Life as We Knew It (26 page)

"No!" I shouted. "I won't!"

"Why not?" Jon asked, and I could tell he was genuinely surprised. "It's warm in here. Even with the furnace on, it's cold in the house. Why not move?"

"I spend a lot of time in the kitchen," I said. "Not just sleeping. And it's bad enough now. I'll freeze to death if we turn the heat off. Is that what you want? You want me to freeze to death?"

"You won't be spending any more time in the kitchen," Matt said. "Except to get stuff out of the pantry. We don't cook in there anymore or eat in there and now you won't be doing any washing in there. If something happens to the firewood and we don't have any heating oil left, we'll freeze to death. It's better to keep some in reserve."

"What difference does it make?" I said. "We're never going to make it through the winter. It's November and already we're out of water and the temperature is below zero and there's no way of getting more food.

We're dying in increments, Matt. You know that. We all know that."

"Maybe we are," Mom said, and I was almost startled to hear her speak. She's been talking a lot less since she hurt her ankle again, and she's really cut down on her rah-rah speeches. "But as long as we don't know what the future is going to bring us, we owe it to ourselves to keep living. Things could get better.

Somewhere people are working on solutions to all this. They have to be. It's what people do. And our solution is to stay alive one day at a time. Everyone dies in increments, Miranda. Every day we're one day closer to death. But there's no reason to rush into it. I intend to stay alive as long as I possibly can and I expect the same from you. The only sensible thing to do is for all of us to stay in the sunroom."

"Not tonight," I said. "Please, not tonight."

"Tomorrow morning," Mom said. "We'll bring the mattresses in then."

"It'll be okay," Matt said to me. "In some ways, it'll be better. You won't be the only one responsible for the fire. We can take turns stoking it. You'll sleep better."

"Yeah," Jon said. "You'll have it easy, Miranda. You won't even have any housework to do."

So tonight is my last night alone. And my world has gotten even smaller.

Chapter Sixteen

November 7

Mrs. Nesbitt died.

I don't know when, but she was in bed and I like to think she died in her sleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful.

I kissed her cheek and covered her face with her top sheet. I sat silently by her side for a while, mostly to see if I was going to cry, but I didn't and I knew I couldn't sit there forever, no matter how peaceful it was.

I knew she wanted us to have everything, but I made a point of taking out her diamond pendant and ruby brooch first. Then I went downstairs and took the two paintings off the wall she wanted Matt and Jonny to have. I piled all the things on the kitchen table and tried to decide what to look at next.

What I really wanted to do was go through her kitchen cabinets and see what food she had left, but the very thought of it made me excited and that didn't seem like the proper way to feel. It made me feel like a cannibal.

So I found a flashlight and started with the attic. I didn't know what I was going to find there but Mrs.

Nesbitt had told me to go from the attic to the cellar and I had no desire to go to the cellar.

The attic was filled with boxes and trunks. It was ice cold in there and I knew I didn't have the energy to go through every single one of them. So I hopped from box to box.

There were lots of old clothes which I didn't think would be any help to us. There were also boxes of papers, accounts from Mr. Nesbitt's business.

I opened a box called Bobby's Things and found something great in there. Most of the stuff was from school, papers he'd written and the letters he'd gotten from being on the school basketball team. But toward the bottom I found a shoebox filled with old baseball cards.

I thought about how Jon hadn't gotten a birthday present and I clutched that shoebox. I'd surprise him with it at Christmas. Or before Christmas if I don't think we'll make it that long.

I went downstairs then and walked through the bedrooms and looked in the closets. There were clean towels and washcloths that Mrs. Nesbitt must not have used. Clean sheets and blankets and quilts. No matter how warm we might be in the sunroom, extra blankets seemed like a good idea. There were boxes of tissues I knew we could use, and rolls of toilet paper. Aspirin and painkillers. Cold remedies.

I took a clean pillowcase and started putting stuff in there, starting with the baseball cards. I didn't put any of the blankets in there, but I did throw in some of the towels and washcloths. There really wasn't any logic to what I put in and what I left out. I'd be sending Matt over to fill the car and he could pick up anything I forgot to take.

Then I allowed myself to go to the kitchen. I opened the cabinets and I saw cans of soup and vegetables and tuna and chicken. All the stuff we'd been eating for months now. There wasn't enough for us to eat three meals a day. But every can would keep us alive a little bit longer.

I knew, without her ever telling me, that Mrs. Nesbitt had been going hungry so we could have the food. I thanked her silently and kept looking.

In the back of one of the cabinets I found a box of chocolates, unopened, with a Happy Mother's Day card attached. Mrs. Nesbitt never was one for chocolate. You would have thought her son knew that.

I took the chocolate and put it in the bottom of the pillowcase along with the baseball cards. I couldn't decide whether to give it to Mom at Christmas or on her birthday.

Then I realized there was a funny noise in back of me. I turned around and saw the kitchen faucet was dripping.

I grabbed a pot and put it Under the faucet and turned it on. Actual water poured out.

Mrs. Nesbitt's well hadn't run dry. There was only one of her and she hadn't used up all her water. Her insistence on keeping the heat on had prevented the pipes from freezing.

I grabbed a lot of the cans and an unopened box of raisins and rammed them into the pillowcase. Then I went through the entire house, top to bottom, looking for containers for the water. Everything I found that could possibly hold water, bottles and jugs and canisters and barrels, I dragged into the kitchen. I filled them all just for the joy of hearing running water.

I was tempted to pour myself a glass of water and drink it, but even though the water was probably clean, I knew it should be boiled first. But then I thought to look in Mrs. Nesbitt's refrigerator. Sure enough, she'd been using it for storage space, and there was an untouched six-pack of bottled water.

I let myself drink one. It was all I could do to keep from gulping it down in three giant swallows. But I sipped it instead, like a fine wine.

It's funny. All the food there and I wasn't tempted by any of it. But I couldn't resist the water.

Then just because I could, I took a washcloth, dampened it with sink water, and washed my face and hands.

Soon I took off all my clothes and gave myself a sponge bath. The water was cold and the kitchen wasn't much warmer, but it was glorious feeling clean again.

I got back into my dirty clothes and slipped the five bottles of drinking water into what I was starting to think of as my Santa bag and realized I couldn't carry much more. There was no way I could manage to take the paintings, but I did put the two pieces of jewelry in my pants pocket. I heaved the bag over my shoulder and went out the kitchen door.

I've been alternating between walking on the road and through the back woods to get to Mrs. Nesbitt's so I knew no one would think it suspicious if they didn't see me on the road. I only hoped no one would see me in the woods, since if they saw the Santa bag they'd know right away that I'd been taking things from Mrs.

Nesbitt's house. If anyone got there before Matt, we'd lose the food, the water, everything.

I walked as fast as I could, cursing myself for having filled the pillowcase with so much stuff. It was one of my non-brunch days and I was hungry. The water gurgled in my stomach.

I spotted Matt and Jon chopping away. They'd cut firewood for Mrs. Nesbitt, I remembered. More stuff for them to take from her house.

For a moment I was torn between speaking to them while I was still holding on to the bag or going to the house to drop the bag off and then going to talk to them. But I'd have to tell Mom if she saw me carrying stuff in, and I was just as happy to postpone that. So I positioned myself with the bag behind a tree just in case someone could see me talking to Matt and Jon.

"Mrs. Nesbitt died," I whispered. "She told me a few days ago to take everything we could use. She still has running water. Her car has a little gas in it."

"Where is she?" Jonny asked.

"She's in her bed," I said. "Peter told her the hospital was taking bodies and she said we should bring her there if that was easiest for us. We had a long talk about things a few days ago."

"Do I have to do that?" Jonny asked. "Do I have to go in?"

"No," Matt said. "But you have to help us bring stuff over. There's a wheelbarrow in her garage. We can fill it with firewood for you to take back here. Miranda, would you mind going back in?"

"No, of course not," I said.

"Okay, then," he said. "We'll strip the house. Do you have any idea how to drive?"

"The gas pedal makes it go and the brake makes it stop," I said.

Matt grinned. "You'll be fine," he said. "We'll drive the van there and we'll bring all our empty bottles and jugs so we can fill them with water. We'll load things up and I'll drive the van back and you'll drive Mrs.

Nesbitt's car. Then I'll go back and get Mrs. Nesbitt and take her to the hospital. By the time I get back, the house will be ransacked, but we'll have gotten everything we can out of there."

"When you go back for Mrs. Nesbitt, fill the car up again," I said. "Honestly, she wouldn't mind."

"Okay," Matt said. "Take the bag in and tell Mom. Jon, come with me. Let's get water containers."

So we all went back to the house. Mom was sitting on her mattress, staring at the fire. She heard me come in and then she saw the pillowcase.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

"It's Mrs. Nesbitt's," I said. "Mom, I'm sorry."

It took her a moment to realize what I was saying. Then she did and took a deep breath. "Was it peaceful?"

she asked. "Could you tell?"

"She died in her sleep," I said. "Just the way she wanted."

"Well, that's the best we can hope for," Mom said.

When we got to Mrs. Nesbitt's, Jonny stayed outside and loaded the wheelbarrow with wood. Matt and I went inside. Matt filled all the containers we'd brought with water, and I packed up the blankets and towels and sheets and food and the photo albums and the two paintings.

While we were in the kitchen, Jon raced in. He'd found two barrels in the garage and a couple of plastic recycling bins and a heavy garbage pail.

The garbage pail weighed so much when we filled it with water that it took all three of us to lift it into the van. Jonny and I managed the recycling bins together.

We did everything as quietly as we could, but of course if anyone heard the car motor, they'd know something was up. The rule is family first and Matt said everyone thought of us as Mrs. Nesbitt's family, so we should be okay, but it was still scary until we got both cars loaded and both engines running.

Then of course I had to drive down the driveway, onto the road, and up our driveway to the sunroom door.

The important thing, I kept telling myself, was not to panic. There were no cars on the road, so I wasn't going to hit anybody. It was more a question of whether I'd hit a tree. I kept my hands locked on the steering wheel and drove about five miles an hour. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

If I was that nervous driving, I knew I wasn't ready to die.

Jon arrived with the wheelbarrow, which he left in our garage. Then he and Matt and I unloaded the cars.

We put everything in the kitchen to be gone through later. I thought Mom was going to cry when she saw all the water.

Matt asked me if I wanted to go back with him and bring Mrs. Nesbitt to the hospital. Before I had a chance to agree, Mom said no.

"Miranda's done enough," she said. "Jonny, go with your brother."

"Mom," Jonny said.

"You heard me," Mom said. "You say you want to be treated like an adult. Then behave like one. Miranda's said her good-byes to Mrs. Nesbitt. Mine, too, I'm sure. It's your turn to do so and I expect that you will."

"Okay," Jonny said. He sounded so young, I wanted to hug him.

"This is going to take a while," Matt said. "Don't open the door while we're gone. You should be fine, but don't take any chances."

"We'll be safe," Mom said. "Be careful. I love you both."

After they left, I made Mom drink one of the bottles of water. Then I sat with her and told her about the conversation I'd had with Mrs. Nesbitt. I pulled the pendant out of the Santa bag and handed it to her.

"It was her fiftieth-birthday present," Mom said. "Her husband gave it to her. There was a big surprise party and I think she was genuinely surprised. Bobby brought Sally home for the party so we all knew it was serious. They got married later that year."

"She told me to give you her photo albums," I said. "I bet there are pictures from the party."

"Oh, I'm sure there are," Mom said. "Here. Help me with the clasp. I think she'd like to know I'm wearing the pendant."

I helped Mom on with it. She's gotten so thin I could see her shoulder blades.

"She gave me this brooch," I said, showing it to Mom.

"She loved that brooch," Mom said. "It was her grandmother's. Cherish it, Miranda. That's a very special gift."

Then I went back to work. The bottles and jugs got moved to the kitchen. I put the food in the pantry and then I changed Mom's sheets. I took a pot, filled it with water, and after it had heated up, I helped Mom shampoo her hair. I hid the baseball cards and the chocolate, and put everything else away.