Seasons: A Year in the Apocalypse Read online

  "It's dry enough for harvest," he groused, plucking at the stalks with a gloved hand. “Could do it later this week, but we got you scheduled for next week. So I suppose we’ll stick to that.”

  “How long will it take?” I inquired, trying to get a read from his face. As usual, there was not a smile or friendly expression to be found.

  “I’ll bring three men over two days after the next day of rest. And before you ask, no, Luke won’t be one of them. It won’t take long to pick ten or fifteen rows.”

  “There’s twenty,” Sunshine countered. I didn’t even consider asking her to check her tone. It was of no use any longer.

  “Still won’t take no time,” he continued. “They’ll take it back, some other people will remove the kernels from the cob, make a big bag, and then they’ll weigh it.”

  I dared to sidle up next to him. “When will we know?”

  Moving away, he shrugged and chuckled lightly. “I would think you’d want to hold off on that news. But I can let you know within a day or two. You know you’re not the only tenant we have to harvest. There’s something like twenty-two little farms like you with Hulton’s corn.”

  I knew there were a few; the exact number might have been known by Brady.

  “Does it look any better to you?” I whined, hoping for a glimmer of hope. Anything he could offer was better than the feeling that ate at the bottom of my stomach day after day.

  Sighing first, he turned to face me. “Don’t get your hopes up, Mrs. Turner. This isn’t the worst crop I’ve seen, but nowhere near good. So just don’t be expecting much. That way, you can’t get too disappointed.”

  Further disappointment seemed unlikely since I was expecting the worst.

  “A fair count is all I ask for,” I replied as we shut the garden gate behind us.

  “A miracle wouldn’t hurt neither,” Sunshine muttered, trailing us back to the house.

  “Whatever,” Mr. Lasky stated, unreeling his horse’s reins from the broken door handle on the shed.

  Abruptly, he paused and stared at both of us. “Sorry to hear about your friends leaving.”

  I stepped closer to him, confused.

  “What are you talking about? What friends?”

  “Those neighbor gals from down the road,” he said, climbing onto his horse. “I heard they kinda left in a hurry two nights ago. Something about bad blood with the Amish neighbors.”

  Chapter 51

  I charged his horse, grasping at its reins.

  “What are you talking about?” I seethed. “What gives you the right—”

  He easily jerked the ropes from my hands.

  “I didn’t do shit, lady,” he cursed. “Go talk to Frederickson and his friends if you want to know what happened.”

  I shook with anger. “How could you? How could you let them do this? They weren’t hurting anyone.”

  His horse looped around me several times, and with each pass, his eyes focused tighter on me.

  “It was the Amish, I tell you.” The disgust in his voice told me he spoke the truth. “They told Hulton those women couldn’t stay. Told him they were going to run them off. What was he supposed to do, piss them off? His hands were tied. He has to keep peace around here.”

  “They were hurting no one,” I seethed, my anger focused on the bearer of the news. “They were nice people; they were our friends.” Tears made their way from my formerly dry eyes. “They wouldn’t hurt a fly.” I collapsed to the ground, pounding at the soil with my fists.

  “And now they’re gone,” he replied. Seeing my disgust and disappointment must have softened him. “It was against their moral compass, they told Hulton. They saw it as a sin to let them stay.” He made a smaller lap around me. “I’m sorry; really, I am. But that’s the way it had to be.”

  “And you’re still a first-rate asshole,” Sunshine shouted, coming to my aid and wrapping her arms around me.

  Still high upon his horse, Mr. Lasky rubbed his neck, gazing away. “If it’s any help, no one got hurt. They left willingly, all peaceful like.”

  I looked up, shaking my head at him. I felt the tears streak my hollow cheeks. “I suppose when people show up with pitchforks and torches, others don’t have many options, do they?”

  I thought he might be upset with my continued anger. Instead, I found the eyes of a decent man, one who cared, staring back.

  “They just talked to them, from what I understand,” he replied. “You know the Amish, Abby. They ain’t all guns a-blazing. They’re peaceful folks. I’m sure they were as kind as they could be.”

  I rose and pushed at his horse. Stupid me for thinking I could move a thousand-pound animal.

  “And now they’re gone,” I spewed. “And neither you or Mr. Hulton did a thing to stop it. How wonderful. How truly wonderful.”

  He shook his head at me and turned his horse to leave. “I’ll be seeing you soon,” he called back. “Another week, and we harvest. Don’t forget.”

  Standing together, Sunshine and I watched him disappear. I wouldn’t be forgetting any of this. And I planned on not letting either Mr. Lasky or Mr. Hulton forget anytime soon, either.

  My anger boiled for several more days. I could hardly stand to look at Mr. Frederickson, much less speak with him. For his part, he must have realized the cause of my ire. He gave me a wide berth most of the time.

  This wasn’t the first case of discrimination I’d come across in The Darkness. Even back in Mankato, shortly after the arrival of the scourge, various segments of society bore the brunt of people’s misguided anger.

  But I had been 12 back then. Unable to tell the real difference between right and wrong, I shrugged it off as something that just happened during bad times. Until it affected me—and Sunshine—it was never my problem.

  In the end, I decided not to confront my Amish neighbors about the injustice. They wouldn’t understand my point of view. Or I didn’t believe they would. I would never understand where they were coming from, yet we still had to coexist. Since they were helping to keep us alive—at no cost to Sunshine and me—pissing them off was not the wisest choice.

  “You know,” Sunshine announced one chilly afternoon. “GeeMah always said bad things come in threes.”

  My eyes focused tightly on hers, and she began to look uncomfortable. “What? What’d I say wrong now?”

  Slowly, a grin crept to my lips. “My grandmother always said the same thing. My mother as well.”

  Seeing me at ease, Sunshine smiled. “Pretty smart ladies, I guess.”

  I stared off into the sky, a feeling of uncertainty nipping at the corners of my mind. What was the third disaster?

  Patty and Julie being run off was the first. Or maybe the corn was the first. It didn’t matter. Both were bad things.

  “Wondering about number three?” Sunshine asked, bringing me back to that moment. I nodded. “Me too. I hope it ain’t someone dying. I hate it when people die unexpectedly. But a lot of times, there’s a death mixed in with the three.”

  I continued to nod but was already somewhere else.

  I was maybe ten or perhaps nine. My mother’s father was very ill with cancer and passed away. A week later, my Great-Aunt Lucy died of old age and Alzheimer’s. Mother fretted for the next week, convinced that someone else was going to die. I was too young to understand. But it still happened, just like she said it would.

  Twenty-two days after my grandfather died, one of his children joined him in the afterlife. My mother’s youngest brother, Scotty. He was my favorite uncle. Always was, always would be. He was funny and kind and smart and paid close attention to me.

  I remember the exact timing because my mother and her aunt argued about the third event taking place outside the customary “three-week window,” as they called it. It didn’t matter to young me; Uncle Scotty was dead, and my life would never be the same. A black cloud would always hang over my life. The worst had come, and I was sure I’d never feel happy again.

  The worst had come�
��not even close.

  Chapter 52

  A funny thing happened a day before the next day of rest. I slept well and woke up early feeling refreshed, and a sense of calm came over me. I was—I couldn’t believe it myself—happy.

  By the time Sunshine rose, I had already cleaned the kitchen, begun washing clothes, and had our whites outside on the line in back, drying.

  She stood in the kitchen doorway, shaking her head at me. “Whatever you ate, I’ll take a double helping,” she said with a grin. “What has gotten into you, Abby?”

  I paused from my chores, wiping my brow with the back of my hand. “I don’t know,” I freely admitted. “I just woke up feeling optimistic. It feels like nothing can bring me down.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not even the corn?”

  I knew she’d go there first, and I was ready. “The corn is what the corn is, Sunshine.” I tossed away her concern with the flip of my wrist. “There is absolutely nothing that can be done to influence the harvest numbers now. They’ll be what they’ll be.”

  She stepped closer. “And if they’re really shitty, we’re gonna starve this winter.”

  I went back to my tasks with a smile. “The Fredericksons will not let us starve. Even Mr. Hulton won’t let us starve. He may make it tough on us. But think about this: what would Walker think if he found out his surrogate father let his real mother and her friend starve to death?”

  Sunshine looked surprised at my logic. “Never thought of it that way,” she admitted.

  No, perhaps she hadn’t. But it had come to me in a dream the night before. Armed with the new revelation, I felt as if nothing could any longer stand in the way of Walker’s return. With my son back where he belonged, nothing would prevent us from thriving in the future.

  I took another load of washed laundry out to the line for hanging. Feeling the cool morning dew on my bare feet, I smiled further. Fall was one of my favorite times of year. The changing multicolored leaves, the smell of smoke from the chimney, and even the harvest reminded me of all the good in the world.

  While we hadn’t made a large haul from our personal plants, we had enough to feed us for a while. Boiled carrots were so much better than the dried ones we got at the Amish store. They were still bright orange, full of flavor and deliciousness.

  We had some onions, a decent amount of potatoes, and plenty of green beans, all harvested from our plot. They were ours. No one or nothing could take them from us. Oh sure, the mice tried to create havoc by getting at them. However, a large sealed metal bin from Mr. Frederickson helped keep them out. And the small holes he drilled in it—by hand no less—allowed the correct amount of air to circulate around them.

  In the picked corn at the Fredericksons’, I heard the Canadian geese squawking as they got their morning fill of the leftovers. Not that the Amish ever left much in their fields. They seemed to process every last bit of their crops. Using whatever was left in the fields as bedding or feed or fuel, the Amish displayed their prowess to thrive in a world where most simply survived.

  Admiring our clean clothes, I was reminded that I needed to remember to thank Mrs. Frederickson for the last batch of soap she had sent over. Nothing was going to get me down, I decided—not the loss of friends or a meager crop yield or a cold house. I was going to remain positive… for as long as I could.

  “We should take our cart and haul a couple loads of wood back from Patty and Julie’s old place,” I mentioned to Sunshine. She gazed up from her spot on the couch, not looking too happy. “We need more wood, and there’s still so many piles down there. It beats the heck out of cutting our own.”

  Her mouth twitched back and forth several times. “I suppose one good thing came from the Amish booting them out,” she replied in a less snarky tone than I had expected.

  “They said we could come take whatever we wanted, Sunshine.” Somehow, she always seemed to miss the kindness any of our neighbors extended us.

  “Can we wait until after lunch? I’m feeling a little poorly this morning.”

  And so our daily ritual began. Me suggesting tasks that needed doing, her feigning illness until I dragged her from the house, kicking and screaming. Well, protesting mildly.

  “Another hour,” I replied, checking my sarcasm. “But once the sun clears the trees in front, I expect you to be up and moving. I’m going to walk next door and see if they have any squash for us.”

  She fell back on the couch. Was that a smile I noticed?

  My old leather lace-up boots got wet walking through the long grass. There was a good 400 to 500 yards to cross before I came to the Frederickson property. Unlike my homestead, they used almost all of their 150 acres of land for crops and grazing animals. If Sunshine and I used five acres, we were lucky.

  I came across Mrs. Frederickson near the back end of their pure-white house. Not sure what she was doing, bent over a large washtub, I circled and approached from the front. No need in startling the poor woman.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Turner,” she said without looking up. “It’s a beautiful day the Lord has given us.” Finally, she peeked at me, her eyes almost covered by her bonnet.

  “Yes,” I replied in a cheerful voice. “It is a glorious day.”

  We exchanged a few pleasantries before I got at the purpose of my mission.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have any extra squash you could spare, would you?”

  She gave me a thin-lipped smile and stood erect. “I’m sure we have plenty. Three or four won’t leave us hungry this winter. Follow me.”

  We walked together to a field adjacent to the house. One of her young daughters joined us, Elizabeth I believe. The girl took her mother’s hand and skipped next to her, also happy with the day.

  “And how old are you now?” I asked the girl, her blond pigtails slapping against her shoulders.

  “I’m nine,” she answered politely. “I’ll be ten this coming winter.”

  The girl helped her mother pick five or six ripened squash, piling them at my feet.

  “Run along, Elizabeth,” her mother said. “Go make sure your brother isn’t getting into any trouble.”

  The girl ran off, stopping to turn and wave and bid me farewell. I watched her disappear between the buildings.

  “She’s one of the reasons we couldn’t allow your friends to stay,” Mrs. Frederickson stated in an apologetic tone. “I know you must think poorly of us, but we have certain beliefs.”

  “I didn’t come to discuss—”

  She laid a hand on my right arm. “You deserve an explanation. They were your friends. And if it weren’t for the children, things might have been different.”

  I shot her a confused glance. The logic seemed too simple.

  “I know what exists in the world outside of our community, Abigail,” she continued. “I’m not some blind old fool. But our children don’t need to be taught lessons that are contrary to our beliefs by someone else. If and when I decide to tell Elizabeth about women like that, it will be my choice, not one forced upon me by society.”

  Hers was a close-minded view, in my way of thinking. But it was her opinion, her children, her world. I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

  She came closer, almost face to face. “I’m sorry, but it’s the way it had to be. I am truly sorry.”

  Both she and Mr. Lasky were sorry. Different reasons formed their sorrow. Perhaps neither was truly apologetic for what had been done.

  It was over, though. Never would another word be spoken aloud of the situation. But I wondered almost every day if Patty and Julie ever found a new place, absent of close-minded people like my neighbors.

  Chapter 53

  From the Fredericksons’ squash, Sunshine made a delicious soup. It was something that I had discovered the previous fall when Mr. Frederickson delivered us two dozen of the ripened green balls. She may not have been able to cook much, or very well, but her GeeMah’s recipe for squash soup was almost a sin.

  We ate the
soup for breakfast, lunch, and supper the next two days. Typically, we ate only two meals each day, but given the dull-orange delicacy would only last so long, we made an exception.

  The extra meal or two gave us enough energy to haul three more loads of wood. While our woodshed was still far from being full, at least the floor was covered and several logs beyond that, still. We wouldn’t be cold anytime soon.

  The next day of rest was cloudy and had a cool breeze. As I dressed for the day, I put on an extra shirt to be covered by my jacket when we went to see Walker. The last thing I wanted him to see was his pathetic mother shivering as she tried to make conversation. I still had some pride and a decent outlook on life.

  My mother was a huge proponent of the idea of fake it ’til you make it. When things weren’t going well, a smile and a positive attitude helped. At least, she claimed they did. Over the years, her spirit had come to me a number of times in that sense. And each time things looked down, I put on a happy face, and for the most part they did get better.

  Of course, it didn’t work when Bradley died. When I lost Walker to Mr. Hulton, I had trouble a month afterward breaking out of my funk. My revelation about Brady and Sasha also hit hard. There was no smiling, no positive attitude on Earth that could have made me feel better. They were all things I simply had to get over.

  “I thought I heard the midday bell from Hulton’s place a little while ago,” Sunshine reported. “You gonna get your shoes on so we can go in a little bit? I don’t want it to get any colder out there.”

  “It’s chilly, Sunshine. Not cold.” I paused and tried to make eye contact with her, but she refused. “Winter is cold, if you remember.”

  “Winter’s gonna be a helluva lot colder if we don’t get some more wood,” she rebuked. “Maybe you can sweet talk Lasky or Frederickson into going down to that place with a wagon so we can get a decent amount for a change.”