If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  “I knew you would say that. I knew you would!”

  “They’ll have to work hard at our place. And someone else might have to take them in. But they can stay with us for now.”

  “Thank you, Nana. You’re the best Nana ever!”

  “Thanks for saying that, but hurry. We need to leave soon to get home by dark.”

  Tasha scurried away, leaving me fuming about predatory men.

  Alma was seventeen and exotically pretty, with a punk hairdo that had a splotch of fresh pink dye in it. Despite what she’d been through, she didn’t seem shy and troubled like Darla. This was a girl who’d known parental love.

  The minute he saw Alma, Chas gave her the once-over, eating her up with his ogling. I shot him the evil eye. He smirked and turned away.

  Alma was worried about how her parents would find them if they moved, so we tacked our address to her refrigerator with a magnet. Nothing was permanent in this world, but it was all I could think to do.

  Alma’s brothers—Pedro, ten, and Chris, twelve—were quieter than their sister, but they smiled shyly when I met them, and they seemed relieved to have adult help. The three kids, whose last name was Ibanez, worked quickly to close up their house, the boys doing what Alma told them without argument.

  When we gathered to go home, some neighbors grumbled about me bringing along extra kids.

  “I’ll feed them my family’s food,” I said. “I won’t reduce rations. Plus, they’re young and strong and can help us.” This was somewhat disingenuous of me, because if I didn’t reduce rations to feed more people, the food would run out sooner, but no one said a word in rebuttal. I figured I’d hear more bitching soon enough.

  All of us were worried we’d get robbed on the way home, or that crazed, starving people would follow us home and rob us later. The men fanned out with weapons drawn to surround us. Two men with rifles lagged far behind to deter anyone from furtively following. The trip home was nerve-racking, to say the least.

  Two gaunt women ran up to us, pleading for help. “Where’d you get food?” “Why aren’t y’all skinny like we are?” Christ, it was heart-wrenching. I had no answers for them, but I gave them some cans of soup, and Sonja gave them canned beans.

  Halfway home, we passed the mean kids who’d blocked our way, leaning against a house and glowering.

  “Stop a minute,” Silas said. He rummaged through his wheelbarrow and pulled out a bag of rice and another of dried beans.

  “Come here, kid,” he shouted to the leader.

  “Why?” The kid looked half-scared, half-pissed.

  “Just come. I got something for you.”

  The kid shuffled over with a bowed head. His friends followed, cudgels at the ready.

  “Here’s some food,” Silas said. “Your folks will know how to cook it.”

  “Don’t have enough water to cook it with,” muttered the kid.

  “Yeah?” Silas pulled two gallons of water from Doris’s wagon. “Take these. And you can have my lunch. I didn’t eat it.” Silas handed the kids a crumpled paper bag. A few other people forked over lunch remnants, too. “See,” Silas said, “if you ask nicely, people might help you if they can.”

  “Thanks,” one boy mumbled.

  “God bless you,” Doris said.

  By the time we reached home, it was almost dark. The neighbors milled about in our yard, sorting out goods and dispersing toward their homes. Chas stationed himself between Alma and our house. He kept stepping in front of her as she tried to get past him. Alma moved more widely beyond him and saw me watching before Chas, who had his back to me, stepped in front of her again.

  “Young man,” I said. He ignored me. “Mr. Chas Matheson!” He turned to face me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m not doin’ anything,” he said.

  “Too late. I saw you.” I set my hands on my hips. “Leave Alma alone. In fact, I forbid you from talking to Alma or Tasha anymore. You’ve caused enough trouble in this neighborhood, and I’ll not have any more of it!”

  “Hey, it’s a free country,” he said, a stupid expression on his face.

  “Not anymore it isn’t. Not in regard to young women in my care, it isn’t. Now go home.”

  Chas whipped his face back and forth between Alma and me. He looked like he wanted to argue but was too taken off his game.

  “Jerk,” Alma said.

  “Bitch,” Chas shot back.

  “Get out now!” I shouted. People turned to look at me.

  From directly across the street, Gary said, “What’s going on?”

  “Chas is being obnoxious. I’m sending him home.”

  Gary’s wife, Lyla, stood behind her husband, shaking her head at her son, then leering at the back of Gary’s head with something close to hatred in her eyes.

  Gary seemed bewildered. “Chas, leave those people alone.”

  Chas made a huffing noise and stomped away, in the opposite direction of his parents. Tasha watched him as he moved down the street, then she took off running after him.

  “Wait, Chas. Wait!”

  “What?” He spun toward her from halfway down the block.

  I guess Tasha was too upset to care that we were listening. She wasn’t all the way to Chas when she hollered out, “Why are you flirting with Alma?”

  “Tasha! Come back here!” I cried.

  A sly grin spread across Chas’s face. “I thought you didn’t like me anymore.”

  “Well, I do, but I’m confused.” Her face puckered as she tried not to cry.

  Chas wrapped Tasha in his long arms. She all but disappeared, and after that, I couldn’t hear what they said.

  “Tasha, come inside! Now!”

  She backed slowly away from Chas and shambled home, studying the pavement beneath her.

  “My stomach feels bad again, Nana,” Tasha said as she came inside.

  “Probably stress. You don’t need that boy, you just think you do. You have to stop worrying about him so much or he’ll give you an ulcer.”

  “What’s an ulcer?” she asked.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  NEW YEAR’S EVE.

  The Ibanez kids left the house early to get a tour of our farming operation from Silas and Doris. I think Doris was working on her husband, trying to convince him to let her take in those kids. No one told me this; it was something I picked up from the animated way she acted around the children and the looks she gave her husband, her whispers in his ear.

  To top off the year from hell, Tasha threw up her breakfast.

  Oblivious to the implications, Milo and Mazie laughed at Tasha for barfing under the kitchen table. Keno shot me a worried look, as did Sonja. Tasha groaned until she stopped puking, then she ran upstairs to her room.

  “This is gross!” Milo hollered, laughing so hard that he snarked oatmeal up his nose.

  “Milo, settle down!” I knew his laughter was innocent, but I was not in the mood.

  I got a bucket of gray water and some rags and knelt down to start wiping, but Sonja took the rags from my hand and helped me to my feet.

  “I’ll do this,” she said. “Go see about your girl. I’ll make her some mint tea.”

  I shut my eyes and whispered, “Thank you,” then I plodded up the stairs, feeling so breathless that I wondered if I would make it to the top. No one noticed me, though. Sonja was occupied with the mess, and Keno was busy hustling Milo, Mazie, and Cesar out the back door to do chores.

  As I reached the top of the stairs, there was a knock on the front door. Jack peeked through the window.

  “Jack, we’re busy. We have a little problem,” I said as loudly as I could, given my lack of breath.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked through the window.

  “I think so,” I answered, knowing full well that everyone was not okay.

  “Guess I’ll come back later.”

  “Do that.” I continued to Tasha’s room. But as I reached it, Tasha burst out the door, knocking me sideways as she stumbled
into the bathroom to vomit. I sat down and waited for her to come out, but she was in there moaning, and she seemed to be settling in. I went to the open bathroom door, but I couldn’t see Tasha at the toilet, which sat behind a half-wall.

  “Tasha, are you alright?”

  “I don’t know,” she whined, spitting and sputtering. “I think those eggs were bad.”

  “The eggs? But they were powdered. What makes you think they were bad?” I almost wished they were bad, even if it meant we’d all get sick and barf our brains out.

  “They smelled bad,” she said.

  “If you thought they smelled bad, why did you eat them?”

  “I didn’t want to waste food.”

  “Honey, can I come in? I’ll help you clean up, and we’ll get you to bed. Sonja’s making some mint tea.”

  “Okay,” she said weakly.

  I stepped into the bathroom to see a pale and disheveled Tasha, looking like a twelve-year old, kneeling in front of the toilet with her forehead resting on the seat. I needed to get her away from that filthy toilet before she got sicker.

  I wet a washcloth from a jug of water, and wiped Tasha’s face. I wet another cloth and folded it over to press against her forehead.

  “Do you feel like you’re done throwing up for now?”

  “I think. I don’t know.”

  “Let me get the plastic tub from under the sink. We’ll take it to your room. It’ll be easier to clean the tub than it’s going to be to clean that toilet.”

  “Sorry,” Tasha said and slowly rose from the floor.

  Once in her room, I had Tasha change into pajamas so we could wash her clothes. Sonja brought the mint tea, and we thanked her. I waited until Tasha drank tea and lay down before I started The Talk.

  “Tasha, honey, you realize that if the eggs were bad, you probably wouldn’t have thrown up so quickly and other people would be getting sick by now?”

  She wrinkled her eyes. “Then what’s wrong with me?”

  “Sweetheart, have you been getting your period on time?”

  She opened her mouth in horror. “I don’t know,” she whispered, her brown eyes bugging out of her head. “I can’t be . . . you know . . . can I?”

  “Did you have sex with Chas?” I crossed my fingers, hoping for a no.

  “Yes,” she said, under her breath.

  “And did Chas use a condom?”

  “No.” Her lips quivered; her eyes blinked too fast.

  Deluged with rage and remorse, I reared back my hand to slap her, but I grabbed hold of my hair. Count to ten, Bea. Breathe.

  “Tasha . . . tell me this. How do your breasts feel?”

  “My breasts?” She sat up, peering down at her buxom chest. “Why?”

  “A lot of times when women get pregnant—”

  “Don’t say that word!”

  “It’s not a magic word. We can’t make it go away by not saying the word.” We were both trembling. “Usually when women get . . . get that way, their breasts get fuller and feel extra tender.”

  The sharp intake of breath coming out of Tasha told me all I needed to know about her breasts. “I thought I hurt them working in the garden or something.”

  I wanted to scream and cry and pitch a fit. I wanted to beam away to a world where teenage girls didn’t get pregnant when there was no medical care, no parents around, no father of the baby worth a flip. I wanted Tasha to have her innocence back.

  Erin and my whole family were going to line up and shoot me. And I would deserve it. How did I let this happen?

  I had to take my time to avoid upsetting Tasha more. I needed to be helpful and supportive and not a source of additional concern for her. It was all I could do to speak in an even voice. I’m sure I sounded robotic.

  “What we need is a test, but the only way we’d have one is if your mom or Aunt Jeri left it here. I don’t remember seeing one when we were sorting stuff in the house. Do you?”

  “No, but I don’t know what they look like.” She collapsed backward on the bed.

  “Different brands have different designs, but they come in little boxes with cheerful names on them.”

  I almost told Tasha I’d ask around the neighborhood for a test, but she would’ve been mortified. I wasn’t sure about asking neighbors anyhow.

  Why, oh why—with everything I’d stockpiled—hadn’t I bought condoms by the case, by the freaking truckload?

  I was thinking: mortality. I was thinking: complicated deliveries and fussy babies and spit-up and poopy diapers in the midst of a severe water shortage and a probable shortage of food. I was thinking: abortion.

  I waited in Tasha’s room until her overwhelmed emotions put her to sleep. Then I went to my room to cry. How was Tasha going to deal with this? How would we all?

  Melba Carlisle was pregnant. My first instinct was to pick her brains about her plans. I wondered whether I could pull that off without seeming suspicious. I was a pretty good liar. I’d fooled Hank for years, and I had once considered him my soulmate.

  At last, I decided to go downstairs. Keno would be worried, and so would Sonja. Even Milo, Mazie, and Cesar might be concerned. They were old enough to understand that getting sick was a much bigger deal than it used to be. I had impressed this idea on them repeatedly. I hoped I hadn’t scared them too much, but I wanted them to be wary and prepared.

  By the time I got downstairs, Sonja was making lunch. I asked her if we had anything that someone with a queasy stomach could eat. Sonja looked me in the eye, nodding as though she understood everything.

  “I have a noodle-making device. I could get it and make her some noodles.”

  “Nice. Back when I was . . . you know,” I still couldn’t say the word even though Tasha and the other kids were out of earshot, “I lived on saltine crackers.”

  “I saw a case of whole wheat crackers at the Mint,” Sonja said.

  “You did? I don’t remember buying them.”

  Sonja took my hand. “You have a lot of stress. It can make one forgetful.” Stress hardly covered the shit shower of emotion crashing over me.

  “Thank God we have crackers and noodles,” I said. “If we can get her through this first part with those, then we can try to get some soup into her, and some milk.”

  “I have prenatal vitamins.”

  “You do? What we really need is a pregnancy test.”

  “I have one of those as well,” Sonja said.

  “Do you mind if we use it? And the vitamins—do you think they’re alright? They might be too old.”

  “They’re not old. I got them a few months ago.”

  I wanted to ask why, but I was afraid of setting Sonja off again. I needed her to be level-headed since I was nowhere near level myself.

  Sonja had a defeated expression, but she seemed determined to hold it together.

  “Sonja, are you getting what you need from us? I hope you don’t feel like we take you for granted. To me, you’re an angel from heaven.”

  “I am fine, Bea. You all are not. I’m honored to help you.” A lump formed in my throat made up of gratitude and guilt. Sonja smiled at me thinly and blushed, then she hurried out the door.

  Keno came in to the kitchen from the garage. He peered out the bay windows to see where the other kids were, then he spun around. “Nana?” I wondered if I should tell him such a private thing about his sister, but I knew we would need his help.

  “Honey, I’m afraid your sister is in trouble, as we used to say.”

  “Trouble? You’re not mad at her, are you?”

  “I’m furious with her for being so bone-headed and lying about it. But I’m mostly sad and worried sick. By trouble I mean that she’s in for enormous changes in her life, and the timing couldn’t be worse.”

  Keno’s face fell to a look of bereavement. He lowered himself into a chair, as if he felt unsteady on his feet. “God, Nana,” he said. “What will she do?”

  I sat beside him and put my arm around his newly muscled shoulders. “I don�
��t know, honey, but I’m going to figure it out.” He nodded and wiped at his eyes, then he stood, shook his face, and headed back to the garage.

  What kind of God would torture my grandkids this way?

  THIRTY-FIVE

  AFTER TASHA ATE a handful of crackers and I picked at lunch, I coached her about how to take the pregnancy test until she was thoroughly annoyed with me. Her hands shook when she showed me the test stick with the pink plus sign on it.

  She was pregnant alright, pregnant as could be. This confirmation seemed to stun Tasha. I’d expected a round of weeping, but she stared into the distance.

  I was so angry I could have kicked the girl around the block. I could have shot that boy Chas and his whole damned family. I went to my room and unloaded my gun to keep from going on a shooting spree. Shooting Chas wouldn’t help. It was God I was maddest at for doing this to my girl.

  But I repressed my anger and tried to comfort my granddaughter, who wouldn’t even be sixteen until March. I wouldn’t bring up her options, because in this world I didn’t know what options she had. I would comfort Tasha and do my research.

  I changed the sheets on her bed. I couldn’t remember when we’d last changed anyone’s sheets. I helped Tasha wash her hair while she bathed in a few inches of warm water that Sonja poured for her. I sat Tasha in front of me in her room, and I made her a pretty French braid. She was still my little girl, no matter what.

  “Tasha, the first minute you feel a teensy twinge of hunger, you have to eat some crackers. If you wait even a few minutes, that’s when you’ll get sick. They call it morning sickness, though it doesn’t always happen in the morning. It usually goes away within a few weeks, but not always.”

  “I can’t be sick all the time,” she whined, still the same fifteen-year-old she’d been yesterday.

  If you had listened to me, I thought, you wouldn’t be sick now.

  “We’ll do everything we can to keep you from being sick, but chances are good you’ll be sick sometimes, and you’ll have to be brave. Almost every mother on Earth has gone through it, and you can do it, too.”

  She sighed so deeply that I dropped the pieces of her hair I was braiding and had to undo part of my work to get back on track.