Night Light

  “Doug, we’ve got to do something,” she said. “Those poor children!”

  He dropped into the chair. “How much food did you get back?”

  “A few jars of vegetables. A bag of potatoes. But I left them the apples.”

  Doug gritted his teeth and looked at the sky. They’d worked hard for those apples. In exchange for two bags of them, the entire family had had to ride five miles to the Hortons’ orchard and spend the day harvesting the fruit. It was the Hortons’ way of maintaining the orchard while keeping up the daily drudgery of surviving. For two bags of apples, a family had to work several hours. Now they were gone.

  “Doug, he says they’re all alone. Orphaned children, living there with nothing to eat.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Good. Then let’s go,” she said.

  He sat up straighter and turned his troubled eyes to his wife. “Go where?”

  “To see for ourselves. Doug, if this is true, we have to do something.”

  He could see in her eyes that there would be no talking her out of it. He let out a heavy breath. “All right, but I want the sheriff to go with us.”

  “Dad!” Jeff said. “You can’t arrest a bunch of little kids!”

  “Not to arrest them,” he said, sliding his chair back and getting up. “I want him to be there to see what’s going on with the parents. Sounds like it’s a case of neglect, maybe even child abuse. He should be aware of it.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Jeff asked.

  “No,” Doug said. “You and Deni stay here and do your chores. What’s the apartment number?”

  “4B, Sandwood Place Apartments. They’re a block south of the bank, or you can cut through the woods.”

  “I know where it is. When we get back, you and I are going to talk about that window you left unlocked.”

  nine

  KAY’S FIRST REACTION TO THEIR FOOD BEING STOLEN HAD BEEN pure rage. Though they often shared with their neighbors, their resources had been stretched unbearably thin. The family had shared in the work of growing the food and canning it, and they’d bartered and baked and built and babysat to stock their pantry.

  But now, as she pedaled her bike to the sheriff’s department, she didn’t know who to blame. Starving children didn’t deserve her wrath. But someone must.

  How she longed for the days when she could whip over to McDonald’s in her SUV and get the kids combo meals. Would those days ever return?

  It wasn’t all bad, of course. Strange as it seemed, the Pulses had brought about some good. Before the outage, she’d only had a waving acquaintance with most of her neighbors. Time spent with her kids was in the car to and from soccer tournaments, baseball games, and ballet lessons. Doug was rarely home, and when he was, he was on his computer. The kids were always lost in PlayStation games or IMing their friends. She TiVo’d her favorite programs to watch at her leisure — Oprah, Dr. Phil, 24, ER and a number of sitcoms she was too ashamed to admit she watched.

  Since the Pulses, so much had been different. Her lazy children were turning into hard workers who understood that if they wanted to eat they had to do their share. Their situation left no room for slackers. Over the weeks since the outage, the whole family had come to recognize the value of home as they never had before, and she’d seen Doug transformed into a new man — spending time with his kids, providing for them with his hands rather than his head.

  The darkness in the house at night had even become a blessing. Instead of separating to their rooms at night for their favorite but solitary activities, they now spent evenings together in one room, talking and playing games, or reading aloud under the light of the oil lamps.

  Though her children still complained and plotted to get out of their work, they seemed healthier, if skinnier. Their skin glowed, now that they’d all been detoxed from their high-fat supersize diets, food additives, trans fats, and soft drinks. And the truth was, the hard work had toned her body as no Pilates class could, and made her healthier than daily aerobic workouts. Weight was no longer a problem.

  Life moved at a slower, more deliberate pace, and that had profoundly affected Kay’s character as well as her family’s. No more instant gratification. The Pulses had fostered patience in all of them, and made them think more of others than themselves …

  Most of the time.

  Now she swung between anger and compassion at the children who’d disrupted her day.

  Four children that young, living alone? It was criminal. If it was true, someone was going to pay.

  Doug was quiet as he rode beside her.

  “Doug, I know you’re upset about having to do this,” she said. “But imagine if something had happened to us when our kids were small, and our children were living alone.”

  “Kay, you’ll see that it’s not even true. They probably lied to Jeff, playing on his sympathy. They’ve taken enough of our resources already. I don’t like that they’re taking more of our time. I have work to do.”

  “But what if it’s true?”

  They sailed around a corner. “That’s why we’re going, Kay. On the off-chance that it’s true.”

  His attitude worried her. Though the outage had brought the family closer together, her relationship with Doug seemed more distant than ever. They rarely had a private moment, and when they did, they were so exhausted that they fell into bed and went to sleep. Intimacy had been exchanged for efficiency.

  It was her fault as much as his. They were each too burdened by life to make intimate time a priority. Sometimes she longed to slip into her husband’s arms and lay her head against his chest. But his constant preoccupation dissuaded her.

  They turned down the road leading to the sheriff’s office and saw Scarbrough’s van sitting out front.

  “Good,” Doug said, “he’s here. Maybe he’ll give us a ride and we can make this quick.”

  “He won’t give us a ride, Doug. They’ve said over and over the cars are not for personal use.”

  “It’s not for our personal use,” Doug said. “We’re reporting a crime and leading him to the perpetrators.”

  She sighed. “They’re not perpetrators. They’re children.”

  Doug wasn’t buying it.

  Carrying their bikes inside, they found Scarbrough at his desk. He heard them out, then agreed to go with them. After loading their bikes into the van, they headed for the Sandwood Place Apartments.

  They pulled into the apartment complex Kay had driven past so many times in her pre-outage days. She’d hardly given it a thought. But now she saw the people loitering in their doorways or standing out on the hot pavement.

  “Jeff said it was apartment 4B.” Doug’s eyes scanned the buildings. “There,” he said, pointing. “It must be that one right there.”

  All eyes were on them as they got out of the car. Scarbrough locked the van that had the words “Sheriff’s Department” painted on the side. The sign and the uniform produced an instant aura of suspicion among the residents. Some stepped back into their open apartments. Clusters of people spoke in low voices, staying out of his way.

  But he headed toward one of those clusters. Doug and Kay followed him at a distance. He asked about the children in 4B. “We’ve heard rumors they live up there alone. Any truth to that?”

  “They have a mama,” a man said. “But I ain’t seen her in a while.”

  A skinny woman with a bandana on her head spoke up. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

  “She’s probably laid up somewhere with a needle in her arm,” the man said.

  Kay met Doug’s eyes. So the mom was a drug addict. That explained a lot.

  The sheriff questioned a few other neighbors as they made their way to 4B. All confirmed that the mother hadn’t been seen in weeks.

  “Not sounding good,” Scarbrough said as they reached their door.

  “No, it sounds like Jeff got it right.” Kay glanced at her husband. His frown lines cut more deeply int
o his brow as they moved closer to the door.

  Scarbrough was getting angry. “I ought to arrest the whole bunch of them for letting this go on. Four children, all alone. And when I find that sorry excuse for a mother …”

  He banged on the door.

  The curtain was snatched back from the window and a little girl looked out, apparently the three-year-old Jeff had described. Her face was dirty and her mop of curls was tangled and unbrushed.

  No one answered the door, but the sheriff had seen the little girl peering out too. He banged harder. “Sheriff’s department, open up!”

  The door cracked open then, and a small boy peered out.

  He didn’t look much older than the girl, and his face was just as dirty. “We didn’t do nothing,” he said, looking fearfully up at the sheriff.

  Behind him, a voice yelled, “Luke, I told you not to open it!”

  Luke looked back. “But it’s the sheriff!”

  Kay peered into the dark apartment and saw two older boys — perhaps the ones who’d broken in.

  The oldest one came to the door. “Our mom’s not home,” he said. “She’s at work. But we didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Scarbrough pushed the door open so they could look into the apartment. Kay took it all in. The place looked like the back room at a Goodwill shop, where people dumped their discards before they were sorted. The floor was covered with clothes and items of all sorts, and on the table she saw the bag of apples the boys had stolen from her house earlier that day.

  A sewage smell wafted out of the apartment, making her want to cover her nose. She shot Doug a distraught look. This time, he returned it.

  The sheriff led them inside, and the picture grew more grim — as did the smell. How could anyone live in conditions like this — much less children?

  “Where’s your mama?” the sheriff asked.

  “She’s at work,” the second oldest said. “She’ll be home late tonight.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “At Western Sizzlin’.”

  Kay and Doug looked at each other. The Western Sizzlin’ hadn’t been open since the day the Pulses began.

  Aaron saw the exchange and quickly corrected his brother. “No, that’s where she used to work. Now she works for that family in Birmingham. Cleaning houses. I can’t remember their names.”

  That didn’t even make sense. Hardly anyone had cash for the bare necessities. Even the richest person in town was probably cash poor by now and wouldn’t spend what they had on domestic services.

  “So why did the neighbors tell me they haven’t seen your mama in weeks?”

  Aaron just stared at them. “They lie, some of them. They don’t know anything.”

  Doug moved a box off a chair and sat down, putting his face on an eye level with the boys. “Look, kids, we’re not here to hurt you. If it’s true that you’re living here alone, we just want to help. Our son was here earlier, and he told us some things about you.”

  Aaron swallowed. “We gave most of the food back. He said we could have the rest.”

  “It’s not about that. We’re worried about the conditions you’re living in here, and how you’re getting food and water. Four kids shouldn’t be living alone.”

  The little girl, thumb in her mouth, looked up at Kay. Despite her filthy face, Kay could see that she was a little doll. She smiled at the girl, who pulled her thumb out for a second, as if considering the small kindness. Then she shoved it back in.

  “We’re not living alone,” Aaron said. “I told you that’s a lie.”

  Scarbrough sighed. “Fine. Then tell us where we can talk to your mama, and we’ll leave you alone.”

  There was a long pause, and all three younger children looked at their brother … waiting.

  Emotions tugged at Aaron’s face, and for a moment, Kay wished they hadn’t pushed him into a corner. Defeat hung over him as powerfully as the apartment’s horrible smell.

  “I don’t know where she is, okay? She left a while back.”

  “Did she tell you where she was going?” Scarbrough asked.

  “No. We’ve looked all over for her. Nobody knows where she is.”

  Scarbrough let out a long breath, and suddenly the hardness went out of him. In a softer voice, he said, “Son, why didn’t you tell the authorities?”

  His face flushed red. “Because I knew what you’d do. You’d want to put us in foster care. Only nobody’d wanna take all four of us. Sarah has bad dreams, and Luke walks in his sleep. I have to be there to take care of them.”

  That was all it took for Kay to lose it. Her eyes filled with tears, and she stooped in front of the little girl and put her arm around her. The thumb came out again. “Aaron, I’m sure something can be worked out,” she said. “You know it’s not healthy for you to live here like this.”

  “We live fine,” he bit out. “I take good care of us.”

  There was pride in his voice, and she didn’t want to shoot it down.

  “I can understand your fears,” the sheriff said. “Maybe I can keep you four together. We’ll see what we can do to make that happen.”

  “Yeah?” Aaron cried. “Who do you think is gonna want to take in four extra mouths to feed when they can’t hardly feed theirselves? I know what’ll happen. When nobody shows up, you’ll have to split us up!”

  He was right, Kay knew. That was exactly how it would happen.

  Joey’s mouth curled as his own emotions took over. “We’ll run away if you do that!”

  Sarah started to cry. “I don’t want to go! I want to stay here!”

  Kay tried to hug the little girl, but she pulled away and went to Aaron. He stroked the child’s curls. “It’s okay, buddy. Don’t cry.”

  “But I want to stay with you!” she wailed.

  Kay looked at Doug. She saw something in his eyes, but it wasn’t compassion. How could he not be moved?

  The sheriff cleared his throat. “Kids, all I can say is I’ll do the very best I can. But this is not negotiable. You have to come with me, period. You’ve broken the law, and I can’t let you keep doing it. No way can I let you stay here. I’ll try to keep you together, or at the very least place you in pairs, but at this point you’re lucky I’m not locking you up.”

  Kay imagined her own children — what if, when they were small, they’d lived in squalor or been farmed out to foster care?

  She looked up at Doug, her eyes pleading. But he wasn’t biting.

  The words flew out of her. “We’ll take them!”

  Doug’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  She got to her feet and turned to the sheriff. “I said, we’ll take them. All four of them.”

  Scarbrough’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Are you sure?”

  Kay saw the dread on Doug’s face. He had enough problems feeding the six of them. She knew what he was thinking: How would he feed four more?

  But she was ready for a fight if it came to it.

  “Kay, I know what you’re trying to do, but we’re not equipped — ”

  “Doug, we have to take them. Just until the sheriff finds a home for them.”

  “We got a home, lady,” Aaron said. “We don’t need anybody else messin’ things up.”

  Kay sighed. “Aaron, you don’t have much choice right now. The only way you’ve been surviving is by stealing, and now that the sheriff knows, that has to stop. We’ll help you until your mother is found. Or a grandmother or another relative who can take care of you.”

  Doug’s tension was growing. “Kay, that could be a long time.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Doug, we are not leaving these children!”

  He swallowed hard, then looked from one to the other of the urchins lined up before him, his struggle plain on his face.

  But when he turned back to her, the struggle had turned to resolve. “All right. Let’s get them packed.”

  Kay knew he wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t care. She would convince him later that it was the right thing
. “Okay, come on, kids, I’ll help you get packed, and the sheriff can drive us home.”

  “In a car?” Sarah asked.

  “A van,” she said, smiling. “It’s one of the only ones in town that runs. How about that?”

  Sarah jumped up and down, delighted at the interesting turn of events. But the three boys brooded. And when the sheriff found and confiscated their empty revolver, they looked even more distraught. Kay could see this was going to be a challenge.

  She hoped her marriage was up to it.

  ten

  DENI’S PARENTS HAD BEEN GONE WAY LONGER THAN SHE’D expected, so the task of preparing dinner on their outside grill fell to her. The choices were slim, and the food Jeff had salvaged from the thieves would have to last. She had just started boiling six potatoes, one for each of them, when Brad next door brought several fish he’d caught that day. Her unbelieving neighbor didn’t even realize he’d been used by God today. She had quickly cleaned the fish and put them on the grill.

  Three months ago, she hadn’t known how to boil water. Now she could bake bread, can vegetables, clean fish — and her father threatened that she’d soon be skinning animals, a talent she’d rather not foster. But a lot of good all those domestic skills did her, since she’d probably be fifty before she saw Craig again. By then, he’d probably be married to some cute intern. Deni hated her already.

  “Smells good.” Jeff came out of the house, still filthy from working at the well. “I wonder if I should go looking for Mom and Dad. I’m getting worried about them.”

  “Maybe you should. They may have gotten conked on the head in that neighborhood.”

  The words were no sooner out of her mouth than they heard an engine turning onto the street. Since it was such a rare sound, one that usually meant bad news, she scooped the fish off of the grill and ran to see who it was.

  It was the sheriff’s clunker van, pulling into her driveway. Her chest tightened. Was he coming with bad news about her parents?

  She breathed in relief when she saw her dad in the passenger seat. “It’s about time,” she said as he got out. “Where have you been?”