Читать книгу After the Flood - Kassandra montag - Страница 18

WE LIT A small fire on deck inside the metal lid of a trash can. We grilled half the chicken from our earlier trade and I started making a small loaf of bread. Pearl got two small pans from beneath the deck cover, along with a cup of water from the cistern.

The sun set as the chicken grilled, and I swore I could smell lilacs drifting toward us from land. Daniel and Pearl laughed at me when I told them this. They teased me about wishful thinking. But it was just land—being close to land stirring my memories. Smelling fresh-cut grass or in-season flowers. Expecting the mail at noon. All these memories like a phantom limb. Maybe that was the real reason Pearl and I stayed on the water.

Pearl danced a little jig for Daniel and showed him her two favorite snakes, their thin heads sliding above the rim of her clay jar when she lifted the lid. She pleaded with him to tell her a story. He told her about how he grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and spent hours hiking through the woods as a child and once stumbled upon a moose.

“What is a moose?” Pearl interrupted him.

Daniel looked at me. “Well, they are big …” he started.

“Like a whale?” Pearl asked.

“Uh, maybe a small whale. But they have fur and antlers.”

Pearl frowned in confusion and I could tell she was trying to imagine it but had no reference.

“Think of a really big goat, with really big horns,” I told her before Daniel started his story again.

“Then the moose pulled its ears back and dipped its head low and charged at me,” Daniel made a quick gesture with his hands and Pearl jumped. “It was only twenty feet away and I knew I couldn’t outrun it. So I raised my arms and yelled at it.”

Pearl giggled. “What did you yell?”

“Get away from me, you beast! Be off! Go away!” Daniel mimed waving his arms and yelling. “It was pretty ridiculous, but it worked. I pretended to be bigger.”

The firelight flickered across their faces, sending a warm glow over every surface. I kneaded the flour and water on the back of the pan, listening to them. It was good for Pearl, being around another person, I thought.

“Are there any moose now?” Pearl asked.

I shook my head. “They’re all gone.”

“Maybe there are a few somewhere,” Pearl said.

“Maybe,” Daniel said.

We ate the chicken and I baked the bread in two pans, one pan on top of the other to make a small oven. After it got dark, Pearl curled under the deck cover and Daniel and I sat in the moonlight, the fire dying to embers, our voices flickering on the wind.

“The reason you won’t travel with anyone anymore,” I said. “Is it that woman you told me about?”

“A little. And because it gets too complicated when other people get involved.”

I tilted my head and he sighed.

“My mom and I lived alone during the Six Year Flood. She was diabetic. When the water started coming I loaded up on insulin, traveling to the local hospitals that weren’t already ransacked or flooded. Got quite a bit. But most of it got stolen before we took to the water. We headed west and did okay for a while, but she died two years later of DKA.”

I remembered what I’d yelled at him on the beach and I looked down at the deck and scratched the wood with a fingernail, a cloud of shame building up in my chest.

“It was difficult …” Daniel paused and glanced out at sea. The moonlight caught the top of the water’s ripples, carving silver scythes into the black surface. “Knowing the end was coming for her … knowing I couldn’t do anything, no insulin left to be found. We tried adjusting her diet.” He let out a hoarse sound as though he were clearing his throat. “That was impossible with so little food left. Everyone grabbing at what was left.”

I remembered those days, the rush of excitement when you found a box of cereal in an empty cabinet in a neighbor’s house. And the way your heart dropped when you grabbed it, only to find it weightless, the contents already taken by someone else.

People raided gas stations and shops. And they filled other buildings to the brim. Schools, libraries, abandoned factories. So many people sleeping in rows, on their way somewhere else they hadn’t decided yet. Most of them kind and frightened. But some not, so you stayed at home most of the time.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, and when I looked up at him the pain on his face hollowed my stomach.

Daniel raised his shoulders up to his ears. “It’s happened to everyone, hasn’t it?”

I nodded and felt an odd stirring in my bones. I held his gaze and felt like I was losing control, like I was floating in a sea so salty it held me up.

I remembered that we hadn’t just scavenged for food; we also taught ourselves to grow it. Row and I started a vegetable patch in the front yard where the sun was strongest. She once stood in that garden, holding a radish she’d pulled, a pleased grin on her face, sunlight bright on her face. Even in the upheaval there were incandescent moments like that—moments I’d spend the rest of my life reaching for.

“I’m not going to the Valley just because it sounds nice,” I said, surprising myself. “That’s where my daughter is. My other daughter.”

If Daniel was surprised, he didn’t show it. His stoic expression stayed unchanged as I told him about Jacob taking Row from me, about how I hadn’t heard of them for years until just a few weeks ago, and now Row was held in a colony in the Valley and I had to try to save her. To get her out before they moved her to a breeding ship and my chance was closed forever.

“I know the risk,” I said, my voice faltering. I glanced at Pearl under the deck cover. “I know. I just … I just have to try.” I shrugged and looked away, then looked back at him, his eyes locked on me, his face shadowed. “The thought of not trying feels like suddenly not having bones in my body. My body goes loose and empty.” I shook my head and brushed a palm over my face.

“I’ll come with,” he said, his voice barely audible above the lapping waves against the boat.

“What?”

“I’ll help you get there.”

“That isn’t why I told you,” I said. But I wasn’t so sure. A part of me had known it was my last card to play. Or maybe I wanted some human connection in a vast dark sea. I couldn’t sort it out. “Why are you changing your mind?”

Daniel looked away and reached forward for a stick and stirred the coals.

“I think we can help each other,” he said. “I—I’ve been lonely. Besides, it would be good to go northeast. I haven’t been that way before.”

The uneasy feeling I had in the saloon returned to me; it drowned out the relief I’d felt when he’d changed his mind. I shifted my weight, leaning to the side, one arm under me. Why was he changing his mind? I couldn’t believe it was just because he wanted to help me find Row. I tried to push the uneasiness away. You’ve always had trouble trusting people, I reminded myself.

When I glanced back at Daniel his eyes were closed, his head leaned back against the gunwale. He looked innocent, and I didn’t believe that, either.