They walked in silence back to Mom’s apartment. The three murdered women were still lying in front of the building.
“I heard they’ll start moving the corpses tomorrow,” the guard said. “Meantime, stay in your apartment, ma’am. A siren will ring three times, then stop, then three times again to let the grubs know they can go out again. Don’t leave until then or you might get shot.”
“Thank you,” Mom said. “I’ll stay in my apartment until I hear the sirens.”
“I’m going upstairs with my mother,” Jon said. “I’ll be a few minutes. Wait for me here, all right?”
“Yes sir,” the guard said.
Jon and his mother walked the flight of stairs to her apartment. “Wait here,” he said, “while I check things out.”
“Don’t be silly,” she replied, promptly walking ahead of him. “You must be famished. I know I am. I’ll get us something to eat.”
“I’m okay,” Jon said. “I’ll eat when I get back to Sexton.”
“You’ll eat right now,” Mom said. They walked to the kitchen and saw it had been ransacked. Mom checked the cupboards, but all her food had been stolen. They looked around the apartment, but whoever had stolen the food was gone.
“Are you going to be okay?” Jon asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Come here.”
They walked to Miranda and Alex’s room, and Mom opened the closet door. “Our hidden stash,” she said, pulling cans of food out of an emptied pillow on the closet shelf. “Alex’s paranoia can come in handy.”
Jon checked the supplies. “That should last you for a few days,” he said. “Besides, they’ll start getting food to you in a day or two.”
“I’m not so sure,” Mom replied. “They’ll feed the workers in Sexton. But I don’t think they’ll send food to White Birch. They’re not putting the fires out. They closed the clinic when it’s most needed. I don’t think they’re going to send us any supplies until they think we’ve suffered enough.”
“I’ll bring you food,” Jon said.
“Jon, thank you,” Mom said. “We’re all right for the time being. Sit down. I want to talk.”
They sat on the bed. Mom reached out and touched Jon’s hand. “We may never see each other again,” she said.
“Mom!” Jon said. “Don’t say that.”
“I have to,” she replied. “Things are bad, Jon. Not the way they were before. Everything else—the earthquakes, the diseases, all of it—no one’s been at fault. We’ve suffered together. But what’s happening, what’s going to happen, is man-made. Sexton’s a bully, Jon. It’s a frightened bully. You know me. I’m the one who always believes if we can just hold out, things will get better. I don’t believe that anymore. Not after yesterday. The enclave will let us die. They’ll bring in new laborers and work them to death and then bring another batch in.”
Jon turned away.
Mom grabbed his arm and forced him to look at her. “I love you,” she said. “And I want you to know the decision to let you live with Lisa was one of the hardest I’ve ever made in my life. Harder than divorcing your father. Harder than letting Matt and Syl move away. Every day I’ve asked myself if I did the right thing, and I still don’t know. You’re healthier than you would have been here, and you’re better educated, and you have a real chance at a future. But I know it hurt you to live away from your family. I know you feel like I haven’t been there for you.”
“I’ve wanted things to be different,” he said. “Like they were before, back home.”
“We’ll never have that again,” Mom said. “It’s gone, not just for us, for everybody. We’re the lucky ones, Jon. Think of it. You have your brother and your sister. Gabe, too, and Lisa. Lisa’s been wonderful, and I want you to tell her how grateful, how eternally grateful I am to her. Love them, Jon, because they’re your family and they’re good, loving people. Your father loved you so much, and I love you so much. Never forget that.”
“I know,” Jon said. “I love you, Mom. And I need you. Promise me you’ll be all right.”
“All I can promise is that I’ll try,” Mom said. “Promise me you’ll try, also, Jonny.”
“I promise,” Jon said.
Mom kissed him and then got up. “The guard’s waiting for you,” she said. “Do whatever Dr. Goldman and Lisa tell you. Please see Miranda, and let her know I’m all right. I don’t want her to worry about me.”
Jon stood and embraced his mother. “We’ll make it through this,” he said. “I promise.”
“Go,” Mom said. “And remember how much I love you.”
Jon left Mom in the bedroom. He walked out of the apartment, down the stairs, past the dead bodies. The guard followed him as he walked.
In a couple of hours he’d be home. Back to the house in Sexton where there were domestics to look after him and always enough to eat. Back to the life everyone had sacrificed for so that he might have a home and food and a real chance at a future.
I’ll be good, he promised them all, he promised himself. I’ll make you proud.
Jon found Carrie in the kitchen when he went downstairs for breakfast.
“How do you like your eggs?” she asked. “Scrambled?”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “Where’s Val?”
“I don’t know,” Carrie said. She broke two eggs into a bowl, poured some goat’s milk in, and began beating them.
“I thought you and Val took the bus together Mondays?” Jon said.
“Look,” Carrie said, turning to face him. “I walk to Val’s house Monday mornings and we take the bus together. Only this morning I couldn’t. The guards herded us like cattle to the terminal. They frisked us before we got onto the buses, and I was stopped four times walking from the terminal to here. That’s all I know.”
“Did you tell Lisa you don’t know where Val is?” Jon asked.
Carrie poured the eggs in the pan. “Yes, I told her. She said I should assume Val wouldn’t be coming, and for the time being I should do her work as well as mine.”
Lisa had been in a terrible mood when Jon had gotten home the day before. She’d yelled at Jon because he hadn’t let her know he was all right. Then she said work was going to be a nightmare because, from what she was hearing, there were hundreds, possibly thousands dead in White Birch, and that meant any number of houses in Sexton would be without one or more of their domestics, and they’d be calling her to demand she replace the ones who were gone.
Jon began to eat. If Val was missing, then Carrie was their only domestic, at least until Miranda had her baby. And if Lisa had to send Carrie to some other claver’s home, then Miranda would be their only one, cleaning the house, doing the cooking, looking after Gabe and her own baby.
There’d be no avoiding her then. She’d sleep in the nursery and clean Jon’s room and make his meals and be some bizarre combination of his domestic and his sister.
It was one thing for Mom to tell him to love Miranda. It was another to want her in his home, reminding him, without saying a word, that he had all the advantages she didn’t, her baby didn’t.
And he’d never be able to forget Julie with her killer in his home.
He walked over to Sarah’s house, trying not to think about any of that. But Sarah’s mood didn’t make things better.
“They won’t let us open the clinic,” she said. “No one from Sexton is allowed into White Birch.”
“They’ve let the grubs come here,” Jon said. “Carrie’s here but not Val.”
“Two of our domestics are missing,” Sarah said.
“Missing isn’t dead,” Jon said.
“Yes it is,” Sarah said. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe not. I don’t know anything about them. They’ve been working for us, living with us for months, and I don’t know anything about them.”