“You’d better just wash it out,” Anika said, not meeting her gaze. “And hurry.”
Burke continued cutting his garlic as if he hadn’t even noticed what had happened. Fatima was now on the other side of the kitchen, doing something with her pile of fish. Everyone seemed too focused on their work, like they were acting in the same terrible play. It was as if they were embarrassed for her.
Frida put her finger back into her mouth, as if she were plugging herself up, and walked to the trough. Anika stepped outside and came back with a bowl of water. “Here,” she said, and Frida began cleaning her finger. It stung when it hit the water.
After she’d returned to the table where the mound of garlic awaited, her finger smarting but no longer bleeding, Burke leaned over and whispered, “It’s the blood.”
“What?”
“It bothers Anika.”
“I don’t understand.”
Frida didn’t get any further explanation because Anika was announcing something else now, about how someone had evidently neglected to soak the beans last night, which meant they didn’t have enough protein for tonight’s dinner.
Frida wished, suddenly, that Cal were here to witness what had just happened. She had barely thought of him all morning. Last night, before falling asleep, she’d entertained a flittering fear that without him with her during Morning Labor, she might totally lose it. They rarely separated, and when they did, it wasn’t to go off with strangers. Neither tried anything new anymore. There was too much at risk.
The truth was, the morning had been wonderful. She could be apart from Cal for a couple of hours. She could say what she wanted and be chummy with Fatima, without his disapproving gaze following her. She and Cal had separated for a few hours, and she had survived.
But now she wanted him with her. She felt purposeless without him. She tried to imagine what he was doing at this very moment. It was warm in the kitchen, but the sky outside was white and covered with gray clouds, and the trees beyond the Spikes were shuddering in the wind. It was probably cold, and Cal’s hands probably hurt as they mended a fence or hammered a nail into a plank of wood. Maybe he imagined he’d been transported back to college, to those morning assignments. Did he feel comforted, doing that work with others? She knew those two years at Plank had stuck with him and that he held the memories deep inside himself. He coveted them, even, as if they were just beyond his reach.
Frida was glad when Anika told them they were almost finished. She wanted Cal.
Fifteen minutes later, she sat in their room, eating a bowl of mushy carrots, waiting for him. The group had invited her to eat with them in the dining room, but she’d declined. She knew Cal would rush to the bedroom when he was finished.
“You’re here,” he said as he entered. His shirt was dirty, his hair wet with sweat. He looked at her bowl of food. “Can I have some of that? I’m starving.”
“What did they do to you?” she asked, moving onto the bed so she could sit behind him.
He’d been with a crew of about four others, dismantling the wall of bricks by the Bath. They needed to break it apart without damaging the bricks, and it was hard work.
“They’re going to reuse them?” Frida asked.
Cal nodded and took a bite of food. The carrots were cold and bland, and he wrinkled his nose as he chewed. After he’d swallowed, he said, “They need a new outdoor oven.” For the last few weeks there’d been a lot of debate about the oven, as it meant taking apart an original structure. “But I guess functionality trumps nostalgia.” He held up his hands, their palms dyed reddish brown, his fingers chapped. “All I know is that job was a bitch.”
She pouted and kissed the back of his neck.
“Aren’t you being sweet,” he said, turning around.
“Is that hard to believe?”
He raised an eyebrow and tried to hand the bowl back to her. She shook her head. “You eat it. I’ve been around food all day.”
“Was it fun?” he asked.
“It was. They might let me bake bread.”
“Really? That’s great.”
Did she hear a snag of mournfulness in his voice? Maybe he was thinking of the bread she used to bake him when they had first started dating, and the pizza bagels he’d beg for. “One of those and a blow job, pretty please,” he’d said once, when she asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Or maybe it wasn’t quite as precious as all that. Maybe Cal knew, as she did, that once she started making bread for the Land, she’d never want to leave.
He set the bowl on the floor and then sat facing her on the bed. He put a hand on either side of her skull, cupping it. Frida had once seen an old man do that to a pregnant woman at a bus stop. Frida didn’t shake Cal off but let the weight of his palms rest there; maybe the brick dye would chalk off in her hair.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I cut my finger today.”