The Survival Code, page 25
We get out of the cab. I wait by the headlights as Dad strides forward to meet the cowboy.
He gives Dad a curt nod. “Well, well. Here you are. I gotta say, when Ramona told me you’d run off to storm the bastille, I didn’t think we’d be seeing you anytime in the near future.”
Dad smiles. “I told her I’d be back today. I’m a man of my word.”
“I know you are, old friend. But these are strange times.”
This guy and my dad might be brothers from another mother.
Led by Navarro, everyone else clambers out of the back of the truck. Annika Carver has her arm around Toby and the two of them hobble along slowly.
MacKenna glares at them and so do I.
Dad points to each of us and says our names. He finishes with, “Kids, this is Bob Healy. He owns Brown Canyon Ranch right up ahead.”
Healy’s gaze travels from face to face, lingering on Mom before finally settling on Annika. “Does my wife know you’re bringing...extra guests?” he asks Dad.
He keeps his back to Healy and says, “No.”
“You know, Max, if you find yourself in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging.”
“It’s like you said, Bob. These are strange times.”
“Right.”
Dad tells us to get busy taking what we need from the supplies. Toby stays with Annika while we transfer the backpacks and bins into the back of Healy’s truck.
I’m not sure what the etiquette is for traveling with a person with a gunshot wound, but if it exists, my dad doesn’t observe it. He picks up my brother, drops him into the bed of Healy’s truck and climbs into the cab alongside Healy. Dad leaves Toby to help Annika. I get in and take a seat on the opposite side of the two of them. To my surprise, MacKenna plops down next to me. Mom and Jay get in last.
“That old guy doesn’t seem too happy to see me and Toby,” she whispers.
“I don’t think it’s you,” I whisper back. “He keeps staring at Annika.”
She snorts. “Doesn’t everybody?”
Healy revs the engine and takes off. The dust keeps us from talking any further.
He takes the brushy, desert terrain at a much faster clip than I would have expected given that he’s got a bunch of kids in the back. We all bounce around and struggle to stay steady. Toby does his best to keep Annika’s leg still.
We come to a stop in front of an old green ranch house that looks like it’s been abandoned for at least a decade. Green paint curls off its wooden siding in thick, spiral strips. It’s encircled by a low, river rock fence and a dirt drive gutted with deep potholes.
If you didn’t know someone lived there, you wouldn’t know someone lived there.
The instant Mr. Healy opens his door, a tall thin woman rushes out from under the dark covered patio that surrounds the house.
I’m pretty sure this is Ramona.
Her long, silver hair is tied in two neat braids on either side of her weathered but pleasant face. Like Healy, she’s wearing a faded Pendleton shirt and a pair of jeans.
I stare at her, puzzled. There’s something really, really familiar about Ramona.
“Well, Bob, you sure took your time in getting here. As usual. I bet those kids are starved to death. But no matter. I’ve got a whole pan of—”
She doesn’t finish her sentence. Her mouth stays open as her eyes find us in the back of the truck.
For a beat, I worry that maybe MacKenna was right.
Then, with Toby’s help, Annika stands up in the truck, casting a long shadow over the old woman.
Annika breaks the silence. “Gramms?”
DR. DOOMSDAY’S GUIDE TO ULTIMATE SURVIVAL
RULE TWELVE: DON’T GET COMFORTABLE.
Without answering or finishing her sentence, Ramona goes into her house, leaving us with no option other than to follow her.
So we learn that Ramona Healy is Annika’s grandmother.
But this new piece of intel raises more questions than it answers. How does my dad know Annika’s grandma? Why didn’t Annika recognize Mr. Healy? Why did we end up here of all places?
Before any of those questions get answered, I learn something else.
Navarro can cook.
Really cook.
Which comes in handy, because Ramona Healy’s consciousness has been beamed to another dimension. She’s left a pan of fried chicken sizzling on the stove, potatoes on the verge of boiling over and a bowl of dough on the counter waiting to be pressed into biscuits. Navarro smells it the instant that the green screen door slams behind our backs and asks Healy to point him toward the kitchen. Charles goes with him.
I linger in the Healys’ living room where burlap sacks, tools and work clothes rest on unkempt but expensive furnishings. A bunch of dusty copies of National Geographic clutter a low table with ornate, curved legs.
Ramona sinks onto a fancy, French-looking sofa that looks like it’s had its blue upholstery clawed off by a large dog. She stares vacantly out the wide window.
Healy ushers Annika into an oversize leather armchair. My dad kneels alongside her to check out her wounded leg. “Well, well, Annika. Here you are. It has been quite some time. I wish we were seeing each other under better circumstances.”
It occurs to me that Dad used to make occasional trips to Carver’s vacation home in Kennebunkport. He’s met Annika.
“Indeed,” she says, composed in spite of everything. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Forever the political princess.
Toby remains with them in the living room.
Healy went out front almost immediately, like he can’t stand to be indoors or something. Mom and Jay go out there too. I don’t blame them. Jay’s been locked in a cell since Tuesday night. He needs the open space.
MacKenna and I join Navarro in the kitchen.
I find him in the cramped space behind the Healys’ old stove, flipping drumsticks with a pair of tongs. “Why don’t you get going on the biscuits?” he says.
I either use too much flour or not enough flour or don’t press the biscuits into a shape that’s small enough or big enough or round enough for him. He makes Charles take over. I have to admit that my brother does a better job.
Navarro finishes the chicken, makes gravy, somehow throws together a green bean casserole and watches the biscuits as they rise in the oven. After almost three days without a decent meal, it takes every ounce of willpower I’ve got not to rip the plate of chicken out of his hands.
“Your mom teach you to cook?” MacKenna asks.
Navarro shakes his head. “My dad is actually the cook in our house. My mom works with food all day at the school nutrition office. And no, I won’t tell you anything about the tofu.”
MacKenna smiles, jumps in and works on the potatoes, dropping a mound of butter and a splash of cream into the pot that Navarro took off the stove. She gets started mashing.
As I creep toward the potatoes, Navarro makes conversation.
“You cook?” he asks MacKenna.
“Um, my mom owned a restaurant,” she says as she stirs. “The Kastel Pineta. It had the best sarma in the country.”
“Had the best sarma?” Navarro asks.
“My mom died. Five years ago.”
Navarro nods.
Maybe I should say something but I’m so distracted by the pots of steaming food the two of them are conjuring up. It’s such a horrible cliché to say that something smells like heaven, but if anything could smell that way, it’s this meal. I’m two seconds away from scooping a bit of potatoes into my fingers when MacKenna slaps my hand with a wooden spoon.
“You can eat when we all eat,” she snaps. “If you wanna do something, set the table.”
I roll my eyes. We don’t know where the table is, or if the table even exists.
But there’s no point in arguing, and if it weren’t for Navarro and MacKenna, not only would we have no food, but the kitchen would probably be on fire right now.
I return to the living room. Dad, Toby and Annika are gone. Ramona hasn’t moved a muscle. She sits there like a living statue. I hover for a second, hoping she’ll acknowledge me.
She doesn’t.
“Um, excuse me? Um, Mrs. Healy? Where would you like us to set up the food?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. I come closer. She has a very old sun-bleached copy of Life magazine on her lap. The face of a glamorous woman with a haunted expression rests underneath the headline of “The Curious Case of Ramona Carver.”
This is Ammon Carver’s mother.
Everyone has a mother.
I have to remind myself to breathe.
Healy’s been sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, just on the other side of the open window. He comes back inside the house. “The dining room is thisaway,” he tells me, drawing open a rickety set of bifold doors directly behind Ramona’s sofa.
The dining room is tiny with a small, scuffed up table that has only six chairs. A china cabinet crowds one of the corners. Inside, I find place settings for twelve with red palm trees and flowers on all the plates. I can tell the china is expensive and old. Inside a drawer, there’s silverware and it’s real silver. I put a plate in front of each of the chairs.
“Hey there, friend,” Healy calls in the direction of the open window. “Can I get a hand?” Jay steps through the screen door. He and Healy drag a card table and several chairs out of a closet in the hall. They set it up in the living room in front of the blue sofa. When they’re done, I set that table too.
I return to the kitchen where Navarro, MacKenna and Charles have piled the food into serving dishes. At MacKenna’s direction, we set up a buffet line on the edge of the dining table. Someone’s put several lit jar candles on each table, and Charles arranges them neatly in the center. My dad reappears with Toby and Annika in tow. She’s limping less, which probably means that Dad did a much better job dressing her wound than I did.
While we were dealing with dinner, Annika clearly took a shower. She’s clean, smells like lavender and is wearing a spare set of my clothes. My black yoga pants fit her like baggy capris and my gray sweater hangs off her thin frame.
It must be really, really nice to be able to focus on grooming yourself while everyone has to work. I open my mouth to rip into her. Toby gives me a look of warning. That’s not what stops me though. The expression on her face. It’s absolutely the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. Her big blue eyes are frozen wide-open and her mouth is a stiff white line that twitches every few seconds. She wants to cry.
And run.
Instead, she picks up a serving spoon and doles a dainty portion of green beans onto her fancy china plate.
Healy ushers his wife into a chair at the dining room table. She still doesn’t look away from the window where the sun is sinking lower by the second.
“Guess who’s coming to dinner,” Toby mutters.
We all take turns piling chicken on our plates. Healy, Dad, Mom and Jay join Ramona at the dining room table. The rest of us squeeze into the card table. It leaves me feeling like a kid at a wedding.
Toby helps Annika into a seat on the side of the table that faces away from the dining room and slides into the chair next to her. I sit on the opposite side and I have a perfect view of Ramona’s aristocratic profile. MacKenna is to my right. Charles inserts himself into the corner between Navarro and Toby.
I pick up a warm biscuit. Butter drips onto my fingertips. The biscuit is inches away from my watering mouth when, from the other table, Healy clears his throat.
“We need to say grace,” he says gruffly.
Dad nods. I drop the biscuit.
“Bless us, O Lord...”
It’s been so long since we had real food.
“...and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive...”
Navarro must have done something to the chicken batter. It’s better than how we found it. Many of the pieces are redder and are filling the dining room with a spiced aroma.
“...from Thy bounty...”
I think it’s paprika.
“...through Christ, our Lord.”
The butter keeps my fingertips warm.
“Amen.”
I make the sign of the cross as fast as humanly possible and then shove the entire biscuit in my mouth before anyone can say or do anything else. I haven’t finished chewing before I load my fork with mashed potatoes.
MacKenna side-eyes me. “Girl. Pace yourself. That chicken won’t taste nearly as good coming back up as it does going down.”
I bite into a piece of chicken without slowing down. “I don care wut yoo say,” I say with my mouth full. “Hmm. This is the best food I’ve ever had. Ever.”
Navarro smiles.
“Is this real meat?” I ask. It’s been years since I had anything besides meat grown in the lab.
“This is a real farm,” Healy calls from the next table. “We got real chickens.”
Charles watches Annika pick at her own plate. “Miss Annika, do you know that old lady?” he asks her.
“I used to,” she whispers. Her shoulders sink and she’s somehow smaller and sadder.
I kick Charles under the table to stop him from asking more questions. He scowls at me. But it’s silent for a while. A grandfather clock in the hall ticks. Cows moo in the distance.
Suddenly, Annika lifts her gaze from her plate. In a voice barely above a whisper, she goes on. “They said she was dead. For ten years...my father said...” She turns to Toby. “She took a cruise. New York to Rome. They never found a body... They thought...”
“They thought your dad had her killed,” MacKenna finishes.
Toby reaches out and pats Annika’s hand, a move that earns him yet another glare from his sister. “I’m sure there’s an explanation,” he says, his voice calm and reassuring.
Annika’s left eye twitches. “There is.” In a louder, more normal voice, she says, “She ran. Away. From him. She left me. Left me there.”
At that, Ramona comes alive, twisting in Annika’s direction. What’s left of the color in her face runs to ash. She and her granddaughter wear identical masks of sorrow.
The sky outside explodes into a sunset of bright pinks with streaks of purple. Silhouettes of cattle pass across the window.
For a second, Annika’s polished facade is replaced by a hard look. “My own grandmother would rather hide out in the godforsaken desert outside some tiny crap town called Why, Arizona, than face my father.” She drops her fork. “My father terrifies everyone. Especially those who know him best.”
I shiver. But Annika is again elegantly scooping small bites of mashed potatoes into her rose-red lips.
Ramona speaks for the first time since we came into the house. Shadows cross her face as the candle on the table flickers. “I expect you know, Max, this changes a lot of things.”
“We can talk about it, Ramona. In the short term though, the girl needs a doctor,” Dad says. “I should get supplies as soon as I can. We need food that travels well. Sunscreen. Whatever medicine we can scrounge up. There’s no telling how long we have. Things are moving faster than I expected.”
“Now that we’re all together, there are different considerations,” Mom says. “A lot of things to be taken into account.”
“There are things to discuss,” Dad says in his usual bland way. “After dinner.”
Jay scratches his new beard. “I agree. There’s time enough for a meal.”
The old woman watches the cattle outside. “There ain’t gonna be that much to talk about. This can only end the one way.”
Charles relaxes in his chair, and I find myself doing the same. The majority of Dad’s conversations have this cryptic quality. This is familiar, and it’s reassuring that he’s got some kind of plan. There’s an edge to his voice though. Like he’s trying to solve an equation with too many undefined variables.
I tense again and fight off another shiver.
“We can go into town after dinner,” Healy says.
Dad shakes his head. “We shouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary. We should ride in tomorrow. Like usual.”
Ramona sighs. “This thing with the banks has people spooked, Max. Bill Collins is guarding the general store with a shotgun. There ain’t no more ordinary.”
“This is what he wants, you know,” Annika whispers. “My father. He wants this kind of control over people and their lives.”
MacKenna snorts. “Power that benefits you enormously.”
Annika stares right at me and says, “If you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to understand that there’s no upside to being the daughter of the devil.”
Toby nods, and it takes all my resolve not to kick him under the table too.
The conversation at the other table continues. “...and it’s too late to turn back,” Healy adds, stabbing at the dish of butter on their table.
“We’ll go tonight, then,” Dad agrees. “Bob and I can—”
“Bob’s got the damn cows to deal with,” Ramona interrupts. “Even way out here, we get cable news. We were all staring at your handsome face for hours on end before you got here. I’ll go. With your girl. We won’t attract much notice and if we do, I bet she knows how to handle herself. We’ll ride by Doc Truman’s place on the way back.” I’m surprised by this plan, and also surprised that the lady even knows I exist. She’s been doing a great imitation of a person in a coma since we pulled up in the truck.
At our table, Navarro squirms in his chair and clears his throat. “Mrs. Healy, I’m not sure that’s such a great idea... I think I should... I mean...”
I lean back into my chair to catch his gaze for an instant. His face turns red. Does he think I can’t handle myself? I almost broke his nose and kept Tork from beating him to death. I’m torn between pangs of anger and gratitude. He is trying to keep me from getting stuck with Ammon Carver’s mom. And maybe something else too.
