Her girls, at least, will have what they need. She saw the bottles of water and blocks of toilet paper stockpiled in her mother’s mudroom. Now that they’ll be well supplied, she can take what she needs from the house, fill up the minivan like she’s going on a road trip. Because…shit. Where is she going? What’s she supposed to do? Find a job in a dead market and a place to live in a time when no one trusts anyone at all? If there was more than six hundred bucks in the checking account, if it was as robust as David had always promised her it was, she’d buy a little RV and live out of there for a while. Instead she’ll be stretched out in the backseat of her minivan in a nest of pillows and blankets, her neck crumpled up and her feet scrunched under the front seat, if her guess is accurate.
At home, she breathes a sigh of relief as soon as she opens the door and David isn’t there. Knowing the way her luck has gone lately, she half expected to find him sitting at the island holding one of his guns, waiting for her. She hurries to her room to pack her bags, heart jittering at the knowledge that David could still appear at any moment. His car is sitting out front, and she knows where he keeps his spare keys, so she collects them all and tosses them in her bag. Might as well slow him down as much as she can, because once he finds out she’s gone, he’ll enlist every ally he has to find her. Huntley will take to it like a mad dog finally let off the leash. She’s got to make it hard for David to focus on her.
She already has his laptop and phone, even if it’s locked and out of juice, so she loads those in the car, too. She pushes the barrier away from her door and takes all her underwear and bras, the part of her wardrobe that’s easy-care and folds down small, tons of yoga pants, clean socks, several pairs of sensible shoes, plus a few nice but easy and professional dresses. She needs a job, but in this odd new world, she can’t imagine putting on a pencil skirt and heels and becoming some awful man’s receptionist. She could be a barista or waitress—how that would make her mother laugh. She fills backpacks and then garbage bags with her things, then tops everything off with her only coat, scarf, and hat, shoved to the back of her closet because even the coldest days in Tampa aren’t really that cold. But if her mother is right and real life is still happening up north, she might need to stay warm if she’s still there come fall.
As Chelsea walks through her home—ex-home?—it feels like the set of a TV show she used to watch religiously but hasn’t seen in years, one that hasn’t aged well. All these objects and views are so familiar, but they are not for her. She does not take the wooden box of Dream Vitality oils. No matter what her upstream managers promised her, those little bottles didn’t change her life. They didn’t keep her safe. They didn’t guard her health. They didn’t cure her. If she had time, she would break every bottle.
The beautiful kitchen table in its sunbeam is just a heavy piece of junk. The Edison bulbs are just glass and wires. The shiplap is just someone else’s old wood. The only real thing here is the bathroom door, pockmarked with indentations from a little girl’s bat. The blood has been scrubbed away, but those divots don’t lie.
Chelsea’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she finds several texts from Ella that she’s missed while she worked. A list of things her daughter wants—far longer than what she has time to deal with, plus more requests from Brooklyn. She trudges upstairs, glancing nervously out the front windows, and does her best to get what they’ll need. She thinks about tossing in some gloves and their coats, but she knows full well her mother will want to buy much more expensive versions to show them off on their trip, as if her girls are just fancy little dolls. She collects Ella’s clothes, plus chargers and all the junk in her bathroom she needs to survive. She finds Brooklyn’s favorite stuffed animals and Green Blankie. Her van is full of garbage bags, their contents partially visible through the stretched white plastic. The girls’ bags are in the trunk, and Chelsea’s bags are where the girls should be sitting right now.
She’s about to head out when she remembers that she never had time to fully ransack David’s office when the girls were home and in danger. She’s even happier she remembered this step when she finds over a thousand dollars in cash stashed in his dresser, not to mention the folded hundreds in his wallet. She can’t get into his locked safes, can’t access her jewelry, but she is the one who keeps track of the passports, birth certificates, Social Security cards, and even their marriage license, and she takes everything with her.
It breaks her heart, the thought of handing the girls’ documentation over to her mom, but she knows Iceland is the safest place for them right now. There are zero cases of the Violence in Iceland because there are zero mosquitoes there and a hardy quarantine program. The girls don’t have passports, but her mother said Randall can take care of that easily, considering his money and friends. God, the smugness on that woman’s face as she parades around her privilege in front of someone suffering—it’s disgusting.
Chelsea slides into her van, every inch of it stuffed with garbage bags and backpacks. And that’s when she breaks down. Just completely fucking breaks down. Great, heaving gasps, sobs that rack her body and make her shoulders and spine ache. Her eyes burn, her throat is numb and heavy, and she’s crying so hard that her bra is soaked from the tears and snot running down her chest.
When her phone rings, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and prepares to act totally normal and explain to Ella why it’s taking her so long.
Much to her surprise, it’s Jeanie.
“Hello?”
“You okay, kid? I can see your van shaking from here.”
Chelsea checks her side mirror and sees Jeanie standing in her driveway across the street, phone to her ear. David always said Jeanie was built like a brick shithouse, but Chelsea sees her more like some sort of ancient mother goddess, like those carved stones they find that are all breast and butt with tiny little feet. She might look fat from the outside, but she’s slabbed with muscle and sturdy as hell, and whether she’s at kickboxing or Zumba, she’s graceful and strong. Jeanie is a PE teacher who usually spends her summers running a local outdoor camp, and Chelsea wonders what she’s doing to make ends meet now that the schools and camps are closed.
She’s a scrapper, Jeanie.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Jeanie snorts at the lie, and Chelsea gives a sad chuckle.
“Okay, no, I’m not fine. Everything is a complete mess. But I’m just crying. Nothing dangerous.”
“You safe?”
Chelsea glances at her mirror. Jeanie’s in the driveway now, approaching the car. “I’m not sure how to answer that question.”
“You got the Violence?”
She must wait too long to answer, because Jeanie barks her belly laugh and says, “Yeah, me, too. Hard to say it out loud the first time, isn’t it? Don’t worry, kid. As long as you’re not currently feeling it or inhaling pepper, we should be good. Open up.”
Jeanie’s outside the car door now, and she’s grinning because Jeanie is always grinning. Chelsea opens the door and steps out, flicking off her phone. They haven’t spoken in months, not since she ignored Jeanie’s text about going to kickboxing. Jeanie turns off her phone, too, but something she said is bothering Chelsea.