Chapter 1 Sample

Jean

THE infection hit with such ferocity and speed that all public trans­port had shut down by the end of my husband’s meeting in DC, sixty-five miles from home. No car, no commuter train, no way out.

In the five hours since he’d arrived in the city that morning, police had blockaded roads and barred highway entrances. Airlines delayed flights and then canceled them. Residents, under threat of arrest, huddled in their homes, and universities restricted students to dorms. Government officials shuttered public buildings, closing, and locking the gates.

Television news showed black-helmeted National Guardsmen herd­ing panicked tourists back toward their hotels as they stampeded down unfamiliar streets. Coast Guard cutters patrolled the Potomac River; helicopters buzzed overhead. From Capitol Hill to the Ellipse, red lights on Constitution Avenue blinked on and off. Front pages of the morning newspaper skittered across empty streets.

I waited for Ted to call.

Six months later, planting is the one activity that still makes sense. Elbow deep in dark, loamy soil, preparing this year’s vegetable garden, Caro says, “Even demons believe in God.” Her eyes are lowered, watch­ing her own gloved hands transfer a tender tomato plant from its small pot to the ground.

Her sudden assertion doesn’t surprise me; we’ve been playing this game all our lives. This will be another argument in my sister’s perpetual attempt to crack open my agnostic armor. I’m accustomed to parrying her new thrusts.

She nailed a cross on her door when she was fifteen. I hung a bejew­eled heart on mine. Ten years later, we argued about the sanctity of gurus when she taped an image of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on my refrigerator. I countered with a photograph of the owner of my local market. Three years ago, well before the infection, she began attending Friday evening Shabbat services; I took up Tarot card reading. These days, the figure of Death turns up frequently.

I sit back on my heels to watch her face. “I don’t believe in demons.”

“Maybe you should, Jean.” Caro purses and twists her lips—her expression on the rare occasion when I take her rook with my queen. She always beats me at chess, although sometimes I surprise her with a move or two.

My neck clicks as I roll my head around to stretch out the knots. I’m the older sibling, not the smarter one. Pragmatism is my religion. When the world is falling apart, doing what works is a virtue. At least, that’s what I tell myself to keep from going crazy.

Caro calls me a mechanic, but I understand her. It’s comforting to believe in something, particularly now. I believe in what I can see, what I can do. Beyond the edges of my small map of the world, the little I know won’t work. The real world is huge, and at thirty-nine, I’m still a journeywoman. It’s unclear now that I’ll have enough time to arrive at proficiency.

“Never mind,” she says, giving me a reprieve from heavy arguments on an otherwise perfect March day that feels more like May. Next year it’ll be warmer still; that much we can count on.

She plunges the baby tomato plant into the black dirt. We’ve already put in lettuce, broccoli, and onions. Tomorrow we’ll plant eggplant and green beans. Relieved she’s surrendered, I reach for another tender shoot, drop it into the soil, and pat the earth firmly around the roots. We’ve learned to cherish small wins when we can. I can almost smell the tomato to come, taste it sliced and salted, drizzled with balsamic vinegar, and sprinkled with fresh basil.

More than ever, life is what we make it. The last viral pandemic, the one dubbed COVID-19, I was young enough to feel impervious to disease. I used to think getting dirt under my nails was good for me, that the musky energy radiating from the center of the Earth would balance me. Now I’m watchful, careful about everything, xenophobic about interacting with even the tiniest forms of life because, this time, where the enemy comes from is a mystery.

The year before my son, Ren, was born, all we worried about was cli­mate change. Ted and I put in forty-two trees on the three-acre meadow where we’d planted our house to balance our carbon footprint. We were such Boy Scouts, thinking the world would continue on the course we expected, believing we could be prepared for anything.

I am grateful for our industry, though. Those lovely oaks, maples, pears, birches, and fir trees block any neighbor’s view into our yard. Red­bud and cherry give us color; cedar gives us fragrance. My struggling magnolia throws out cream-colored satin buds the size of my fist every June, no matter what’s happening in the world. From a drone’s eye view, our house is an origami box floating in a sea of green.

Caro wipes sweat from her forehead with her wrist, keeping the dirt-covered fingers of her glove pointed away from her face. She doesn’t want to streak her cheeks with mud. I love her for this unnecessary fastidiousness about her appearance. Aside from our small gang of five children, no one will see her gardening or doing anything else.

“What about angels?” she asks, pulling off her gloves and adjusting her broad-brimmed sun hat.

“Angels?” I laugh. She hasn’t given up, only changed tacks. “What about them?”

“Do you believe in them?”

I look at her angular, still unlined face and wonder why she’s strug­gling with this idea of deity today. “Why is this important now?”

“I saw something,” she says. “Hovering over the kids yesterday when they were playing in the trees. Something I don’t know how to explain.”

“Heat haze,” I guess. “Northern lights during the day. Electromag­netic activity caused by sun flares. Auras.”

She lowers her eyes, a signal that she thinks I’m being flippant. In the world of all possible answers, I haven’t stumbled upon the right one.

“It’s a portent.” She stares into my eyes as if to send me a telepathic message. “You know, like Mom said. Something we’re supposed to notice.”

I tense. Our mother was not an oracle I would believe, but whatever Caro saw has meaning to her. I should pay attention instead of making light of it, even though I can’t resist teasing her. She’s always so serious.

“Okay. What does it portend?”

“I did something you’re going to be angry about.”

I stretch my neck, close my eyes to shutter my annoyance, and wait.