Sue looked to Patty, the dental assistant, the other woman who passed for an elementary-grade teacher in the upper-level conference room of this welding and steam-fitting warehouse. In truth they were babysitters at best. Patty was at least slightly more experienced, having had a daughter until the outbreak. She had a dozen new lines on her face this week and seemed a little stoned, with her eyelids not quite reaching the tops of her broad pupils.
“Well,” Sue said, leaving Patty staring at the wall, “they were supposed to have been back a little while ago. For lunch.” It was quarter past one. “My guess is, they found a really nice grocery store or something, and they took their time, and they’re almost back now with a truck full of cookies and spaghetti and tuna. How does that sound?”
Some of the younger kids gave out a little “yay” chorus. Then they were all back to doodling on their math sheets or punching at their board games.
Sue hated them. Most of them. Wayne said there was only room for eight people on the Jeep, a couple more if the kids were little.
Sue had eight orphans in her class and eleven children of other adults holed up in the warehouse. She didn’t have to worry about the eleven, but with her and Patty not minding them during the day or sleeping on pissy mattresses with them in the classroom at night, the orphans were as good as dead.
Pushing it, pushing it, she and Patty could maybe bring five kids. That meant she had to eliminate three.
Obviously, she should have done this before noon but her hangover was still wearing off then.
She scanned the pitiful crowd. It was easy enough to gravitate toward the younger students, the kindergarteners whom life hadn’t yet broken, but that just made them a liability. It meant Sue would have to be the one to watch or assist the breaking.
Devon, a four-year-old black kid, gave out a horrible snorking cough, the apparent culmination of some symptoms that had been dribbling out of him all day and a validation ticket for some thoughts Sue had been having on the subject. She sighed thanks. Goodbye, Devon.
Sue sidled over to Patty and whispered. “I’m thinking we take Leticia, Morgan, Shawn, and Greg. They’re all over six…for the last one, it’s between Sophia, Sarah, and Avery. What do you think? Sarah’s youngest but she’s got it together, listens well.”
Patty grunted.
“That’s all we can take. Five is a lot even for two of us to wrangle, out…on the road. Christ, Patty, say something, we have to—”
“Wha?”
“You have to pick: Do you want Sophia, Sarah, or Avery? Devon’s got that horrible cough. It seems serious. All we need is for the kids to all get sick.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can, Wayne and Ian have it all planned out. We can’t stay here forever.”
“I can’t pick them, I’m not going.”
“You’re not making sense. We’ve been talking about it for a week. Christ, we’ve all been thinking about it for a month, ever since Ian said Seth wanted to quit doing rescue runs and stick to supplies. You can do this. We have to do it. The warehouse is a dead-end situation. Picking the kids—that’s all hypothetical anyway, if Wayne can come back with hard proof that Zach and Ted are murderers, then maybe Seth will see that we all have to go.”
“Of course I’ll go if we all go. But if he doesn’t, if Seth wants to stay, I’m not just…I’m not just going to leave, it’s too dangerous. I’ll stay here with the kids. There’s food—”
“No there isn’t!”
“Usually, usually there is. There’s protection…” Patty said. “Seth keeps things running here pretty well.”
Sue rubbed her face. “Ohhh, my god. You really believe that, you’d really rather stay.”
“It doesn’t matter, I can’t leave any kids. None of them… none of them deserve that.”
“Shhh!” So that was it. It was a goddamned mother thing. Sue stole a look out the window; no Jeep yet. “Sweetie, Brandy’s gone, you can’t help her. Let me put it to you this way: What would Brandy want you to do? She’d want you to do the thing that was best for everyone, right? Well, staying isn’t good for anyone. This is a place for dying. Think about Plaquemines Parish. Did you ever take Brandy down to Port Sulphur? Did she like it? Well, it’s great, that area, you can grow just about anything, fish, shrimp, it’s breezy…. Think about the kids that are here.”
“I am.”
“Think about them growing up here, in this building. They’re not even going to last long enough to grow up. They’re going to starve here.”
“No…they’re exploring I-55, there’ll be something up there.”
“Bullshit. There’s fewer men practically every week to do that, and you know why. You want to do something good for these kids, pick which ones we can take and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Now Patty was weeping. Jesus, what a drama queen. “You don’t have to take any, if you want. I know you don’t really—”
“All right, all right.” She squeezed Patty’s shoulder and peeked out the window again. “I’m taking the four I said I’d take, and then Sarah, with or without your sorry ass.” She smiled as she said this, realizing that some kids’ eyes were on her.