A Better World, page 22
When her mom got hospitalized with heart failure, that high, absent feeling lost its appeal. She kept sleeping with friends and strangers. It made her life feel less empty. Then she met Russell. She’d never felt understood by him. He didn’t seem to get her moods, or to know why she liked having friends for dinner, or her interest in working at a free clinic. Having come from parents who fought when they talked, who’d aired grudges like laundry set to dry, he’d craved peace. For that reason, he wasn’t curious about people or what made them tick. But he’d loved her. She’d felt that love. It was certain and unwavering—the pillar she’d been searching for since she’d first started wandering those woods.
Even during their bad times—when he’d left her alone with the kids, when she’d begged for help and he’d agreed, looking her plainly in the eyes, then gone back to work as if the conversation had never happened, forcing her to sideline her medical career so that it eventually became more of a hobby than a profession—she’d always known he loved her. Even when, fed up, she’d asked for a divorce, it hadn’t been because she hated him, as happened to so many couples she knew. She’d been bluffing, hoping to force a little more equality. That time, he’d been good. He’d promised to change and actually changed, going so far as to come home for dinners and show up for his first parent-teacher conference. But he’d soon backslid, and by then she’d been worn down. The kids would be home for only another few years. Logistically, divorce wouldn’t help her situation. She’d wind up having to do more on less money. She let it go, even as she’d wondered: What was it like, inside other marriages? Did this happen to everyone, only they didn’t talk about it? Or despite her outward bravado, her competence, was there something deeply wrong with Linda Farmer?
Had her own falling-apart family of origin been the thing to make her cling to Russell that much more tightly? She didn’t know. All she knew was that for a long time, she’d told herself a story about how her life could have turned out tragically, how Russell, in his unwavering stability, had saved her. He’d been the reason that she’d escaped the rest of Poughkeepsie’s fate. But she saw now that she’d given him too much credit. Some people have Glamp-shaped holes in them. Either they’re born with that hole, or something cruel carves it into them. Her own emptiness could never be filled by something like Glamp.
Always, she’d been someone who needed to understand why. Why had her family succumbed? Why had the manufacturers marketed it? Why had the distributors and regulators agreed it was safe? Why weren’t they all in prison now? Why had her family chosen it, over her? She’d looked on at the wreckage of Poughkeepsie, and hadn’t wanted to drown in it; she’d wanted to pave it. To undo it, save it.
* * *
One December morning after drop-off, she drove to Gal’s house. Gal’s car was parked in the driveway. A light was on in the den, the place with the couch where Linda had once sat. She noticed the ash tree, leaves heavy with snow. Someone had wrapped its trunk in black ribbon.
When she got home, she checked her email and saw a note from Leticia. Dr. Carole Fielding had died. Her daughter had her cremated, no funeral. Without reading any of it, Linda printed up all of Fielding’s correspondence then, and put it in a special envelope marked CAROLE.
Then she went outside.
The air was bitter, its sting pleasant on her lungs. She tried to think of who to call, to tell what had happened, but Russell didn’t typically answer his device during the day. He wouldn’t know what to say, anyway. She’d feel him on the other end, trying to come up with something pacifying, so he could go back to work. Neither Rachel nor Daniella would be interested. Probably, they might even ask her why she’d called them, as her sadness was ruining their day. She thought of Hip, who would hijack the conversation with talk of Cathy and golden tickets. She thought of Josie, to whom she’d always been so close. But Josie wasn’t Josie anymore.
She walked in just her sneakers through the snow, her feet crunching through the top, thick layer and sinking down midcalf. It felt so satisfying. She kept crunching, all over the lawn, until her feet were numb from cold. Until half the yard was packed-down footprints. She looked over her work and saw that she’d made a giant spiral—a circle getting ever wider.
The itch, the urge to scratch.
“Fuck you, Russell. That letter was lucid,” she said.
The Scratch
The PV library was a one-level box-building with an alcove devoted to Plymouth Valley and its history. The next cold morning, Linda headed there.
“This is all the material we keep off line. You should be able to find what you’re looking for. And if you can’t, I have no idea what you’re looking for,” the friendly librarian told her.
The room was formal, with wooden banker’s chairs and a long square table surrounded by books with hard spines. Linda went first for the pamphlets fanned out in a display. These were folksy, and definitely written by Anouk. On the backs were cartoon mythological birds hanging out together: a gryphon, a roc, and a phoenix. In the center, a giant caladrius. The thing was as big as a moose, dwarfing the rest of them. These creatures were enfolded in one another like best buddies.
Thinking of idiopathic leukemia, she went next for the science section. Looked for books relating to health, toxicology, psychology, and cancer. None were present. So much for that.
In the history section, she leafed through a leather-bound book with gold-embossed writing that described the construction of the tunnels, subsequent Labyrinth, nuclear reactor, and purified air dome—engineering feats that many other company towns had since imitated. In the founding history, she noticed a mention of sickness in Plymouth Valley called the blight :
The Blight
In the early years, Plymouth Valley’s populace was infected with a blight characterized by loose bowels, dizziness, and night sweats. Several children failed to thrive. The blight was short-lived, and by the town’s second decade, all reports of this type of illness had ceased.
She looked for more on this blight. Found nothing. She checked the dates on when the Omnium Mill had been built—1984—and when it and its waste-processing center, both located along the river, had been decommissioned: 2001. Possibly, that tracked.
Tucked inside this book was another pamphlet, black on both sides, and without illustrations:
The Plymouth Valley Winter Festival
It is the intersection of luck and diligence through which we find success. But outside these fortress walls, even the strongest, most exceptional people do not always survive. As it has always been with the greatest of empires, we owe our bounty to our industry and to our sins. To perpetuate our survival now and always, we pay homage with a sacrifice to the Great White Caladrius.
Beware the Sacrifice
—John Parson Senior, May 2024
She headed back out, indicated the relevant section of the history book to the librarian back at her counter.
“Can you tell me anything about this blight?”
“Huh! I’ve never heard of this.”
“No?” Linda asked.
“Never!” she said.
“Do you think there’s any other place I could look for information?”
The librarian pointed back at the room from which Linda had come. “It would be in there, if anywhere. It couldn’t have been that serious. I’d have heard of it.”
“Oh,” Linda said. “Thank you. One more thing—what do they mean by a sacrifice to the Great White Caladrius?”
The librarian took the black pamphlet. She read slowly with her index finger tracing line by line. “Oh, I get it! I know. This is just the Winter Festival. We sacrifice a bird!”
“A bird gets sacrificed to a bird?”
“It’s very silly, isn’t it?”
“Why is it called Great White?”
The librarian smiled halfway, amused. “They can get big. There’s a rumor the really big ones live down in the shelter. But it’s a joke. It’s funny. Kids pretend they’ve seen them. They sleep down there and scare themselves silly. We have a lot of fun with Hollow.”
“Can you tell me exactly what happens in the tunnels at the Winter Festival?”
“All kinds of things happen. It’s a party. A celebration.”
“What about the black ribbons?”
The librarian put the pamphlet down, away from Linda, like Linda’d lost her pamphlet privileges. “They’re just decoration.”
Linda felt a panic in her chest. A feeling of something wrong. “That’s it?”
“Mostly. We prefer not to spoil it for new people. It’s best you experience it firsthand.”
This woman looked normal and sane. Then again, everyone there looked normal and sane. So maybe appearances weren’t the salient feature. “Everyone keeps telling me that I’ll love it,” Linda said.
The woman relented, perhaps remembering that Linda wasn’t accustomed to this place. “It must be so hard. I spent my whole life here, and I still have questions. I mean, a smelly bird? They make fun of us in Palo Alto… But it really is just for fun.”
Linda waited, hoping she’d say more.
“There’s a VIP room for people with golden tickets.”
“Yeah?”
“But only a handful of people have access.”
“What happens in there?” Linda asked.
She raised her brows, grinned innocently, like they were talking of nothing of consequence. “How would I know? My final review isn’t for three years.”
* * *
Back home that night, she found Russell in his office.
“Did the EPA ever testify against Omnium?” she asked.
This second court case was coming up. He was more stressed about it than he’d been about the last one. His typically neat workspace was surrounded by empty mugs, tea bags staining random papers, and crinkled-up snack bags. This was not unusual for most people in the throes of a deadline, but for Russell, it was shocking.
“This again? We’ve always testified in its favor,” he answered, his eyes blinking and bleary from overuse. “The data always backed it up.”
She told him about the blight, its concurrence with the first Omnium mill. She asked him again about Ireland’s settlement, for trillions. “Could you get me a file on that—the republic’s stated case? Because the Omnium-processing plant there was one of the biggest in the world.”
Russell rubbed his red eyes. Mumbled without looking at her. “I can’t get somebody else’s case. Who does she think I am?”
“Russell? Are you okay?”
He let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“You don’t seem okay. What’s going on with this case? Can I help?”
He shook his head. “I should never have let you see the numbers last time. It’s not allowed.”
“Right. But they don’t have to know. Come to bed and get back fresh in the morning? You could use the break.”
He blinked a few times, like his eyes were too tired to focus. “Listen, I know you loved Fielding, but I checked. Chlorine isn’t ever involved in Omnium waste processing. Ireland’s suit was fraudulent. They were bankrupt, we were low-hanging fruit. Omnium’s the only reason krill and tuna and whales are still alive—the only reason the ocean’s still spitting oxygen.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. I get it. But I’m so tired, Linda.” She saw that he was. If she thought on it, he’d been tired for as long as she’d known him.
She came over to his desk. He shut his laptop so she wouldn’t see. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. I just need to get through this.”
And then the next thing, and the next, she thought. “It’s late. Come upstairs. It’ll all still be here in the morning.”
Smiling strangely, he got up from his desk.
They started walking. “Do you want Esperanza to clean for you?”
“No.”
She drifted off around midnight and woke to a gasping sound. She reached across the bed. Her hand came back empty. A light shone under the master bath’s door.
She crossed the room, listened. There was an analog skeleton keyhole in the event the house powered down. She peered through it, and there he was, sitting on the lip of the toilet, bent over and breathing into a brown paper bag. In-out, in-out, the thing expanded and contracted like a crinkling, artificial lung.
He’d done this once before, hidden in a bathroom and hyperventilated. At the time, he was assisting at a lab where they sacrificed rabbits. He claimed the work didn’t bother him. He could see the greater good and that was all the consolation he needed. Then she found him like this, red eyed in the middle of the night.
“Honey, you okay?” she now asked.
“Yeah!” he answered, hiding the bag fast. But still, it crinkled. “My stomach’s off. I ate something bad. Go back to bed.”
“No, come out,” she said.
He took another few minutes to open the door, and when that happened, he came right out, climbed back into bed, turned out the light, and pretended to fall asleep.
* * *
Trish Parker, Gal’s ex-wife. There was no corporation-wide directory that included Palo Alto. Through Zach Greene, Linda found the number for Palo Alto’s human resources department. After a week, an admin replied with Trish Parker’s contact information.
Linda called. Her message went like this: Hi! This is Linda Farmer. I’m a pediatrician in Plymouth Valley. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I’m wondering if I can volunteer to act as a resource for your children’s treatment. I know idiopathic leukemia is very rare and it’s hard to get consensus on best practices. I also have a patient I believe might have the disease. Anyway, thank you. Please call me back.
Trish didn’t respond. In the time leading up to the holidays, Linda left three additional messages.
* * *
Christmas came fast. Linda couldn’t get Hip or Josie involved, the former because he was busy with his girlfriend, the latter because she was blue. So, she went to the farm on her own and clipped a few branches from the evergreen trees, made a wreath, and set up some lights. Parson’s Market had mistletoe, which she hung from the parlor ceiling.
They celebrated in their pajamas, just the family. They drank pomegranate juice and ate croissants with cured krill, cream cheese, and capers. She put on holiday music. But the presents got opened too fast, and all were from stores on Main Street—warm socks and video game apps. The Fabric Collective had finished their formal attire for the big prefestival party at the Parson family mansion. Russell and Hip both tried their suits on, and she and Josie both teasingly hooted in admiration.
Then, it was over. Everyone took naps or went to their room. Feeling lonely, Linda knocked on Josie’s door. “Can I come in?”
Josie opened the door and moved back to where she’d been, lying in her bed with no books or screen.
“Tired?” Linda asked.
Josie blinked, which in its way was an answer.
Linda felt nervous. Didn’t know how to do this correctly. Decided that the point was doing it at all. “I thought you could talk to someone. A doctor. There’s one at the hospital who specializes in teens.”
Josie’s lips curled into an ugly sneer. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“No. There isn’t. You’re perfect. But I think something’s got hold of you. I think you need help wrestling it down.”
“It’s not me. It’s this town,” Josie said.
“I believe you,” Linda said. “But the town’s not hurting. You’re hurting.”
Josie flopped over onto her stomach, her face in her pillow.
“Can you tell me why you’re hurting? Didn’t you like any of your Christmas presents?”
Josie didn’t answer.
Linda set down the snow globe her dad had given her when she left home. It showed a bear plucking a honeycomb from a tall tree in what looked like the Catskills. “I have one more thing. I should have wrapped it.”
Josie sighed out. “I don’t want your junk, Mom.”
“My dad gave it to me when I was about your age. It’s home. Where I come from,” Linda said. “Like you come from Kings. You never forget your first home.”
Josie pulled the covers over her head and began to cry. “I don’t want things! I’m surrounded by things!”
“I’m sick of things, too,” Linda said. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
Josie stayed hidden. Her voice was low and furious. “You say all the right things but you don’t do anything. Get out.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Linda asked.
Josie didn’t answer. Linda’s instincts told her to stay. To figure this out. But Josie seemed so hurt and angry. What was the point?
* * *
“What do you think happens at the Winter Festival?” Linda asked one night, after she and Russell had gotten into bed. He was reading a screen, its light shedding a purple hue.
“They kill a bird, don’t they? Or something. These people make full-time work out of some dumb hobbies.” Except for his hands, which were knotted in fists, he affected poised calm.
“I’m freaked out about it,” she said. “In a couple of weeks, we’re spending three days and two nights trapped in a tunnel with these people.”
“From what I hear, it’s nothing serious. Parson’ll make a speech and everyone’ll get drunk. And some of ’em screw around with the wrong people. It’s three days and two nights and communal sleeping. That’s the secret of the PV Winter Festival. Everyone screws around.”
