Michael said, “I don’t think any of us are in any hurry to go out there.”
“We have to seal all the cracks in the doors and the sides of the windows. As a precaution. There’s tape down here and in the junk drawer upstairs. Molly, Kelly, Michael and I will do that first.”
“What about me?” Elise asked.
“You and Aidan watch the TV. We need more information, and you can keep him calm.”
“I’m not a baby,” Aidan said.
“I know you’re not, bud. We just can’t have you running around. Especially now.”
Elise’s guts drained to the bottom of her abdomen, and she felt like vomiting. Especially now. They had limited medication for Aidan. For his asthma. For his seizures. But she didn’t need to worry. Whatever was causing the ash would stop soon enough and they wouldn’t have to get anxious about shortages. Yeah, that was right. Don’t freak out yet. “I can do that.”
“Let’s get to work then,” Michael said.
“I’m not done,” Sean said.
Elise looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. They needed to get working. “Babe—”
“We need to bar all the doors too.”
“Bar the doors?” Michael asked.
“And the windows. Nail them shut. Make sure they can’t be opened. Board them up.”
“What does that have to do with the ash?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“We need to be prepared.”
It struck her—the fear that begins in the diaphragm and steals the air before it can reach the lungs. Sean didn’t think this was temporary. Elise said, “Babe, I think we should focus on first things first.”
“I am,” he said. “That’s why nobody comes back into the reserves unless I say.”
Michael blinked. “What?”
“We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here, so we need to calm down and make sure we have enough.”
“You mean make sure we don’t steal anything.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“Both of you shut up!” Kelly yelled. “We have ash falling from the sky. The children are terrified. I’m terrified. And all you two can do is bicker.” She pointed at her husband. “You shut up and do everything he says.”
“Kelly—” Michael began.
“Save it. Listen and do what he says.”
Elise caught Sean’s glance and rubbed the smile from her lips. She had always thought of Kelly as a doormat, a little mouse who never questioned Michael for fear he would leave her and take his money with him.
“We need to start taping the cracks first,” Sean said. “Follow me.”
Everyone ditched their gas masks for surgical ones before leaving the basement. Elise carried Aidan to the living room couch and set him down. She searched around and put her hands on her hips. “You know where the remote is?” She got on her knees to look around, ran her hands inside the contours of the cushions. Aidan stayed quiet before saying, “They said there was activity under Yellowstone yesterday.”
She stopped and brushed the hair out of her face. “Who’s they?”
“The man on the TV.”
“The man said something about Yellowstone?”
“Just that there was activity under the park.”
She paused. “Do you know where the remote is?”
He shook his head. Molly charged into the living room, duct tape in hand. “I’ll do my room,” she said, more as a statement than a question.
Sean came in behind her. “Start there and move to each of the rooms around yours.”
She dashed up the stairs as if something were chasing her. Sean pointed to Kelly. “Start with the guest bedroom,” he said and pointed to Michael. “You start with the mudroom and move out back to this room.”
Michael made eye contact with his sister but didn’t argue. Sean lifted his medical mask and leaned down to kiss his son on the head. “Stay strong, bud.” He put his hand on top of hers and gently squeezed. She held on when he tried to leave. “Sean.”
He stopped.
“I don’t know about this.”
“About what?”
“Do we need to do all this? Board up the windows?”
He bit down on his tongue for a minute and said, “Remember when we moved out here? You said you trusted me.”
“Yeah.”
“You still do?”
She considered this for a second and nodded. He kissed her cheek and left. As soon as he was gone, she longed to have him back, to keep her calm. She kept a strong face, but felt her grip wearing thin. She lifted the skirt around the bottom of the couch and found the remote. Clicked the button. The TV warmed up. Her hand trembled, awaiting the deluge of fear about to come onto the screen. The media always laid it on thick.
Aidan said, “Mom, I’m scared.”
She sat next to him and pulled him close, praying for him. For her family.
The TV audio ended her talk with God. The signal was fuzzy, probably from the snow accumulation on the satellite dish, and every few seconds the screen lagged and then resumed. She recognized the anchor from the national news. He looked haggard. The audio began midsentence: “…this cataclysmic volcanic eruption. We are going now to Kayla Petacki in our Kansas City affiliate KCTV4.”
She came on the TV, standing outdoors. The image was a little fried, but Kayla was wearing a medical mask and held an open umbrella. Ash fell around her like a blizzard. No white in that snow. Just gray. It should have been sunrise there, but it was dark. She stood in front of a shopping center.
“Scott, the eruption last night was heard as far as southern Colorado and into North and South Dakota. The VAAC said the ash release is unprecedented in modern times.”
Elise covered her mouth.
“Authorities here in Kansas City have been trying to calm the crowds, but reports of widespread looting have been coming into our station. The temperature has plummeted today from the expected high. Behind me you can see the shopping center here on the west side of Kansas City,” she said, moving out of the shot to show the cars and people scrambling around the parking lot. “So far, everything is orderly, but the police have been dispatched to make sure it remains that way.”
Elise saw no blue or red lights. In the center of the image, as Kayla talked, a man came around a car and set a dozen grocery bags on the ground. Another man joined him, yelling. A gun glimmered in the parking lot lights. The muzzle popped three times, and the first man collapsed.
The image came back to the anchor. “Cut it away,” he yelled. “Get off it, get off it, get off it.”
Too late.
“We’re so sorry about that,” he said, and the screen cut to a commercial.
Elise looked away and pulled Aidan closer to herself, stroking the top of his head. She clicked the television off. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked off the seconds. She tried to think of something—anything—other than those gunshots, but couldn’t. She hoped Aidan didn’t understand what had happened. Tears lined her eyes. She wiped them away. For Aidan. For everyone.
Sensing something behind her, she turned her head. Sean stood in the doorframe of the kitchen, his jaw tight, staring at the blank screen. He had seen it. His eyes told her everything. His mouth opened like he had something to say, but he left the room instead.
She was hit by a familiar emotion she couldn’t quite place at first. It was the feeling of finality, of loss. Like when her mom and dad had died. The feeling she had at their funerals.