We killed a person. Okay, Jerry more than me, but still. We both did it. We murdered someone, and even though I know she’d have gladly done the same to me without feeling a second’s regret or shame, it’s for that reason that now I’m swallowed up by both. It would be better if I could cry, or sick this all up. Puke out my guts. Get something out of me.
I try to fall apart and simply can’t.
I remembered to plug the tub, so it’s now half full. I pour in some detergent and set about washing the clothes, one piece at a time to make sure I get all the dirt out. By the time I rinse them, my back’s aching and my eyes are heavy.
I hang the clothes on the rack to dry, then strip off my clothes. I’m afraid to look at myself in the mirror. I have my mom’s dark hair and eyes but my dad’s Irish complexion. I burn, never tan. And I bruise. Now I’m covered with darkening blue-green blotches in places I didn’t even know the Connie got me. But no scratches, nothing I have to clean extra carefully, even if all the pamphlets and public service announcements have said over and over that you can’t get Contaminated through physical contact. Contamination, not contagion. I wash myself, anyway, cold water from the sink, a washcloth, the last bits of several bars of soap I tried to squish together and combine. They fall apart in my fingers as I use them, but it’s enough to get me clean.
I wish I could wash my hair, but don’t have the patience to do it in cold water, bent over the tub. It wouldn’t dry before morning, either. I pull it up on top of my head. It’s the way my mom used to wear her hair, and I turn from side to side, looking at my reflection and seeing her in myself.
A week, Jean said. A week until I can bring my mom home, here to this crappy two-bedroom apartment the government forced us into during the post-Contamination restructuring. I know we should be glad to have it, to have any place at all. We should be happy they let us stay together, that Opal didn’t have to get shipped off to a group home or something. In other times she would’ve maybe gone into foster care, but there aren’t enough spare families willing to open their arms now, especially not to Contamination orphans. That’s what they call us. Conorphans.
Except orphans are kids without parents, and we have a mother. And I found her. Nobody can change that. None of the protestors who want them all rounded up and sent back to the places where they stuck them with needles, hooked them to tubes, dug around in their brains, can take away the fact she’s my mom.
I change into my pajamas and take my homework into the living room. My grades are bad. I wasn’t ever an all-A student or anything like that, but I did okay. Now, though, it’s hard to stay motivated. I take classes in the mornings, then head out to work, changing bedpans and mopping floors at Cedar Crest Assisted Living Manor from 1 until 5 p.m. The job’s the only reason we have money to do anything beyond the monthly assistance check we get from the special emergency fund set up to aid kids like us.
We should have money, me and Opal. We have a house less than ten miles out of town, in a neighborhood that used to be considered sort of fancy. We have bank accounts in our parents’ names, but they’re frozen, pending confirmation of their deaths or some other complicated legal reasons. Even though we assume our dad’s dead, they’ll make us wait and wait. Now that I’ve found my mom, I wonder if things will get better. Will I be allowed to take over the accounts? Will we qualify for more assistance from the government to take care of her, or will we have to give up what we get now until the money in the bank’s all gone? I hear rumors all the time there’s money coming to all of us from the protein water company that started the whole mess, but I’m not counting on it.
We’re lucky, I remind myself. As far as I know, our house is still there. Probably trashed, maybe even looted, but it’s not burned down the way some were, with Connies still inside. We have shelter and food, we’re mostly warm, mostly dry. And all of this will pass, I tell myself as I try to get comfortable on the couch’s sagging cushions and stare down at my trigonometry book without really seeing the numbers on the pages.
It’s useless. I missed too many lessons, can’t make it up. And what’s the point? I’m really never going to use this stuff. Because of everything that’s happened, I’m not going to get my diploma when I should’ve, not so long as I have to keep working, which I have to do if I want to take care of Opal.
Then I remember Tony.
I was supposed to call him. It’s not quite ten. I pick up the phone, check for a dial tone. It’s not guaranteed anymore. Cell service is better, since they determined it was more important to fix the towers than the underground lines. More people have mobiles than landlines. Or they did. I used to have a cell phone, but it got lost—not that I could afford the service now. Everything’s gone twice as expensive. Or it’s rationed. Or simply unavailable.
I get a dial tone, but then hear a fuzzy, fading voice and get a burst of crackling static. I think it’s Mrs. Wentling talking. I recognize her nasally, whining voice. I hang up, try again. Her voice is louder this time. She pauses. Maybe she hears me, too. I try one more time, and finally when I pick it up again, the line’s clear.
I dial Tony’s number, praying he’ll answer and not his mother. I’m in luck. He picks it up in the middle of the first ring, like he’s been waiting for me to call. At the sound of his hello, I let out a long, shaky sigh.
“It’s me.”
“Velvet! I thought you were going to call me!”
“I am calling you.”
“Yeah, but…” Tony pauses, lowers his voice. “Earlier. You know. Because of my mom.”
Tony’s mom has never liked me, not even before the Contamination changed everything. Tony’s mom worked out like a maniac, running miles and miles in any kind of weather. Every day. She never drank anything but diet cola and water, and she never ate anything but salad. She worked so hard at being skinny, you’d think she’d have been more understanding of the Connies, all people who’d been trying to get skinny, too.
But she wasn’t. Even before the Contamination, I’d heard her make nasty comments about fat people, about anyone who “relied on pills and powders” to diet. I’d heard her make nasty comments about a lot of people, actually. I was sure she made them about me, too, though she was at least nice enough or maybe just not brave enough to say them to my face. During the worst of it, those bad, bad months that summer when the world was ending, I’d taken Opal to their house. I knew Tony would help us.
But his mother wouldn’t.
His dad wanted to, but I think she’d beaten him down long ago. I stood on their front porch, our suitcases at our feet, my little sister crying and clutching at my hand. She was only wearing flip-flops, and later I found blisters all over her feet. We’d walked from the temporary shelter the soldiers had put us in, all the way to Tony’s house. Five miles on hard concrete in the heat of August.
His mother had opened the door only enough to peek out. She was so skinny, she probably could’ve squeezed through that crack, but nothing else could. I knew she knew who I was, but she asked, anyway.
“Please,” I’d begged. “My sister…”
“No. I can’t, Velvet. Where are your parents?” She should’ve known. If we were there on her porch, it had to be because our parents had been Contaminated. They were Connies. They were danger.
I knew I shouldn’t blame her, but I did.