Life as We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  "You mean you think they're all dead," Jonny said.

  "Not exactly," I said, suddenly appreciating how well Matt's been handling me lately. "What I think is the whole world is going through rough times now, not just Pennsylvania. And there are probably boys in the Dominican Republic and in Japan who are worrying the same way you are. Only I don't know if they have vitamins or canned tuna. And I do know one thing. It's like Dad always says. The only way you can be the best at something is to be the best you can be. If you're the best second baseman you can be, you stand as good a chance as anyone at playing second for the Yankees."

  "Do you hate all this?" Jonny asked.

  "Yes," I said. "And I miss hamburgers, too."

  When we got home, I saw Mom in the kitchen, flour and yeast and measuring cups all spread out on the counter. The kitchen must have been 100 degrees between how hot it was outside and the oven being on.

  "Can I help, Mom?" I asked. "I'd like to learn how to bake bread."

  Mom smiled at me. Really smiled. Smiled like I was her long-lost daughter, the good one, who she thought was gone forever. "I'd like that," she said.

  So we baked and sweated together. I like punching the dough. I told myself it was the moon and punched it senseless.

  SEVEN

  July 2

  Mom drove Jonny to baseball camp today. She came back really excited because she found a gas station near Liberty that was selling 5 gallons of gas at a time for $75. That's more than it costs here, but the stations here are down to a 2-gallon maximum, and Mom said it was worth the extra money to get so much gas at once.

  One of the things I don't ask Mom is how much longer her cash is going to last. Then again, the only thing left to spend it on is gas, so I guess it doesn't much matter.

  The temperature was near 100 and we haven't had electricity for the past 3 days. Matt decided it was time to chop down a tree. He sent me out to gather kindling. That seems dumb to me, but at least in the woods there was shade. And it's a lot easier to gather kindling than it is to chop a tree.

  After I'd gathered 4 bags I brought them to the house. Matt was still working on the tree. At the rate he was going, it's going to take a week to chop down that tree.

  I asked him if he wanted any help, and he said no.

  But I didn't feel like I could just sit someplace reading while he was working. And frankly there wasn't that much I could do around the house. I weeded the vegetable garden, since Mom does that daily, and I washed the dishes, and then just to prove I was good for something, I scrubbed the bathrooms and washed the kitchen floor.

  Matt came in and took a drink of water. "Very impressive," he said. "Got any other plans for the day?"

  I was a little scared to admit I didn't, so I just mumbled.

  "Why don't you visit Sammi and Megan?" he asked. "Have you seen them since school ended?"

  I hadn't. Of course they haven't come to visit me, either.

  But just to keep Matt from harping on it, I decided to pay calls. It felt very Jane Austen–y to do that. None of her heroines had phones or computers and nowadays neither do I.

  It took 15 minutes to walk to Sammi's and I sweated the whole way. I wasn't too happy when I got there to find no one was home.

  For a moment I wondered if her whole family had packed up and left (some families are doing that, moving down south because things are supposed to be better there), but there was laundry on the clothesline. Funny to think of Sammi's mom hanging clothes on the line. Of course that's what we're doing now, but Sammi's mother was never exactly the domestic type.

  There didn't seem any point in staying around waiting for someone to show up, so I walked over to Megan's. I knocked on the door and Megan's mom opened the door right away.

  She looked beyond happy to see me. It gave me a déjà-vu feeling. It was the same kind of look I used to get from Becky's mom.

  "Miranda!" Mrs. Wayne said, and she pulled me into the house. "Megan'll be so glad to see you. Megan, Miranda's here!"

  "Is she in her room?" I asked.

  Mrs. Wayne nodded. "She hardly leaves it," she said. "Except to go to church. I'm so glad you're here, Miranda. See if you can talk some sense into her, please."

  "I'll do my best," I said, but we both knew nothing I could say was going to change Megan's mind. I've never been able to change Megan's mind about anything.

  Megan opened the door to her bedroom and she seemed genuinely happy to see me. I checked her out carefully. She's lost some weight, but not as much as I'd been afraid.

  What did scare me, though, was how she glowed. She positively radiated inner joy. No way that makes sense these days.

  "How are you?" she asked, and she seemed genuinely interested in everything I told her. And I told her most everything, about how Dan and I were seeing each other almost every day, and how Jonny was on his way to camp, and how Matt was chopping a tree. I didn't tell her about what food we still had because you don't talk about that anymore.

  Once we finished with me, I asked her how she was. If anything, she got even more radiant. She was practically radioactive.

  "Oh, Miranda," she said. "If only you could know the true happiness I'm feeling."

  "I'm glad you're happy," I said, although frankly I thought she was crazy, and bad as things are, I'm still not glad when people are crazy.

  "You could be happy, too, if you only embraced God," she said. "Admit your sins, cast out Satan, and offer your heart to God."

  "You getting to church much?" I asked. Megan had listened to me rattle on about Dan, the least I could do is listen to her rattle on about Reverend Marshall.

  "I go every day," Megan replied. "Mom knows I go every morning, but she gets angry at me if I don't come back by afternoon. And I don't want Mom to be angry, because I want to see her in Heaven. Sometimes, though, at night when she's asleep, I slip out and go back. No matter when I go, the Reverend is there. He's praying day and night for all us sinners."

  Somehow I doubt he's praying for me, and if he is, I'm not sure I want him to. But at least if Megan was going to church, she was getting out of the house.

  Still some questions had to be asked. "So are you eating anymore?" I asked. Funny how anymore can mean two different things.

  "I eat, Miranda," Megan said, and she smiled at me like I was an idiot child. "It would be suicide if I stopped eating altogether. It's not God's will that anyone should commit suicide."

  "Glad to hear it," I said.

  She gave me a look of such pity I had to turn my face away. "You're like how I was," she said. "After Becky died."

  It's a funny thing. We were all so close to Becky, Megan and Sammi and I, but we hardly talked about her after she died. That's when we started going our separate ways, like Becky, and even her illness, was the glue that held us together.

  "What about her?" I asked. I wondered if Megan dreamed about Becky like I do, three or four times a week lately.

  "I was so angry," Megan said. "Angry at God. How could He let someone like Becky die? With so many awful people in the world, why was it Becky had to be the one to die? I actually hated God. I hated everyone and everything and I even hated God."

  I tried to remember what Megan had been like. It was a little over a year ago, so it shouldn't have been too hard. But that whole time was so awful. Becky had been sick for so long, and then it looked like the treatments were working, and then out of nowhere she died anyway.

  "Mom was scared for me," Megan said. "And Reverend Marshall had just started preaching here, so she took me to see him. I screamed at him. How could God do that to Becky? How could He do that to me? I thought Reverend Marshall would tell me to go home and I'd understand when I was older, but he didn't. He said we could never truly understand God's will. We have to trust God, have faith in Him, and follow the rules He gave us without ever understanding Him. The Lord is my shepherd, Miranda. Once Reverend Marshall made me understand that, all my doubts and all my anger went away. God has His own reasons for what we're suff
ering. Maybe when we're in Heaven we'll understand, but until then all we can do is pray for His forgiveness and obey His will."

  "But His will can't be for you to starve to death," I said.

  "Why not?" she asked. "His will was for Becky to die. Death can be a blessing, Miranda. Think how much suffering Becky's been spared."

  "But you can't pray to die," I said.

  "I pray to accept God's will without any doubts," she replied. "I pray to be worthy of His love. I pray for eternal life in Heaven. I pray for you, Miranda, and Mom and Dad and even for Dad's other family. And I pray as Reverend Marshall says we should, for the souls of all the poor sinners, that they should see the light and be spared the eternal flames of hell."

  "Thank you," I said, for lack of anything better to say.

  Megan stared at me with pity. "I know you're not a believer," she said. "And I see the unhappiness in your eyes. Can you say you're happy, Miranda? Can you say you're at peace with the world?"

  "No, of course not," I said. "But I don't think I should be. Why should I be happy when there isn't enough food and people are getting sick and I can't even turn on the air conditioning?"

  Megan laughed. "All of that is so unimportant," she said. "This life is no more than the blink of an eye compared to life everlasting. Pray with me, Miranda. The only thing that's keeping me from true happiness is knowing that people I love aren't saved."

  "Well, no one says you can be happy about everything," I said. "I know I should be glad for you, Megan, but frankly I think you're crazy. And if Reverend Marshall is making you this way, I think he's evil. This life, this everyday existence, is the one gift we're given. To throw it away, to want to be dead, to me that's the sin."

  The Megan who used to be my best friend would have argued with me. And then we would have laughed. This Megan got down on her knees and began to pray.

  When I got home, I went back into the woods and got three more bags of kindling. Maybe I'll end up in the eternal flames of hell, like Megan says. But until that happens, I intend to stay warm from the flames of a woodstove.

  July 3

  After supper tonight, Mom said, "I was thinking about this on the drive home yesterday. How would you feel if we cut back to two meals a day?"

  I think even Matt was startled, because he didn't say sure right away.

  "Which two?" I asked, like it would matter.

  "We'd definitely keep eating supper," Mom said. "It's important for us to have one meal together. But we could decide every day if we wanted breakfast or lunch. I know I'd skip breakfast. I've never been much of a breakfast person."

  "I skip lunch sometimes at school," Matt said. "It wouldn't be that big a deal for me to skip it."

  "Of course it's voluntary," Mom said. "We're nowhere near running out of food. But I thought while Jonny is away, maybe we could all do with a little less."

  I pictured Jonny on the farm, eating eggs and drinking milk and, for a second, I really hated him. "It's fine, Mom," I said. "I'll skip a meal. I'll live."

  I wonder what it's going to be like with Dad and Lisa. I'm starting to develop real fantasies about Springfield. I picture a kitchen full of food, a working refrigerator, farmers' markets with fresh produce and eggs and pies and cookies and chocolate fudge. I imagine air conditioning and TV and Internet and 80-degree weather and indoor pools and no mosquitoes.

  I'll settle for any one of those things. Well, any one of those things and fudge.

  July 4

  Happy Independence Day.

  Ha!

  Horton kept us up all night wailing in front of Jonny's bedroom door. He's gotten very sulky and only ate half of his food yesterday (and Mom didn't even have to ask him to).

  No electricity for the past three days. The temperature has been hovering around 100 degrees and it doesn't get much cooler at night.

  I dreamed heaven was an ice palace, cold and white and beckoning.

  I skipped breakfast today and I was hungry when I went swimming. I'll try skipping lunch tomorrow. All the time I spent with Dan (not enough and Emily was there practically on top of us the entire time), all I could think about was food. How much I missed breakfast. What I was going to eat for lunch. How many more loaves of bread we were going to be able to bake before we run out of yeast.

  I think about Jonny getting three meals a day, real food, farm food, and how Mom pulled this two-meal business on us only after he left, and I get so angry. It's like she thinks Jonny's needs come first. Got to get him his nourishment if he's going to reach 6 feet. Just to be on the safe side, give him some of Miranda's.

  I hope this bad mood is just because it's the Fourth. That was always one of my favorite holidays. I love the parades and the fair and the fireworks.

  This year Matt brought Mrs. Nesbitt over for supper, and after we ate, we sat on the front porch and sang patriotic songs. Horton screeched right along, and it was hard to say which one of us sounded worse.

  This is without a doubt the worst summer of my life and there are still two months to go.

  July 6

  No electricity for the past 5 days. None of us wants to say it, but we're all thinking maybe we'll never have electricity again.

  It was 97 this afternoon. Mom is making us drink lots and lots of water.

  Matt's still chopping down trees and I'm still gathering kindling. It's hard to imagine ever being cold again.

  I think brunch is going to work best for me. I go swimming in the morning and then when I come back, I eat my meal. That way I don't have to watch Matt eat breakfast or watch Mom eat her half lunch and feel guilty when I'm eating more than she is.

  July 7

  Right after I got back from swimming, the electricity came on. We haven't had any in almost a week, and we were jubilant at its return.

  Mom always leaves a load of most-needed-to-be-washed clothes in the washing machine, and she turned it on right away. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and started on the living room floor. Mom got the dishwasher going and the central air (it was 92 degrees when I woke up this morning). Matt turned on the rabbit ears TV, but all he got was an emergency broadcasting signal, whatever that means.

  After ten glorious minutes, the electricity went off. Everything stopped, the vacuum and the air conditioning and the washer and the dishwasher and the freezer that would have made us ice cubes for the first time in a week.

  We stood around, actually stood around, waiting for the appliances to turn themselves back on. Mom stared at the washer; I held on to the vacuum.

  After about 15 minutes, I gave up and put the vacuum cleaner away. Mom unloaded the dishes from the dishwasher, rinsed them off, and put them away.

  She held off on the laundry until mid-afternoon. Then she and I unloaded it, carried the soapy wet clothes to the bathtub, and spent what felt like hours rinsing them out and wringing them so they could get hung on the clothesline.

  So help me, 15 minutes after we got them hung, there was a thunderstorm. I thought Mom was going to start crying (I sure felt like it), but she was okay until Matt finally made his way back in. He spends all his time chopping wood, and I guess he wasn't going to let a little thunder and lightning get in his way.

  Mom totally blew it. She screamed at him for staying in the woods during a thunderstorm. Her face turned so red I was afraid she'd have a stroke. Matt yelled right back. He knew what he was doing, every minute counted; if he'd been in any danger he would have come right in.

  Then the electricity came back on. We all ran out, took the clothes off the line, and shoved them into the dryer. Mom started a second load in the washing machine. We turned on the air conditioning, and Matt went online to see if anything was there (just a week-old listing of the dead and the missing).

  This time the electricity stayed on for 40 minutes, long enough for the second load of laundry. It had stopped raining, so Mom hung it on the line.

  The ice cubes weren't frozen all the way through, but they still were a wonderful luxury in our glasses of water. The
house cooled down and outside it was less muggy.

  Mom and Matt are still speaking to each other. Horton is still demanding to know where we hid Jonny.

  I can't decide which is worse, no electricity or unreliable electricity.

  I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all.

  July 9

  The temperature is 102, there's been no electricity since Saturday, and I have my period. I would kill for a chocolate chocolate-chip ice-cream cone.

  July 10

  Here's the funny thing about the world coming to an end. Once it gets going, it doesn't seem to stop.

  I woke up this morning and immediately sensed that things were different. It's hard to explain. It was cooler than it has been (which is good), but the sky was this weird gray color, not exactly like it was cloudy or even foggy. More like someone had pulled a translucent gray shade over the blue sky.

  I went downstairs to the kitchen because I could hear Mom and Matt talking. Mom had boiled water for tea, and even though I don't much like tea, it still gives me the illusion of having something in my stomach so I made myself a cup.

  "What's going on?" I asked, because it was pretty obvious something was.

  "We hadn't wanted to worry you," Mom began.

  I don't know what raced through my mind first. Jonny. Dad. Lisa's baby. Mrs. Nesbitt. Grandma. Electricity. Food. Mosquitoes. The moon crashing into earth. Everything flooded in. I know how terrified I must have looked, but Mom didn't change her expression. No reassuring smile, no laugh at my overreaction. Matt looked every bit as grim. I steeled myself for the worst.

  "We thought this was a possibility," Mom said. "Matt, Peter, and I, but the scientists didn't say anything about it, at least not that we heard on the radio. I guess we hoped we were exaggerating. Worrying about things that weren't really going to happen."