California(104)

“You really think Micah will protect us?”

“You’re his sister. And he needs my help.”

“But don’t you think some people will be upset about the pregnancy?”

“I don’t know, Frida. We need to wait and keep watching. With a little more time, I think we can win them over. Micah will make them see that it’s for the best. He’s good at that.”

“That’s true,” she said.

Frida let him kiss her again. He’d said he was doing what she’d asked, and she decided that meant he was looking out for her. Since their fight, he’d been attentive and gentle, actively seeking her out after Morning Labor, seeing if she needed anything. He was paying attention to her again. He hadn’t gotten lost in the dark.



Frida got out of bed and got ready to head downstairs to the kitchen. She was just pulling on a sweatshirt when Cal entered with a flashlight. He was wearing a raincoat, but it looked dry.

“You’re still in here,” he said, surprised. The flashlight’s beam bounced across her and then paused on the unlit candle by their bed. “I didn’t see any light coming from under the door, so I assumed you’d left for the kitchen already.”

“I can get dressed without a candle,” she whispered.

He kissed her and put down the flashlight so that its light spread across the ceiling.

“But why?” he said, heading to the candle. “Let’s splurge.”

The flame flickered and rose, and Cal turned off the flashlight.

“I’m going to the campfire tonight to talk to Anika,” she said.

She’d decided that she would be up front with Cal, show him she could gather information, too.

“I’m going to hang out here,” he said, “if that’s okay.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “I think I’ll have a better chance of talking to her there. I haven’t been able to since Fatima started baking with us.”

“I thought Anika already told you everything.”

“She did.”

“You haven’t said anything about the baby, have you?”

“You know I haven’t,” she said.

“I know.”

“I guess I still feel unsettled,” she said. “Like, I need to see that this place is good, despite all that’s happened.”

“It is,” Cal said. “It will be.”

He was sitting on the bed now, and she stood before him. She placed her hands on his shoulders, her eyes on the far wall. She imagined herself on the deck of a majestic ship. She would just have to keep reminding Cal that they’d come here together, and that, if necessary, they’d leave that way, too.

“I love being married to you,” she said.

Cal smiled. “I could live off those words,” he said, and pulled her toward him.

*



There were at least fifteen people sitting around the campfire, talking loudly over one another as if drunk, passing a cup of something hot, poured from an ancient metal thermos. Frida thought she could smell mint tea, but that had to be her imagination because the air was so smoky she’d started breathing through her mouth. The scene reminded her of the beach, cooking oysters in sand pits with her parents on a trip to Northern California when she was thirteen, before they’d had to sell their second car. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting of this campfire, but it wasn’t this. This was a party.

Anika looked up at Frida when she arrived but didn’t wave her over or even nod. Peter was there, too, plucking at a guitar in a rickety lawn chair, trying to recall a song. He hadn’t seen her. Frida tucked herself behind Anika on the shower curtain where she was sitting. The perfect waterproof picnic blanket.

Anika hadn’t told Frida anything since Fatima had joined them in the kitchen; no doubt, that had been Fatima’s goal. Someone had asked her to intrude on their privacy, and she had complied. How many times had Frida wanted to tell Anika she was pregnant? Just to lean away from Fatima and whisper the news. Anika might be upset at first, but not when the reality of Frida’s pregnancy settled in. There would be a child on the Land again. Anika could be Frida’s guide. She could be the child’s aunt.

Frida had so much to say to her. She wanted to know about Ogden’s birth, for one, and ask her about diapers and clothing. She wanted to tell Anika that she was certain she was having a girl. A daughter.

Frida looked around and realized with the noise from the fire and singing and guitar, they could talk fairly openly without being overheard.

“Fatima’s in the way,” Frida whispered finally.

“Fatima’s a bitch,” Anika said. “She came a few weeks after Micah, you know, with the rest of his settlers. She was real close with August.”

“Were they a couple?”

“They claimed to be just friends. Not long after she arrived, she became Peter’s girl.”

There was reproach in her voice, and Frida realized that Anika really did hate Fatima. For taking Peter. For simply having a partner. Or for treating herself as chattel, passed from one man to the next. Or for joining their morning sessions without asking first, for babysitting them.

Babysitting. The baby. It always came back to that. She had to keep it a secret until Micah thought it was the right time. Definitely not before the Vote.