We Are Unprepared (8 page)

SIX

“I THINK YOUR
joists are rotting,” August said with authority. “I've seen this before.”

We were on our knees in the backyard examining the underbelly of the porch steps, which appeared to be melting into the earth. This was the sort of handyman challenge that little August excelled at. In all his solo wanderings to neighbors' homes and nearby farms, he'd gleaned useful information about just this sort of thing, so I was happy to have him close by as we tinkered. Plus it was an effortless way to keep an eye on him under the new arrangement.

I squinted to see deeper into the dank cavern. “Do you think we need to rebuild the steps entirely, or can we just replace a few of those pieces?” I asked. I had no idea how to do either of those things.

August stood up and put his finger in the air like a cartoon character signaling that a big idea had hit him. “We should go see Peg! She has a buttload of leftover wood from when she fixed the doors on the stable. It's walnut, which is wicked hard. I'll show you how much it hurts when we punch it.”

Lacking any other ideas and curious to meet our neighbor Peg, who lived just through the woods on the other side, I agreed and followed August's determined march toward the road. Pia was reading a book about candle making inside and seemed happy to have us out of the house, so I didn't bother disturbing her.

It was late Sunday afternoon on November 3 and the autumn cold had finally arrived. I wanted to bundle August up in one of our extra winter coats, but that wasn't the kind of relationship we had; not yet. We both watched the sky as we walked, which was as magnificent as any I had ever seen that time of year. We were entering the part of fall when everything shifts to gray. It's a transitional period between the fiery explosions of foliage and the austerity of winter, and you could miss it if you weren't paying attention—but everyone was paying attention in those days. The sky wasn't steely as it should have been, but speckled pink as if a firecracker was suspended in the clouds. It had something to do with the wild temperature fluctuations and the hurricane that was, on that day, attacking the Carolinas. The effect looked magnificent and felt eerie as we walked along the road.

Although Peg was our immediate neighbor, I'd had very few interactions with her and knew virtually nothing about her life. As far as I could tell, she was a busy sixtysomething woman with a lingering Irish accent and no immediate family nearby. Even August was light on details about her. Some people move to the woods to be left alone and I assumed Peg was one of those people. So it was a surprise when she opened the door with a big smile and personable ease.

We stepped inside to find that Peg was involved in an elaborate applesauce-canning project, which she left unattended to make tea for the three of us. Because of the applesauce, we were surrounded by a heady fairy-tale scent, but hers was not the home of a kindly granny. Everywhere I looked, there were artifacts from different parts of the world—African masks, Chinese vases, tiny Russian dolls swimming in a bowl with stray pennies and paper clips. It was dizzying but beautiful and utterly natural, not the curated gallery of someone looking to impress. This was the cluttered house of a woman who'd lived a full life.

August and I immediately forgot the purpose of our trip and instead drank tea on worn, mismatched furniture in the living room while Peg told us about the objects around us and the circumstances of their acquisition. August had never been inside her house either, and he peppered her with one breathless question after another, which relieved me of the job. She gestured constantly while she spoke, pointing to trinkets and tucking behind her ear the stray gray hair that kept falling from a loose ponytail. I noticed that her clothes looked as if she might be scheduled for a safari later that day. She wore a white linen shirt tucked into those polyester khakis that looked like rain would slide right off them. They had multiple pockets of varying sizes that I assumed were intended for compasses and jackknives.

Peg was a botanist and a professor at Lyndon State College. She had published two books on the reproductive patterns of conifers and lived in several countries, which she would drop into the conversation like afterthoughts (“that was when I was in the Philippines, which has a sensational culture but disappointing food...”). She never married, but there were pictures of a younger Peg with tanned men in adventurous settings displayed around her home. August inquired about a large instrument that occupied the corner of the living room and she explained that she played the cello in a local ensemble “not terribly well.”

I loved Peg immediately. She was expressive and a little kooky but obviously smart and accomplished. I wondered about the men who appeared in her pictures. She seemed like the type who might casually refer to them as having been
lovers
, a word that made me shudder but seemed completely natural on her. I also liked that Peg had made her way from Ireland, around most of the globe, to Isole—and that she seemed to think it was as wonderful as I did.

“And what about you, Ash?” Peg asked, picking up her teacup after a summary of her time spent studying shrubs in Senegal. “What brings you here?”

I wished I had something less conventional to tell Peg than the fact that I was returning to my home state to eat organic food with my lovely wife, who'd been acting strange lately. Instead, I gave her a version of the truth that emphasized my love of nature and new furniture-making hobby, which I thought might make me seem slightly less boring.

“You didn't like New York?” she asked.

“Oh, no, I love New York,” I replied. “The energy and the culture... I know it's a cliché, but all the things people say are great about New York really are great. I will definitely miss it.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Well, Pia and I had always dreamed of starting a new adventure somewhere, living a little more mindfully and simply...something like that.”

Our reasoning sounded obnoxious as I said it aloud and I made a mental note to prepare a better explanation for future conversations.

“So why Vermont?” Peg probed. “You could have gone anywhere, but you're back in your home state.”

I took a breath and started slowly. “I guess for me it was more like I needed to get back to my natural habitat.”

I waited to see if this was enough for Peg, but she didn't appear satisfied, so I went on. “It's like everyone is born with a certain constitution, you know? And you can enjoy all kinds of places, but there's only one place that you feel absolutely at home in. That's how I feel about the woods of Vermont. I could never envision myself growing old in a different environment. I don't know, maybe that sounds insane.”

Peg nodded and smiled slightly. She appeared to understand.

August pushed off his chair and announced that he was bored.

“What do you want to talk about, buddy?” I said.

“I want to know what Peg—who is a
scientist
—thinks about The Storms that are coming.”

August said
scientist
with great emphasis and I made a mental note to nurture this interest in him.

Peg set her teacup down and picked a piece of lint off her safari pants before looking back up at August and me. She was serious all of a sudden.

“August, the most important thing for you to remember is that everything is going to be fine. You've got a house and two parents and me and Ash, and we're all going to make sure you're safe.”

August didn't look particularly distressed to me, but Peg gave me a firm look suggesting that I needed to play a role in this lesson.

“She's right, buddy,” I said. “It's just weather. We'll make it an adventure!”

It felt strange to speak that way, and I realized that perhaps I had no idea how I was supposed to speak to children.

August shrugged and looked bored again. “Okay. Can I feed carrots to the horses?”

Peg sent August to the stable with a small, dirty tote bag of carrots and sat back down across from me. Then we had a very adult conversation about August's parents' negligence and how we could help provide him with a sense of safety in the coming months. I was reminded again that there was a lot I didn't know about looking after a child.

“And The Storms?” I said. “Do you think they will be as bad as the predictions?”

Peg looked into her tea. “I do. I think they will be much worse, in fact.”

“But how can you know that?” Her certainty shook me.

“Governments are conservative about such things. They have reason to be—every storm report has the potential to move markets and set into motion a series of events at a global level. It's not willful deception, exactly. It's more like a compulsory downplaying. If the US government panics, everyone panics. So yes, I think The Storms are going to be much worse than they are predicting.”

It seemed as though Peg had more to say on the topic, so I waited.

“And these predictions ring true to me as someone who has studied the earth for most of my life,” she went on. “In the field and through a microscope, I've been watching things change for years. I've been waiting for The Storms, in a way. And it's not just
these
storms; it's the dramatic changes that are about to start happening regularly. This is the real lie that our government is telling: they are leading Americans to believe that this winter is an anomaly, a freak event for the history books, but it's not. There could be something bigger right behind it, and then another after that.”

Still I said nothing. Peg seemed to need to tell me this story.

“Of course, it's not just the United States. It's also the governments of China, India, most of Europe—the rest of the world is doing the same thing. They know that their own big storms are coming, though they will be different everywhere.”

I thought of a movie that Pia and I had seen in the theater about an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean that triggered a tsunami in China, which sent global oil prices into turmoil, causing war to break out across the Middle East and parts of Africa. After the movie, we'd laughed about how improbable it was.

I must have looked concerned because Peg held up her hands and said, “I'm not a climatologist, and any good scientist knows that there's so much more we
don't
know, so I suppose anything could happen, Ash.”

Peg said my name quietly to herself twice more, and she seemed to move on to a different thought.

“Do you know about the ash tree?” she asked. “It's very important in Celtic mythology.”

I raised my eyebrows, trying to follow the turn in conversation. “I had no idea. I guess I don't really know why that's my name.”

“It's considered one of the most powerful of all the trees,” Peg said without a hint of jest in her voice. “Actually, in parts of Europe, they used to use it to make spears and the handles of weapons. It's associated with enchantment and healing. The pagans considered it positively holy! There's a lot going on with the ash tree. Were your parents druids or hippies?”

“Ha.” I laughed. “No, not to my knowledge. My grandfather was a logger, though. I don't know; that's the only tree connection I can think of.”

Peg nodded. “That's probably it. He knew the trees and ash is an important tree. It's very fitting for you.”

I suddenly felt self-conscious about the conversation and wanted to move on.

“So, you're into mythology?” I asked.

“Of course!” she said. “You can't study nature and ignore mythology.”

“What do you mean?”

Peg looked serious again. “Ash, you're smart—not a black-and-white thinker. I can see that. So don't allow yourself to be seduced by the blacks and whites of science. There are other ways of knowing things, too, ways that rely on instinct and emotion. Life is fuller when you leave room for all of it.”

Peg stopped there, apparently satisfied with this answer and maybe even enjoying my confusion a little. The discussion had taken an unexpected turn, but I was more intrigued by Peg than ever now.

August ran in at that moment and announced that he was out of carrots and hungry, so I thanked Peg for the tea and helped her carry the chipped china to the sink. She handed August a sleeve of crackers that he stuffed into a back pocket.

“Oh, August,” Peg said as we opened the back door to leave. “Be sure to check out the fairy ring just past the barn. The fungi won't be there much longer!”

“Got it,” August replied in his most serious voice.

We walked into the cold and I asked August what a fairy ring was.

He sighed impatiently and explained that it was an enchanted circle of toadstools and “any dummy knows that humans are never supposed to enter a fairy ring.”

I smiled, feeling a surge of love at that moment for August and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where the scientists make room for the metaphysical.

We observed the circle of mushrooms from a safe, reverent distance.

SEVEN

I WAS HALF-ASLEEP
in bed on a Wednesday night in mid-November, thinking about windows. An old man at the coffee shop told me earlier that week that I needed to start “getting the storms in.” I didn't know the man and I had only the most vague understanding of what he was talking about, but his instruction sent a wave of panic through me. It was another reminder that I needed to figure out quickly how to be an adult homeowner in the country. Extreme weather was on its way, and I owned a big, leaky house and I wasn't even sure if we had storm windows or how to install them. I repeated the old man's advice to myself, practicing his confidence.
Of course, you have to get those storms in before it's too cold. You wouldn't want to wait too long.
I imagined saying it to someone else in the same knowing tone, after my storms were safely in. What a relief it would be to be the guy with the rural know-how.

Despite the gulf growing between Pia and me, she recognized my panic as I tossed about in bed, thinking of the windows. She rolled over and put a hand on my forehead, an uncharacteristically maternal gesture that I appreciated. I hadn't spoken to her about the windows or any of the other chores and light construction that needed to get done. Her head was full enough.

It had been almost two months since Pia's first prepper meeting and she was more engrossed in the mission than ever. She knew not to bother me about it, but I could see that it was occupying a growing role in her life. I found cryptic notes around the house, written to herself about preparations she needed to tend to. She still had no job or real obligations, but she hurried around all day, then stayed up late into the night and drank wine: sometimes a bottle or more. But I did, too, now, so I chose to look past the modest increase in recyclables that we brought to the redemption center each week. That was the puzzle: distinguishing Pia's unraveling from the rest of our fraying nerves. Everyone's mental health was diminishing. Life moved forward mostly undisturbed, but we were all having a third glass to trick ourselves into sleep.

The Storms were with us all the time but only detectable if you were looking for them. They were ghosts that we were beginning to grow comfortable with because we had no other choice. What else could we do? Across the country, bills still had to be paid and grass had to be mowed and children had to be raised. Life was still grinding forward.

The Storms were affecting things beyond the walls of our little life, too. The lines that divide Americans—the ones we like to believe are always softening—were beginning to sharpen. Just that week, a group of young men had held up a mosque at gunpoint in New Jersey, yelling about how they didn't want to share the country with outsiders anymore. A few days later, a renegade group of civilians in Texas launched their own border security operation, killing two Mexican immigrants before Homeland Security shut it down. And the state of Colorado had just passed a law requiring that classrooms start each day with the Lord's Prayer “to ward off evil in the face of uncertainty.”

It was impossible to know what the coming threats would look like and how our lives might be upended. In the absence of clarity, we used our imagination, which for many morphed into paranoia.

Congressional members from the West Coast were forming bipartisan alliances to enact legislation that put caps on disaster relief funding, apparently unable to envision a time when a superdisaster might strike their side of the country (and it would). These were just the early signs, the small things that signaled bigger injustices ahead. For instance, we didn't know then that a group of hackers would break into the Department of Homeland Security's computer system and reveal that the government had willfully ignored evidence of The Storms for over a year before warning the public. I guess I thought it would take more for our trusted institutions to abandon us, but I was wrong.

Pia and I learned all this and shook our heads, saddened for our country, but also vindicated in our decision to hide out in a corner of America that didn't identify much with the rest of the country.

In response to the growing tensions, the government plastered the airwaves with a public service campaign that featured a multiracial group of washed-up celebrities smiling and embracing. “Safer Together” it was called and it had a catchy theme song that was obviously intended to sound something like U2. Sometimes August hummed it to himself, though I doubt it had much effect on its target demographic of hate groups and antigovernment protesters.

All of this was too much for my anxious 1:00 a.m. mind to ponder, so I thought about storm windows instead. Pia thought about water-filtration systems and I thought about storm windows, and we both drank a bit too much wine and the world still felt almost manageable this way.

I could feel Pia inch closer to me in bed, pressing her warm breasts against my shoulder. Bed was the best place for us, disarmed in the pitch-black. Our bodies hadn't changed, so we could pretend while we were there that nothing had. She slid a hand into my boxers and began working gently.

With so little provocation, I was out of my nervous head and back in my body. She was still Pia and we were still
us
, and it felt as electric as the first night she took me home and spread unabashedly before me. I kissed her neck, her shoulder; I pulled her hair. She gasped and dug the fingernails of her free hand into my thigh. I climbed on top of her and, with great force, did my best to push the unknowable demons out of her wild body. But of course, the demons were part of the electricity.

We were alternately fucking and making love, holding on for dear life and then punishing each other for something unnamed. The change was subtle, but it was a more selfish, individual style of sex than we were used to. When she came, she cried out and then bit my shoulder so hard I thought she'd draw blood. It was part of her performance, I knew, but I appreciated the effort. And I was grateful for the pain, which made the blood in my body pump with frightening force.

When we were lying still again, exhausted and self-satisfied, Pia put her head on my chest and whispered, “I think our family is just right the way it is.”

She was talking about August, of course, but maybe also about the possibility of conceiving our own children. She had slowly and inexplicably been drifting away from the idea of children in the preceding two months. I could feel her moving on to other things. Until very recently, this would have been a relief, but it wasn't any longer.

It had always seemed a great privilege to me, to be two adults in love and unbound by children or even pets. Everything about our life was intentional, chosen by each of us every morning because we wanted it that way. We were forging close-but-distinct parallel paths, and we were light enough and lean enough to veer off into any direction we wanted together. The people I saw with children seemed carried along by the momentum of all their freight. They looked helpless. But lately—even before August disappeared—our freedom was feeling unnervingly light, as if we might both float away from each other and this earth, disappearing into the cosmos forever. I wanted the weight now. I needed a life that felt more substantial. Was it wrong to want August to tether me to the ground? What are the right reasons to want children if not that? Sometimes it seemed we had waited so long and thought so thoroughly about
why
to have children that any primal instinct for it had been smothered by theory.

Maybe we need a pet, I thought, as we lay naked beside each other.

We had a cat once. Burt. He belonged to the elderly woman across the hall from us in Brooklyn, but after six months she declared the cat “a real asshole” and offered him up to Pia. Without consulting me, Pia agreed to take Burt and he was there when I arrived home from work one night.

I tried to be open-minded about Burt, given his orphaned state, but it wasn't easy. He was anxious and in the habit of pulling out large chunks of his fur when life got to be too much. And his moods were so unpredictable that he could curl up in your lap at breakfast and attack you when you arrived home that night. After Burt drew blood from me for the third time, I lost patience.

* * *

“He's got to go, Pia,” I demanded. “He really is a little shit.”

“He can't go,” she cried. “Don't you see it? This cat is me! He needs to live here.”

“What?”

“He's me. It's uncanny. He was deprived of affection as a kitten and now he's acting out through aggression and self-harm.”

I took a deep breath. “That's a little dramatic.”

“Not if it's true.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I'm keeping Burt. We need each other.”

Argument seemed futile at that point and I didn't hate Burt enough to declare war over him, so I conceded. And I couldn't help but admit that Pia's emotional resemblance to Burt—as described by her—was real. I will never know if Pia's parents were cruel or simply cold or if the difference matters to a small child, but something about her early life left her wanting. Beneath her wit and allure, there was always a simmering reservoir of needy energy that could bubble over as anger or excitement. I didn't understand it, but I knew by then that it predated our relationship and I had no power over it. So Burt stayed.

Maybe Burt could have helped, but we never had the chance to know. He sneaked out one night during a dinner party and we never saw him again.

* * *

Pia curled into me and kissed my shoulder, bringing me back to the present.

“I love that,” I said, in reference to the sex we'd just had.

“Mmm, me, too,” she murmured. “We'll be grateful to have it when everything else is gone.”