“Is it okay with you?” she asked. “Me working for Lisa?”
It wasn’t, but there was nothing Jon could say. “Lisa thinks it’s a great idea,” he said. “Val’s missing, so things are kind of hard. We could use a helping hand.”
“I like Lisa,” Miranda said. “Gabe’s a handful, but he’s my brother and I love him. I’m hoping to be out of here in a week. The baby’s kicking up a storm. It’s ready to be born, I’m sure of it.”
Jon looked at his watch. “I told Carrie I’d be home soon,” he said. “She has all the housework and Gabe, and that’s too much for her. I’d better go.”
“Will you come back?” Miranda asked. “Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know,” Jon said. “With school and soccer and helping out with Gabe, I don’t have much time.”
Miranda smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “You’re a good claver, Jon,” she said. “You do all the right things.”
“This isn’t my fault,” Jon said. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“I didn’t, either,” Miranda said. “Okay, Jon. Go. You did your duty. The next time I see Mom, I’ll tell her what a good boy you are.”
“Go to hell,” Jon said. He walked out of the room, paying no heed to Miranda calling his name.
Wednesday, July 8
When the phone rang, Jon figured it was Lisa calling from work. Carrie was putting Gabe to sleep, but Lisa probably wanted to wish him good night over the phone.
But it was Alex.
“Miranda’s all right,” Jon said. “I saw her yesterday.”
“That’s not what I’m calling about,” Alex said. “Do you know where Laura is?”
“Mom?” Jon said. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Maybe nothing. But I got home from work and she wasn’t there. That’s not like her. I thought maybe you’d gotten her into Sexton.”
“You know we can’t,” Jon said. “Maybe Mom’s visiting people.” He remembered the dead bodies in front of the apartment and started to feel sick. “Look, Alex, if Mom comes home, could you let me know?”
“Not today,” Alex said. “Curfew’s in five minutes. I’m already taking a chance calling. I’ll talk to you tomorrow night. Or if Laura gets back, I’ll have her call you tomorrow.”
Jon could hear sirens in the background. “Gotta go,” Alex said. “Curfew.”
Alex was a worrier, Jon told himself. Even Mom thought he was paranoid.
But Mom also thought she might never see Jon again. Someone had gone into her apartment and stolen her food. Someone had slaughtered her downstairs neighbors.
He picked up the phone and called Sarah.
“Is something the matter?” she asked as soon as she heard his voice.
“Yes,” Jon said. “No. I don’t know. Look, is your father going to White Birch tomorrow? Is the clinic open?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “I’m going, too. It’s a good excuse not to go to Zachary’s funeral.”
“The funeral,” Jon said. He’d almost forgotten. Zachary’s was scheduled for Thursday and Tyler’s for Friday.
People wouldn’t care if Sarah wasn’t at the funerals. They didn’t like her or trust her, and they’d figure she’d skip out on something that important.
But Jon was different. He was their classmate, their teammate, their friend. It would seem strange if he wasn’t there. It would be one more mark against him, one more indication that he was just a slip, not really a claver.
But Alex was scared and Mom was missing. “I need to go to White Birch,” Jon said. “How do you get there? Are the claver buses running?”
“No,” Sarah said. “Clavers aren’t allowed in. Daddy goes by private car. And when we’re there, we’re not allowed out of the clinic except to go home.”
“Mom’s missing,” Jon said. “Alex called. Maybe it’s nothing, but I’ve got to find out. I’m going with you. What time do you leave?”
“Seven o’clock,” Sarah said. “But Jon, even if you get there, you can’t walk around. It’s too dangerous.”
“I have to,” Jon said. “I’ll be at your house at six thirty. Tell your father.”
“Jon,” Sarah said, but he hung up.
It’ll be okay, he told himself. He’d get to Mom’s apartment somehow and find her there. She’d hug him, the way she used to when he was little.
It’ll be all right. This one time, it had to be all right.
Thursday, July 9
“Drop him off here,” Dr. Goldman said to the driver.
“You sure?” the driver asked. “My orders are to take you to the clinic.”
“Your orders are to do what I tell you,” Dr. Goldman said. “I brought this boy along to run errands. Now do as I say and let him out here.”
“Watch out for the guards,” the driver said as he pulled to the curb in front of Mom’s apartment. “They’ll shoot first, ask later.”
Sarah grasped Jon’s arm. He looked at her and smiled. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “See you soon.” He opened the car door and let himself out.
The bodies were still there, but Jon felt an absurd sense of relief when he saw there were no new ones. He opened the door and ran up the stairs, calling for Mom. But there was no answer.
Jon checked the apartment, continuously calling Mom’s name. He even checked where she hid her food. There were still cans there.
If someone had broken in and demanded to know where the food was, Mom would have told him. She wouldn’t die for the sake of a few cans.
So where was she?
Before, when things were normal, when things were the way they were supposed to be, Mom would have left a note. But now she lived in a world with no paper, no pencils or pens. They’d brought nothing like that when they’d come from Pennsylvania. They hadn’t even brought copies of the books Mom had written.
No paper. No pens. Only a pay phone a half dozen blocks away.
Feeling like a fool, Jon searched the apartment one more time. There was no sign of Mom, of anybody. Alex had even made the bed that morning. Somehow that didn’t surprise Jon. It was the kind of thing he would do. His wife was hospitalized, his mother-in-law missing, and Alex made the bed.
Unless Mom wasn’t missing.
Jon thought about it. She hadn’t been home when Alex got home, and then he went to the pay phone to call Jon. But maybe Mom was home when Alex got back. He couldn’t leave the apartment to call. It was past curfew.
The curfew ran until 5 a.m., when the dayworker grubs, like Alex and Miranda, began their walks to the bus terminal. Alex took a 6 a.m. bus. He wouldn’t have had time to call Jon before leaving for work.
Jon remembered Carrie saying guards had herded them Monday morning. The grubs needed passes to get on the buses, and Mom didn’t have a pass, because she didn’t work in Sexton. She wouldn’t have risked going to the pay phone while the grubs were walking to the terminal.
Mom could have waited until seven o’clock to call him, when he was already on his way to White Birch.
He grinned. Mom was fine. She was at school, helping those precious students of hers. He was the one risking his life while she was safe and sound.
He thought about waiting in the apartment until Mom got home, but he knew Sarah would go crazy if he did. No, the thing to do was go to the school, see Mom, and go from there to the clinic.
Jon made sure he had the note Dr. Goldman had written claiming he’d been brought to White Birch to run errands. Of course the guards might shoot him before they saw the note. But Jon didn’t think that would happen. He’d seen only a few guards on the drive through White Birch. Things had quieted down. He’d be safe.
Still, he took care as he walked the few blocks to the elementary school. The one time he saw a guard, he stood back, hardly breathing, until the guard was a few blocks away.
Except for the guard, Jon saw no one but corpses. He wondered when the grubs would be allowed to cart the bodies off.
&n
bsp; Bullies. That’s what Mom had called the clavers. She was right. There was no reason to leave the bodies except to rub the grubs’ noses in it. The way Coach had wanted them to do.
Sunday’s match had been canceled. It was an official day of mourning for Sexton. All the claver bodies would be buried by then. Maybe after that they’d let White Birch take care of theirs.
Jon knew roughly where the school was, but he didn’t know exactly, so he walked for a few blocks before he spotted it. Taking care there were no guards around, he approached the school.
He could never be sure just when he saw her. A block away maybe? Two blocks? How far could you be before you saw a body hanging from a tree? How near did you have to be to know the body belonged to your mother?
Jon no longer cared about guards. He ran to the schoolyard, to the tree, to Mom’s lifeless body, her feet dangling over a drying pool of blood.
She’d been shot. Jon couldn’t guess how many times, but her clothes were ripped with bullet holes, and half her face was gone.
He wanted to scream, but that might bring the guards. The same guards who had killed her. He moaned instead and took his mother’s hand, holding the cold, dead flesh for as long as he could bear. Then he stormed into the school. The grubs would know what happened. If he had to beat it out of them, he’d find out why his mother had been slaughtered.
He broke into one of the classrooms and grabbed the teacher. “I’m her son!” he screamed. “Laura Evans’s son!”
The kids in the class didn’t look much older than Gabe. They began crying. Their teacher broke away from Jon.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry. There was nothing we could do.”
“What happened?” he cried. “Why?”
The teacher shook her head. “Not here,” she said. “Go to Mrs. Brunswick’s office, by the front door. She can tell you.”
He left the classroom and ran to the office. He’d passed it when he came in, but he hadn’t realized there was someone in there.
She sat quietly behind a battered desk.
“Mrs. Brunswick?”
The woman nodded.
Jon took a deep breath. “I’m Jon Evans,” he said. “What happened to my mother?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Please, sit down.”
“Mom didn’t come home last night,” Jon said. “I came here looking for her. Tell me what happened.” He was using his claver tone, he realized, and for a moment Mrs. Brunswick reacted like a grub.
But then she exhaled, and Jon saw she wasn’t a grub, any more than his mother had been.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I’d find Mom here, teaching. Please. I have to know.”
Mrs. Brunswick nodded. “Your mother was in her classroom,” she said. “A half dozen guards came in. They told me they’d come for the high school students. There’s a labor shortage, because of the riots. All the high school students had to start work immediately, the boys in the factories, the girls as domestics.”
Jon thought about Lisa trying to find domestics for all the claver homes. He knew she wouldn’t have asked for the high school students, but he also knew she wouldn’t have argued against it. A month ago he wouldn’t have, either.
“The guards went into your mother’s classroom, and Laura, well, she put up a fight,” Mrs. Brunswick continued. “She stood up to them.”
“And they shot her,” Jon said.
Mrs. Brunswick shook her head. “I wish they had,” she said. “I wish it had been that quick, that clean. Two of them grabbed her, dragged her outside. The others went to the classrooms, told everyone they had to go out. We knew they’d kill the children if we didn’t. We had no choice but to do what they said.”
“I know,” Jon said. “I know this isn’t your fault.”
“They used one of their belts for a noose,” Mrs. Brunswick said, her voice quivering. “They told Laura to say her prayers. She said . . . she said she’d see them in hell. They made it tighter, but she still wouldn’t beg like they wanted her to. Then they used her for target practice.”
She was sobbing by then, but Jon didn’t cry. There was no point. Dead was dead. His father had died of hunger and disease. Was that better than being hanged and shot?
“They said they’d come back for the belt,” Mrs. Brunswick added. “They said they’d kill our children if she wasn’t still there when they came back for the belt.”
“The students,” Jon said. “The high school students?” The ones Mom died for, he thought.
“They took them,” Mrs. Brunswick said. “I don’t think they hurt them. Sexton needs the workers.”
Jon stood. “I have to go,” he said. “There are people expecting me.”
Mrs. Brunswick rose. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I only met your mother after the high school burned down, but I could see what a wonderful woman she was. She was devoted to her students.”
Jon nodded.
“To her family, also,” Mrs. Brunswick said. “She was . . . It was an honor to know her.”
“Yes,” Jon said. “Well, I have to go.”
“There’s a back door,” Mrs. Brunswick said. “Down this hallway. If you leave through that door, you won’t have to . . . It might be easier for you.”
“Thank you,” Jon said, but when he left the office, he went out the front door. They wanted people to see Mom. They wanted people to understand what they were capable of doing, what they enjoyed doing.
Jon stood absolutely still by his mother’s body. He wanted to take her home, back to Pennsylvania, back to life as it had been. He wanted to be twelve again, to hear Mom cheering him on as he played shortstop for his Little League team. He wanted Mom to see the sun again, to see the grandchild she’d been so eagerly awaiting. He wanted to kill.
A guard walked up to him. “You have business here?” he asked.
“I’m here to run errands for Dr. Goldman,” Jon replied. “I have a note.” He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to the guard.
“I’ll go with you,” the guard said. “You’re not supposed to be here, you know. Some of my pals are a little trigger happy.”
“Thank you,” Jon said. “I appreciate it.” He began walking away from his mother, trying not to think that this was the last time he would see her.
“Grubs,” the guard said, shaking his head in disgust. “Animals. You should have seen the stadium on Saturday.”
“Bad?” Jon asked.
“The game was okay,” the guard replied. “Soccer’s not my game, though. I played baseball. Third base. Made it to Double A for the Red Sox.”
“I was a shortstop,” Jon said. “Little League. Phillies fan.”
“Good team,” the guard said. “Wouldn’t have minded being traded to them.”
“Double A’s good,” Jon said. “Would you have made it to the big leagues?”
The guard nodded. “I was drafted out of high school. I was only twenty when everything happened. Killed that dream, let me tell you.”
“Mine, too,” Jon said. And my father’s. And my mother’s.
The guard laughed. “We all started somewhere,” he said. “I made it to Williamsport one year. Little League World Series. We were knocked out second round, but it was great. One of the best times of my life. I felt like a star.”
“I would have liked that,” Jon said.
“I feel bad for you kids sometimes,” the guard said. “Well, you have it all right, being a claver. But the ones here? Once things turned bad, well, they turned bad right along with it. You should see what they did to each other Saturday.” He paused. “I killed a bunch of them Saturday night. I’d never killed anyone before then. I could have a few times, but I didn’t. I was a ballplayer, you know? I wasn’t aiming to kill people. But Saturday there was no choice. And after the first few, it didn’t feel so bad anymore. That woman? The one you were looking at? She had to be shut up. We had to make an example of her. And the guard in charge, he gets ideas. Everything has to be bigger.
He’s my boss and I guess he knows what he’s doing. I didn’t second-guess my manager or the hitting coach. I did what they told me. Same thing, really.”
Jon had been beaned once. The ball had hit him flush on his helmet. The world had swirled around him as he’d fallen to his knees.
It was the same sensation now. He’d been walking, talking, with one of his mother’s killers. And he was as helpless now as he had been when the fastball had struck him. The guard was armed, and Jon wasn’t. Even letting the guard know it was Jon’s mother he’d killed could be fatal.
Mom wanted him to live. He could hear her telling him to swallow his rage.
“The clinic’s over there,” he said, pointing to the building. “I’ll be okay from here.”
“Pleasure meeting you,” the guard said, shaking Jon’s hand. “Us ballplayers got to stick together.”
Jon nodded. He walked to the clinic door. The two guards protecting the clinic let him in.
Sarah rushed into his arms. “Did you find her?” she asked. “Is she all right?”
“No,” Jon said. “I mean yes. I found her. She’s dead.” He felt his knees giving in.
Dr. Goldman grabbed him. “Sit down,” he said. “Sarah, get the potka. Now.”
Jon made it to a chair, and when Sarah brought him the drink, he swallowed it in one burning gulp. “She was killed yesterday,” he said. “I saw her body.”
Sarah looked at her father, who nodded. She poured another drink.
Jon sipped it this time. “I have to tell people,” he said. “Alex will want to know. Miranda. Matt.” He started to laugh. “I don’t even know how to tell Matt. He delivers mail but he doesn’t get any.”
“Get a blanket, Sarah,” Dr. Goldman said.
Sarah got one and wrapped it around Jon. The warmth felt good, but he couldn’t stop shaking.
“You’re in shock,” Dr. Goldman said. “You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t. Sarah, get another blanket. Jon, I’m going to give you a shot.”