Ashfall

I’d spent most of my time was spent digging corn, chopping wood, or carrying water. Some mornings I helped Darla build the gristmill, but usually she was carving the grindstones and couldn’t use my help. She ruined one of the stones, cracking it as she tried to drill a hole through it, and we had to raid the cemetery for another grave marker.

Digging corn got tougher and tougher. It snowed twice more, so more than four feet covered the ground. The ash layer here was only a few inches thick, but getting through all that snow to the ash and the corn beneath it was a ton of work.

Sometimes I helped my uncle with the greenhouses. I learned that one of the tricks for a winter greenhouse was building a heat sink: an array of dark stones designed to soak up the sun’s rays during the day and release the heat at night. It didn’t seem to me that it would work since the sun was hidden, blocked by ash and sulfur high in the atmosphere. But my uncle thought enough UV light was getting through for the heat sink to be worth the effort.

He fiddled incessantly with the greenhouses: moving stones, watering the plants, and weeding. He was testing a plot of turnips and another of potatoes. He’d traded for the seeds and potato eyes in Warren, buying them with duck eggs and goat meat. So far, everything had failed to grow except for the kale.

Rebecca, Max, and A

So Uncle Paul decided to slaughter one duck and one goat, a kid. He offered to teach Darla and me how to butcher them and seemed surprised when we agreed. He patiently explained each step to us, but except for plucking the feathers off the duck, it didn’t seem that much different from what Darla had done with her rabbits. And it was way easier than butchering a pig. Uncle Paul seemed amazed at how fast we caught on.

I was surprised that Max and A

“I think we got through that with the dogs,” he said finally.

“The dogs?”

“You remember them? Denver and Gypsy?”

“Yeah.”

“We ran out of dog food. We could have fed them meat, but we didn’t . . . don’t have enough. They were starving, suffering. I had to . . . I thought it was more humane to kill them than let them starve to death. The kids were pretty upset. We all were.”

“Did you eat them?” Darla asked. I glanced at her, thinking maybe she was telling some kind of sick joke, but she was serious.

“No. We should have. I should have lied and told the kids it was goat meat. But I couldn’t make myself do it. They’re buried at the edge of the farmyard. You can ask the kids to show you, if you want. I avoid that spot. . . It was horrible; I didn’t want to waste a shotgun shell. . . I used a knife. I don’t want to think about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. The corners of his mouth and eyes drooped. Sorry didn’t seem to cover it. I put my hand on his arm and squeezed.

Uncle Paul blinked and turned back to the goat carcass hanging in front of us.

Chapter 57

It took Darla two weeks to finish her gristmill. It worked so much faster than the mortars and pestles that it freed up a lot of time. Since it took two people to operate—one to feed grain into it and one to pedal the bike—I got nominated to help her run it. Not that I minded. It meant we got to spend more time together.

We ground the farm’s entire stockpile of corn in one afternoon. The next day, Bill Jacobs, the guy my uncle had borrowed the stone-working tools from, brought six bags of corn to us. We ground it all as payment for the use of his tools.

The other time Darla and I saw each other was in the middle of the night. Most nights, like the first, I’d wake up, slip downstairs to the living room, and find Darla there napping on the couch. We’d sleep through the wee hours curled up together. Darla was a light sleeper, so she’d wake me when everyone else in the house started to stir, and we’d return to our separate rooms.

Before the volcano, I would have thought a secret rendezvous to make out with my girlfriend in the middle of the night would be thrilling. But most of the time it wasn’t like that. Well, some nights it was, and yeah, that was fun, but usually we’d talk for a few minutes, snuggle up together, and drift back to sleep. For one thing, we were both tired; we worked crazy hours during the day—grueling physical labor that left us exhausted.

For another thing, the most important part of seeing Darla every night wasn’t the fooling around. It was the few minutes we talked while holding each other, the feeling of security I got with her, the feeling of being understood and loved. Before the eruption, I wouldn’t have believed that I could cuddle up every night with the girl who starred in my dreams and not be totally preoccupied with sex. But the trek across Iowa had changed something. I wanted, needed to see her so badly that it woke me up at night. But making out was incidental to my need— nice when it happened, but secondary to the simple pleasure of sleeping beside her.

We’d been in Warren a little more than a month when Uncle Paul discovered what was going on. I woke on the couch one morning, not to Darla shaking me but to my uncle clearing his throat. I was on my back with Darla halfway on top of me, also on her back. My right arm lay across her shoulder, and my hand cupped her left breast through her shirt. I snatched my hand away, waking her.

“How long has this been going on?” Uncle Paul said.

My heart was thudding, and I could feel the heat in my face, but I answered as calmly as I could, “Since we left Worthington.” I stared my uncle in the eye.

“Hmm. Get ready for breakfast.”

Darla got up and scurried toward the guest room. I plodded up the stairs to get my boots.

All day I waited for the hammer to fall. I could sense it hanging above my head, dangling from a thread like the sword of Damocles. But my uncle didn’t say anything to me except instructions about where to stack the wood that Max and I had chopped. His silence on the subject persisted until we’d finished di

“I’ve talked to everyone involved today,” Uncle Paul said. “We’re going to make some changes to the sleeping arrangements. Rebecca’s moving upstairs into A

“Dad found out you haven’t been sleeping in my room much, anyway, huh?” Max whispered to me.

“Yeah, you knew?” I whispered back.

Max smiled.

“Thanks for keeping it quiet.”

“Sure thing, cuz.”

“Alex,” Uncle Paul said, “I want to talk to you.” I stayed behind at the kitchen table while everyone else left for the warmer living room. “Um—”

“Thanks for changing the sleeping arrangements,” I said.

“Yes. Well, even I can see the obvious, sometimes. Caroline and I aren’t totally convinced it’s the right call. What if you or Darla change your mind?”

“I don’t think that will happen, but if it does, I’ll tell you, and you can change the bedrooms again.”

“Okay. Look, there’s a doctor in Warren, but without electricity and supplies, he’s pretty much practicing 1800s-style medicine. If Darla got pregnant . . .”