The Floating Cradle

Twenty

I don't know how I get any sleep. Daddy and Lyle spread out their coats for me and Pete, and we lie there in total darkness, the lantern off to conserve batteries, surrounded by the soft noises of breathing, bodies shifting, the occasional stifled sob. Dan is scrabbling in a far corner, his body wracked by withdrawal. The cellar's temperature has risen enough that I have stripped down to my t-shirt and rolled up my jeans, but still I toss and turn, wishing for a fan. I let my thoughts drift uselessly through a catalogue of commercial jingles, pop songs, and movie lines, a lack of focus the closest I can come to calm. I don't even care that Pete's taken my hand in his.

Allie's best solution to our air problem was to wet strips of cloth—obtained by ripping apart our shirt sleeves and underwear—and place them over the vent as a makeshift filtration system, the idea being that particles will dissolve in the water as the air passes through, or whatever. I didn't want to say it outright, but I could tell the rest of the family was thinking what I was: if that's the best a genius can do, then we must be really screwed.

Mama switches the lantern on and starts distributing jars of peach and raspberry preserves, muscadine jelly, and pickled okra. Nobody seems much inclined to eat, but together we finish off three jars. Pete fills them with water from the spigot, and we pass them in a circle around the lantern, its cold glow refracting through the rippled glass, casting distorted nets of light across our faces and the cellar walls. Mama takes a wet rag and lays it over Dan's forehead; he has not shifted from his corner, fetal and shuddering. I think of the newborn calf curled slick and thoughtless on the straw, the world speeding into her—the scents of manure, blood, and cowhide, her mother's anointing tongue, the gift of fluorescent light bringing the audience of her delivery into blinding focus—

"You haven't done your compression yet," Allie says to the tantum, chewing a piece of okra, eying him closely. "You look pale."

"I'll do it later," he mutters.

Felicity starts cleaning up the jars, which amounts to little more than stacking them next to the rubble of shelves. The mess must be killing her.

"Where's the suit?" Allie asks, her voice velvet, leveling like Stonewall before he pounces. The tantum looks at her sidelong.

"You don't have it, do you."

"Look. I really thought it was just a scare, but on that one-percent chance it wasn't, I just—I needed you safe. But you weren't going to leave, so—"

"God dammit, Jack! I would have once we'd found it—"

"I'll be fine! FEMA is probably combing our area right now—"

Allie curses, springing to her feet, wild eyes alighting on the stairwell.

"We have to go," she announces. "Chances the suit's still functional after the blast are negligible—even if it was, it's buried under the house—so that means we've gotta get to the nearest pharmacy that hasn't been incinerated, which would be what—Booneville? We can make that in time—"

She grabs her and the tantum's coats, their cell phones, and several jars of food, ignoring our rising sea of objections. Lyle checks her with his shoulder but she claws past him, tripping over Pete, who yelps and clutches his toes; Mama's on her feet, berating her to have sense. Dan, barely lucid, describes a slow death by radiation poisoning that is probably more fiction than fact, but nobody is paying him attention anyway. The tantum takes Allie's hand and tries to soothe her, but she digs her nails into his wrist and strides toward the stairs; Blake fumbles at her elbow and a jar of pickles falls from her arms, spraying the floor with glass and flecks of vinegar. It seems like our kettle is about to boil over yet again when the tantum cups her face like a Magic 8-Ball and shakes her.

"ENOUGH!" he yells, a sound like grating gears underscoring his words. He releases her, looking disgusted with himself, and she slumps to her knees, sobbing without rhythm.

There is a creak of old hinges, and from a compartment nested in the floor, partially obscured by the wreckage of shelves, Daddy withdraws a shotgun, breaking it loosely over the crook of his arm. A combo lock dangles from his fingers.

"We ain't been down here more'n six hours," Daddy says, his eyes uncharacteristically flinty. "The doors stay closed. I ain't gonna be made to use this."

Something absurd in me wants to laugh. Sure, the tanta can say two things at once, but so can humans—Daddy's proved it. So has Felicity, rolling back Pete's sock to examine his toes, nostrils flaring when she sees his black, sparkly nails. So has Mama, shushing Dan's pleas for relief, guarding her bosom with imperious stoicism. Daddy stands erect and armed like a toy soldier molded for combat, but I know the gun weighs like a spade in his hands, dipping toward the Earth. There's a reason he doesn't shoot his own turkey. Cradling the shotgun, he does not threaten, but begs, like a wasp whose guts gird its weapon, and I can just about hear him say aloud the thought droning in his head: Don't bury us here, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

I walk to the smashed jar and collect the pieces, salvaging the dust-coated pickles, and Mama comes to assist me. Allie wipes her face with the back of her hand and starts to tinker with the cellphones and the radio, shoulders hunched like a gargoyle's. The tantum puts a hand on her back, but she shrugs him off, so he just sits next to her and watches her pick over the wires.

"How long can you...?" Pete asks the tantum meekly.

"Go without compression?" the tantum supplies. "I could make it...five more days."

He considers his own answer, his face pinched, as though those five days have just become real, not simply numbers, but bodies he must inhabit, breaths he must take.

"But we'll be rescued before then," he says. "It's only a matter of time."