. “My husband…”

  “Ah, well,” Pastor Travis said, “I don’t think we’ll be seeing him around here again, will we?”

  “I don’t know,” Sadie said.

  “The council has voided your marriage,” Nancy said. And even though it was a fake marriage all along, this annoyed Sadie, too. Two years, she’d been forced to live with that man. A man she cared about, of course, but still. And just like that, it meant nothing to them.

  “So I need to get married again,” Sadie said. It wasn’t a question.

  “This is a bit insensitive,” Amelia said. “Would you be suggesting this if Johnny got sick and died or something?”

  “I hope I haven’t upset anyone,” Pastor Travis said, and even his look of concern was convincing. Sadie wondered how the kid developed such social skills. Most people in SC hadn’t had time to learn about many of those.

  Sadie could act, too. She put her head in her hands for a moment. “It’s just…overwhelming,” she said. “Johnny, and the auto shop, and…”

  Pastor Travis stood to go, and gestured for Nancy to do the same. “I really hope you’ll come by the church sometime other than Sunday,” he said. “I’ll speak to you any time. Come by after nine,” he teased. Sadie forced a smile.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I really appreciate all this.” She didn’t, not even a little bit, but she still walked them to the door.

  “One more thing,” Nancy said as she and the smiling pastor stood in the hallway. “You’ll need to report to the site of the new church tomorrow morning. Same hours as the auto shop. It won’t be so bad. And your former supervisor said she’d come by for your jumpsuit and key.”

  “I can take it by myself,” Sadie said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” was Nancy’s flippant response.

  “Take care, Sadie,” Pastor Travis said. “See you soon. God bless you.”

  “Good evening,” Sadie said, and she shut the door.

  “Stupid fucks,” Amelia said loudly from behind her. There was a possibility that Nancy and Pastor Travis heard her from the hallway.

  Sadie put her hands on her lover’s waist. “Hey,” she said.

  “Why don’t they just leave you alone?” Amelia asked. “You haven’t done anything.” As far as Amelia knew, Sadie had no advance warning of the Charles family’s exile.

  “It’s okay,” Sadie said. “I’m just pissed about getting transferred.” And she’d be working on the new church. This had to be a punishment, devised just for her, sinner that she was.

  Amelia hugged Sadie close. “I can’t believe they’d leave you in the lurch like that,” she said. “I thought they were your friends.”

  “I told you, they were gonna expel Manny,” she said. She shook her head. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t want her out there alone. And her baby…”

  Amelia said nothing. At least as far as being a mother went, she could sympathize with Manny.

  They didn’t go back to their fucking. Thinking about Pastor Travis and smug Nancy on the couch put them out of the mood. They had a light dinner, and Amelia left as late as she possibly could, just as curfew enforcement began. Sadie sat on the couch for a long while after her lover was gone.

  *

  For Sadie’s first solo trip to La Ronge after the thaw, Amelia got up early, as she always did when Glenn went to town. After making breakfast, Amelia made sure that the rifle was loaded before putting it in the front seat.

  “I’ll be fine,” Sadie assured her lover. “I rarely see them. Seriously.”

  “Just in case…”

  “I’m a
lways on the lookout,” Sadie said. She kissed Amelia softly. They’d been sleeping together for a couple of months now, since Glenn collapsed and became bedridden. “Try to get some rest, okay?” But she knew her lover wouldn’t go back to bed alone.

  Sadie made it to town midmorning. Remy was the one manning the store that day. As he came out to help her unload the truck, he went around and examined her tires. “What’re you doing?” she asked.

  “How’s the traction on these?” Remy asked. “Tread’s not even there anymore.”

  “I was slipping and sliding on the roads a bit,” Sadie admitted. The unpaved roads were muddy. “I could’ve kept the chains on a little longer.”

  “Johnny got us a bunch of tires down in St. Albert,” Remy said.

  “Really?” Sadie didn’t think the truck tires had ever been changed. She remembered Glenn having to patch one up once when he had a small blow-out. They’d been pretty lucky with the tires, all things considered. “How’d you manage that?”

  Remy chuckled. “Johnny doesn’t mind taking risks sometimes,” he said, and he left it at that.

  “How much would you want?” Sadie asked.

  “Let’s take a look at what you brought me,” Remy said, and they took the boxes of preserves and weed into the store. “I bet we got some that’ll fit. Let’s work something out.”

  Remy found a set of four tires that would fit perfectly on the truck. Sadie helped him inspect them carefully, and they all seemed in good shape, never used. They even smelled brand new. Sadie helped Remy jack up the truck, and watched him change all four tires by hand.

  After they loaded the overused tires into the back of the truck, Sadie followed Remy back into the store. He stopped short and declared, “Oh, shit! I was all about the tires, I forgot…”

  Sadie watched as Remy rushed into the back room. He came running back out, holding a plastic baggie that contained a handful of pills. “What’re those?” she asked.

  “Antibiotics,” Remy said. “Got our hands on these down in St. Albert, too. Mom thinks your old man’s got pneumonia, so these should help.”

  Sadie frowned at the baggie of pills. “On us,” he added.

  “That’s really kind,” Sadie said. “Um, I really wish…Dad died last week.”

  Remy’s triumphant smile fell from his face. “Oh, man,” he said. “Sade. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” Sadie said. “So, I mean, save those, or sell them to somebody else. We don’t…”

  “Hey, tell you what,” Remy said, heading behind the counter to start their bartering. “I’ll cut you a deal on the tires.”

  “You don’t have to…”

  “Hey, anything you give me for them is profit,” Remy said. He was so insistent that Sadie couldn’t refuse. She felt bad, especially when he added, “If there’s anything you need, let me know.”

  “Thanks, Remy,” Sadie said. “But I’m not alone up there. I’ve got Amelia. And the kid.”

  Sadie might have stopped up to see Manny, just to be polite. She hadn’t fooled around with her since she and Amelia became lovers. But Manny was out of the store for once, visiting old friends just a couple of streets over. Remy planned to walk over and get her after helping Sadie load the new supplies her the truck. “You sure you don’t wanna wait for her?” Remy asked.

  “Nah, I should get back,” Sadie said. “Amelia was kind of freaked out when I left this morning.”

  Remy nodded. He clapped Sadie on the shoulder. “I mean it, anything at all…”

  “I know,” Sadie said. “Thanks, man. I’ll be back next month. And, uh, tell Manny ‘hey’ for me.”

  Remy nodded and went down the street, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Sadie went back to the farm and tried to distract herself from her guilt by observing how well the new tires handled on the muddy roads.

  Back on the farm, Amelia was waiting to help Sadie unload the new supplies. Sadie proudly showed her the tires on the truck. “The other set lasted all this time, so maybe…”

  When they started unloading the food in the kitchen, Amelia said, “So, uh, was there any word about any…?”

  Sadie shook her head. “I’m sorry. Remy said they looked.”

  Amelia sighed. “Okay,” she said. Sadie went to her lover and put her arms around her.

  “He’s comfortable,” Sadie assured her. “You’re taking good care of him.”

  “I just wish…”

  “You can’t feel bad over something you can’t help,” Sadie said. “This is hard enough for you.”

  Amelia smiled a little. “This would be a whole lot worse if you weren’t here,” Amelia said. She leaned in and kissed Sadie, a warm peck on the lips. “I’m glad the trip went okay.”

  “It always goes okay,” Sadie said. “And I got new tires.”

  Amelia was kissing Sadie again, much more than a peck, when they both heard Glenn calling out weakly from the bedroom. “Amelia!” they heard him cry in his raspy voice, before he collapsed into another fit of coughing.

  “Can you finish this?” Amelia asked. She went back to the bedroom, the one she no longer shared with Sadie’s father, to tend to him. Sadie finished putting away the food she’d gotten at the store, more than usual thanks to Remy’s pity.

  Sadie assured herself that taking the antibiotics would have been pointless. Glenn was far too sick for anything like that to help. And besides, what if they were the wrong kind? Sadie didn’t know much about medicine at all, and Amelia wasn’t exactly a doctor. It was too much of a risk, even if Remy offered up the pills for free.

  Glenn died three weeks later. As Sadie puked behind the garage, she tried not to tell herself that she’d killed him, that she’d let him suffer and die out of revenge for Daisy. For Amelia. Of course not. It was just that he was too far gone to be saved.

  Chapter Twenty

  The construction job was just as bad as Sadie thought it would be. It wasn’t much more physically grueling than working in the auto shop. But Sadie found the work repetitive, and it had more to do with following orders than problem-solving on her own. Plus, she had to interact with people all day long. She was exhausted by the end of the day.

  As Sadie rode home slowly, she tried to remind herself that Christian would be getting discharged the very next day. He and his mother had both been waiting for this for far too long. So had she, truth be told. She loved Christian. She wanted him to run and play and make friends with other kids.

  She wanted him to be free.

  Sadie went straight to Amelia’s apartment. Though Zach also worked in construction (with the housing crew, thank God), and worked similar hours, he seemed to be continuing his habit of staying away from home until curfew. So she wasn’t nervous about running into him.

  Sadie didn’t bother to knock on her lover’s door. “Amelia?” she called as soon as she stepped inside. She went into the living room, but didn’t see her there or in the little kitchen.

  “Are you here, Amelia?” Sadie asked. She went back to the bedroom. She expected to find her lover in bed, in the throes of a dark day. But the bedroom was empty, too.

  Before Sadie could think of what to do next, she heard the door to the apartment open. “Amelia?” she called. She was startled when a man came into the room. He had a pale, narrow face, and his right eye was swelling up, like he’d been punched. In fact, he held a cloth icepack limply in his hand.

  It took Sadie a moment to recognize him. “Zach?”

  “I kinda thought I’d find you here,” he said. “I need your help.”

  “What happened to you?” She wasn’t sure what she was more curious about, the beard or the eye.

  Zach addressed the latter. “Amelia got some…some bad news today,” he said. “I…I guess I picked an argument with her, and…I wasn’t gonna hit her, I grabbed her wrists…”

  “She hit you?” Sadie felt nauseous, like she used to get when she was a nervous kid. “I…are you nuts? Why would you grab her like that?”

  Zach shook his
head. “We were having an argument.”

  “Where is she? What happened?”

  “Some neighbors heard us yelling and got a guard,” Zach said. He looked Sadie full in the face. His dark eyes were so hard to read. “They took her in.”

  “Took her in? Took her in where?”

  There was a zero-tolerance policy for violence in Sanctuary Coast. Sadie heard of people getting expelled for it, back when the community first opened its gates. It hadn’t happened in a while. As far as Sadie knew, there wasn’t any kind of jail to speak of in SC.

  “She’s being held in the council building,” Zach said. He put the homemade icepack over his eye. “I didn’t want any of this to happen, Sadie.”

  Sadie didn’t know what to make of this guy. Of course she hated him. She’d hated her father when he was sleeping with Amelia, too. But he wasn’t the bad guy here. Like them, he was just someone who’d been lost for a long time.

  “What happened to your beard?” Sadie asked.

  “Pastor Travis sat me down and told me I should shave it off,” Zach said. “He, uh, he said that keeping a symbol that revered my old tribe was hindering my reverence to God.”

  “He’s a dick,” Sadie blurted.

  “Who?” Zach asked. “God, or Pastor Travis?”

  “Take your pick,” Sadie said. She shook her head. “How do you think I can help you with this?”

  “I went to Pastor Travis,” Zach said. “As soon as the guards hauled her off. He wants to talk to you.”

  Sadie crossed her arms. Her lover, her only reason for living, was facing expulsion. She’d be sent out of SC with nothing, at the mercy of any creatures that came upon her. If placating Pastor Travis would help her, Sadie had to do it.

  “Is he at the church?” Sadie asked.

  “He said he was going up to check out the new one,” Zach said. Sadie nodded and started for the door, but she stopped when she thought of something.

  “Hey,” she said, “What news did she get that upset her so much?”

  She could only think of one thing, and Zach confirmed her fears.

  *

  When Amelia used to have one of her dark days, Glenn would try to get her to snap out of it. He’d sit at the side of Sadie and Amelia’s bed and talk gently to the teenage girl. “You’re safe here,” he’d remind her. “No one’s ever going to hurt you again.” He’d reach out a hand to touch her shoulder, and Amelia would flinch away, curling inward.