I’m not full of shit and I actually know how to build things or is it you because this is your place?”
“This is not my place, it’s our place, our place, our place, okay?” Helen said. Karen smiled. Helen said, “If you don’t believe me about that, it’s never going to work out here. Who’s in charge? I don’t know who’s in charge. Why does someone have to be in charge? Why can’t we work together?”
“The house is a piece of shit,” Karen said.
“It’s not that bad,” Helen said. “The roof doesn’t leak.”
“You don’t know that,” Karen said.
“I’m nearly one hundred percent sure,” Helen said.
“Is that the same as you being half a carpenter?” asked Karen.
“Maybe it’s time to ask for some help,” I said. “Why don’t we ask Frank to come over and take a look?”
“I told you to shut up, Lily,” Karen said, and I was almost happy to see Helen turn to me with the same poisonous face, because it meant that she and Karen were finding something in common.
“I’d sooner die than ask any of these assholes around here for help,” Helen said.
“It’s bad enough that we had to borrow Frank’s generator,” Karen said.
“Okay, well then what about Mike?” I said. “He gave us that siding almost for free. I’m sure he’d be happy to help.” Karen and Helen rolled their eyes at the same time.
“What’s so bad about asking for help?” I asked.
“Trust me,” Helen said. “You ask any of these guys around here for building tips, they’ll tell you how to hold a hammer.”
“They’ll tell you what a goddamn tape measure is,” Karen said. “I’m not doing it.”
“But we don’t know how to build a house,” I said. “This house is more like a kid’s fort.”
“We’re not asking for help,” Karen said.
“Right,” said Helen, and they breathed again in each other’s company.
But it was the beginning of something that’s run between them ever since. Who’s in charge? And it was the beginning of something else, too. It was the beginning of the two of them versus each other, and the two of them versus me.
* * *
The sun went down, and we sat around the campfire together for the first time in weeks. No one said anything, but I wanted to mark the calendar. It felt like a celebration day. Our first fight, and Helen hadn’t kicked us out. Instead, here we all were. Perley nursed. Helen squatted on her pallet, her knife out, skinning the squirrels. Karen whittled. Helen asked Karen what she was making.
“Tools for Perley,” said Karen.
“Tools? You mean toys?” asked Helen.
“No time for toys. The boy needs to learn practical skills,” Karen said. “He needs to be prepared out here.”
Helen nodded, wicking blood efficiently into the flames. “That’s right. Practice and prepare,” she said.
“Prepare for what?” I asked. They looked at me like they’d just remembered I was there.
“For the future,” Helen said gently, as if speaking to a small child. Then she looked at our small child. “For Perley’s future.” Perley, hearing his name, turned to let his eyes catch the firelight, graciously accepting fealty.
“I think we’re pretty self-sufficient,” I said. “I mean, more than most people.”
“Ha. Most people,” Karen said with contempt, and Helen, too, shook her head. Karen said, “Most people think we’re ready for anything out here, but we’re not. Not yet.”
“But what about the garden? And Helen’s wild food?” I asked.
“We’re basically hobby farmers,” Helen said.
“It’s true,” Karen said. “If we couldn’t go to the grocery store, we’d starve.”
I’d grown up in town, or nearly, where my grandma was the only one I knew who could knit a sweater, bake bread, build a chicken coop, and keep an engine running. My parents never had their own place long enough to plant flowers even, and most people of my generation went for a double-wide if they could get one and minimum wage if they could get that, too. When I was sixteen, I tried leaving. New York City was the place people talked the most shit about, so that’s where I went, and it only took a day on the bus. I was proud of myself at first, but the main thing that city taught me was that I have a home. It’s where everyone knows whose granddaughter I am. It’s where I know every tree. It’s where, when the mayapples blossom, I know which animals are going to get to the fruit before I do. So I came back and got a job at the