California(24)

Before Cal could speak, Frida had returned, and August was back to hawking his wares as if nothing had happened in her absence. Cal would not ask August any more questions.

*



All these months later, he’d pretended he wasn’t curious about August and the territory the man canvassed. Cal had hoped Frida would follow his lead, keep her head down, and focus on survival, on being happy in whatever way they could. Didn’t she understand that safety was most important? Especially now, if there was going to be a baby.

He looked once more at his wife sitting across the table from him. Her plate was still full.

“Eat,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but she took a bite. Relief spun through him like a cure. She’d listened to him for once.

Cal knew it was settled: he would protect their family, whatever it took. He wouldn’t say a word to Frida about what August and Bo had told him. He couldn’t.





5



At dawn, Frida slipped out of the house before Cal could stir. She was headed to the creek to do laundry, a chore that now felt like a hobby.

By the time they’d gone to bed the night before, she no longer felt the Vicodin, but she still couldn’t recall a single fragment of dream. This morning it was like her entire nervous system was wrapped in layers of gauze. She felt empty. At fifteen, she’d smoke until she hallucinated, and the next day, she would awake sharp as fangs. Now she was older, and her body had grown too used to being sober. It couldn’t handle having fun, not like it used to.

She still enjoyed the walk to the creek: it was hard to be afraid this early in the day, when the world felt so new. In the woods, there were many mysteries: the cat’s cradle of trees, for instance, why some fell sideways, as if pushed, branches lodged in the bramble, and why some lost their leaves and turned black, as if dipped in shoe polish, even as the others remained perfectly healthy. The pine needles still made her think of shredded wheat, though she hadn’t had a bowl of that in almost twenty years. She loved the hushed quality of her steps along the path—Cal was religious about keeping it clear—and the sounds of the earth groaning. Even the rustling of small animals didn’t bother her. If she listened closely, she could make out all the different kinds of birdsong: the beseeching, the joyful, the forlorn.

She passed a patch of mushrooms—how could Cal have missed those?—and turned right at the big redwood. The creek was down the incline. She could hear it now.

She hadn’t spoken to Cal since yesterday’s dinner, when he made his stupid pronouncement that all he needed was her, that they would not go exploring. She hated that he made these decisions without her, as if they were his alone to make. And why had he made this choice? She knew he was hiding something.

If they spent some time apart, if Cal spent the day digging and she did all the chores, each might find forgiveness for the other, at least start talking again. She just hoped their land wouldn’t be riddled with dozens of holes by the time she returned. She didn’t want to step into one. But did Cal? It felt that way, the way he’d acted.

Frida wasn’t stupid. It was obvious he knew something, and that something was nailing him to their house, this tiny four-mile area. He was pretending to be content, but that was impossible. No one could eat sprouted beans in a dark house for days on end without complaint, without hatching an escape plan. They’d slept in Bo and Sandy’s bed for almost half a year now, and every day the mystery of their deaths deepened.

August must have told him something. Or Bo had. While she and Sandy had been discussing their menstrual cycles, or the best techniques for mushroom foraging—* stuff, Frida thought wryly—the men must have mapped out the territories, whispered state secrets. Regardless of who gave Cal the information, he wasn’t sharing it with her.

Last night, once August had left, she’d gotten to thinking again about the outside world. Even after all she’d told him about Micah, what her brain kept returning to was the bra. They, whoever they were, would cut it open and use its parts. The butchery of necessity. She imagined women with pendulous, aching breasts, and their children with braces built of Maidenform wires and clasps. Everyone in the tribe would know how to rehab bras—a command from the king. How silly, she thought. They probably made weapons. They were probably geniuses.

She must have seemed like such a moron to August, getting so high she wept for her dead brother. As if August cared about her stupid family drama. Oh goody: one more whiny white girl! Boohoo, Frida. But he had listened, hadn’t he?

The creek would be stunning at this hour, and she moved faster to reach it. Sandy was the one to tell her that the morning was the best time to wash clothes, because it was cooler. That way, they would stay wet until she got home to hang them up. “No use waiting around here for your panties to dry,” she’d said, nodding at the water. But Sandy had never mentioned the dew on the grass surrounding the creek or the occasional deer, prancing carefree, or the coolness of the rocks at the water’s edge, which hadn’t yet had a chance to absorb the heat from the sun. Of course she wouldn’t have; Sandy was a practical woman. This morning, a bunch of dandelions gone to seed sprouted from the patch of grass, and for once, Frida was glad Sandy wasn’t around. She put down her bag of clothes, and plucked a fluffy white flower from the ground. Make a wish, she imagined her mother saying, and she closed her eyes. If Sandy were here, she wouldn’t approve, and if Jane were with them, Sandy might grab Frida’s fist and say, Please don’t.