27

SADIE

“Do you think this is ever going to end, Mom?” said Sadie.

“What’s going to end?”

“All this. The violence. Everything that’s happened…” Sadie didn’t quite know how to express what she was trying to say. It felt like they had been going and going, with hardly any breaks, any time to think. This was one of the few moments of peace they’d had over the last weeks.

And it wasn’t even really peace. After all, Jake and Rose were missing. Max and the others were out looking for them. Max was convinced there were other bad guys out there. And if Sadie had learned anything since the EMP, it was that Max was often right. Not always. But a lot of the time.

Her mother was silent for a long time, continuing to scan the surroundings, her rifle by her side.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” continued Sadie. “I feel like I should have learned this in English class or something. But I don’t…”

“Sadie,” said her mother, speaking slowly and with sadness in her voice. “This is too much for someone your age to have to go through. It’s not surprising that you don’t have the words to say what you’re trying to say.”

Sadie thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t think anyone should have to go through this. No matter how old.”

Her mother chuckled. “Maybe you’re right, Sadie. But I guess this is what we get.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know if we deserve it. I wouldn’t go that far. But our whole society… it was foolish in a lot of ways.”

“Like everyone not knowing how to shoot, use a gun, hunt deer like you do?”

“That’s part of it. But think about this… where did all our food come from when we were living in the suburbs?”

“Well, you shot a lot of deer.”

Georgia chuckled again. “Yes, but that’s not all we ate. In fact, I bet it didn’t make up more than 10% of our calories. Where’d the rest come from?”

“The grocery store.”

“Yeah, but where’d it come from before that?”

Sadie shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“It came from all over. On trucks, right? You’ve seen them behind the store, unloading.”

Sadie nodded her head.

“Food came from all over. Damn, it’s weird to talk about this in the past tense. Anyway, they’d ship food to us from all over the world. And the whole country was run like that. Think about it, Sadie, it could have come from ten minutes away, if the infrastructure had been set up like that.”

“But where would people have grown it? It’s not like there are any farms around or anything. None that I’ve seen.”

“Well, you remember out by Valley Forge? That whole area used to be farmland. Gradually, the farmers sold it off to developers. That’s where all those houses came from. Just a way for someone to get really rich. Not that I blame them, necessarily. They were just looking out for their own families. Maybe I would have done the same thing, but it didn’t work out too well for us.”

“But Mom,” said Sadie. “How would that have helped us? We had to get out. We had to leave. Max said we would have been killed if we’d stayed.”

“You’re probably right, Sadie,” said Georgia, sighing. “I guess there’s not much point in philosophizing about it anyway. It’s all a moot point now.”

“I hope Max and Mandy are OK,” said Sadie, shivering slightly as she stared out at the snow-covered landscape. “At least it’s a little warmer now, I guess.”

“They’ll be fine,” said Georgia. “They know how to take care of themselves. John and Cynthia, too. They did well last night.”

“I don’t think they could have done it without you, though.”

Georgia laughed. “I’m not doing much good now.”

“That’s crazy, Mom. You’re the best shot of any of them, and you’re walking a lot better now.”

“You know me, Sadie. It’s hard for me to sit back and let others do things for me. Remember our house? I mean, when did I ever hire a plumber or a painter?”

“You wouldn’t even hire an electrician! You almost got electrocuted.”

Georgia laughed. “Yeah, that probably would have been better done by a professional.”

“And James convinced you to hire a plumber once, when he’d clogged up the toilet really badly. You finally caved in, and then you made the poor guy’s life impossible. You wouldn’t let him work.”

“I did too!”

“By standing behind him and telling him he was doing it all wrong?”

“Well, he was! He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Then why didn’t you do it?”

“Maybe you have a point, Sadie,” said Georgia, a grin on her face. “Wow, it feels good to laugh. It’s been a while. Too long.”

“I guess that’s what I was trying to explain earlier,” said Sadie. “Everything’s been so, I don’t know, serious. Intense. There isn’t any time to live, really. I mean, I can do without my cell phone.”

“James would argue differently.”

“I’m getting used to it! I’ve hardly even looked at in the last week.”

“You’re not still hoping it’ll turn back on?”

“I know it won’t. It’s just a habit, I guess, looking it. It used to be a sort of comforting thing. And I never even realized it until it didn’t work anymore. But what I was saying is I can live without all the comforts we had. You know what I mean, like food in the fridge, a bed to sleep in, stuff like that. But it’s the other stuff, like feeling like we’re constantly in danger. Like we could die at any moment. Or like I could lose you or James.”

“That’s not going to happen, Sadie,” said Georgia, putting her arm around her daughter.

“I hope not.”

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