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I built a pretty sweet boardwalk between our window and what turned out to be the Stepp’s master bath window. Going downstairs in our house wasn’t an option. I wasted two weeks fighting the mud and muck after the rain stopped – a day and a half after we jumped, if you’re wondering. Brooks never stopped coughing after that. Never.
We did manage to salvage some of the supplies, essentials like Dad’s old radio and the dismantled solar panel from the shed. Neither of them ever worked again, but I couldn’t bear to part with them.
Eventually, the mud turned to concrete that looked deceivingly strong but couldn’t support our weight. Another lesson learned the hard way. Everything on the bottom floor of our house became enshrined in that auburn crust.
One good thing did come out of that storm, though. We had plenty of drinking water. Every plastic tub, bowl, cup, and leftover can we could scrounge up between both houses sat in the Stepp’s garage, filled to the brim.
Food, well, food was a different story. I had vowed after the... you know, to never leave Brooks’s side again. And I meant it. Him being in that house with no adults was dangerous enough. I couldn’t leave him there without me, too.
What I hadn’t thought of in my highly emotional state, was just how noisy a nine-year-old boy could be. I’d tried to take him hunting with me on multiple occasions, only to come back home empty handed with a screaming headache. There were so few animals left to hunt, and the ones that were around knew better than to come to the woods in Sector B. I’m sure they heard him from miles away.
“You promised!” Brooks whined at the top of his lungs, slamming a plastic bowl in the sink. “And I promised I’d be quiet.” He screamed louder.
“I think we have different ideas of what that word means.” I yelled back.
He glared at me. Then his face softened. “I don’t want to stay here alone.”
My resolved crumbled. We had to get food. Meat; we desperately needed meat. But that face. “I don’t want to leave you here alone. But I don’t have a choice. Look at yourself.” I pointed an accusing finger at his ribs.
“I’ll be quiet.”
“No.” I turned to leave, picking up the small bb gun I’d found in the man cave. It was a small game rifle for sure, but I was a small game kind of girl.
A thud echoed around the kitchen behind me and I spun back around. “You’re not my boss!” Brooks clenched his fist then threw an expired can of stewed tomatoes at the wall. They made a curved dent in the daisy wallpaper and fell to the floor beside another can; the presumed origin of the first crashing noise.
Fury bubbled up in both of us. His manifested in a wet terrifying cough, mine in a white-hot rage behind my eyes. I lunged at him, snatching a third can from his clenched fingers before it, too, could go sailing across the room. He stared a hole right through me.
“I am your boss, Bit.” I spat the baby name through clenched teeth. “And you’ll do what I say, or else.”
I regretted it immediately. Tried to catch the words before they fell out of my mouth. But it was too late.
I watched his face crack, slowly. First a slight widening of his eyes, the incredulity. Then the tremor in his chin he tried to hide by sucking his lips into his mouth. One solitary tear spilled over his long lashes and ran down his cheek before getting soaked up by the thick dirt that always coated his tiny face.
He fell into me, or I pulled him, I wasn’t sure. But we stood there, crying all over each other, in the middle of our new kitchen.
A knock at the door scared the shit out of both of us.
Brooks jumped backward, tearing his arms from me like he just remembered I had cooties. I pursed a finger to my lips and turned.
Through the peephole I saw a ghost.
###
//YOU GONNA LET ME IN?// Howie chipped, and I threw open the door. The can of stewed tomatoes dropped on my pinkie toe, but that’s not why I screamed.
I flung my arms around him and cried. He was taller, and so skinny. Bony shoulders poked out of a drab brown shirt. It itched liked a potato sack against my skin.
“Can I come inside?” Howie put his hands on my waist, where they’d never been before.
I let go. “Of course. Are you... how... when...?”
Howie pushed inside the door and closed it behind him, never taking his hands off me. His emerald eyes devoured mine, then flicked toward Brooks. The large hands fell from my hips and I began to cry.
“I’m out.” He smiled at me, then the smile widened, brightened at Brooks. “Heard that one all the way over at your house.”
I shot Brooks a triumphant smirk through my tears. He stuck his tongue out at me.
“What the hell happened?” Howie asked, those hands that still refrained from touching me waving in the air. “There’s garbage everywhere out there.”
“There was a storm. A dust storm... then...” I couldn’t speak.
Brooks told Howie the story, in great animated detail, “The dust storm lasted forever. Then the rain was even more forever. And everything broke. And we had to hide in Mommy’s room. And the rain crashed the window and the water kept getting higher and higher and higher. And... And... we blew up the mattress and jumped out the window! Synta swam for two days –”
“Alright.” I snapped, seeing horror drain the color from Howie’s thin face. “We had an adventure.” I pulled Howie to the Stepp’s black leather couch and sat close beside him. “The mud destroyed our house so we came here.”
“But we still go over there for nite nite – bedtime.” Brooks corrected himself, lowering his voice as far as it would go on the last word.
“I saw your... handiwork,” Howie said, pointing up toward the side of the house with the boardwalk. “Impressive.” His voice had gotten deeper, too. He sounded like a grown man.
He didn’t look like one, though. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. All the times Mom had tried to force me to eat another helping, calling me ‘skin and bones’, this was what she meant.
Howie squirmed in his seat, uncomfortable in my spotlight. He took my hand in his, warm and solid. “It’s OK, I’m OK. I’m here, now. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
In response, Brooks’s stomach grumbled. Howie’s head snapped up.
“How... They let you out?” I asked.
“Are you hungry?” Howie ignored me, let go for the second time, and walked over to Brooks.
Brooks nodded.
“Let’s go find you some food, kiddo.” Howie mussed the top of Brooks’s head.
Brooks frowned, wearing his best pitiful expression. “Synta won’t let me.”
“So I heard,” Howie laughed. “But now we can all go... together.”