When the snakes were once and for all still, we rinsed them of earth and ashes. We ate them with knife and fork.
All except Helen.
“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked.
“When you figured out you were pregnant with Perley,” she said, “what tipped you off? Just your garden-variety missed period or were there other signs?”
“Helen,” I said.
“It’s too early to know,” she said. “But I know.”
Karen laughed. “I’ve missed a lot,” she said.
“Aren’t you going to ask?” Helen said.
“Ask what?” I said.
“If I’m going through with it.”
“Are you going through with it?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. I ran around the fire and hugged her. She said, “Aren’t you going to ask if I’m worried, if I’m worried about being a single parent and being so fucking old?”
“No guarantees,” Karen said, “but most likely you’ll be fine.”
“And you’re not a single parent,” I said. “You’ve got us, and Rudy’s been dying to have a kid.”
“Right,” Helen said. “Dying to drink lukewarm beer while the kid uses his chain saw. Wait, how did you know it was Rudy?”
Karen and I looked at each other, then back at her.
“Well, anyway,” Helen said. “It’s over now.”
“Does he know?” I asked.
“Don’t push her, Lily,” Karen said.
“He knows I’m pregnant,” Helen said. “He’s excited. He actually pumped his fist in the air and said something like, Who is the man? But we’re not going to be together. It just wouldn’t work.”
“Took you so long to try it,” I said. “Might as well give it a go.”
“Rudy doesn’t want to,” Helen said. “He said it doesn’t feel right after all. He says what brought us together was just the grief, that and shock from losing Aldi. He’s still all fucked-up from that.” I put my hand on Karen’s shoulder. There was still so much she didn’t know. Helen went on. “He says, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea, you and me.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you want to be with him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Helen said. “Not really.” Then she shook her head. “But I probably would’ve kept it up. I mean, it’s not like I love the guy, and I definitely don’t like him, but my body—goddamn, I could have done it all day. For a long time, I wondered what had happened to that part of me, where it went, if it ever existed. Now I can locate it. It’s not Rudy, it’s that feeling. That sex thing. The world’s in color, that’s what people say, and it’s true. I’ll be honest. I’ve been masturbating like a teenager for weeks. Then one day the cramping started. I’d get off, and then waves of pain, like menstrual cramps, except my period won’t come. I’ve never known anything like it.”
Eight years in a shack together, hearing every single thing through the walls, and never had there been such an outpouring between us. We’d always been private in that way, or shy. Eager for details, curious though I was, I blushed and looked away. But Karen, a nurse, was unembarrassed by vocation.
“Actually, the uterus always cramps after orgasm,” Karen said. “It’s just that when you’re not pregnant, you can’t usually feel it.” She thought one more minute. She lit another cigarette, got back to her piece of white oak.
“I guess I’m carving another baby spoon,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to make the house bigger.”
18
KAREN
I wasn’t afraid of the flames. I wasn’t afraid afterward, as I emptied my zombie apocalypse kit into the river. Through it all, I felt a cold and bitter joy. I wasn’t afraid until I made it home, came down the path, and saw Lily. Her black hair, her sharp chin, her open eyes, it wasn’t just Lily I was looking at, it was Perley, too. I saw everything I’d set out to protect, and everything I’d risked. Then fear rose in front of me like a wall and knocked me back. Seeing Lily made me remember things, how chatty the tanker truck driver had been, how Shane would have found by now that I’d cut out. What other loose ends wasn’t I thinking of? How long would it take for them to find me? What would they do? I had no way of knowing, and those were the wrong questions anyway. Helen was wrong when she talked like any of us knew what created lasting change. Those words came straight out of a can, it wasn’t even her own voice saying