Cost of Survival

  ***

  I don’t know what I expected for our first night in camp – campfire burning surrounded by a circle of people talking and roasting marshmallows or something. Certainly not Sarge claiming the men from dinner for a perimeter check, while Mom and I returned to our room to wait for Charlie.

  Sitting Indian-style on the hard floor across from the bed, I leaned against the wall. Mom knelt by the bed, but she didn’t bow her head. Instead she lifted her face, as if beseeching the heavens – or the ceiling. I’m not sure.

  Knock, knock.

  Our heads whipped toward the door. Mom’s shoulders hunched when she stood. She straightened them as if making a decision. She didn’t look at me.

  The knock had come from the adjoining door.

  Suddenly, harshness of the reality hit me in the face. I looked at the ground.

  Mom had never loved another man besides my father. She’d never been touched by anyone else. With her faith, she believed in chastity and marriage. Devout loyalty.

  I didn’t want a martyr for a mother, yet she padded past me, her steps short and sure.

  She faltered at the door. We didn’t look at each other, but I sat inches from the frame. I reached out and squeezed her foot. Whispering, I stared at the grains in the flooring. “Mom, we can leave. Let’s go. Don’t do this.”

  “You won’t be safe anywhere, Kel. You heard him talk about the marauders. That’s gangs, Kelley. I can at least do my best here. Don’t let anyone through the other door.” Her whisper barely reached me and she turned the handle, slipping through the doorway like a portal.

  A portal which didn’t block out sound.

  The low murmur of Charlie’s voice and a discordant rising and falling of his tone frightened me. I scooted toward the foot of the bed, staring at the gap under the door. The increasing darkness hadn’t bothered me until that exact moment.

  What if someone did try to come through the hallway door while she was gone? Tom had warned us about the men there. I couldn’t stand fast enough. Trying to push out the thoughts of what Mom had to do in Charlie’s bedroom so that we – no, I – could stay safe, I turned the lock on the door and rushed back to the bed.

  Nothing would get me out of my clothes. I crawled across the comforter and lay down, pressing myself against the cool paint of the wall.

  His voice only sounded distant, not more muffled or even – what I really wanted – gone.

  And like that twelve-year-old I was supposed to be, I plugged my ears with a finger in each and hummed softly to myself.

  I eventually fell asleep like a child hiding from a thunderstorm.