“You are. Or were. Organized, tough, driven. She’s as passionate about farming as you were about being a principal. Or about protecting the girls in the Maquoketa FEMA camp. Maybe that’s one reason I love you both.”
“I… I don’t feel very tough. Not anymore. Not since…”
“You’re still grieving for Dad. We all are. If Darla died, I’d never be the same. Take it easy on yourself.”
“That’s my point. She pushes you too hard. You need—” Darla pulled back the flap of plastic that served as the inner door to the greenhouse. “Who pushes him too hard?” Mom yelped, “My God, you just about scared me out of my skin.”
“Sorry.” Darla sounded anything but sorry. She stepped toward me, but Mom was between us. There wasn’t room to pass easily in the tiny aisle between the closely spaced rows of kale. “What were you talking about, anyway?”
Mom looked over her shoulder at Darla. “Oh, nothing. I was chatting with my son.” They stared at each other for a moment. Then Mom pushed past Darla, their shoulders brushing.
“What was that about?” Darla asked when Mom was gone.
“Mom’s losing it.” I tried to keep my tone light, but I could tell I wasn’t fooling Darla. “She thinks you’re putting too much pressure on me.”
“As if,” Darla said.
“Yeah, well. Her solution is to add some pressure of her own.”
“You okay?”
“I’m being squished between the two women I love most.”
“Eww,” Darla said.
“That didn’t come out right, sorry.”
“What’s it really about?” Darla asked.
“Dad. I think she can’t, or won’t, blame me for his death, so she blames you.”
Darla nodded slowly.
“It’s not fair. I decided to go to Iowa City—”
“I’m glad,” Darla said softly.
“And Dad decided on his own to come along. I’m to blame, or Dad, or better yet, the Dirty White Boys.”
“Yeah,” Darla said softly, “I blamed you for my mom’s death for a while. But you weren’t responsible for Target escaping from prison. You didn’t pull the trigger—he did. He was to blame. And you killed him.”
Darla choked back a sob, and I stood, wrapping her in my arms. Pretty soon I was crying too, crying for my dead father, for my estranged mother, for the whole disaster the world had become. Somehow it felt right to let it out there, in that greenhouse, our tears watering the kale that kept us alive. Only survivors are allowed the luxury of sadness.
Chapter 17
It was bitterly cold on the day of the election. By the time we reached Warren, the strip of exposed skin around my eyes was red and windburned. Darla chained Bikezilla to a streetlight in front of St. Ann’s Church. Uncle Paul rode along on Bikezilla’s load bed. Nobody else on the farm was registered to vote in Warren. I briefly contemplated getting back on the bike, pedaling back to the farm and forgetting about this whole exercise in tilting at windmills. My hands were shaking, so I jammed one into a pocket and took Darla’s hand with the other, hoping her touch would still the tremors.
The sanctuary was lit by a dozen torches set into sconces in stone walls. Even though I was a half hour early, dozens of people were already there. Most of them clustered around Mayor Petty’s wheelchair at the back of the sanctuary. He wore a suit, tie, and elegant dark-gray coat. His coattails flopped straight down past the stumps of his legs, almost brushing the floor.
I hadn’t given any thought about what to wear. I was in my normal, everyday clothes, the same clothes I’d been working and campaigning in: long johns and jeans on the bottom; a T-shirt, over shirt, and sweater on top. Over that, I wore insulated overalls and a coat. I peeled my scarves and hat off my head, and Darla fussed with my hair.
Steve McCormick approached us, asking a question about where the wall would run in relation to his house, and quickly Darla and I were engulfed. Two competing knots of people formed at the back of the sanctuary: one swirling around Mayor Petty, one around me, like eyes in the gaping face of the church. The face was lopsided, though; there were always more people around Mayor Petty than me.
As the sanctuary filled, it warmed up. The torches and the body heat of hundreds of people were more than enough to overcome the draft from the constantly opening doors. I took off my coat and slung it over a pew.
Mayor Petty’s voice rose over the hubbub. “Shall we start?” People parted in front of him, and he rolled himself down the aisle toward the front of the sanctuary I followed him, mentally cursing myself—I should have suggested starting, taken the lead. There was a folding table holding a couple dozen pencils, a stack of tiny slips of paper, and the ballot box—a crude plywood cube with a padlock on its front.
Mayor Petty turned to face the crowd. Every seat in the church was filled, and the side aisles and back were full of those standing. It was the kind of crowd that would give a pastor ecstasy and a fire marshal apoplexy. “Here’s how this will work,” Mayor Petty said in his booming baritone. “We’ll have two short speeches, say, ten minutes each.” He looked at me, and I nodded. My hands were still trembling, so I jammed them into the pockets of my coveralls. “Then you’ll all form a single-file line, approach the ballot box one at a time, and vote. Write either Bob or Alex on your ballot. The votes will be counted immediately after they’re all cast, right here in public. Questions?” There were none. Petty went on, “We’ll flip for who speaks first. Dr. McCarthy, if you’ll do the honors?” I called heads, won, and elected to speak second.
“You all know me,” Mayor Petty started. “I was born at Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital just down the road in Dixon. I’ve lived in Warren all my life.”
I wasn’t sure what to do as I listened to him. I felt awkward standing in front of that huge crowd, so I backed up to the communion rail and sat on the kneeling bench.
“I’ve been to your weddings, your babies’ baptisms, your parents’ funerals. I’ve seen Warren grow from a sleepy village of fifteen hundred to a thriving town of fourteen hundred.” A few chuckles rippled through the audience. Thanks to our campaigning, I knew the current population of Warren exactly: 381, of whom 264 were registered voters. Most of the nonregistered citizens were under eighteen. In fact, the vast majority of the survivors were between ages six and thirty-five. The death toll among those older or younger was horrendous. I glared at the audience—didn’t they realize how wrong Mayor Petty was?
“But on a more serious note, I know this town. I know you. My opponent moved here less than a year ago. And while I applaud his taste in choosing to relocate to our fine city, he hasn’t got any roots here.”
That was not exactly true either. Didn’t my uncle count?
“This is a time of trials. We need stability, experience, and leadership. I’ve led this town as your mayor for nearly ten years now. I’ve gotten us through some tough jams before, and I’ll get us through this one.”
Tough jams? What, did the only railroad crossing gate in Warren quit working?
“My opponent knows nothing about the adult world. The toughest problem he’s had to face is a pop quiz in arithmetic class.”
A few people laughed. Would punching a guy in a wheelchair hurt my chances of winning the election? I glanced at Darla; she was standing in the front row at one edge of the sanctuary. She had a huge smile plastered on her face and was pointing at it with both index fingers. Her eyes weren’t smiling—they were glaring at me. I got it and did my best to plaster a neutral smile on my face without looking like a zombie.
“And while it’s widely known that my opponent helped in resolving our conflict with the Reds, what’s not so well known is how he caused that conflict. How he—through his inexperience and youth, if not outright malice— betrayed our fine community.