The Dead and the Gone ls-2

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  “Bri, what’s happening?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, gasping. “Really I am. Where’s Julie? What happened?”

  “Oh God, I hid her,” Alex said. “Stay here. Don’t go away.” He laughed. “Wait till she sees you! Hold on. We’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” Reluctantly he left Briana, then ran up the stairs to the third floor.

  “Everything’s okay,” he told Julie. “Come on down.”

  “Maybe you should have nailed the blanket better,” Julie said as they went back downstairs.

  Alex laughed. “Maybe I should have,” he agreed. He couldn’t remember ever having been so happy. There was food in the house, supplies left to barter, and his sister back. For once when he thanked Christ for his blessings, he would really mean it.

  “Julie!”

  “Bri? Bri, is that really you?”

  Bri began coughing again. “It’s nothing,” she choked out. “I’m just so happy.”

  “How about some tea?” Alex asked. “Julie, boil some water for tea.”

  Julie ran into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Alex said, grasping Bri’s hand. “What happened? When did you get here?”

  “About an hour ago,” Bri whispered. “I was so scared. The blankets on the windows and all those things in Mami’s room… Is she back? Is Papi?”

  Alex shook his head. “Nothing new from Carlos, either,” he said.

  Julie popped back into the living room. “It’s the cold, isn’t it,” she said. “Your crops froze, too.”

  Bri nodded.

  “So they sent you home?” Alex asked. “They don’t want to feed you anymore, so they dumped you?”

  “No, Alex, it wasn’t like that,” Bri said. “The sisters were eating less so we’d have enough. They were wonderful.” She began coughing again. “My bag.” She gasped.

  Alex grabbed her bag and handed it to her. She dug through it and pulled out something. Alex recognized it as an inhaler. He’d gone to school with kids who had asthma. But Bri wasn’t asthmatic.

  Bri inhaled deeply and stopped coughing. “Some of us got sick,” she said. “Me and two other girls. Sister Anne got us to a doctor, and he said we have adult-onset asthma. It’s the same as regular asthma, but it starts later. The doctor said we’d be fine except for the air. It’s so ashy now, and we were outside all day and it was too much. The sisters couldn’t keep any girls who were sick, so they drove us back to New York. Two other girls, too, whose parents wanted them back. They tried to call you, but the phone isn’t working.”

  Alex nodded. “This asthma,” he said. “Will it go away now that you’re not working outdoors?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bri said. “Not until the air clears up. The doctor said I shouldn’t go outside any more than I have to. He said there used to be medicine to prevent asthma attacks, but that’s all gone now. He gave us inhalers, but he said we should try to avoid attacks by staying indoors and not exerting ourselves and not getting excited. Only I got so excited seeing you.” She smiled. “It was worth it,” she said. “Oh, Alex, Julie, I’m so happy to be home!”

  Bri would need food, Alex thought, and medications. She wouldn’t be able to walk to school, so she couldn’t get lunch there. He’d have to take Julie with him on the food line and hope that Kevin kept going. Even with what was in the apartment, and three bags of food rather than two, he’d have to give up supper most nights of the week if Bri and Julie were both to eat twice a day.

  His sister wasn’t fat as a kitten, he saw. She was pale and as thin as she was when she’d left last spring. Having her gone all summer had worked out well for him and Julie, but perhaps not so well for Bri herself.

  But then Bri smiled. “I knew you’d keep your vow,” she said. “I knew you’d be here when I got back. I’m never leaving again. Never.”

  Alex looked at his sister. Things will work out, he thought. The Blessed Virgin returned his sister to him. Through her intercession, they would find the way to survive.

  Wednesday, September 14

  As Julie and Alex walked home from school, they saw a man leap from a seventh-story window, falling to the sidewalk about twenty feet from them.

  Alex grabbed his sister, feeling her thin body shake under her winter coat. “Hurry,” he said, pulling her along as he raced to the body. “You get his shoes, and I’ll look for his wallet and his watch.”

  Julie stared in horror at Alex. He pushed her toward the man’s feet.

  “Alex, I think he’s still alive,” Julie said. “I think he’s still breathing.”

  “What difference does that make,” Alex said. “He’ll be dead soon enough. Now take his shoes.”

  Julie bent over and pulled off the man’s shoes. Alex removed the man’s watch, then ransacked his pockets, finding nothing.

  “Help me with his sweater,” he said. “You take the left arm; I’ll take the right.”

  Julie did as she was told, and they pulled off the sweater. Alex took it and the shoes. “No wallet,” he told her, “but this stuff should be good for a couple of cans of soup.” ”

  What are you talking about?” Julie cried.

  “What do you think I do every morning?” Alex said. “This is how I feed us.”

  “Does Bri know?” Julie asked. “No,” Alex said. “And you’re not going to tell her.”

  Julie stood absolutely still. “Do you want me to go with you?” she asked. “In the mornings?”

  “No,” he said. There was no need for this to be on both their consciences.

  Friday, September 16

  “So much food!” Briana said as Alex unloaded two trash bags onto the kitchen floor. “Three bags this morning, and now-all this. Where did it all come from?”

  The three bags came from Alex, Julie, and Kevin standing on line for almost five hours in below-freezing weather. Fewer people were waiting on the food line, but fewer people were distributing the food as well. By ten that morning, everyone was coughing, but no one left his place. Kevin took Julie to Holy Angels while Alex took the bags home for Bri to put away. Then he gathered up four bottles of wine found in apartment 11F, one box of cigars from 14J, and a man’s coat, watch, and shoes, peeled off a fresh dead man on Alex’s walk home. Harvey turned down the watch, saying the market for them had dried up, but he was happy about the wine and cigars, and gave Alex enough food to last a week or more if they were careful. Alex was most excited about the two cans of tuna and one of salmon. The hell with vegetarians living longer.

  “Things must be all right if there’s so much food,” Bri said, putting the groceries away in the cabinets, making them look full and normal again. “Oh, Alex. Powdered eggs! They’re almost as good as real eggs.”

  “Did you have real eggs on the farm?” he asked. The temperature in the apartment was about fifty degrees, which was where he’d set the oil burner thermostat, but Bri made things feel warm and sunny again.

  Bri nodded. “Every day at first,” she said. “Toward the end, the hens stopped laying. It got harder to milk the cows, too. I pray for the sisters and the girls who stayed on. I think we have it easier.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” Alex said.

  Bri turned around to face her brother. “Don’t stop believing in miracles,” she said. “La madre santisima is watching over us. I know she is because I prayed to her every night that I would come home and find you and Julie here.”

  Alex thought about all the prayers he had said in the past four months and how few had been granted. But why should God or even the Blessed Virgin listen to his prayers, he asked himself, when a can of tuna fish was more important to him than the suffering of Christ.

  Sunday, September 18

  Bri’s face glowed as they approached St. Margaret’s, and Alex knew he’d made the right decision, letting her go to Mass. Even when Bri slipped off her face mask and used her inhaler because she was starting to cough, Alex felt sure he’d d
one the right thing. It might be safer to keep Bri indoors, but her life had no meaning without the Church.

  His mind wandered as it always did nowadays in church. If crops throughout the U.S., throughout the world for that matter, died from lack of sunlight, how long would New York City continue to get food? If Holy Angels or Vincent de Paul closed, where would the food come from to feed Julie and himself? If Kevin decided he no longer wanted to wait on line on Fridays for food he didn’t even eat, would two bags be enough?

  And that was the easy stuff. Alex chose not to think about the heating oil running out, or about the Hudson seeping eastward and reaching West End Avenue, or what he was going to do with his sisters when they’d have to leave New York.

  Live for the moment, he told himself. Look at Bri. See how happy she is. She’s no fool. She knows better than you do how fragile life is. But she rejoices in her faith. Can’t you do the same?

  The answer was no.

  Monday, September 19

  That morning Alex had told Julie he’d be late picking her up from school and she was to wait for him. When the school day ended, he went to Father Mulrooney.

  “I’d like you to hear my confession,” Alex said.

  Father Mulrooney’s eyebrows did a high jump. “Mr. Morales, it’s been many years since I’ve heard confessions,” he said. “Surely you can confess to the priest at St. Margaret’s.”

  Alex shook his head. “He’d be too easy,” he said.

  “One of the other priests here?” Father Mulrooney suggested.

  “No, Father,” Alex said, politely but firmly.

  Father Mulrooney paused. “Very well, then,” he said. “I suppose this office has been used as a confessional before.”

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Alex said. “It’s been five months since my last confession.”

  Father Mulrooney nodded.

  “I pushed an old man to the ground,” Alex said. “I stepped on him and I probably broke all his fingers. And I didn’t save a baby from being trampled. They may both have been killed, for all I know.”

  “Did you choose not to save the baby?” Father Mulrooney asked. “Did you push the old man to the ground willingly and with malice?”

  “There was a riot,” Alex said. “I wasn’t thinking. If I saved the baby, I might have lost my sister. If I hadn’t pushed the old man, I definitely would have. I guess I did it willingly, but I don’t know if there was malice. But that’s not my only sin, not by a long shot. I steal from the dead. I take everything I can and barter it for food. I made my sister do it, too. I don’t even care anymore if they’re dead or alive, just as long as I can get food for us. And I don’t just do it for my sisters. I eat my share.”

  “Are you angry at God?” Father Mulrooney asked.

  “No,” Alex replied. “I almost wish I was. It’s like with my parents and my brother. They’re all gone. Carlos is probably alive, but I don’t even know that for sure. Sometimes when I think about them, the pain and the anger are so strong that I can’t bear it. So I turn the feelings off. I just stop feeling. And that’s what’s happening with me and God. I used to pray and mean the words, but now they’re just words. Because if I let myself feel the pain and the anger, I think it might kill me. Or I might kill someone else. I know it’s wrong to feel that way about God and I know it’s wrong to not feel anything. I hate it. I don’t hate God. I hate not loving Him.”

  “I think it would take a saint to love God under the circumstances,” Father Mulrooney said. “And in the forty years I taught at Vincent de Paul, I never once came across a seventeen-year-old saint. If you’re guilty of anything, Mr. Morales, it’s the sin of pride. Your sufferings are no worse than anyone else’s and your guilt is certainly no greater. You’re a young man who has set very high goals for himself and has worked hard all his life to achieve those goals. I appreciate that. I wish I had had more students like you. But now your goal must be to stay alive, to keep your sisters alive. Christ understands suffering. His heart is filled with love for you. He asks only that your suffering bring you closer in understanding to His. If God wanted a world filled with saints, He never would have created adolescence. There now. Have I been too easy?”

  Alex wiped away tears. “I don’t know,” he said, trying to smile. “What’s my penance?”

  “Go to chapel and pray for humility,” Father Mulrooney said. “Pray that you may accept the fact you’re only seventeen and cannot understand all that is happening. Offer Christ your gratitude that you and your sisters have lived to see this day. But you must mean the words. God will know it if you don’t. He can forgive anger, but He has no love for hypocrisy.”

  “Yes, Father,” Alex said.

  “And do something that will make your sisters happy,” Father Mulrooney said. “Their joy will be a true gift to God and His gift to you.”

  Alex nodded. He made his act of contrition and listened as Father Mulrooney gave his sacramental absolution.

  There were two boys in chapel silently praying when he got there. Alex genuflected at the cross, then knelt in one of the pews. Forgive me for the sin of pride, he prayed. Forgive me for ever thinking I can do what I must alone, without Your guidance and Your love.

  Tuesday, September 20

  “Julie, could you go into Mami’s room and redo the list of everything that’s there?” Alex asked after school. “The blankets, the coats, the batteries. Make one list for blankets, one for clothing, and one for everything else. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “Why can’t Bri do that when we’re in school?” Julie asked.”

  “Because I asked you to,” Alex said. “Now, please.”

  Julie scowled, but she carried her notebook and pen into Mami’s bedroom. Alex gestured to Bri to join him in the kitchen.

  “Julie’s birthday’s coming,” he whispered. “How about a surprise party for her?”

  “Can we do that?” Bri asked. “A real party: Should we?”

  Alex grinned. “We can and we should,” he said. “But I can’t do it on my own. I know you got cheated out of a birthday party, so I hope you don’t mind making one for Julie.”

  “I’d love to,” Bri said. “Oh, Alex! A real party. Can we have boys?”

  “Would Julie like that?” Alex asked.

  Bri rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll find the boys, then,” Alex said. “Just tell me what you think I should do, and I’ll do what I can to make it happen.”

  Friday, September 30

  “Come on,” Alex said to Julie. “Let’s get going.”

  “But it’s my birthday,” Julie whined. “I don’t want to have to go to church on my birthday.”

  “Julie,” Alex said. “You know Mami always went to St. Margaret’s on all our birthdays to say a special thank-you to Jesus and Mary. We need to light a candle for her and Papi and Carlos. Stop dawdling.”

  “Is Bri going?” Julie asked.

  Briana shook her head. “I’ll stay home and prepare a special birthday dinner for you,” she replied. “It isn’t every day a girl becomes a teenager.”

  “We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Alex said. “Come on, Julie. Scarf and gloves.”

  Julie sighed. “I never had to wear a scarf and gloves on my birthday before.” But she put them on and followed Alex out of the apartment, onto the street.

  The two of them walked silently the few blocks to the church, Julie in full sulk mode and Alex with his mind elsewhere. They walked in, took off their gloves, dipped their fingers in the holy water, made the sign of the cross, genuflected to the crucifix, then found a pew and knelt in prayer.

  He glanced at Julie, now thirteen. She was still a child, but in some ways she seemed older than Briana. He doubted she’d kept the simple faith that Bri had managed in spite of everything. Julie was always angrier, always less content, and nothing over the past few months had changed that. It was unfair of him to compare his sisters, he knew, and it was especially unfair of him to expect the horrors they we
re now enduring to make Julie a sweeter, gentler person. Especially since she hadn’t been a sweet, gentle person to begin with.

  Alex grinned. He wouldn’t want to live with two Julies, but it was just as well there was one of them sharing the miseries. He tapped her gently on her shoulder, and gestured for them to get up. They walked to the candles, so few now, and lit one. Alex prayed for all those who were gone, and his prayers were heartfelt.

  As they walked back to the apartment, Alex thought of all the things he should be saying to Julie. Lessons about being a woman, lectures on doing well in school and making Mami and Papi proud. But none of the words wanted to come out, and he allowed himself to remain silent.

  “Are there more bodies than there used to be?” Julie asked as they reached West End Avenue. “Even more than last week, I mean.”

  “I don’t think more people are dying,” Alex replied, saddened that even on his sister’s birthday, death intruded. “I just think they’re picking up the bodies less often.”

  “That’s not good,” Julie said. “More rats. I hate the rats.”

  “Don’t think of them today,” Alex said. “It’s your birthday. Think happy thoughts.”

  “I’ll try,” Julie said. “I am trying, Alex. I really am. It’s just so hard.”

  “I know,” he said. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of feast Briana whipped up for you.” He unlocked the outside door, and then the door to their apartment.

  “SURPRISE!”

  “What!” Julie shouted. “Oh, Alex!” She hugged her brother, and then ran to Bri and embraced her as well.

  Alex grinned. Everyone was there: Kevin, James, and Tony, Julie’s friends Brittany and Lauren, and Lather Mulrooney. The soft glow of candlelight illuminated the yellow crepe paper hanging in the doorways, and the big happy birthday, julie! sign on the blanket covering the living room window.

  It was funny, Alex thought, as he shook everyone’s hands and thanked them for coming. He’d never invited his classmates over, since he’d always been a little ashamed of where he lived. He wasn’t the only scholarship student at Vincent de Paul, but the guys he wanted to impress, the Chris Flynns of his school, all had money and parents with position. But thanks to what was happening, money no longer counted for anything. Position, except in the highest ranks, was a thing of the past. They were all truly equal in the eyes of Cod and man, and his apartment at least had the advantage of not requiring anyone to walk up ten flights of stairs.