It’s a foolish person who keeps putting himself in danger.
We must do what we can to survive, to protect those we love.

—Pioneer

We never found Karen. We buried an empty coffin along with many, many other New Yorkers that fall and tried to tell ourselves a funeral without a body was somehow just as final. When it was over, my mom couldn’t go home, not to a place with nothing but reminders of what we’d lost. The city was starting to feel like a foreign country, not ours anymore.

We spent a few months in a rented apartment while my parents tried to figure out what we should do and where we should go next. My mom took me out of school and promised to teach me my letters herself, but she spent most days under the covers staring out the window, leaving me to wander around the apartment alone all day. I drew pictures nonstop. I guess I was still trying to make things right.

My mom was scared all the time too—scared someone would take me, scared that there’d be more terrorist attacks. My dad didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. His eyes were as empty as that coffin had been. We were alone a lot of the time. My parents didn’t have many friends even before Karen went away. And since Mom grew up in foster care and Dad was an only child with parents who died before I was born, there weren’t any grandparents or aunts and uncles to come help comfort us.

Pioneer was the only one who came around. He didn’t stop visiting us, helping where he could. He seemed to think that he could solve our problems. He said that we weren’t alone. Many of the people he knew were scared all the time too, fed up with living in a world that felt like it was teetering on the edge of destruction. He said that they were pooling their resources to build what he called the Community out west, charting their own course just like people did so long ago. My parents liked the idea of uninterrupted land and sky, of a place where you could see trouble coming a mile away and deal with it before it ever made it all the way to your doorstep. Pioneer said that they could use my dad to help build the place there, since he was a structural engineer. Pioneer wanted to make it safe, so safe we would never need to leave.

My dad left the city first. He moved with Pioneer and some of the others almost right away. My mom and I stayed behind to sell the house, the furniture, and anything we couldn’t carry with us on the plane. We began our new life with as little of our old one as possible, but I didn’t mind. My parents were acting a little more like themselves again. I felt for the first time in more months than I could count that life was really starting for us. And I wanted it more than I could say out loud without feeling guilty for wanting anything after Karen.

Mandrodage Meadows looked nothing like it does now. The basic skeletons of what would become our homes and the clubhouse were there, but mostly it was a large open field peppered with trailers and tents. I loved it. It was like one big adventure, like something out of a book.

While my mom got us settled into our tiny trailer, unpacking our few things and making up the beds, I got out my sketchpad and started walking in a wide circle around the trailer. I didn’t want to watch her tuck Karen’s shoes by the front door. She called to me from the window and told me to stay close to our trailer, and I did, but I was itching to explore. So I sketched instead and tried to put all my restlessness and excitement onto the paper.

“Hey, you’re the new girl,” a boy who looked about my age yelled from between two nearby tents. He was heavily freckled and his hair stuck up in a dozen different directions, but I liked it. Everything about him made me want to smile. He jogged over to where I was.

“I’m Will.” He held out his hand to shake mine, a weirdly formal thing for a kid to do. He seemed to be trying really hard not to scare me. It made me wonder how much he knew about my family already.

“I’m Lyla,” I said quietly.

Will bobbed his head, and we stared at each other for a moment before he laughed. “Wanna play?”

I was a little shy. I hadn’t had many friends up to that point. I had mainly played with Karen before. I nodded and studied the ground.

“Well, come on, then. The others are out at the lake playing ball. You ever play baseball?”

I shrugged. “No.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s not too hard.” Will reached for my hand to pull me along with him just as my mom opened the trailer door and peered outside. I thought she would panic and pull me inside with her, but instead she smiled faintly.

“Looks like you’re making friends already, sweetie.”

“Will wanted me to come play ball,” I mumbled—almost too low for her to hear. I was so sure she would say no. After all, I hadn’t been out of her sight for the better part of a year, but she surprised me by smiling a little wider.

“I think that would be fun,” she said slowly. I looked up at her, studied the pattern of shadow and light in her eyes, and tried to decide if she really meant it.

“I’ll just come with and read a book while you play. Give me one second.” Mom ducked back inside and I stared after her. She was going to let me play. Sure, she was coming too, but I didn’t care. I was going to be with other kids again. I put my sketchbook in the grass by the front door and skipped between Mom and Will the whole way to the lake. There were loads of kids there my age tumbling through the grass, hitting baseballs, and shoving each other as they ran the bases. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to draw what I was seeing—I wanted to be a part of it.

We played until it was too dark to see. My mom stayed and watched me for hours, but eventually she started to drift back toward the trailers and some of the other adults who were gathered there. She hadn’t given me such a long leash of freedom since Karen. It felt good, like stretching my legs did after the long plane trip we took to get there.

That night we ate our first meal with the Community. I loved it because the table was never quiet, not like back in New York. We ate outside, with Pioneer grilling up burgers and my dad leaning over site plans with some of the other men.

Later, I ended up sprawled in the grass with a belly full of potato salad and watermelon. I was too tired to sit up any longer. I couldn’t remember ever being this utterly spent. Will was lying beside me and we were throwing grapes into each other’s mouths. All around us, people laughed and talked and ate. I couldn’t stop smiling. I had a new best friend and plenty of room to run around. I never wanted to leave. I was home.