Still she crouches with the glass in her hands. When Father moves forward and puts a hand on her shoulder, she screams.
He jerks back, stares at her, and leaves the room. She doesn’t know how long she squats there, panting, until Mother comes in. She puts her arms around Vanessa, who relaxes her hands and drops the glass on the floor. Mother has to help Vanessa from the room; she can’t tell which way is up, and the floor heaves left, then right. Pulling out the battered tin tub, Mother lights a fire that reflects in coral shards on its rippled surface, and heats pot after pot of water until the bath is steaming. When Vanessa steps in, it’s so hot it hurts, and she has to wait before putting in the other foot. As she sinks down, the water turns pink, and when she submerges her hand the pain stings so sharp and vivid that she bites her lip and whimpers. Mother murmurs soothing words as she gently sponges Vanessa’s back and face, wringing out scarlet water into the reddening bath. Heating another pot of water, she helps Vanessa stand up to be rinsed off. The sponge traces the water down her body, and Vanessa feels as fresh and weak as a new puppy.
Lifting Vanessa’s arm, Mother sponges from wrist to armpit and then freezes. Vanessa looks at her questioningly, and Mother hastily puts her arm down by her side. Vanessa turns her head and raises her arm again, despite Mother saying, “Not now, Nessa.” There in front of her eyes are a few fine, dark hairs marring the pale smoothness where her arm meets her body, coiling and thrusting angrily like blades from her skin. Collapsing back in the tub, Vanessa starts to cry. Mother hugs her fiercely, soaking up pink water with the cloth of her dress. She’s crying too.
Chapter Fifty
Caitlin
Caitlin wakes up in the darkness, shivering, her bones jostling against each other. A harder rain is falling, and the leftover sticks from the old shelter do nothing to protect her. She thinks briefly of trying to find something to drape over them for a tent—surely there is a blanket left somewhere—but it’s so dark she can’t see.
Lying on the wet sand, she listens to the sounds of the water. Eventually she can’t take the cold anymore, and she stands up and starts running in place. It helps, but she tires soon, coughing a deep, rasping cough. Sitting back down, she tucks her knees and elbows and feet into the shell of her curved torso and wonders if she’ll die.
She remembers the heat of sand in summer and digs down with a ragged fingernail to see if the sand below the surface is warmer. It’s not. Then she thinks that if she could make a coat out of wet sand, it would be warmer than just her threadbare nightgown. She doesn’t know how to sew together sand, but she starts digging in earnest, stopping only to pant and cough every now and then. Finally she nestles her curled body into the deep, chilly hole, so just her head and hands peek out, and scrapes in more sand to fill the empty spaces around her. She’s still cold, but she stops shivering after a little while, and the weight of the sand feels comforting. Her head falls forward over and over, and she isn’t sure if she’s falling asleep or freezing to death. Dreams bloom in her head, weaving out from her thoughts, slow colorful dreams that snap her briefly awake. Then they get thicker, and she drifts away from the freezing sand and the beach altogether.
Caitlin wakes to someone calling her name. Her forehead is against gritty sand, and her neck hurts. Lifting her face up to daylight, Caitlin narrows her eyes. Someone is standing over her, talking in a girl’s voice. The glare fades, and it’s Janey Solomon, wearing a coat over a nightgown, her red hair falling toward Caitlin like a rain of fire.
“I’ve been looking for you for hours,” says Janey. “Your father’s staggering around drunk, telling everyone to look for you.” She imitates his low, slurred voice: “‘My little girl, she’s all I have left, I’ll make it up to her.’”
“How did you know I was here?” croaks Caitlin, trying not to cough.
“I didn’t. I just said I’ve been looking for hours. I thought you might be at one of the hiding places, behind a rock or something. Then I thought of the shore, but I didn’t know where, so.” Janey shrugs. “And now you’re drowning.”
“I’m not in the sea.”
“No, just in the rain. That’s a great hiding place, under the sand. Your hair blends in. I almost looked right at you and passed by.”
“Oh.”
“There’s nobody else here anymore. I thought maybe a few of the girls might have held out, still be somewhere out here, slinking around. But they’re not. Why are you here? I’m sorry your mother is dead. I’d be out here too, if I was left alone with your father.”
She looks at Caitlin, who doesn’t say anything.
“I brought you food,” says Janey, leaning down to a pile Caitlin hadn’t noticed. She brings out a damp loaf of bread and tosses it to Caitlin. Wiggling her arms free, Caitlin tears into the bread with her teeth, barely chewing. Suddenly her stomach stabs with pain, and she stops and swallows, trying not to vomit.
“Thank you,” she says after the nausea has passed.
“I brought blankets too. They’ll get wet, but they’re better than nothing. You might be able to use them to block the rain.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll try to come every day. Mother will try to stop me. I was able to sneak out today, though, and I heard you were missing.”
“How many people are out?” asks Caitlin around another mouthful of bread.
“The only ones out have been sick already,” says Janey, “so they aren’t worried about being sick again. So many people are dead. So many people. The girls too. The children.” Her face clouds, but then she shakes fervently, whipping her head from side to side as if to dislodge the fog of sorrow. “I’m trying not to think about it.” She pauses. “It was worst for the pregnant women. I think all of them died, or at least most of them.”
“That’s bad,” says Caitlin, feeling like she should say something, but unable to muster any true sadness. When she learned Mother died, Caitlin’s emotions faded to a dull gray hum.
Janey shrugs. Her whole body is frenetic, her shrugs and stretches sudden and almost violent. “Some people haven’t had it, and they’re still in their homes. Like us. When are we going to come out? Nobody will tell me.”
“You’re out,” says Caitlin.
“I know, but I’m not supposed to be,” she says. “But it’s not like I’m going into rooms with sick people, or…I don’t know. I just had to get out.”
Caitlin nods.
“There’s not much food around, so few have been farming or baking or making cheese. But there are fewer people. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll all starve.” Janey shrugs again, her shoulders jerking upward like startled birds, then swiftly falling back into place. It looks like the prelude to a fit of convulsions. Caitlin lets out a sudden, very loud belch. Janey giggles. “They’ll all find you now,” she says.