“Ben, oh my goodness!” Mom’s squeal from the kitchen has us all on our feet. She’s standing in front of the kitchen counter. Spread across the faux granite top is a small assortment of food items.
Penelope clams up. Dad walks like a peacock strutting his feathers.
“I had a few things put aside at the supermarket. Just in case.”
My mother bear hugs him and doesn’t let go.
“There’s more, too,” he adds, “I just couldn’t get it all in one trip. It’s not nearly as much as before, though.” A shadow of disappointment returns to his face. “It’s gonna be rough.”
Mom cries tears of relief. “It’s wonderful. Thank God.”
Penelope saunters over to the items and picks up a wrapped Pop-Tart by the edge of the foil packaging as if it’s contagious. She never gives him any credit.
Early that afternoon,
Mom returns from the mailbox with an envelope addressed to me. Lately, the mail only arrives once or twice a week due to lack of workers and physical mail. I never get mail. There’s no return address on the envelope, but I recognize Rita’s handwriting. I rip it open. We haven’t spoken since the day at the library when her parents reamed her out in front of everyone.
Inside is a letter from her. I read it silently even though Mom stands nearby waiting to know who sent it.
Alex,
By the time you get this letter, I’ll already be gone. I can’t live like this anymore. Me and a group from my church have decided to break free and escape while we still can. Our church is too rigid in their view of the Second Coming and their hatred of the vertexes. I can’t sit back and let them make this decision for me. It’s my life. I love my parents and I know this might hurt them, but staying will hurt me. Religion should fit a person like a second skin. When it doesn’t fit, it’s stifling (and you know me and outfits
J
).
I really hope there’s something on the other side and we’re not jumping off a hidden cliff. In any case, it’s my cliff to jump. I’m sneaking Dobby in my backpack and bringing him into the vertex with me. Even though the holograms said no animals, I can’t bear to leave him behind. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye in person, but we needed to leave ASAP before anyone got suspicious. I couldn’t text or call you ‘cause my parents took away my phone. Our church leaders are telling members to keep subversive people, as they like to call us, constantly monitored, saying the devil is attempting to control us. I don’t even believe in demons (at least not supernatural ones).
You’ve been my best friend since the day you shared your lunch with me after I forgot mine in first grade and was too embarrassed to tell Ms. Hall. You stood up for me when Billy kept making fun of the long skirts my parents used to make me wear every day (until I discovered a sense of style and the power of the bathroom
J
). Remember those ugly things? I hope things work out and we see each other again on the other side. I will miss you so much.
Te quiero como a una hermana.
Para siempre,
Rita
P. S. Tell Benji I said congratulations. Tell Dominick I said goodbye and to give you a hug for me.
I read the letter several times before it sinks in that she’s gone. It’s not until Mom grabs me by the shoulders and asks me what’s the matter before my chest starts convulsing and I sob like someone has died.
Chapter 17
Day 135: December—1,185 hours to decide
Question: Do you have religions?
Answer: Yes, we have religious freedom. If you would like to believe in something, you may. We have many religions, new ones every day. We believe religion is a personal choice. However, no religion is allowed to promote inequality or judgment toward others. We do not consider intolerance to be a religious, moral, or spiritual philosophy.
My tears over
Rita’s departure turn to anger at her church, so I search online for as much information as I can about different religious views on the vertexes so I can be pissed off at all of them. Knowledge is power, after all.
According to the Internet, the Pope says that sometimes “prophets come in many forms, as do false prophets,” and it is up to our “hearts” to decide what is right for us. He mentions the story of Noah and the flood, how people in Noah’s time were skeptical and lost their lives for it. He explains that “faith is a feeling and an act.” He asked everyone to “pray for clarity.” When asked if he will leave through a vertex, he said he will “leave that decision to God.” The Catholics aren’t sure what that means.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims that it’s not the end, that “All prophecies must be fulfilled” before “that great and dreadful day.” Like a comet isn’t prophecy enough? They also believe that “no man shall know the date,” and the holograms gave us the date. Mormons not already living in Utah are heading to Salt Lake City in great numbers, while some splinter groups head to Adam-ondi-Ahman, wherever the hell that is. Rumors have it that they’re combining their stored food into one massive armed food bank at Welfare Square to protect it from raiders.
The Jehovah Witnesses believe that the comet and vertexes “mark the beginning of Armageddon.” They predict the United Nations will fail in their attempt to divert the comet because “God has sent it to cleanse the earth.” Like Rita’s church, they believe in waiting for the “inevitable destruction and redemption that await them for fulfilling the scriptural requirements for selection into God’s kingdom.” They don’t seem worried, expecting the Rapture to save them before any comet hits.
Jews have begun a slow, mass exodus through vertexes. They’ve been here before, and they aren’t taking any chances.
Muslims, like the Mormons, believe that the end “date will be hidden,” not posted on a countdown clock at every vertex. The comet, however, represents an environmental disaster marking the “Last Hour.” They cannot agree on whether or not the holograms represent the figure Dajjal or Mahdi.
Unitarian Universalists assert that it is “up to individuals to discover the truth for themselves.” No judgment either way.
Bottom line as I see it: no one knows what the hell to think or do.
Dominick reads over
Rita’s letter in his car while I watch the ocean. I still expect her name to pop up on my phone screen and request some quality girl time. It can’t be real. If it was that bad at home, she could’ve hid in my basement. God knows there’s plenty of space.
But she didn’t even ask. I should’ve said sorry.
He folds the note and hands it to me. “She’s got guts to leave her parents without telling them.”
“I couldn’t do it.” The ocean ebbs and flows, a vast space full of goodbyes and returns.
Where is she now?
“She was always like that, though,” Dominick says. “Remember April Fool’s Day freshman year?”
“Yes, the sticky notes covering the faculty room—that was all her idea.”
“And sophomore year when she accidentally started a fire in chemistry?”
“Yes, we had to evacuate and got to miss the next two periods. For the next week everyone called her Firestarter. I swear she liked it.”
“I warned her not to crank up the Bunsen burner to save time. Didn’t listen. She liked figuring out things on her own terms. She was cool like that.”
Talking about Rita in the past tense bothers me. I want the memories to make things better, but the more I talk with Dominick about her, the worse I feel.
“She might be right to leave now,” Dominick says.
Not him, too.
“Are you serious? I thought you said we should wait it out. Give it a little time.”
“Food supplies are getting lower . . .”
“Yeah, we’re lucky that Dad works at a grocery store. He gets first pick on any new shipments.” I see his face, and it finally occurs to me not everyone is as lucky as I am. “Wait, you’d leave?”
“We might have to.”
By the time
Dominick drops me off at home, the stars glitter in the winter sky. I wonder if one of them holds Rita in some vast future, or if instead she’s been swallowed by the cosmos.
On my front porch, my frozen fingers fumble with my keys. The first key I choose doesn’t fit, so I automatically flip through the other two. No, that was the right one. It takes me a few seconds before I notice that the whole lock’s been changed. After ringing the doorbell several times, I hear my mother’s muffled voice yell from inside, “Go around back.”
I skirt the house through the metal side gate and walk up the back patio. The last time I hung out here was with Dominick the day after we were decontaminated at the hospital. I remember him trying to explain how the vertexes worked. Bouncing the basketball. He was excited then. Now he seems as uncertain as I feel. How much has changed in only a few months.
Mom waits for me at the back door.
“Your father blocked the front door. He’s trying to make the house more secure. One entrance and exit only.”
I swallow hard.
“Alex, he’s trying.”
In the bitter darkness I kick the tarp that covers the patio furniture. With Rita gone, I can’t take any more change.
When I don’t respond, she adds, “He loves you. He’s not the same man he was that night. Before he got help with his flashbacks.”
“Yep.” The light in the yard casts weird shadows across the dead grass.
“Alex, seriously, he’s changed. You’re the one who hasn’t. With everything that’s happened, don’t you think it’s time to let go?”
“Why?” Unexpected anger boils up inside of me. She’s taking his side over mine, accusing me of having the problem. “He’s never even talked to me about it.”
“That’s because he’s ashamed. He can’t believe he hurt you that night. He would do anything to protect you. That’s why he worked so hard to get himself together.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it with you.” I push past her, flee down the hallway, slam my bedroom door. My heart dances in my chest, pain ripping through my ribcage.
I take a pill to escape from today. When it doesn’t help, I take a second before I hit the pillow.
I dream of
the other world through the vertexes. Well, my subconscious version of it.
Up in a purple sky two suns blink in and out like giant, winking eyeballs. I’m in the middle of a strange rainbow city. People from different parts of the world float past me with plastic smiles plastered on their faces. They wear the same ghastly uniforms as the holograms. I look down and see that I’m wearing my pajamas. I walk from person to person, waving my hands in front of them and trying to communicate. No one flinches.
Then I spot Rita in the crowd. Tears flood my cheeks as I run and run and run toward her and she moves farther and farther away with every step. My feet begin sinking into the white pavement. It’s like standing in liquid marshmallow. I scream her name to get her attention and apologize once and for all for being a jerk. She doesn’t turn around.
From behind, someone grabs me around the neck and drags me into an alley.
“Still a tease?” Dan the Drunk Dude breathes into my face. I squirm and kick to get away from him, but the ground slips under my feet. When I glance down, I see a sheet of ice beneath me.
I scream for help with all the energy in my chest, my desperate attempt to escape failing as each second passes.
Then like a superhero, Dad appears with a machine gun and blows Dan to smithereens in a fantastic spray of violence and machismo.
“Family stays together,” he says. We hug in the double sunlight.
As he leads me out of their world and back home, I look at my feet. The ice is gone. The white pavement is firm. Everything will be okay.
He heads toward a massive gate with a black, swirling mass inside it. A return home.
“What about Rita?” I ask.
Dad doesn’t respond, doesn’t look at me.
“Dad?” I ask, pulling him back.
He won’t budge. I look at his feet, checking the white pavement for signs of struggle. That’s when I notice Dad doesn’t have a shadow.
He turns his face to look at me, and instead of eyes his sockets twist like blue, liquid metallic vertexes.
I jolt from my bed, my curly hair clinging to the sides of my face with sweat.
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
Don’t get tricked by a dream.
The clock reads 3:44. I take another pill, click on the television, and watch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
reruns while scribbling in my journal to escape the growing fear and gripping indecision drowning me.
By morning, I feel like a zombie has been snacking on my brains for breakfast. The only consolation is that I probably won’t need any more pills today no matter what since I’m too tired to feel anything.
For breakfast I
have a piece of toast smeared with peanut butter and a glass of water. My pajama pants sag at the waist, so I roll the top to keep them from slipping down. I used to love the view of the yard from the kitchen sink. Now all I can see are wooden planks blocking out all traces of daylight. The sun would’ve hurt my overtired eyes anyway.
Apparently after we went to bed, Dad barricaded us in the house. The inside of the back door is blocked with a makeshift contraption of wood wedged into the bottom, another piece of wood and metal crowbar jammed crisscrossed across the door, and a piece of rope tied to the knob, the other end attached to the refrigerator. Calling it overboard would be a massive understatement. And Mom thinks he’s fine. I call bullshit.
Mom enters the kitchen and makes a cup of Lipton tea.
Dad follows and pours a bowl of cereal with reconstituted powdered milk. I watch each of them circle each other, Mom handing him an extra spoon as she gets the sugar out of the jar, Dad scooping some dry milk into her teacup. I never noticed how much happens between them without words. Comfort and acceptance in the little things.
Penelope comes in and announces she’s leaving.
“Leaving?” Mom asks, then takes a sip of tea. “Back to Florida?”
Penelope stands firm, one suitcase in hand. I wonder where all the rest of them are. “No, through a vertex,” she says.
She’s serious.
Dad laughs. “Good luck to them.”
“Ben!” Mom throws a dishrag at Dad, then focuses back on Penelope. “You can’t just leave.”
“The hell I can’t. Look at this place. It’s a prison. Look at the food.” She points at the counter. “What happens when all this is gone?”
“I have more at the store. In the back room. Not as much as before, but it’s enough.”
He’s lying. I know him. He may have food at the store, but when he said “enough
,”
he cracked his knuckles.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough drama to last a lifetime. You all ought to come with me, but I know he won’t go,” she talks about Dad like he’s not in the room, “and if he won’t go, you won’t go.”
“No one’s going anywhere.” Dad slams his fist into the table. “We have to stick together. Bunker down. Let the government handle it. We just have to wait.”
“Wait? Wait and worry and then what?” Penelope points in his face. “Die together? I don’t understand how you cannot put your family first over your love and trust in this damn country.”
“Mother, back off.” Mom steps between them. Dad turns around and storms out of the kitchen. Their bedroom door slams.
Penelope smiles a sad smile, kisses Mom on the cheek, leaving behind hot pink lip prints, and whispers, “I knew he’d be your downfall.”
Mom’s fists ball up, but she doesn’t respond.
“I love you,” Penelope says to her. “Take care.”
Penelope moves from Mom to me.
“Bye, sweetheart.” She kisses me on the forehead. “You can come with me, you know. You’re eighteen. It’s your decision.”
I shake my head and refuse. I don’t know if it’s the right decision, but I know it’s not the wrong one. At the moment. As much as Dad irks me, and as much as I’d love to see Rita, I can’t see myself stepping into the unknown with Penelope, and especially without Dominick. There’s still another month before the comet arrives. The government could come through, like Dad said.
“Oh, Alexandra, I know you love your father, but he makes you worse. However, if you want to stay, that’s your prerogative.”
A car horn beeps. Penelope picks up her bag with one hand.
“Marcus offered to drive me. I didn’t think a send-off at the vertex would be a good idea. Didn’t think Ben would react well. I was right.” She lifts up her suitcase higher. “Traveling light. No choice. You can do whatever you want with my other things.”
As she hugs me goodbye, behind her my mother struggles to stay calm. Her eyeballs look ready to burst. She could use one of my pills.
Mom begins to cry, and Penelope hugs her one more time.
We have to un–booby trap the back door to let her free. And then, my grandma sets off on her voyage through a vertex.
I hope I made the right choice. She was a good ally to have around. Harsh, but an ally all the same.
Mom tells me
that Dad wants to talk to me alone.
Thanks a lot, Penelope.
He hasn’t left the bedroom since Penelope’s departure, and I find him sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed. I plop down next to him with plenty of space between us in case he decides he’s so angry at Penelope that I’d make a good venting bag.
My parents’ bedroom is definitely a mix of Mom’s and Dad’s tastes, including an heirloom quilt bedspread with a huge American red, white, and blue star pattern across the center. His old cigar box on his bureau. Pictures of Benji and me on the wall in various stages of puberty. A gross one with me in braces from sixth grade grins at me.