Sunrise

“Maybe I’ll feel more like struggling after I’ve slept.” I stood, but Dr. McCarthy didn’t let go of my arm.

“You did the right thing. Even though I told you not to. I’m proud of you, Alex. I got to know your dad a bit after the eruption, before he went looking for you. I think he’d be proud too.” Dr. McCarthy dropped my arm and turned back toward the living room.

I trudged up the stairs, the tears I hadn’t been able to cry before flowing freely down my face. It was all I could do not to sob out loud.

I reached the empty bedroom still crying, pulled my frozen boots off my nearly frostbitten feet, and crawled into bed without even taking off my coat.

Eventually the tears subsided, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind ground over the events in Stockton: the guns aimed at me, Standish and Cliff as they died in Doctore s mansion, Ly

Chapter 12

The pork in the trucks was originally from Warren, but Mayor Petty was still mostly unconscious and in no shape to divide it up. I talked to Uncle Paul and Dr. McCarthy about it, and we agreed to send the seven semis of pork back to Warren with the refugees but to keep the panel van. It contained enough meat to feed Uncle Paul’s family—my family now— for years. I sent one of our remaining pickups to Warren and kept one—it’d be useful around the farm, at least until we ran out of gas.

It took three days to get people moved from the farm back to Warren. Most of them volunteered to

stay behind and help dismantle the ramshackle structures they’d been living in, but I could tell they were anxious to get home, so I told them not to bother.

We scavenged the useful bits of the lean-tos but broke most of them up for firewood. For a while that saved us from the increasingly long trek to find uncut timber. We needed a lot of it—Darla said more than a cord per week—to keep the fires burning in the living room and in the hypocausts, the system of small underground tu

Fortunately the greenhouses were in decent shape. Since people had been sleeping in them and all the kale had been harvested and eaten, we had to turn the dirt and replant. I hoped our new crop of kale would come in soon enough to stave off scurvy. I didn’t particularly look forward to pulling a bloody toothbrush out of my mouth every morning. All our ducks were gone, slaughtered over the past few weeks to feed the horde from Warren, but we still had a breeding pair of goats.

Dr. McCarthy didn’t move back to Warren right away. Several of his patients, Mayor Petty included, were too sick to move. So Belinda returned to Warren to staff the clinic, and our living room continued to serve as a rude hospital.

Uncle Paul moved into Max’s room with the rest of the guys, because he said he couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom. So Mom theoretically had the master bedroom to herself. She hardly ever slept there, though—or slept at all. She spent most of her time in the living room, helping

Dr. McCarthy care for the last of the patients, particularly Mayor Petty.

Ed hadn’t left either, even after almost everyone else had moved back to Warren. Finally I asked him about it while we were chopping wood. “You headed to Warren soon?”

Ed lowered his axe, leaning on the handle. “Well, uh . . .” “Well, what?” I held the hatchet I was using midswing, waiting for him to answer.

“Been meaning to ask you. Couldn’t find the right time. Or words. You know.”

“No.” I set my hatchet down. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, Ed.”

“Thought I’d stay here. If you don’t mind, that is.” Ed leaned over farther, putting more weight on the axe handle. “I mean, you know, figure I owe you—”

“You don’t owe me anything, Ed.”

“That’s not true. But even if it was, I’d want to hang around and help. Seems like, well, stuff happens around you.” “That’s a great reason to leave—not stay,” I said.

“But still . . .”

I thought about it a moment. “That’d be fine,” I said finally.

Ed straightened up and hefted his axe. “That’s set, then.” I picked my hatchet back up. “Hey, why’re you asking me? It’s Uncle Paul’s farm.”

Ed checked the swing of his axe. “You want me to ask him?”

“No, I will.”

“Thanks.”

And with that, we both returned to work.

I caught Uncle Paul later that day as he carried water into the kitchen. We stood at the sink, slopping water on our hands, trying to scrub off the grime of a day’s hard work.

“Ed wants to stay here,” I said.

Uncle Paul grunted.

“On the farm. With us.”

“Didn’t he used to be a flenser?”

“Yeah. And I used to be a high school student.”

Uncle Paul turned toward me, a sad smile creasing his cheeks. “Same thing, but with less ca

I snorted. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“So what’d you tell Ed?”

“I told him he could stay, but I thought it should be your decision. It’s your place and all.”

Uncle Paul rubbed his hands on a dishrag in silence for a moment. Then he turned toward me, looking me dead in the eyes. “Max and A

Uncle Paul turned away, walking toward the kitchen table. I dried my hands in a surreal silence, not really feeling them. What exactly did this new responsibility mean?

Chapter 13

Ed and I trekked to Apple River Canyon State Park about every other day to cut wood. We couldn’t afford to let our woodpile get low in case something went wrong—say, some of us got sick—and we had to have enough wood on hand to keep all the fires burning until we could cut more.

We filled the toboggan we used for hauling wood faster than usual one morning and wound up back at the farm about an hour before lunchtime. As we were stacking wood near one of the greenhouses, I had the nagging feeling that something was missing.

“There’s no smoke,” I said.

“Whatcha mean?” Ed asked.

“The hypocaust vent. There’s usually smoke coming from it.”

“Huh. I’ll check on the fire.” Ed slid down into the hole that allowed access to the fire shelf, which was a small, stone-lined space where we kept a fire burning continuously. Smoke and heat from the fire rose along the sloping shelf and was fu

“Nobody fed it this morning?”

“Guess not. I’ll get it going.”

I left Ed and jogged to the house. The cooking fire outside the kitchen was lit. Uncle Paul was there, roasting a large pork shoulder on a spit—our lunch.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Out in the greenhouses,” Uncle Paul said.

“No, I was just there.”

Uncle Paul shrugged, and I entered the house through the kitchen door. Darla was in there, cutting up the rest of the hog carcass that had supplied the shoulder. She didn’t know where everyone else was either. Avoiding her bloody hands, I leaned in for a kiss and then moved on to the living room.

Mayor Petty was asleep, and Dr. McCarthy sat nearby, reading what looked like a twenty-pound medical book.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

He barely glanced up. “I think your mom went out to the barn.”

A strange sight awaited me at the barn. The doors were thrown wide, letting the weak, yellowish daylight inside. The straw had been brushed away and the dirt floor smoothed. A