Page 16 of The Last Stars in the Sky
There hasn’t been any news in the last twenty-four hours; the TV was nothing but static when we turned on the generator for a few precious seconds, and the internet is still out. Daniel and I have gone out periodically to the car to try to listen to the radio, but we haven’t been able to hear any broadcasts, just static nothingness, like the whole world is on the fritz.
It’s eerie as well as terrifying, being so out of touch. Normally, I’ve appreciated how isolated it is here; I’ve effused to both family and friends how it’s the kind of place where you canreally get away from it all. And while that’s certainly a good thing considering the current situation, it’s also incredibly disconcerting. I want to know what’s going on in the world even as I dread to hear—if the US has retaliated, if there have been more strikes, if the world really is on fire the way it was reported to be.
Because besides the lack of electricity, nothing here has actually changed all that much. The sky is still blue, the lake placid; yesterday evening it snowed, an inch or two dusting the ground like icing sugar; it had melted by the afternoon. The fire, if we keep it built up all day, heats the cottage adequately enough. Yesterday afternoon, Daniel found an old wood stove in the basement that my parents had once used for finishing off the maple syrup. He brought it into the kitchen, cleared a place for it by the electric stove, now rendered useless.
“Just likeLittle House on the Prairie,” he remarked, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the thought. I did neither; I simply stared at him, resolutely dry-eyed.
The stove came up to my thigh; it reminded me of the Holly Hobby play oven I had as a kid, and what a fire trapthatwas, smelling of burning plastic no matter what you baked in it. This, at least, worked fairly well, once I’d been able to get the fire stoked up hot enough; I was able to make a beef stew on it that took hours, and a lot of wood, to cook, but still. It worked. We ate dinner.
“We’ll need to keep an eye on supplies,” Daniel told me in a low voice after we’d eaten, when the girls were tucked up in bed. It was dark save for the light from the fire, casting flickering shadows across the wood floor. Peaceful, save for the sense of numbness that surrounded me like a shroud. With nothing else to do, the girls had gone to bed at eight. They’d been so unsettlingly quiet since I’d told them about the strikes, not even asking any questions, barely saying a word, their eyes dark and wide and a little vacant as they wandered around the cottage like they were lost.
I knew they were processing and grieving; they were exhausted, emotionally and physically, just as I was. I also knew I should talk to them about it, but I didn’t know how, or whether I had the strength. What comfort could I possibly offer them right now? What possible reassurance? And so I let us all be quiet, at least for now. There would surely be time to talk later, to figure things out. Too much time, maybe—or not enough.
“Supplies,” I repeated neutrally to Daniel. “You mean food?” We’d already put all the refrigerated and frozen stuff in the shed outside, in sealed crates, to stay cold, but how long would it last? My beloved turkey, the centerpiece of our glorious Thanksgiving dinner, would now have to be rationed carefully, precious sustenance that it was. And after that? I’d bought a lot of food, but enough to see us through however long it took for some kind of normal life to be restored? How long would that evenbe?
“Yes, food,” Daniel answered, “but also firewood, matches, batteries, everything. Your parents were great about keeping everything here well stocked, but some of it is really old, and in any case, it’s not going to last forever.”
I stared out at the endlessly dark night, thoughts forming slowly, painfully, coalescing in a way I resisted, with every atom of my being.Forever. “Do you think conserving will be enough?” I asked after a moment, even though I knew Daniel couldn’t really answer that question. I was acting as if his predilection for bingeing onStar Trek spin-offs gave him some sort of expert knowledge, but it was surely more than mine.
“I don’t know.” Daniel was silent too, and both of us stared out at the darkness while the fire crackled and settled in the grate. A few days ago, this moment would have felt like the height of peaceful contentedness; now it was its frightening nadir. “The good thing,” he continued slowly, “is we are actually living in a place where itispossible to survive, if we need to. We can shoot game, we can grow food, we have a supply of fresh water that, as far as I know, can’t be contaminated.” The lake is fed by deep underground springs, something I never before thought to be thankful for, or think about at all. “We can survive,” Daniel stated with matter-of-fact certainty, “if we need to.”
If this speech was meant to rally me, it didn’t. At least, not much.Shoot game? Was he actually serious? As for a garden… “But it’s November,” I pointed out, and Daniel gave me his old, wry smile.
“Yes, I know.”
I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes. I wished I had his calm, quiet optimism, but I didn’t. It was late November; we couldn’t plant a garden till May, and then the vegetables would have to grow. That was six months or more to survive before we could think about homesteading properly, ifthat was even going to be a thing. Considering my track record with our houseplants, I wasn’t sure it could be.
We keep at my shooting lesson until, after another hour and far too many bullets, I manage to nick the tin can. The ding of the bullet hitting metal is a sweet, sweet sound, and I lower the rifle, my shoulders aching from both the tension and the effort.
“I did it.”
“Yes, you did.”
Daniel smiles at me, and I try to smile back, but the bleakness I see in his eyes, despite his cheerful tone, tears at me. I’m the one making him get Sam, and neither of us have any idea of how dangerous a journey it might be. I feel like I’m sending him into battle without so much as a pocketknife, and yet I’m still doing it. And I’m not going to change my mind. I don’t even feel guilty, and perversely it’s the lack of that emotion that gives me a sense of guilt.
This is myhusband. We’ve been married for over twenty years. He held my hand through every labor; he stayed up all night with Sam when he had croup, singing lullabies as he ran the shower to ease our son’s tiny chest. He makes the best blueberry pancakes; he knows what makes me laugh even before I do. He’d die for me, I know he would, and the terrible thing is, I’m afraid I’m asking him to.
“We could all go together,” I blurt, and of course he knows immediately what I’m talking about.
“No.” His voice is firm, unwavering. “That would be more dangerous, especially for the girls, and we can’t leave the cottage unoccupied.”
I know he’s right, but I still resist, although whether I really do mean it or I’m just virtue signaling—to my ownhusband—I’m not sure. “Maybe it would be better, for us to all be together,” I say, my voice starting to wobble. “No matter what happens.”
“The cottage is actually the best place for us to be in this situation, Alex,” Daniel replies gently. “You know that. Think of Ruby and Mattie. We can’t put them in danger.” He rests his hands on my shoulders, his fingers curling around to my shoulder blades, anchoring me in place. “We really can survive here, if we try,” he tells me. “I want you to try.”
I give my head a little shake, still resisting the notion. I might have, briefly and whimsically, thought about being the wild woods girl of my youth, raspberry-stained and briar-scratched, but not like this. Never like this. “We can’t play pioneers,” I protest, my voice wobbling all the more now. “I mean, wecould, but we wouldn’t survive.” The idea is laughable. “Have you ever skinned a deer?” I try for one of Daniel’s wry laughs, but it comes out uneven, like a discordant note. “Or made soap? Or, I don’t even know what, groundwheat?” I let out another laugh, the sound sharp this time. “We can’t do this, Daniel. I can’t. Not…”Without you. I don’t say it because I don’t have it in me to make him feel guilty, not when I’m the one making him go. I close my eyes against the hot press of tears. I don’t want to cry. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and Daniel gently draws me to him.
We haven’t hugged much in the last six months, and the hug we had just a few days ago felt awkward and forced, but this doesn’t. I wrap my arms around him tightly as I burrow my head into his shoulder, as if I’m trying to fuse my body to his. He hugs me just as tightly and, for a few precious seconds, the whole world and all its terrors falls away, and there is just us, together.
Then Daniel steps away, putting his hands back on my shoulders, gazing at me with a steadiness that makes me want to cry all the more.
His voice is as steady as his gaze. “You can if you have to, Alex. I know you can. At least, you can try.” He pauses, his voice thickening enough that I have to wipe my eyes. “I need you to try.”
“And what if someone gets sick?” My voice splinters as I wipe my eyes again, trying to step back from the verge of emotional overload. I’m so close to losing all the tightly held parts of myself, and I can’t, especially not if Daniel is going to leave. “Or injured? What if Ruby breaks a leg, or Mattie needs antibiotics?” My voice rises, no longer wobbling. I sound angry when what I really am is afraid. Daniel doesn’t have the answers to my questions.
He gives a little shrug, managing a small smile. “What did they do back then?”
“What, like a hundred years ago?” I raise my eyebrows, wiping my eyes one last time. “Theydied. From practically a paper cut.” My voice is shaking now, the fear audible. “Daniel, I can’t do this.”
