Natural emissions. Like sinking a tap into a maple tree. The window is now, before they discover a cure or a vaccine, which will mean decriminalizing reproduction, throwing the sperm banks and embryo storage units open. And then a few specimen jars of boy juice won’t be worth millions anymore.
White gold. She thought Cole was all for women’s right to control their own bodies. Doesn’t that include the chance to get pregnant? Okay for some, those who still have living kids, but not everyone is as lucky as her sister. Selfish. Selfish goddamn cunt.
Has the sky gotten darker? How long has she been driving? The road stutters. Trick of the light. She’s definitely passed these corpse trees previously. Skeleton trees. Ghost in the passenger seat. She’s fine. Everything is fine. She doesn’t touch the back of her head.
There’s other work she can do for Mrs. Amato. More and less illegal, whatever she wants. But this was hers, dammit. Her idea. Her risk.
But Billie wants everything that was promised to her, everything Cole has denied her—freedom, agency, and the catalyst which makes all that possible: money in the bank—
7.
Cole: The Day Devon Died
TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO
All packed, ready to go. Grief like an extra suitcase that shifts its weight capriciously between too light and all the mass in the world. Cole comes out of the bedroom with their baggage to find Miles sitting cross-legged on the carpet beside the silver government-issue body bag, which is unzipped halfway and gaping like a chrysalis. He’s holding his father’s hand, not looking at his face, reading aloud to him from a graphic novel propped in his lap.
“And then Nimona says, ‘Why would I kid about disintegration?’” His finger drifts to the next panel, following the trajectory, force of habit, because his dad isn’t going to be looking at the pictures anytime soon. Or ever again.
She put the Death Notification decal in the front window twenty-four hours ago. A big black and yellow sticker with reflective chevrons. Plague here. Come collect the body. No, longer than that. Thirty-two hours ago. Too long to leave them here with a dead body. Or here at all, ten thousand miles from home.
She sinks down next to her guys on the floor, the living and the dead. Devon’s face is empty and foreign without the life of him. An uncanny-valley 3D printed doll of her husband. They’ve been living with the anticipation for so long, inviting it into the room with them, every conversation, making jokes about it even, that the reality of death, the profane and profound guest late to the dinner party, is a letdown. She thinks, Oh, is that it? Is that all? Dying is hard. Living is hard. Death? Overhyped. First there was a person, now there is no person. She recognizes that this is self-defense. She’s just tired. Tired and numb, the grief woven through with anger. Worst friendship bracelet ever.
Cole reaches out to touch her husband’s not-him-anymore face. The pinched pain has been smoothed away from his eyes, his mouth. The bristles of his number one haircut are soft against her palm. She’d shave it for him every Monday morning. Routines to give them some semblance of normalcy, to mark the days, even while the cancer climbed into his bones and made him cry in pain. She won’t be cutting his hair again, or rinsing the clipper blade out, the swirl of fine dark hairs like iron filings in the sink.
They prepared the body according to the illustrated instructions in the FEMA Mercy Pack, which also came with rations and a basic first-aid kit and a water purifier straw. She clipped on the white ID tag, wrote down his name, Social Security number, time and date and place of death, and his religious denomination, if applicable, for whatever cursory ceremony was to follow. The leaflet doesn’t cover what comes after, but they’ve seen the footage of the new incinerators, the refrigerated containers with body bags stacked high. It was shocking the first time. But what else are you going to do with a billion corpses? The number still sounds implausible. Dreamlike. Not including “other, related casualties.” That chilling term.
She added layers of rituals to counteract the impersonal bureaucracy so they could say goodbye. They washed Devon’s face and hands and laid his puffy coat over him, Miles’s idea: “in case he gets cold.” They crafted origami replicas of things he might need for the afterlife and tucked them in around his body (her idea), and held a glowstick vigil telling their favorite, silliest, bestest stories about his life until Miles went very still and very quiet and she realized all this was busywork that wasn’t going to take away from the essential truth. Man down.
Her son half-lifts the graphic novel toward her, like an offering. “Do you want a turn to read?”
She squeezes him under her arm, her boy, alive and warm, even with the dark circles under his eyes and grief vultured on his shoulders. “How long have you been down here?”
“Dunno,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want him to feel lonely.”
“Did you read the whole book already?”
“I skipped some parts. I wanted to get to the end before…”
“Yeah,” she stands up. “Nothing worse than an unfinished story. Right, I reckon we should eat. One last meal before we split this joint. The FEMA people have to be coming soon.”
She will not miss this anonymous cookie-cutter house in the techburbs, designed for contract workers on short stays.
“Pancakes?” Miles says, hopeful.
“I wish, tiger. California rations, same as yesterday.”
“And the day before.”
“And before that. You’d think they could mix it up a little.”
You’d think they could let them go home. All the emails and phone calls to the South African consulate, from the Montclair library, where they’ve cobbled together working internet, a landline. We don’t belong here. The auto-response, when her messages actually get through: global crisis blah blah blah, many citizens stranded, working to assist everyone we can, unable to respond to all messages at this time. Please complete the form providing as much detail as possible about your present circumstances and we will get back to you as soon as we’re able. Rinse, repeat. The whole world is tied up right now. This business of dying is admin hell.
She hasn’t been outside since Devon got bad. Hasn’t made it to the library in weeks, doesn’t know which of the neighbors are still around, if any. In the already isolated suburb, the community meetings petered out: those who were able to, fled; the people who stayed closed ranks, nested down to attend to their dying and their dead. As long as the government ration packs still arrived…
She pours out two bowls of oats, powdered milk, protein bars on the side. Breakfast-lunch-supper of survivors. Miles’s voice from the living room, now doing an evil-villain accent, wry, sardonic, interrupting her thoughts. “They had to choose the room filled with the deadly magical substance!”
And then, startled, “Mom!” Headlights swipe across the living-room window, catching the reflective chevron of the decal.
“Stay here,” she says, thumping down the bowls.
“Why?” Miles, always the questioner.
“In case!” Devon had tried to reassure them that testosterone was the key ingredient in all the worst-case scenarios. As if women weren’t capable of evil fuckery in their own right. So sexist, Dev, she rebukes, running out into the street.