I just shrug again, not saying anything. Jean looks like she’s about to say something else, but for the first time in all the months I’ve been following her down gross corridors and looking in cages, she doesn’t say it. She takes the papers and taps them into a neat pile before sliding them into the folder.
“We’ll call you,” Jean tells me.
I back away with a nod. It feels wrong to leave here today with my hands empty, even if it’s the way I’ve left all the other times. But this isn’t all the other times; this time I’m leaving Mom behind. I think about asking to see her one more time before I go, but I can’t. If that makes me a coward, then I’m a big one.
When the door closes behind me, I close my eyes and breathe in air so cold, it burns, but not the way the smell inside did. This burning is good. Gets rid of all the junk in there. It burns away the tears I wasn’t crying, too, and the sour taste on my tongue. I’m shivering in another minute, stupid for standing like this on the sidewalk when I don’t even have a hat or scarf, but I take another minute, anyway, just to breathe.
I found her.
Before I can think too long or hard about whether or not I wish I hadn’t, I turn on my heel and head for home. This means a pretty long and complicated bus ride. If there’s one good thing about what’s happened since the Contamination, it’s that the government put better public transportation into place. Lebanon used to have a pretty crappy bus system that could hardly get you anywhere. I didn’t care back then—I had my mom and dad to drive me anyplace I needed to go, and eventually my own driver’s license. Now the car’s gone, lost in a way there is no finding—not that I have money to spend on gas even if I knew where the car was and could prove it belonged to me as easily as I hope I can prove my mother does.
Waiting at the bus stop, I watch the traffic crawl by. I count the military trucks and police cars the way Opal and I used to count yellow cars for points, only if I were playing that game right now, I’d win for sure, since there are way more soldiers and cops driving around. None of them slow as they pass me. The days are gone when just being out on the street meant you’d get stopped by soldiers and checked out, but I know if I were doing anything more energetic than bouncing on my toes to keep warm, at least one of them would probably stop to look me over. Knowing this should make me feel safer, but it doesn’t.
Across the street from me is a faded and tattered billboard advertising Shamrock Shakes, and my mouth waters. The local McDonald’s closed about a year ago, and though I’ve heard rumors it might open again, it’s still boarded up, with weeds growing in the parking lot. There are commercials on TV for McDonald’s, so maybe in other parts of the country you can still get a shake and fries, but not anyplace around here. To me that says more about how things really are than any news report about how well the country is recovering.
“Hiya, Velvet,” the bus driver, Deke, says as he opens the door for me. “How’s it going?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue, ready to spill out. I found her. I found her! Suddenly I want to scream it, dance with it, tell the whole wide world I’ve found my mom! But I don’t know Deke that well, not more than enough to say hi, how are ya, stuff like that. I’ve never even mentioned I’m looking for her, because it’s not his business. He swipes my transit pass and gives me a smile, and he’s always been supernice to me, but I don’t know what he’d say if I tell him the next time I make this trip, it will be to bring her home with me. A Connie.
“It’s going, Deke.”
“Ain’t it always.” Deke laughs.
I take a seat at the back of the bus, where the air from the vents can warm my frozen toes and fingers. The heat’s worth putting up with the bouncing and the smell of exhaust. Plus, it’s my habit to take a seat at the back. This way I can see everyone who gets on after me. It took only one Connie leaping onto a crowded bus through the back door and coming up on the passengers from behind to teach me the importance of that lesson. I lean my head against the cold window glass. My breath fogs it. It makes the world outside the windows fuzzy. It looks better that way.
We pass a row of town houses, and the bus slows to pass by an army truck parked in front of one. The door’s wide open. Soldiers are standing on the sidewalk. I crane my neck to see what’s going on, though of course I’ve seen plenty of that on the news before. Soldiers carrying out Contaminated, most still screaming and biting. Not that the news shows it any longer. The news doesn’t show much of anything. The bus pulls out of sight before anything happens, which I guess is just as well. I don’t need to be reminded of what the Contaminated can do.
I really want to get home, but first I take the bus to Foodland. The selection in the bakery sucks, but I find a marked-down cake with a frosting clown that’s only a little smeared. Chocolate, for the win! I look with longing at the fresh fruit, my mouth puckering at the memory of strawberries I haven’t tasted in forever. Too expensive, though, and besides, we haven’t had cake in forever, either. The cashier’s not too happy when I pay with change I’ve pulled from my pockets, the depths of my backpack, and a couple of quarters I was lucky to find on the bus floor.
At home, Opal’s at the kitchen table, her feet swinging as she bends over her homework. She used to greet me at the door every time, begging to know if I’d found Mom, but she stopped doing that a few weeks ago. She didn’t say why and I didn’t ask her, but I know it’s because of the TV special we both watched. The one where that movie star, not the one who starred in all the original ThinPro commercials but the one who sort of looks like him, narrated the statistics about the numbers of Contaminated who’d been claimed… with no mention about what happens to the ones who aren’t. It was listed as being TV for mature audiences, but I let her watch it, anyway. I sort of wish I hadn’t let either of us see it.
“Hey.” I close the door behind me and slip the dead bolts into place. One, two, three. The chain lock sticks, but I manage to shove it closed, too. It wiggles on the screws. I doubt it would keep anyone out if they really tried hard to get in, but it’s important to act like we still believe in locks and doors.
Opal looks up. She has our dad’s face, smaller and more feminine. His hair, too, red curls all around her face. We don’t look a lot like sisters. When I wanted to be mean, a long time ago, I used to tell her she was adopted. I’d never do that now, no matter how bad we fight.
“Hi, Velvet. I’m doing my homework.”
“I see that.” I keep the bag with the cake hidden and shrug out of my coat, hang it on the back of a chair. “Did you eat anything?”
“Peanut butter sandwich.”
“You’re going to turn into a peanut butter sandwich.” It’s what our mom would’ve said, and Opal’s lower lip quivers. “Hey. Guess what.”
“Chicken butt,” she says, sounding resigned.
“Not today. Guess what else.” Now I can’t hold back the excitement in my voice. My hands are shaking, so I make them into fists, shove them deep into the pockets of my jeans, which need washing.
“What?” My little sister looks up at me, her pencil still clutched in one hand.
“I found her.”
Opal stares at me for too long without saying anything, so long, I start to worry. Then she throws down her pencil, leaps from the chair into my arms. We dance together, slipping on the ratty rug. We’re laughing, dancing, crying.