The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  For a few minutes I was worried they’d snatched the binoculars, which I’d really wanted to find, but I unearthed them in the mess by Meredith’s bed.

  The patrol boats were still anchored in the strait, keeping watch. Beyond them, the mainland looked the same as it always did. I caught little flickers of movement and the gleam of lights through the haze.

  It’s hard to imagine life continuing as usual over there. People going to school and buying groceries and hanging out with their friends without masks plastered over their faces. It’s like a totally different planet, across vast distances of space, instead of a town just a few miles away over some water.

  That might sound horribly pessimistic, but honestly, it’s better than the alternative. Because the alternative is that life isn’t continuing as usual, that they’re falling just as fast as we are.

  I’ve tried to imagine what you’re doing right now, Leo. Sometimes I picture you in class, spinning and leaping while your teachers watch in amazement. It’s a nice thought, but I know it’s not true. Because you have to know what’s going on now, and you wouldn’t just continue on as usual. You might be over there at this exact moment, trying to negotiate with whoever’s in charge to let you come home.

  I wonder if Drew’s with you. Maybe he got across all right, but his scuba gear was damaged on the way, and even if he’s found something that would help us, he’s stuck there. But someday, when the island’s safe again, you’ll both come back to us.

  I wish that day didn’t feel so far away.

  When I left the house, I took the binoculars with me. I don’t want to have to come back. As I was heading down the front walk I saw movement down the street and paused. A body was sprawled outside the house four doors down, half on the sidewalk, half on the road. Someone who had died of the virus or the water or was shot—I wasn’t close enough to tell. A coyote was tugging at its arm. I looked the other way and got in the car.

  I really can’t judge, after all. Coyotes have to eat to survive too.

  On the way back to Tessa’s, I took a detour toward the harbor. Not too close, because I remembered Dad’s story about the trigger-happy soldiers. But near enough that I could get a pretty good look with the binoculars.

  I couldn’t see anyone moving around on the docks. Then I scanned the boats, and my skin went cold. The ones in my line of view were half submerged, white bows or sides protruding from the water where they were tied to the dock, some with chunks missing from their rims or splintered holes in their hulls. It looked as if a giant had stomped through swinging a sledgehammer. I followed the bending lines of the docks, trying to spot Uncle Emmett’s cruiser. The wreckage was too messy to make out any identifying details, but from what I saw, none of the boats escaped unharmed.

  The big storm Dad mentioned couldn’t have caused that much damage—I’ve never seen a nor’easter smash up boats that badly. So it must have been a person. Or people.

  I started feeling so queasy I had to put down the binoculars and close my eyes. Every time I look around, something else is broken.

  The hospital’s been getting noisier the last couple days. Dad and Nell haven’t said anything, but I suspect they’re almost out of sedatives. You can hear the whole progression of the disease standing in the halls: coughing and sneezing and aggressively friendly chattering and shrieks of panic. It took me three tries to get a nurse’s attention yesterday, and I realized why when she popped out an earplug to hear me properly.

  The virus has a voice, and it doesn’t sound very happy.

  I’d meant to spend the afternoon in the records room, but after an hour of going over every detail of the treatments one more time, comparing the survivors to people who died, I put the files aside and walked out. I’ve checked and double-checked over the last few days, and there’s nothing. Nothing special the six of us got and no one else did. No miraculous solution just waiting for me to stumble on it.

  As I stepped out into the chilly air, I heard the buzz of a passing helicopter. It whirred by overhead, back toward the mainland. A reporter collecting news footage? Or another delivery that the gang will have snatched up? I pictured the bunch of them tossing all the meds the hospital desperately needs into the back of their stolen truck, and my hands balled into fists.

  I went straight back to Tessa’s. She was kneeling in the greenhouse, pruning one of the shrubs.

  “We should start going out again,” I said. “Scavenging. We never finished all the summer houses.”

  “I did the rest on my own,” Tessa said.

  “Then we’ll do regular houses,” I said. “We can start with your street.”

  “You mean break in?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  I almost thought, Why not? The gang’s already looting people’s homes for their selfish reasons—why shouldn’t we, to help the hospital? But thinking of them reminded me of the day when the guy with the truck shot that woman right in front of me, and my stomach turned. I don’t want to follow their lead, not in anything.

  “No,” I said. “We don’t have to. I know which houses are empty, from going out with Gav. We’ll check the doors and only go in if they’re unlocked.”

  So yesterday and this afternoon, we got Meredith watching one of her DVDs and then headed out. I make Tessa wait outside while I take a quick look around, to be sure each place really is empty. The first couple times I broke out in a sweat as I walked down the halls to the bedrooms. But I haven’t come across anyone yet, well or sick, alive or dead. After a while, the memory of the dead woman and child in the summer house started to fade.

  Which doesn’t mean going in isn’t awful sometimes. The summer houses were so polished and remote, I could pretend no one ever lived there. The places we’re scavenging from now, they belonged to people I passed on the street or nodded to in the grocery store. People whose presence lingers in the photos propped on side tables and the notes left on kitchen counters, the toys scattered over living room floors and the posters hanging on bedroom walls. But none of them are coming back.

  I’ve learned to keep my mind and eyes focused on the next drawer, the next cabinet, tuning out everything else as much as I can.

  We haven’t found a lot, mostly basic stuff like Tylenol and Tums, but anything’s better than nothing. And we’re grabbing any food we find, too. Gav might have enough stashed away for now, but who knows how long it’ll be before we manage to take another delivery from the mainland. Tessa and I brought it all to the hospital, and I stuck the food in the kitchen there.

  Gav came over last night to go over the self-defense training with Tessa and check that Meredith and I remembered what he’d taught us, and I saw him this morning for the usual rounds. But I didn’t tell him what we’re doing. It’s not that I’m worried whether he’d approve. Of course he would. He’d get all excited and want to take over and make it part of the regular food run. And it wouldn’t be mine anymore.

  Maybe I should want to get more people involved. But for some reason it feels so important right now to have this one thing that belongs to me.

  You might have noticed I haven’t been talking about Dad very much, Leo. The fact is I hardly see him. Everyone who’s left at the hospital looks up to him as the boss, and he’s pretty much living there.

  Which in a way is safer for everyone, because he doesn’t risk bringing the virus here to Meredith or Tessa. He calls most nights just to check in, but he can never stay on the line for more than a minute or two. It’s nowhere near the same as having him here. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder where he is, and he feels almost as far away as Mom or Drew.

  I don’t know how he keeps going. He smiles when we pass each other in the hospital, but the exhaustion is plain on his face. It must be quieter at the research center, so maybe he catches some naps over there. I hope so. At this rate, he’ll make himself sick even without catching the virus. I can’t lose him too. I just can’t.

  I finally got a chance to really talk to him this evenin
g. He came into the hospital kitchen while I was putting away the food Tessa and I picked up in the afternoon, and started making himself a bowl of instant soup. At least now I know he’s eating occasionally.

  “Have you heard anything from the mainland?” I asked. “Is the radio picking up anything at all?”

  He hesitated, and then he sighed. “Nothing productive’s come of our attempts so far,” he said. “But we’ll keep trying, of course.”

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I said, “I took a look at the harbor the other day—it’s deserted. And the boats…”

  I could tell from the way Dad’s jaw tightened that he already knew about them.

  “I know you want to come to the hospital and help out here, and I think it’s good for you,” he said. “But I’d rather you didn’t go anywhere else on your own, even in the car, all right? There’s safety in numbers.”

  “Yeah,” I said, which wasn’t a promise, because I wasn’t going to make one. I can’t drag Tessa and Meredith with me everywhere. “So what happened to the boats?” I asked.

  “The soldiers,” he said as he tipped the kettle over the noodles, steam rushing up between us. “The ones who were stationed in the harbor. As far as we can tell, they became so afraid of catching the virus that they decided to disobey their orders and leave. But first they wanted to make sure no one here could follow them.”

  I swallowed. “So they destroyed all the boats,” I said.

  “Not all of them,” Dad said. “You know some people keep smaller ones on their own property. If we wanted to send someone across the strait, we could. I just don’t think it’s worth risking the reception we’re likely to get from the patrol boats. I suspect the military as a whole has taken a shoot-first stance toward anyone from the island.”

  What would they have done to Drew if they caught him? The image of his body washing up on the shore flashed through my mind, and I winced. Dad put his arm around me, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.

  “Things have to get better, don’t they?” I said. “This can’t keep going on forever.”

  “Nothing’s forever,” Dad said, but the words weren’t as comforting as I wanted them to be.

  It’s true, though. The epidemic has to end eventually. I need to focus on that—on the day in the future when the virus is gone, and all we’ve lived through will be just a story about something bad that happened a long time ago.

  Gav made lunch for us today. He’s a really good cook. Who’d have thought?

  I hadn’t planned it, but right after we finished the morning food run and waved good-bye to Warren, who’s helping get the orphaned kids settled at the church, Gav said, “This probably sounds terrible, but I’m always hungry after we do this.”

  “You should come over to Tessa’s and have lunch with us,” I said.

  “Yeah?” he said. My cheeks started to warm up. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, I gave his shoulder a little shove.

  “Unless you think our grub isn’t good enough for you,” I said.

  “I guess I’ll have to see,” he said, arching one eyebrow.

  The moment we walked into the kitchen he gravitated to the cupboards. In five seconds he was pulling out cans and poking through the spice rack while Tessa and Meredith and I just stared. He picked up a pot and then thought to check with Tessa. “You don’t mind?” he said.

  “Go ahead,” she said, looking amused. Our idea of fancy cooking has been dumping a handful of frozen peas in with instant rice, so we weren’t in any position to complain.

  Compared to what we usually eat, the casserole Gav threw together was a miracle, even though he said he should have used Parmesan cheese and fresh salmon instead of the canned. It’s the first time I’ve enjoyed anything I was eating in ages. I let each bite roll around in my mouth before swallowing, ignoring my grumbling stomach, because at dinnertime we’ll be back to basics again.

  The moment would have been perfect, except that partway through the meal my hand bumped Meredith’s glass. Her pre-boiled water spilled all over her lap and the floor, and the whole time we were mopping it up she kept saying sorry to me. After the twentieth time, I snapped.

  “Meredith,” I said, “it’s not your fault. I knocked over the glass. Stop apologizing.”

  And then she did stop, because she started crying instead. I felt like I was about to win the worst-cousin-of-the-year award.

  I wasn’t really angry at her. But I’m so worried about her all the time, and of course that gets to me. Ever since I got back from the hospital, she’s been all meek and cringing, apologizing for anything that’s wrong, even if it’s nothing to do with her.

  Maybe she figures we’ll be happier if she makes everything her fault. Like the documentary about wolves I saw a couple years ago that talked about the different rankings in the pack, with the omega way at the bottom. If the other wolves were pissed off about something, they’d take it out on the omega. But the omega didn’t mind because it chose its role. It wanted to be the scapegoat so punishment could be dealt for whatever the pack was upset about and everyone could calm down. Maybe that’s how Meredith’s thinking too.

  Or maybe she’s so shell-shocked she’s starting to believe everything really is her fault.

  I don’t know. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, and all she does is smile in this stiff sort of way and say she’s fine, she’s just happy she’s still with me.

  I wish Mom was here, so much. She would have known what to do. Better than me, anyway.

  What I did do turned out not to be the greatest idea ever, but it seemed good at the time. “Let’s take a little trip,” I said. “You haven’t gotten out of the house in ages.”

  “Can we go see the coyotes?” Meredith asked, still sniffling but sounding brighter.

  I remembered the coyote I’d seen gnawing on the body outside Uncle Emmett’s house. “I don’t think they’re feeling very friendly right now,” I said. “We could go to the beach.”

  It was gray and windy outside and absolutely the wrong weather for beachcombing, but Meredith said, “Okay,” gulped down the rest of her lunch, and ran to get her shoes and jacket. Tessa bowed out, saying she needed to do some work in the greenhouse. Dad’s special nerve-medication plants might have been a failure, but she’s still devoted to her own crops. Gav offered to come along.

  “We’ll take my car,” he said. “I need to fill it up anyway.” I gave him the keys to the station and showed him how to work the pumps a few days ago, since he’s more likely to need the gas than me.

  Once we got in the Ford, Meredith was quiet, and the silence felt too heavy.

  “The casserole was really good,” I said, to break it. “Did your mom teach you how to cook?”

  Gav smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You could say that,” he said. “As soon as I was old enough to put together a sandwich, meals were basically a free-for-all. Everyone just made their own thing. After a while I got sick of sandwiches. There were cookbooks around. And I kind of liked that it bugged my mom if I made something better than what she’d thrown together for herself, and then ate it all.”

  “Oh,” I said. I can’t imagine being a kid and not knowing dinner at least will magically appear on the table sometime every evening.

  He shrugged and said, “I didn’t really mind, once I got used to it. You learn a lot when you know no one else is going to do things for you.”

  Watching him, I felt like he’d just handed me a piece of a puzzle I hadn’t realized I was putting together. Suddenly I could see exactly how he’d become the guy I talked to in the park two months ago, who laughed at the idea of government aid and calmly went and emptied out a grocery store to provide his own kind of assistance.

  I wanted to say something deep and sensitive to show I understood, but right then we drove past a row of stores, and instead I was shouting, “Wait, wait, stop!”

  The gang’s obviously worked over Main Street pretty well. Most of the store windows were broken, the sidewalk c
runchy with glass. They’d gone into the garden shop, but I could see packets of seeds and bulbs on the shelves, and it occurred to me that I’d have to come by with Tessa sometime so she could grab anything she thought was useful.

  But what had really caught my eye was Play Time.

  I’m sure the gang assumed there’d be nothing useful in a toy store. Which is probably true, for them. The window with the swirling painting of two kids on a magic carpet ride was intact, if a little dingy looking. Beyond it, a huddle of stuffed animals peered out from one corner of the display, an army of action figures commanding the other.

  It was better than the beach. It was, I thought, just what Meredith needed.

  I tried the door and it opened. Whoever had come in last hadn’t bothered to lock up. Maybe they’d assumed they’d be coming back the next day. I didn’t want to think about the most probable reason they hadn’t.

  Gav had gotten Meredith out of the car. She walked up to the store hesitantly. “Can we really go in?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Of course we can. You can pick out five things to take home. And we’ll get some toys and games for the kids who are on their own now, too.”

  Gav looked up and down the street. “I’ll take the car down to the station,” he said. “Should only be a few minutes.” But then he just stood there.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s a toy store. Go on.”

  I pushed open the door and switched on the lights. It was like stepping through a portal into Narnia.

  I used to love Play Time. When I was a kid, it felt like the hall of a fairy-tale palace, with the painted-stone floor, the mock-fur rug where volunteers would read from a book every afternoon in front of the gas fireplace, and the sweet cedar smell rising from the shelves lined with boxes and bins of treasures. I bought my minnow net there, and the big book of nature stories I read until the cover fell off, and those bird figurines with real feathers glued to their wooden bodies. But I hadn’t gone in since before we moved back.