If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  “Nana, do I have to tell Chas?”

  “We have time to think about that. But when your belly starts to grow, people will notice.”

  Tasha whipped around to face me, yanking her hair right out of my hands. “Do I have to do this? Can’t I have one of those, you know, abortions?”

  I took Tasha’s chin, studying her dewy brown eyes.

  “First of all, I would much rather you end your pregnancy than become a mother at your age. But abortion can have complications. Then, whether or not you have physical problems, you could grieve over the loss of your baby even if you’re certain you did the right thing. And in your case, if you want an abortion, it would be the right thing.”

  “If it’s the right thing, why would I grieve?”

  I brushed Tasha’s bangs from her eyes.

  “Every woman is different. Maybe you won’t grieve so much. Your mother and Aunt Jeri and Grandpa don’t know this, but I had an abortion once, when your mom and aunt were little, before I met Hank.”

  Tasha looked astonished. “Why?”

  “I couldn’t raise more kids by myself. It wouldn’t have been fair to that baby or to the daughters I already had. So, I had the abortion, and I knew it was the right thing. That didn’t keep me from grieving though.”

  Tasha nodded, her bright eyes riveted to my myopic ones.

  “Here’s the thing, honey. It was difficult enough to get a safe abortion in Texas before the EMP. I don’t know if it’s possible at all now. In the old days before abortion was legal, some women tried to give themselves abortions, often with horrible results. I don’t want you to think for one minute about doing such a thing to yourself or letting anyone do it to you. Understand?”

  I could tell by the fright on her face that she would never consider such a thing.

  “Some people will try to convince you to drink this tea or eat that plant and you’ll have a miscarriage. There may be herbs or plants that could give you a safe miscarriage, but I don’t know what they are, and I don’t trust anyone to tell us, so I don’t want you to do that either.”

  Tasha gulped, wincing.

  “But I will try to find out if it’s possible to get a safe abortion in or near Austin these days, and if it is, we’ll take you in and see what the doctor says.”

  “Thank you.” Tasha hugged me so tightly it took my breath away, but then everything took my breath away lately. She shivered like a frightened baby chick in my arms. How could she be so fragile and scared on the one hand, and so strong as to squeeze me to death on the other?

  I finished Tasha’s braid and tucked her into bed. I was exhausted in every way and didn’t feel like going downstairs. I called down to Sonja to ask if she’d send dinner for Tasha and me whenever it was ready, and to have Keno come see me.

  Keno came up soon after. I told him to get his bicycle in good shape and to pack water, sandwiches, and bike tools, because tomorrow I’d be sending him on a mission for his sister.

  “What kinda mission?”

  “I’ll explain in the morning. Please ask Alma to sleep in Mazie’s room tonight.”

  He hesitated, seeming puzzled.

  There was a loud knock at the front door. Keno ran down to answer it. I heard heated talking, but the words were indistinguishable. I went to the top of the stairs where I could see the entryway.

  “Keno, who is it?”

  “It’s me, Miss Bea.” Chas leaned his head over Keno’s shoulder. “I came to see Tasha.”

  “She’s sick, Chas,” I said. “And I want you to leave her alone.”

  “I told you that!” Keno barked at Chas.

  “How sick is she? What’s wrong?”

  Keno slammed the door in Chas’s face.

  THIRTY-SIX

  AT DAWN I wrote down directions for Keno to the South Austin hospital and the big hospital downtown. I also gave him addresses for two of my friends who were nurses. They lived close to each other, or they had before the EMP.

  “Keno, you need to ask my friends if they know where to get an abortion or a midwife or a doctor. At the hospitals, ask about getting medical care for your sister who’s a pregnant teenager.”

  He gulped, his eyes wide. “God. An abortion? Really?”

  “Well, she wants one, and she asked for it herself. I didn’t bring it up, even though I think it’s the best thing. But I’m only letting her have one if we can be sure it’ll be safe. I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”

  “But, what will Mom say? What would Mom want Tasha to do?”

  “Honey, I know Erin doesn’t want her fifteen-year-old daughter to have a baby. And since she isn’t here, it’s up to Tasha and me to figure out, and we’re doing our best.” I studied Keno’s downcast eyes until he looked back at me.

  “Don’t I have anything to say about this? Tasha’s my little sister, and without our parents, I’m kinda like her dad.”

  “Not exactly like her dad, honey.” I squeezed his hand. “This is a big issue, Keno. Right now, we don’t know what kind of medical care is available. Your mission for today is to find out. Once we know the options, she’ll decide what to pursue. You can talk to Tasha about it then, and if she wants to listen, she can. But the decision is hers. No one should be able to tell a woman that she has to give birth to a child. Not me, not your mom or dad, not you or Chas or the government. No one.”

  “I didn’t think of it that way,” he mumbled.

  “I understand. Head home well before dark, whether you’re finished or not.”

  That day, Tasha had three episodes of incessant vomiting after every single thing she put in her mouth, even water or mint tea. I worried she was getting dehydrated.

  Sonja was downstairs cooking and making noodles, running up and down to help Tasha and me, and corralling the kids, including the three new ones. I wanted to go talk to Doris and Silas about taking in the Ibanez kids, but I couldn’t leave Tasha alone.

  In early afternoon while Tasha rested, Jack knocked on the door. He’d knocked yesterday, too. I hoped he didn’t have bad news. When Sonja let him in and called me, I came down and sat on the bench in the entryway.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got an update about our friend Chas,” he said.

  “I can’t think about Chas.”

  “Don’t you want to know that he was on meth like we thought, and he’s kicked it now that it’s not available?”

  “Good for him.” I smirked sadly.

  “Bea, what’s wrong? Yesterday you said you had a problem. Are things working out with these new kids around?”

  “I haven’t paid a bit of attention to those new kids or most of my own for that matter.” I sagged down to lean against the wall.

  “That’s not like you. Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “No, Jack, I’m not feeling well at all. I’m sick to death if you want to know. Sick to fucking death!”

  “Bea! I’ve never heard you use that word. What in hell’s going on?”

  I sat breathing hard, trying to decide if I should tell him.

  Jack placed his hand on my forehead very tenderly. I closed my eyes. It felt so good to have someone touch me in such a caring way.

  “You don’t seem to have a fever,” he said. “Are you ill?”

  “Not any more ill than usual.” I opened my eyes and peered at the tall, rangy Jack Jeffers, who was tending to me more sweetly than Hank had ever done.

  “So,” he said softly, “do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Oh, Jack, please don’t ask me to tell you.”

  “I’ll give you a break since you called me Jack,” he said. “I’ll come check on you tomorrow.”

  As Jack opened the door to leave, Tasha rushed out of her bedroom above us to vomit loudly in the bathroom. Jack looked up the stairs then back at me. I froze, attempting to contain my tears.

  “That Tasha?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Is she alright?”

  “Why don’t you ask
your friend Chas?”

  “Chas?” Jack looked perplexed, but then he got it. “Oh no. Is she—?” He held his breath, and I held mine.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”

  “Don’t you tell a soul!”

  “I wouldn’t tell, and you know it. I’ve never told your secrets for all these years.”

  As far as I knew, he was right about that. He closed the door quietly behind him as he left my house.

  “Nana!” Tasha hollered.

  “Coming, honey. I’m coming.”

  After I got Tasha cleaned up and settled down, I laid her head in my lap on the game room couch so we could be closer to the bathroom. I hoped she’d feel less miserable being out of her bedroom for a while. I heard Sonja telling the kids downstairs that they couldn’t go up.

  “Does everyone know?” Tasha asked me, wincing.

  “No. Only Sonja and Keno.”

  “Keno must be so mad at me,” she muttered.

  “Honey, your brother loves you. He wants to help.” I paused for Tasha’s response, but all she did was sigh. “Do you want to see Milo and Mazie? It might be good to let them see that you’re okay so they won’t worry. They might cheer you up.”

  “If you think so.” She was giving herself up to me, wanting me to be responsible for her. I let her do it for now. She would have plenty of responsibility soon enough.

  When Keno came home at dusk, I left Tasha in the care of Mazie and Milo, and I went downstairs to talk with Keno. As I reached the ground floor, Jack knocked again.

  He had a big bouquet of flowers, tied together with a silky, purple ribbon—blue asters and yellow mums.

  “For you, Bea.” He tipped his hat and backed away.

  “Why, thank you,” I said to the old fool. “Where did you get flowers in January?”

  “My little hothouse. I never watered them, but I guess they got enough when I set them in the rain.”

  “I didn’t know you had a hothouse.”

  “Well, you oughta come visit sometime, and you’d know these things.” He grinned wryly and headed home.

  We had lost so much, but we still had flowers, and we had neighbors who cared.

  And, God help me, I felt a deep surge of tenderness toward Jack.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  KENO HADN’T FOUND a place for Tasha to get an abortion. A few obstetricians were working out of the main hospital downtown, but they were only handling complicated deliveries, not prenatal care or terminations. The hospital was a scary place—almost no one to get information from, dark and filthy waiting rooms crammed with desperate people, some of them near death. Keno seemed traumatized by his experience there.

  I wondered what people were doing who were seriously ill, in need of respirators, kidney dialysis, heart surgeries, that kind of thing. Suffering miserably or dying, I supposed.

  Keno did find my nurse friends, Charlotte and June, who’d moved in together and were growing a garden in their backyard. They were elated to see Keno and kept him there, chatting and serving him tea. Their neighbors had moved away, so my friends were lonely. They were thin and a little shaky. They hadn’t felt their health would allow them to walk to Bastrop or anywhere else.

  “I think they need help,” Keno said.

  “Well, honey, do you have any ideas for how we could help them?” I felt weary of the growing need surrounding us and the limits of our ability to do anything about it.

  “We could bring them over here to live in an empty house.”

  “You’re a good man to want to help. If we brought them here, do you think they could work much, like help with gardening and cooking and canning?”

  Keno looked stunned. “Nana, they’re your friends.”

  “I know that. And I love them, but that doesn’t mean I can help them. The horrible, hard truth, my love, is that old people like me and my friends are not a priority to keep alive in this terrible world. Young people are the priority, and the strong adults who can take care of the young.”

  If my grandkids hadn’t needed me so much, I might have lain down and died right there.

  Keno regarded me with shock in his eyes. I looked away into the ultra-dark sky.

  Later after everyone had gone to bed, I went to the Mint, found a bottle of Merlot, and drank the whole damned thing.

  I sent Keno on two more excursions that week, looking for pregnancy help for Tasha. I also had him take food to Charlotte and June and ask them about healthcare options. But they’d been cloistered at home and were unaware of what options might still exist. Keno promised to return soon to check on them, bless his heart.

  The only medical care for Tasha that Keno found was a general clinic not far from his mother’s house, about five miles from mine. If I could get Tasha’s stomach to settle, we would take her there.

  Even though our skies seemed clearer these days without automotive and industrial pollution, the weather and seasons were all screwed up. When the cedar pollen season came weeks later than usual, I thought it might kill us all. Pollen permeated the air outside and in. I saw a cedar tree down the street surrounded by a thick gray cloud of pollen. It looked like smoke.

  Keno’s nose went back to running like a faucet with a never-ending drip—at least he was blowing it now. Mazie sneezed all day and night. And my asthma made me wheeze like a set of bagpipes, sapping every last ounce of my already limited energy.

  The pollen was hardest on Cesar, who seemed to be developing allergy-related asthma. He came over with his mother every morning and sat on the couch with books and puzzles, laboring for his breath. Several times per day Sonja brought Cesar a pot of steaming water. She draped a towel over his head and shoulders, then around the pot of water. Cesar breathed in the steam and coughed until the water cooled. Mazie and I sat with Cesar through these rituals, patting his back and offering encouragement. But the sweet little fella was getting worse.

  Then one day a strong cold wind blew in, and a rainstorm crashed down upon us. We ran outside with our buckets and bowls, but we had to leave them and hurry back inside because the rain was so hard and the wind so cold.

  By morning, the air was clear, and Cesar could breathe again. He recovered within days.

  All of us except Tasha were eating lunch one day, when Sonja said, “Keno, how soon will you be finished with my bike cart?”

  He looked at me, goggle-eyed, almost choking on his food, acting completely flummoxed. I tried to look natural.

  “Excuse me,” Keno said, and he gulped some water. Sonja stared at him, flicking her eyes toward me then back to him.

  “It’s taking a lot of time,” he said. “I don’t get to work on it enough with all the other work.”

  Sonja flipped her gaze toward me. “Bea? Why is Keno acting this way?”

  I shrugged slowly. “Maybe he’s embarrassed that he hasn’t got more work done?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me for a long moment, while I tried to keep my face blank.

  “I see,” she said. She stood, marched to the kitchen, and madly scrubbed at a counter. Then she threw down her dishrag and tossed a pan into the sink, making a loud clatter.

  “Sonja?” I said.

  She turned her back to us and let out a moan, then she whirled back around.

  “I thought you were my friend! You are telling me lies!”

  Oh shit.

  “Do you think I’m some stupid woman you can get work out of by lying to me?”

  The kids gaped at us. Cesar dropped his spoon on the table, and it bounced to the floor.

  I jumped to my feet, almost knocking my chair over. “God, I’m an idiot! A stupid, controlling idiot!”

  She huffed at me incredulously. Tasha yelled from the top of the stairs, “What’s wrong down there?”

  “Don’t worry, honey!” I called to Tasha, trying to rein in my runaway emotions. “Sonja, can we talk about this on the patio, please?”

  Sonja’s shoulders slumped, but she followed me outside, then stood staring at me
while I sat down to face her.

  “I’m so sorry.” A wad of guilt clogged my throat. “I didn’t mean for it to turn into a big lie. I was worried about you and Cesar taking off to Mexico on your own in the cold weather.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I, um. . . .” My face contorted as tears fought their way out of me. “I told Keno to take a month or two to get your bike cart built.”

  Sonja’s eyes shone with disappointment. “So, you thought it was fine to have me work for you under false pretenses? I never knew you were so mean.”

  “I’m sorry! I couldn’t be sorrier. I didn’t think of it that way, but of course you’re right.” I was a blubbering mess.

  “Why are you crying?” Sonja asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “I can’t stop right now. I’m sorry.” I wiped my face with my shirt. “I hate to ask you this, but would you please sit down and give me a minute, so I can apologize properly?”

  “Maybe I should go home.”

  My heart sank deeper. “Please don’t go. At least until—”

  “Until you can get out of this by justifying what you did?”

  “I’d like your forgiveness, but it’s probably too much to ask.” I tried not to cry more, but tears kept squirting out of me. I covered my face for a minute.

  Sonja sighed very deeply and sat down with her arms crossed. I shuddered with more sobs.

  “Don’t you think I know how dangerous this trip is, Bea? But my son needs his father. I need him, too, and Cesar needs my mother—she’s a lung specialist—to help him with this asthma he is having. Once we get there, we will be safer than anywhere else we could be.”

  At last my crying slowed down, and I took a breath.

  “It was your decision to make, Sonja, about whether and when you would go to Mexico. Not mine. I guess I got full of myself, thinking I was some kind of protector of everyone. I kept imagining you dying out there. That’s not an excuse, but it’s what happened.”

  “What does this mean, ‘full of yourself?’”

  “You know how I am. I think I’m right about everything. But I took it too far with you. I probably take it too far with everyone. I’m so ashamed, I just want to give up and crawl in a hole.”