by Martha Adele
I wait for them to pass before I turn back to Mavis and answer her question. “John came to visit Eric and me last week. He told us both that we will forever be remembered as part of the Taai, whether we come back or not, and will be treated with ‘the same level of respect as any other member.’”
“Eric?” Mavis asks me. “Barnes? The one that, the one with, you know, Sam?”
I nod.
“What happened to him?”
“He was in both of the explosions I was in.”
“Is he okay?”
I pause, not knowing how else to phrase it. “He lost one of his legs. His left one, actually.” Mavis freezes and stammers the same way I did when I first saw Eric. I explain, “When the second explosion hit, Eric jumped on top of me and got the worst of the shrapnel.”
“What? Where is he? Is he here?”
“Still in bed,” I tell her. “He doesn’t like getting out of bed much anymore.”
Mavis sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
After we sit for another moment and listen to the light chatter throughout the hallway and in the game room behind us, I rise to my feet, fighting the urge to groan with the movement, and turn back to Mavis. “So do you want to go back to the game room with me?”
She rises with me, looking back at me with her emerald-colored eyes and flashing her flawless smile at me. “Why not?”
We make our way over to the door as I hold it open for her, and my eyes fall upon an empty board game table. “Do you know how to play chess?” I ask her.
She chuckles back at me and nods. “I used to play it all the time with a friend back home.”
“Oh,” I answer, ready for my imminent defeat. “Finally, a challenge.”
Mavis
Exiting the “rehabilitation center,” I flag down a cab and hop in.
“Where to, ma’am?” the driver asks me.
I hand him the paper with Derek’s address on it, and he punches it into his guidance system on the dashboard. We take off almost immediately, and I watch the rehab center disappear into the mass of buildings taller than it.
Though I am ready to go see Derek, and though it is getting late, I still feel bad about leaving Logan right after I won the chess match. I’m sure he understands. He knows I need to go see Derek before I head back to the kitchen, but leaving right after winning in chess? It feels kind of rude.
As we drive, I see people setting up their night gear and turning on all the streetlights so they can continue construction work even after it gets dark.
I guess to them, working around the clock makes sense. This entire time, I have been wondering how they have rebuilt this entire country so quickly, but I guess the answer is never-ending labor.
“Those people up there”—the cabdriver takes one hand off the wheel and both eyes off the road to point out all the construction workers toward the top of the skyscrapers’ skeletons—“they change from day shifts, to night shifts, to morning shifts in case you were wondering.”
“How did you know?” I ask him, not feeling too comfortable with someone paying that close of attention to me to know what I am wondering.
“The paper you gave me, it is the same paper they give people who are looking for other people. Most times, people in the city who hand me those papers are first-time visitors.”
“Oh okay.” A slight feeling of relief comes over me, followed by a slight amount of panic. “Thank you.”
I hope he doesn’t want to keep talking.
I really hope he doesn’t want to keep talking.
I also really hope Derek doesn’t have the night shift for what he does. Even if he does, I will get to see his mom, who has been a mother to me since my mother passed.
I only hope that she will recognize me.
We continue to drive through the city, passing some completed buildings, but many are still being worked on. The driver keeps giving me facts about this city, about what used to be where, what is being built, and so much more. I refuse to be rude, so every time he says something, I acknowledge him with a “huh” or “okay,” but it seems my telepathic messages aren’t getting through to him. I really wish he wouldn’t expect me to keep talking.
“You know what else? The new capitol building is being built just a few miles from here. You should go check it out one day. It looks like it will be spectacular.” He continues to drive and describe how he imagines the beautiful gardens, along with exquisite fountains, and I assume that he must have been from Verwend, where they don’t ever really think about money unless it’s theirs.
He continues talking as he drives me through the town and down a few back roads that have not been fully developed yet. The driver slows down and parks the car right in front of a small wooden bridge that is over a creek. If there wasn’t a mailbox out a bit closer to the road than the bridge, we both would have completely missed it, for the trees hang too low and the sun has fallen too far for it to be completely visible to the passerby.
“Well.” The driver chuckles. “This is it. Do you, um, want me to stay here?”
My stomach turns as I look into the woods. Not necessarily in a bad way, but more with excitement. Of course, Derek would make sure to get the most secluded house he can in the capital. I know this has to be the way to his house, so I turn back to the driver. “No thank you.”
He gives me an odd stare. After a moment of silence between us, he says to me, “I will wait here for a while just in case you decide to come back.”
I chuckle at how protective he is and nod. “Thank you.” Exiting the cab, I make my way over the bridge hidden by the trees and into the woods. The cold air becomes even colder as the wind bounces off the creek and splashes me. Once I get over the bridge, I find that the path has been lined with stones on both sides, just as Derek’s mother always talked about having for her dream house.
Down the dirt path I go, walking, walking, walking, until I see a light in the distance. I quicken my pace and find a small wooden cabin with smoke coming through the chimney. Each step I take up onto their porch, the wooden stair steps squeak alive, causing me to make much more noise than I mean to.
I knock on the door and hear shuffling from inside. The muffled talking between the inhabitants quickly comes to an end as the door is slowly opened by Derek’s mother. Her hair has become almost completely gray, and her skin has somehow sagged much more than I expected.
“Can I help you?” she asks me, looking me up and down as if I am a stranger.
“Ms. Page,” I say to her like I always have, “it’s Mavis.”
She continues to stare at me in confusion with her now grayish-blue eyes. I feel my heart slowly tearing as I realize how bad it’s gotten. The smell of her favorite scented candle, apple cinnamon, hits my nose and almost causes tears to fall.
The gut-wrenching feeling is pushed aside as Ms. Page’s face lights up with joy. “Mavis!” she cheers as she pulls me into a hug. Our arms find their way around each other, and we squeeze each other tight. She kisses me on the side of my head as my whole body warms up from her love.
I hear her sniffle as she weeps into my shoulder. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.”
Derek enters the room, having just washed his hands, and throws the hand towel down as he rushes over to us both with joy. He wraps his arms around us and gives the huddle a quick squeeze, but is interrupted by his mother who turns to him with tears running down her face.
“Look! It’s Mavis!” She grabs my face and continues to sob with joy. “It’s sweet little Mavis! I thought she was dead.”
I look back over to Derek with one eyebrow raised. I have to wonder whether or not he told his mom that I was alive. Sure, we haven’t got to spend much time together since the draft, but still.
She pulls me back into a hug, and I look back at Derek, glancing down at hi
s still bandaged arm. “Did you tell her?” I mouth.
He nods as reality sinks in.
It’s getting worse.
Ms. Page pulls away from the hug and grabs my face once again. “Derek was just about to make dinner! You should stay! We have enough, right, Derek?”
He nods again as Ms. Page releases my face.
“Can I help?” I ask, earning a smile from them both.
Derek bends down and picks the towel up off the floor, throwing it back onto the wooden countertops. “Sounds good to me.”
“All righty then!” Ms. Page cajoles. “I am going to go and take a shower, but I will be back soon.” She chuckles as she walks out of the room. “It is so nice to have a functioning shower.”
“And a wall phone too,” Derek adds, pointing to the red block on the wall with a wire dangling from it.
I chuckle and make my way over to Derek. We hold each other and stand in silence, listening to Ms. Page’s shower turn on from the other room. I want to ask him about the war, about what happened, about where he was assigned, about the revolt, about his arm, about what happened with my dad, and so much more.
I settle and try to ask him about his mom, but manage only a stutter. “So, you, how is, you know … your mom?”
He chuckles. “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?” I ask him into his shoulder.
“Yeah, it’s gotten worse.”
I freeze, not knowing what to say.
“I missed you,” Derek tells me, turning around and pulling out a pot and a few cans of stew for the fireplace.
I back away from him and look around the living room. Though it is mostly taken up by the fireplace in the center of the building, it seems much bigger on the inside than it does on the outside.
Derek brings the pot and cans over to the small ledge on the bottom of the stone fireplace and sets them all down. “We could have either had a working shower or a stove, and since we already had a fireplace, I found no need to get a stove.”
I smile back at him, knowing he would have it no other way. “Good choice.” Looking around the house, I ask Derek, “Are you two planning on staying here permanently, or temporarily?”
“Well”—he pulls the top of the cans off and pours them into the pot—“I got the offices to buy this house for me under my name. I will finish paying it off with my job in construction pretty quickly after we start getting paid.” He picks up the pot and places it on the hook in the fireplace. “Because believe it or not, this house wasn’t anyone in the ‘new capital’s’ first pick.”
“I can see that.” I chuckle. “This really is a nice house though, and I especially like how you lined the path with stones.”
He chuckles back. “Yep. Mom practically begged me to do it.”
My smile slowly fades as I brace to ask him the questions I want to ask about his mom. I shuffle through them all and force out the least difficult one to ask. “Are you planning on continuing to live with her? Until …,” I pause, not knowing how else to say it, “you know.”
He pulls his lighter out of his pocket and lights a piece of lint against the rest of the kindling. Once the fire really starts burning, he turns back to me and sits against the fireplace. “Yeah. I don’t really have a choice.” The light from the fire glistens and reflects off his pale face, causing the portion of his profile untouched by the light to seem much darker.
We sit in silence, watching the small fire turn into a larger one. “So,” I interrupt the crackling, “how is she?”
“There are good days and bad days.” The crackling interrupts him, and he pokes at it with one of the stokes. “She tries to play things off as if she remembers, but I know she doesn’t, and I definitely don’t push the issue with her because of how scared she already is of the disease.”
We listen to Ms. Page talk to herself in the shower through the wall and sit in silence. The phrase “I’m sorry, Derek,” finds its way out of my mouth, only to be lost in thought by the person it was addressed to. “Does talking about it help?” I ask him.
He nods. “It does, but I don’t like talking about it.”
I nod back and point to his forearm where the bandage covers his wound. “How is it?”
He looks down at it and looks back at me. After a moment, Derek unwraps the bandages and shows me the long scar running up his forearm.
“What …,” I stammer, “what exactly happened?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
I chuckle nervously, knowing that I am going to learn something I don’t want to. “Why else would I ask?”
Derek sighs. He takes a few moments to think, which causes the suspense to grow even more. “There were riots,” he begins, his voice deep with pain and angst. “People were setting houses on fire, throwing bottles of flaming liquor at officials, shooting … killing. It was terrifying.” He pauses to clear his throat and looks from me to the fire. “After one of the Taai members got us all together, he told us to run and follow him once they took care of the wall. As he addressed the group, I realized I couldn’t see your dad anywhere. I saw Randy, but not your dad.
“I ran back to your house as soon as I could and found your dad in the living room, which was absolutely wrecked. There were bottles and trash in every direction. The entire house stunk like urine and had become home to hundreds of flies.
“When I went in, I immediately called to your dad. I heard some rustling in the back of the house, and after a few moments passed, he stumbled out more drunk than I have ever seen him before. He …” Derek’s fists clench together, along with his jaw. “With a bottle in his hand, he spit on the floor and growled at me, ‘What do you want?’
“I asked him if he had heard anything outside or knew what was going on. He told me he heard the riots, but he didn’t want to go.” Derek pauses again, but looks away from the fire and back at me. “He told me he ‘just wanted to die.’”
“What?” I ask him.
“Without your mom, Steven, and you, he had nothing left to live for. He told me, ‘Mavis was all I had, and she was drafted.’ I tried to convince him to come out, but he got angry at me. He said that I drove you away from him while you were here, so it’s my fault that you didn’t like him.” He pauses again and looks back at the fire. “He said you were happy to be drafted to get away from him.”
Derek rises to his feet and grabs a large spoon from the kitchen. “I continued to try to get him to come and follow, but he threw the bottle in his hand at me. He missed the first time, which made him even more upset.” Derek comes back to the fireplace and stirs the stew, keeping his eyes averted from mine. “He picked up every bottle and piece of trash he could get his hands on and threw it at me until I left. I only left after one of the bottles shattered on the wall and cut me. When I left the house to get back to the rally, I ran into Randy.”
Derek heads back to the kitchen and brings a plate back to lay the spoon on after he finishes stirring. “I tried to convince him to come with me. I tried to tell him that your dad didn’t want to leave, but Randy wouldn’t listen.”
Shocked.
That’s all I am.
That’s all I feel.
Not because of the drinking, that was normal for Dad. Not because of the anger, that was normal too. I am shocked because I had no idea that Dad loved me. After Mom died, he stopped telling me that. I always figured he hated me because I reminded him of Mom.
Derek finishes stirring and comes to sit back down beside me. “Are you okay?”
I hesitate. What do I say? How am I okay? How is this okay?
“I’m sorry, Derek.”
He places his arm around me and pulls me into a hug. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
“I …,” I sniffle as I realize I will never get to see my dad again. I take a shaky breath as I realize I never told him I loved him either. “I didn’
t know he loved me.”
“I’m sorry.” He sits close beside me, trying to console me. “I’m sorry.”
The tears fall down my face as I think back to my brother. Steven never knew how much Dad loved him. If he would have known how Dad felt, would Steven have killed himself? Dad beat Steven almost every day. The only days Steven wasn’t beat were the days when Dad was at work or blackout drunk. The only day that I wasn’t verbally abused were those same days.
How could Dad have loved us and treated us that way? Sober or drunk, that is inexcusable … Right?
Derek’s hold on me becomes tighter as he speaks to the top of my head. “I know your mother knew that your dad loved her, and I’m sure somewhere in his heart Steven did too.”
I continue to sob as Derek tells me that it’s okay.
Everything is okay.
My mom’s last thoughts were not about how much her husband loved her, but more likely, “Why is he beating me?”
The moment the incident occurred, he was immediately consumed with even more guilt than he originally had from selling Sander the bad fruit. After the fruit, he started drinking. After Mom, he became a nightmare.
He drank to forget, but the more he drank, the more the guilt seemed to grow. The more the guilt grew, the more the anger did too.
How much worse was it for Steven than it was for me? The beatings ranged from one slap across the face to having Steven slammed down onto the ground. Every time Dad would sober up, he would apologize profusely for what he had done, but that never made things better.
I don’t ever remember Dad apologizing to me for anything he ever said. He would only ever apologize to Steven, and that was only if there were visible injuries.
