Mike Mullin - Ashfall

“Tastes fine to me,” I said.

“Your taste buds need tuning up,” Max said grumpily, although he was eating his kale omelet, too.

“Tell us about your trip,” Uncle Paul said. “From the little bit Darla’s told us, you had a rough time.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said. That wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t even want to think about it, much less talk.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I hoped he’d drop it, change the subject or something, but he kept asking questions. So I slowly released the breath I’d been holding in and relented. For the rest of the dinner and a couple of hours afterward, I told them my story. Darla pitched in some after I got to the part where I had met her. I paused before I told them about Darla’s mom being raped and murdered. I wasn’t sure how much I should say with Anna, Max, and my sister there. Anna and Max were ten and twelve, or maybe eleven and thirteen-I wasn’t sure. My sister would be fourteen next month. I asked Uncle Paul, “How much of this do you want me to talk about with your kids here? What happened when we got back from Worthington, it was… obscene. I’m not sure I even want my sister to hear this.”

Paul and Caroline glanced at each other. He said, “Go on. They need to know about the world they live in now.”

“Anna might get nightmares,” Caroline said.

Paul turned to Anna, “Do you want to stay? You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll stay,” she said.

So I told the whole story to everyone. Still, I tried to gloss over the worst parts of it. Darla certainly didn’t need to relive that day. I took her hand and squeezed it, offering whatever meager support I could.

When I finished talking, Rebecca was staring at me, her head tilted at a slight angle.

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t believe you did all that. I always knew that you were, like, tougher than you seemed, but-”

“I wouldn’t have survived without Darla.”

Rebecca turned her gaze on Darla. They looked at each other for a moment; then my sister nodded, and Darla smiled a little. I wasn’t sure what to make of the exchange. Somehow during the last eight weeks my exuberant, chatty sister had been replaced by this thoughtful alien who could communicate with a look what would have taken the old Rebecca an hour’s worth of words.

“We’d best get to bed,” Uncle Paul said. “There’s more corn to grind and wood to cut tomorrow.”

“Where do you want us to sleep?” I asked.

“You can bunk with Max. Darla and Rebecca will have to share the guest room-the room you were in when you woke up.”

Max and Anna erupted into simultaneous protests.

Max: “Why do I have to share my room? Why does Anna get her own?”

Anna: “How come I don’t get a roommate? Why does Max always get everything?”

Aunt Caroline overrode them both. “Anna, I want you to find the air mattress. I think it’s in the linen closet. Max, come with me. I’ll help you shovel out some space for Alex in that pigsty you sleep in.”

Darla grabbed my arm and whispered, “Alex, I’d rather if we slept-”

“I’ll talk to him.”

She nodded.

Uncle Paul got up from his chair. I looked at him. “Uh, can I talk to you?”

“Sure.” He sat back down.

My sister was still at the table. I made a get-out-of-here gesture with my head. She didn’t move. “In private?” I said. “Please?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Rebecca and Darla left the kitchen.

“Um…” I thought furiously. How should I start? “Darla and I have been together for six weeks now.”

“An eternity in the life cycle of the American teenager.” Uncle Paul smiled, not unkindly.

“Darla’s almost eighteen, and I don’t really think of myself as a teenager anymore.”

“You’ve been through stuff no teenager should ever have to face, that’s true. But you’re still a minor, Alex.”

“I know, but…” This wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. “Look, Darla and I have been sleeping together-”

“Exactly how should I take that? Is there a chance she’s pregnant? Do you have any idea how risky that could be, how often women and their babies died in childbirth before we had modern medical care? Which we don’t have right now.”

My cheeks burned. I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to break in between each of those rapid-fire questions. Now he took a breath, and I said, “When I said sleeping together, that’s exactly what I meant. There’s no chance she’s pregnant. Even if it were perfectly safe, the last thing we want is to bring a baby into this mess.”

“That’s a relief.”

“I feel safe with Darla. She’s the reason I’m alive.”

“And we’re grateful-”

“Anna wants a roommate. Max doesn’t. Why don’t we move my sister in with Anna, and Darla and I will take the guest room?”

“What I was going to say was, we’re grateful to Darla for getting you here in one piece. And I’m sure she’ll be a big help. But you’re both minors. Until your parents return, you have to live by the rules Caroline and I set.”

“Which is why I’m asking-”

“You’ve only known each other six weeks. I know it seems intense to you now, and you’re sure you’ll love her forever, but things change when you’re young. You’re too young to be making permanent decisions-and too young to be sharing a room.”

“But-”

“Final answer, sorry. When your folks get back you can revisit it with them.”

A hot wave of anger washed through me. My muscles tensed. I sucked in a deep breath and fought down the anger. Several retorts occurred to me, but none of them would have helped my case. From his perspective, it made sense-maybe. He saw me as the quiet, angry kid who used to visit his farm under duress. The kid I’d left behind in Worthington-along with a couple quarts of my blood.

“Okay,” I said.

Paul stared-his lips parted, and he tilted his head to the side.

“I don’t like it, but you’re right about one thing. It’s your house and your rules. You see me as a kid-”

“I know you’ve changed.”

“We’ll live with it for now. But eighteen is only a number. The magic number could just as easily be-has been, for other societies and other times-thirteen or sixteen or twenty-one.”

“True enough.”

“You’re going to need all of us to act like adults to get through this.”

My uncle nodded. “It’s one of the things that bothers Caroline and me most. What kind of childhood can the kids have in the midst of this chaos? A few chores, the responsibility of caring for the animals-those things have always been good for them. But now we’re all working dusk to dawn, trying to prepare for the long winter.”

“Darla’s spent the last few years working every waking minute to keep her farm going. She turned out okay. The kids could do worse.”

“Yes. But I still feel guilty. I should be sending them to school every morning, not into the fields to dig for corn.”

I shrugged. “There’ll be time for school when things get better.”

“I hope so. I’m off to bed. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” I scowled at his back as he left. I’d done the best I could, stayed calm, and made a solid rational argument, but what good had it done me?

I walked to the guest room at one end of the first floor and knocked on the door. Darla opened it dressed in an oversized T-shirt-one of Caroline’s, I figured.

“How’d it go?” she asked, closing the bedroom door behind her.

“Not so good. We’re kids, we haven’t known each other long enough, we’ll fall out of love, we’re both minors, oh my God don’t get her pregnant, and it’s my house and my rules.”