Resistant: A World Divided, page 8
I place two fingers to my lips, gently touch them to his own, and turn and walk quickly out the door of the garage before he can say anything else. But not before I see his face register defeat. Not before I know I have failed; he doesn’t believe me.
The truth is, I lied.
The heavy door closes behind me with a finality that echoes in my ears long after I’ve gone.
. . . . .
I climb onto the bike, determined to make one more stop before my final departure. Determined also not to cry.
There’s a funny thing about the truth. It isn’t always absolute. Part of me does love Ryder. It’s just that most of me realizes that this love is pointless. I rev the engine, and without a second glance, speed off to Bill’s place.
When I pull into his drive five minutes later, there’s only one light on in his cabin. I lean the bike onto its kickstand, shut off the engine, and approach the house cautiously, knuckles white against my helmet. The dark has never felt like a friend to me, and tonight is no exception. Plus, I am not exactly looking forward to the conversation I’m about to have, but I know that it’s immensely important.
I’m playing over the words I want to say to Bill, hand ready to knock, when the front door opens.
“Wren, hey,” Bill manages to get out. His hair is disheveled, and his eyes are bloodshot. I lean in on my tiptoes and look over his shoulder to see a mostly empty bottle of what I imagine is moonshine on his living room table.
“Is it ok if I come in?” I ask. The sooner I get this conversation started, the sooner it will end, I tell myself.
“What? In? Of course! Come in!” His words are slurred and seem to carry a false joviality, but I nod in understanding, and he indicates I move toward the couch where he had obviously been sitting before my arrival. “Don’t mind the mess,” he says as I place my helmet on the table by the door and redirect myself to the reclining chair next to it instead. I don’t need him to take the seat beside me.
He looks initially hurt, but he glances at the bottle on the table, and his face turns red with embarrassment.
“I don’t usually do this,” he says, grabbing the bottle with a shaking hand as though he aims to put it away. But then he thinks better of it, shrugs, and pours another healthy glass, emptying the bottle’s contents.
“Bill—” I start, but he abruptly cuts me off.
“Wren, I’m so sorry about your mother. I—I never should have left her the other night. I just knew something would happen. She was in one of her moods, you know?”
And I do know. But I’m not here to talk about what could have been.
“Bill,” I begin carefully, “I don’t blame you, ok? I need you to know that. Blaming someone other than the men who took my mother isn’t going to help.” Bill shakes his head in protest, and my frustration mounts. What is it with these men? “Also, I need you to get yourself together because now that my mother’s gone, the camp needs someone to stand in for her until I can bring her back.” I pause, letting my words sink in. “Ryder is going to need your help.”
There’s a flash of horror in Bill’s eyes. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “What do you mean until you bring her back?” Bill cries. “You’re not thinking of going after her, are you?”
I don’t falter. “Of course, I’m thinking of going after her. She’s my mother, Bill.”
He stands a little too quickly, swaying from the alcohol. I sit back hard in my chair, resolute to make this conversation end as soon as I can and be on my way. I know that traveling at night will be risky; however, traveling during the day makes me a sitting duck.
“I refuse to lose you, too, Wren.” He starts to move toward me, but I hold up my hand, standing, trying to appear braver than I actually feel. The sour smell of the alcohol on his breath has made me suddenly queasy.
“I’m not yours to lose, Bill,” I say matter-of-factly, my voice hard. He flinches.
“Then you’re just as reckless as your mother,” he says sadly.
This is the second time today I’ve been called reckless, and it stings. It’s even more infuriating to hear him reference my mother in the same way.
“My mother is anything but reckless.”
Shaking his head again, Bill replies, “No. She was reckless last night, Wren. You might not want to believe it, but your mother let them take her. I don’t know how she reached out to him, but she did. And he came and took her, Wren. And I wasn’t there to stop it.” At this, he falls heavily back onto the couch and is racked with sobs.
I am immediately confused. Alarmed even. “Bill,” and I speak his name slowly. “What are you saying?”
“It’s too late, Wren,” he says through sobs. “It doesn’t matter.” He pulls a piece of folded paper from his shirt pocket and throws it forcefully—almost ridiculously because of the booze—onto the table. It slides across the wooden surface, then flutters to the floor at my feet.
Anger courses through my veins. “Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter?” I cross the space between us. “Bill, who is he? Why would my mother leave with anyone?” As I say the words, I still don’t believe them. My mother would never go willingly to the very place she has taught us all to despise.
Would she?
“Bill,” I say again when he doesn’t immediately answer me. “Tell me what you’re talking about!” But Bill still doesn’t answer, and as he slumps back against the couch, I see that he has passed out. “Damn it, Bill! Wake up!” I roughly shake his shoulders, but this causes him to fall over, unresponsive. I inhale deeply, scan the room for anything that might seem out of place, that might tell me what he’s talking about, and, seeing the piece of discarded paper lying on the carpet, lean down to pick it up. My hands tremble as I unfold what I immediately recognize as stationery belonging to my mother.
There’s one sentence written in perfect long-abandoned cursive. I’d recognize the handwriting anywhere. I read and then reread the sentence over and over, more than a dozen times willing the words to change. Because I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Bill, whatever happens, don’t let Wren follow me.
She knew. She knew they were coming for her, and she didn’t stop them. She didn’t tell me.
I frantically look to Bill who is now snoring loudly from his awkward position on the couch. I walk over to him and shake him roughly again and again, but he is out cold.
It’s no use. I can’t rely on Bill to help me any more than I can rely on Ryder. Of course, I understand why my mother would insist I not follow her. What isn’t clear to me is why she would allow—maybe even initiate—her own kidnapping.
Well, it’s no longer up to her, is it? I think. She’s gone, and there’s only one thing I can think of to do in this situation. Find her and bring her back. I grab my helmet, glance once more at Bill, open the door and head out into the night.
5: Cat
I can’t seem to peel myself from the small couch in my mother’s bedroom. It’s been twelve hours since her death, but time has stopped for me. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. A cool, hard numbness has taken refuge in my heart, and it seems perfectly content to stay put. When absolutely necessary, I crawl to the cluttered bathroom just beyond the room, making sure to avoid the mirror and my reflection. I know what I’ll see, and I choose not to punish myself further.
After the men in white suits took my mother’s lifeless body, they cleaned and gutted the room. No need for all the IVs and medicines any longer. They even took her hospital bed and extra linens, leaving the room looking more like the sitting room it was intended to be. Truth be told, my mother was one of the very few allowed to stay at home once she began showing symptoms of the Virus. Most people are taken to the hospital to die alone. Family rarely visited; they weren’t really supposed to. And despite all the animosity I feel towards my father, I do know there are perks to being Dr. Scott Grayson’s daughter. It’s just that most of the time, the pain far outweighs these benefits.
Like now.
From the couch, I slowly scan the now near-empty room, searching for any remaining sign of my mother’s existence. Her sweaters, normally draped over the furniture for when she was all-too-often cold, are already boxed up thanks to Rhema, and the rest of her clothes are still hanging upstairs in her old bedroom, abandoned when they became too big for my mother’s emaciated form. There is only one object that remains, and my eyes stop to rest on the disc player sitting atop her once-bedside table. This relic, the one thing that seemed to bring my mother so much pleasure, brings for me the threat of fresh tears.
“Cat?” I pull my eyes away from the sad reminder. Rhema makes her way tentatively into the room, a steaming bowl on a tray in her hands. “Are you hungry?” Now that my mother’s gone, Rhema has taken on the role of my nurse. I guess caring for people is in her blood.
At the thought of blood, my stomach churns, images of my mother’s matted hair and red-soaked sheets fill my mind. I moan and shake my head.
“Cat, sweetie, you need to eat something,” Rhema whispers but retreats from the room to place the tray on a table in the hallway before returning to talk to me. She’s always had such good bedside manners. “Your mother would want you to carry on with your life, Cat. You know this as well as I do,” she continues, gently taking a seat next to me on the floor. She scrunches up her face in disgust as she gets close to me and adds, “A shower might make you feel better, too.”
I know as she says the words that she’s right. My mother would hate to see me like this. But grief and guilt flood my veins much as the Virus flooded hers, and the physical pain that accompanies these emotions is debilitating. More tears threaten as I think of my mother, so helpless, dying by my father’s hands. And where was I? Having a lover’s quarrel with Abel.
And as if she reads my thoughts, Rhema says, “Abel came by to see you this morning, Cat. He’s a mess. He’s worried sick about you.”
I still don’t reply. My throat feels like it’s coated in cotton.
Rhema strokes my hair before standing. “Ok, then. I’ll check back with you around dinner time.”
Once she has left the room, I tell myself to cry, to let it all out, that maybe once I get in one really good cry, the pain will finally wash away. But even my tears seem to abandon me in my darkest hours, and I lie staring at the ceiling, wishing I died alongside my mother.
. . . . .
Day two begins in the same slow, tortuous way as the previous one ended. But Rhema is pleased that I somehow manage to stomach a few sips of water and a handful of crackers. By mid-afternoon, however, I’ve made a decision. I cannot go on like a victim any longer. It was a dream, I think, that finally rekindled the fire within me, a dream of before the Virus. Or a dream of after. I can’t be sure. Either way, upon waking, something simply felt different.
I make my way from the couch, careful not to move too fast—my head dizzy from lack of food, water, and restful sleep. And, as though without thinking, I find myself shuffling across the small room over to my mother’s small bedside table where her beloved disc player sits gathering a fine layer of dust.
I rub my fingers along the buttons gently, once, twice, then linger over the word PLAY. I will myself to apply the pressure needed to start the mechanical relic, but it still takes several minutes and my eyes firmly shut to muster up the courage needed. There is a sudden whirring of the disc, and then the music starts. I lurch back slightly, the quiet of my two-day solitude now broken, but because I feel a sudden intense draw to the music, I sink deeply into the chair beside the table and close my eyes.
The melody of the album is haunting. But not sad. It’s beautiful. Soulful. And so like my mother. The lyrics—in a language I don’t recognize or understand—embrace my heart and carry it up and away. Past the ceiling of The Community. Past the pain and suffering. In the moments that follow, I feel a freedom that I haven’t felt in years, since I was a child and my mother was healthy. I smile, imagining my mother as she once was before the Virus, and then I imagine her now as an angel, free of pain and suffering, her dark hair lustrous once more, her smile radiant.
I’m not certain how long I sit there, the disc continuing to play, but when I finally open my eyes, the light seeping through the blinds in the windows indicates it’s closing in on sundown. Quickly, I gather the disc player, the albums, and a small framed picture of my mother and me from the early days of The Community that earlier I discovered beneath a couple of discarded books. I place each item gently in a canvas bag, throw it over my shoulder, and head toward the front door, a sudden and fierce determination driving each step.
I know what I need to do.
My father—Dr. Grayson—took my mother from me. Sure, the Virus would have killed her eventually, but he sped up the process. I know this to be true just as I know my mother is watching me from above. But he cannot steal our memories. If there’s one thing my mother has taught me, it’s the fact that the past is important, sacred. We should never forget what and where we came from. Otherwise, where we’re headed won’t make a lick of difference.
Forge ahead my ass.
Rhema catches me before I head out the front door. Her warm face is one of understanding, and as I take from her the brown paper bag I know she’s packed with food, I whisper, “Thank you,” and hug her tightly. “Please, don’t leave yet, ok?” I say, still holding tightly onto her. I’m not ready to be alone in this house. I can’t take any more loss right now. I need you. I don’t say these final thoughts aloud, but I feel her nod against my neck. She is as familiar with loss as I am—many of us in The Community are—and as far as I know, I’m all she has left in this world.
The tragedy of my mother’s illness—and now her death—has made us family.
After a few more tender moments, I push Rhema gently aside and head swiftly out the door.
. . . . .
When I reach the cemetery, the sun is just a half orb cut in the middle by the thick line of trees beyond the great wall. Once again, the rented Off-Load has done its job, getting me across The Community’s limits in under twenty minutes. With my good arm, I carry the lightweight Off-Load, my helmet, and the bundle of my mother’s belongings along the wall of holly trees. The last time I was here, the only thing on my mind was my mother’s impending death. Now, today, I am here to honor it.
As I approach the broken area of chain link fence, I place the Off-Load and helmet at the base of an adjacent holly tree, so thick with leaves that they’ll be hidden from view—hidden also from any invasively small lenses of flying cameras—carefully pull back a few branches, and climb through.
It’s dark by the time I make my way up and around the paved path of the cemetery. But I planned for this. I don’t want anyone to discover I am here, and, while I know Dr. Grayson is extremely intuitive, he’s naive when it comes to the behaviors of the opposite sex, one of the many reasons my mother chose to stay behind in our modest row house when he left to join the rest of his medical team in their majestic hotel. I assume he believes I’ll grieve for a few days and show up to class when my last tear is shed. He thinks he’s won, and in a way he has. For now. At least that is what I want him to believe.
I do plan to go back to class. But not tomorrow. I don’t want to look too strong, like I’m on a mission. Dr Grayson needs to think I’m suffering and that this suffering makes me weak. An obedient pawn to control. No, I decide. I’ll let him believe I’m grieving for a few days before I return. And then I’ll hit the ground running.
My breath is labored by the time I finally make it to the giant cage rusted by weather and time, and I sit heavily upon the collapsing stone barrier surrounding it. I know this is a place of importance, that the men and women buried here stood for something. That they fought hard to make a difference during their time here on earth. My mother was no different. Her battle may not have been the same, but still she fought—for a forgotten past, for an abandoned history. And I know in my heart of hearts this is the reason she is dead. There’s something about the past that Dr. Grayson is desperate to keep hidden. This realization is clear to me now.
I unwrap the ancient disc player and the albums. I pull out the tiny framed photo of my mother and me. I lay them all on the ground, and for a moment, I am so overcome with grief that only my anger can drive me to continue. I stare up at the ceiling of The Community, at the stars and the brightness of the moon projected there.
“You think you can control me,” I say a little too loudly into the night. And then more quietly, “But you’re wrong. Father, you are so very wrong.” I tear at the ground, hardened by neglect, and by the time I’ve finished digging a hole deep enough to hold all that my mother held dear, my fingernails are broken, bloody, and caked with soil.
Carefully, I place each item into the hole that will be their final resting place and cover them, each new level of dirt hardening my heart. I refuse to let my mother’s death be in vain, and I vow to honor her memory with each day I live on. I owe her this much.
And as for my father? Dr. Scott Grayson? I’m not worried about what he’ll do to me anymore. If he wanted me dead, he would have done it by now. No. He needs me. He all but said this as he stood there in the hospital room with me days ago. He needs me in clinical running labs, testing results. But for what? I’m no longer sure. What I am sure of, though, is that if anyone here in The Community can uncover what Dr. Grayson’s so desperately seeking, it’s his own flesh and blood.
