Bird box

She picked him up and carried him into his bedroom. There, she saw the wire lid of the crib open. She set him next to it on the floor. Then she closed it again and asked him to open it. The Boy just stared at her. She toyed with the little lock, asking him to show her if he could open it. Then he did.

Malorie slapped him.

At Last . . . a Baby!

She recalled Olympia’s baby book. Now her own.

And the one sentence from it she tried hard to ignore came back to her.

Your baby is smarter than you think.

It used to worry her. But today, in the boat, using the children’s ears as guides, she clings to it, hoping the children are as prepared as anybody can be for what may come, farther along the river.

Yes, she hopes they are smarter than what may lay ahead.

fifteen

I’m not drinking that water,” Malorie says.

The housemates are exhausted. They slept packed together on the living room floor, though nobody slept for very long.

“We can’t go days without water, Malorie,” Tom says. “Think about the baby.”

“That’s who I’m thinking about.”

In the kitchen, on the counter, the two buckets Felix filled are still untouched. One by one the housemates lick their dry lips. It has been twenty-four hours and the likelihood of its being much longer weighs on all their minds.

They are thirsty.

“Can we drink the river water?” Felix asks.

“Bacteria,” Don says.

“That depends,” Tom says. “On how cold the water is. How deep. How fast it flows.”

“And anyway,” Jules says, “if something got into the well, I’m sure it’s gotten into the river.”

Contamination, Malorie thinks. It’s the word of the hour.

In the cellar are three buckets of urine and feces. Nobody wants to take them outside. Nobody wants to go out there at all today. The smell is strong in the kitchen and hangs faintly in the living room.

“I would drink the river water,” Cheryl says. “I’d chance it.”

“You’d go out there?” Olympia asks. “There could be something standing right on the other side of the door!”

“I don’t know what I heard,” Felix says. He’s repeated this many times. He’s said he feels guilty for scaring everybody.

“It was probably a person,” Don says. “Probably somebody looking to rob us.”

“Do we have to figure this out right now?” Jules asks. “It’s been one day. We haven’t heard anything. Let’s wait. One more day. See if we feel better.”

“I’d even drink from the buckets,” Cheryl says. “It’s a well, for fuck’s sake. Animals fall into wells all the time. They die down there. We’ve probably been drinking dead animal water this whole time.”

“The water in this neighborhood has always been good,” Olympia says.

Malorie gets up. She walks to the kitchen’s entrance. The water glistens at the rim of the wood bucket, shines in the one of metal.

What would it do to us? she thinks.

“Can you imagine drinking a little part of one?” Tom asks.

Malorie turns. He is standing beside her. His shoulder rubs against hers in the doorway.

“I can’t do it, Tom.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. But I can ask myself.”

When Malorie looks him in the eye she knows he is serious.

“Tom.”

Tom turns to face the others in the dining room.

“I’ll drink it,” he says.

“We don’t need a champion,” Don says.

“I’m not looking to be one, Don. I’m thirsty.”

The housemates are quiet. Malorie sees the same thing in their faces that she’s feeling herself. For as scared as she is, she wants someone to drink it.

“This is insane,” Felix says. “Come on, Tom. We can figure something else out.”

Tom steps into the dining room. At the table, he looks Felix in the eye.

“Lock me in the cellar. I’ll drink it down there.”

“You’ll go mad from the smell,” Cheryl says.

Tom smiles sadly.

“We have a well, right in our backyard,” he says. “If we can’t use it, we can’t use anything. Let me do this.”

“You know who you sound like?” Don asks.

Tom waits.

“You sound like George. Except he had a theory.”

Tom looks to the dining room table, set against the window.

“We’ve been here for months,” he says. “If something got in the well yesterday, it probably got in there before.”

“You’re rationalizing,” Malorie says.

Tom answers her without turning to face her.

“Is there any option? Sure, the river. But we could get sick. Real sick. We don’t have any medicine. All we’ve had so far is the water from the well. It’s the only medicine we’ve got. What else can we do? Walk to the next well? And then what? Hope nothing got into that one?”

Malorie watches as, one by one, the housemates acquiesce. The natural rebellion in Don’s face gives way to concern. The fear in Olympia’s eyes turns to guilt. As for herself, Malorie doesn’t want him to do it. For the first time since arriving at the house, Tom’s role, how integral he is to everything that happens here, is blinding.

But instead of stopping him, he inspires her. And she helps.

“Not the cellar,” she says. “What if you went mad down there and destroyed our food stock?”

Tom faces her.

“All right,” he says. “Then the attic.”