Meg Elison - The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

“Who’s there?” Lewis was awake and peering into the dark.

“It’s Jodi and Honus Obermeyer. We’re taking Patty to live with us.” Jodi sounded surer than she felt. She had her finger on the rifle’s trigger, but she had forgotten to load it.

“You can’t take my wife.” Lewis was struggling up out of bed. He was a young man, but he was working on an impressive beard already. He wore white shorts and had to feel on the nightstand for his glasses.

Honus had found a nightgown and dropped it over Patty’s head. She raised her arms obediently, letting him dress her like a doll. “Do you want to stay here?”

Patty couldn’t answer. Her eyes were pure terror.

“See, she’s fine. Now you two go on back to wherever you came from.” He stared at the barrel of the rifle while he spoke.

Honus picked Patty up off her feet. She weighed nothing at all. He held her to his chest and she was rigid, trembling.

Honus walked out the bedroom door and Jodi inched backwards to follow.

“Who do you think you are? You can’t just come in here and—“

“She’s just a kid! What you’re doing is wrong and you know it.”

“She’s a woman, and she’s my wife. When she’s older she’ll understand better. It’s just hard for her to understand right now.”

Jodi was still moving backwards. “Don’t follow us or I’ll shoot. Stay right here.” She turned and slammed the door behind her. She bolted down the stairs to the snowmobile where Honus had Patty on the seat behind him and Jodi got on after so that the two of them held her there.

As they pulled away, they saw Lewis come out the front door yelling, waving his arms at them. Honus prayed that he didn’t have a gun. There was no sound of a shot.

They made it home and got Patty dressed and drinking hot Ovaltine in front of the tree. It took Lewis hours to follow their tracks back to Eden. He rattled the doorknob, screaming.

Honus took the rifle and loaded it. “Go to the back of the house.” Jodi took Patty to the back bedroom and the two of them sat in the closet. Honus opened the door.

“She’s staying with us, and you’re going to leave.” He held the rifle low, but kept it pointed toward Lewis.

Lewis was shivering. His cheeks were red and his glasses were fogged. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am your bishop and she is my wife.”

“You’re not our bishop anymore. We—“ The gun went off as his nervous hand squeezed it. The shot hit Lewis in his hip and he went down, wheezing. Honus dropped the gun in shock and stared. Jodi ran out to them.

“Oh my gosh. You shot him!”

Honus could only stare.

“What do we do?”

He shook his head and his jaw worked, but no sound came out.

“Shoot him again.” It was Patty. They both turned to look. Patty stood there as if she had not spoken.

“I can’t. I can’t.” Honus was approaching hysteria. He was gasping tiny breaths, his chest hitching.

Patty picked up the gun and looked at it. It was nearly as tall as she was, and she had never handled one before. Gently, Jodi took it from her. She worked the bolt and took a deep breath. She aimed at Lewis’ head and pulled the trigger. The hole was small but blood gushed out, staining the snow.

Honus sat down hard and his eyelashes fluttered. He grayed out.

Jodi put the rifle beside the door and pushed Patty back inside. Then she helped Honus to stumble to the couch. She locked the door.

“We’re gonna be a family. No one is ever going to mess with us, like ever again.” She sat down next to Honus and patted his hand. He did not respond.

Patty was cold, but present. She pulled her knees up under her chin.

Jodi started a song and Patty joined her. Honus took more than an hour to come back to himself.

In the morning, Jodi told him to bury the body. He built a pyre as Dusty had once done and burned it. He came back to the house and found Jodi and Patty talking like sisters.

The three of them got on very well. They were a family, as Jodi had said. They never spoke of Lewis and they rarely spoke of the plague or the time before. Jodi miscarried over and over, and she told Patty what had happened with their first child. Patty listened without emotion. She said she would never get married again.

* * * * *

Six years later, Jodi went full term with a girl. They both died, the child never left her body. Honus was wrecked with grief and Patty did the burning. Four bodies, one place. The rain churned their ashes into the soil.

* * * * *

It was less than a year before the two of them started sleeping together. Patty was barren. They lived together the rest of their lives and never again saw another human being.

The boys worked short days. They came in after breakfast and worked patiently, diligently until midday. They shared lunch at long tables in the old cafeteria. The room was windowless, with a stage at one end. They had decorated the walls with their drawings and calligraphy, many of them were developing a neat hand. When they had eaten, they had a few hours to play and run their energy off. Some of them napped in the late afternoon, others spent time in the library.

The library had been painstakingly collected and was maintained by people who cared for books beyond all things. No books could leave that building; reading could only be done there. Couches and cushions and chairs were scattered throughout and usually occupied. The scribe boys favored the books that explained parts of the before time, books that were everyday stories of peoples’ lives. Their studies focused on farming and writing and the repair of simple machines, but left to their own devices the boys read books about small families and big cities and the way things used to be.

The boys did not live in families. They were part of large co-op households to which they had been given when they were weaned. They had never seen a big city. The big cities of the world crumbled and fell overtaken by rats and ivy, undermined by floods and rust.

For a year of their lives, they reported for five days to copy the Books in their neat and even hands. They were eager to please. Their letters were perfect, their lines were straight. They smiled up at Mother Ina who tousled their hair and told them they were good. When they neared the end of the year, they asked her what they would do next.

“Soon it will be time to choose apprenticeships. You’ll meet people in the trades and see what interests you. Soon enough. But today, we return to this. Are you boys ready?”

They were ready. Hands clean, paper laid out, ink wells full.

THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE

THE HIVE of VIVIAN

March 21

Farmhouse on the 80. More corn than I thought there’d be. Weird corn. Different colors, mixed colors. Cross pollinating. Corn — farmers + wind. Delicious. Roast it and don’t think about butter. Thirteen days since I saw another person. Distance. No idea who they were. Didn’t care. Didn’t see me.

Not the last man on earth. Even if I never saw anyone I’d know because fucking food is disappearing. Deer in the corn. Day will come. No more sardines no more tuna no more pb or j. Need to get more rural. Same as it ever was and everybody goes to Walmart. Better odds in podunk little two by four kind of places. Restaurant kitchens. Sit in an old vinyl booth and casually remark that I’ll have the fried chicken. Right. Tell it to the millipedes for they have inherited the earth.

Also can’t find a fucking god damned water filter anywhere of any kind. Boiling everything. Fucking tiresome. Tastes bad.

March 30

Swear to shit, flocks of wild chickens. Shot two. Plucking is bullshit but remember Christmas dinner. Ate the both of them roasted and burning my fingers. Sprinkled with salt packets from a McDonalds. Hope they breed. Hope the world is covered in wild chickens.