Сара Пинскер - A Song for a New Day

“So tell me,” her mother said. “Do you like the job? Are you glad you quit Superwally? Unless that’s a bad question…”

“It’s not a bad question at all, Mom. I’m glad I quit Superwally. It’s an interesting job. I get to help people, kind of.”

“Well, that’s exciting. What’s the downside?”

Their food arrived, looking and smelling like Micky’s mac and cheese always looked and smelled, at exactly the right temperature. The SHL food had been fine, but different. Rosemary poked the edges with her fork. “It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

“Good. How long are you home for? Your father thought you were coming back for good, but I said I thought this was a visit.”

“It’ll depend, I guess. There’s an assignment I have to do here, unless it goes badly.”

Her mother cocked her head. “Well, eat and then I want to hear whatever you’re willing to tell.”

They got back to the farm in midafternoon. She took a moment as they stepped from the truck to appreciate what she had always taken for granted: home, the friendly ruckus of chickens conversing, people who loved her and didn’t expect her to do miracles.

She dropped her bags in her room, where the Superwally customer support posters still decorated half her walls, and bands the other half. Funny how she’d always thought those bands lived in a different world from hers; she’d never considered them people before. They’d existed as verse and chorus, as notes and chords, as videos or recordings, as celebrities whose clothes and breakups were the subject of gossip, but never as people who had their own opinions and personalities outside the time they spent in public. The fact that she hadn’t grown up watching them in glorious SHL quality probably contributed to her flat image of them. She lay back on her bed and imagined striking up a conversation with Iris Branches at a bar.

Her father was in the kitchen making dinner when she came out.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He didn’t turn from grating potatoes.

It took her a moment to realize he was angry. Had he ever been angry with her before? Never in a way he’d let show. “I don’t even get a hello?”

“Hello.” He still didn’t face her.

“Or an explanation of why you’re not turning around? This is a weird welcome.”

He slammed the grater onto the counter and turned to look at her. “Welcome home. I’m glad you’re back. I’m pissed off.”

“Pissed off?”

“You would be, too, if your daughter told you she was going to a training program at a protected compound, but secretly took a job requiring her to travel to places where she could be killed.”

Ah. “Okay, first, I should have explained. I’m sorry I lied, but it’s not like that. I’m here first, aren’t I? This job could take me anywhere, but I’m starting at home, because I know it’ll make you sleep easier if I can stick to towns near here. It’s a good job, and I’m lucky to have gotten it.”

If he hadn’t started down this line, she might have talked to him about her fears about the job. Instead, she was stuck defending it. “Secondly, I could be killed anywhere. A blade could fall off a windmill and kill me tomorrow. Some chicken virus might mutate and kill more than the pox did. ‘Safe’ is not a reason to stay home.”

“Statistically speaking…”

“Statistically speaking, you could have a heart attack tomorrow. Are you going to stay in bed waiting for it?”

He cocked his head. “I just don’t understand why you’d put yourself in danger. We built this farm so you’d be safe. You can live here forever without any of these jobs between state basic income and the windmills.”

“Because I’m twenty-four and my entire world for half my life has been these five rooms and this farm, and I like having a job. You got to live in the real world before you hid here. Why can’t I have a chance to do the same?”

“It’s more dangerous now, honey. You know that.”

“Is it, though? How old are your statistics? I was terrified for the first few days, even on that compound, because you made me terrified to be there. Maybe I don’t want to be terrified anymore.”

“She’s right, Dan.” Rosemary hadn’t heard her mother come into the kitchen.

“I don’t care if she’s right, Em. I’d rather she was safe.”

He turned back to the potatoes. Her mother looked at her and shrugged. “I should have warned you he was upset. Go feed the animals. I’ll talk to him.”

Her father was still sullen over dinner, but her mother must have convinced him that being mad at her was pointless.

“So tell me about your job.” It sounded like a forced line reading.

She explained the basics, putting the most positive spin on it, leaving out the cities. She wished she could tell him she understood his fears, that she’d felt them, too, but she thought she was better off taking a hard line. Talking about the job—even if it was still conceptual to her—made her feel braver and stronger. She concentrated on describing the bands she’d seen in the studio, the people she’d met, the compound itself.

“That’s a lot of responsibility. I’m impressed, honey.” At least that sounded genuine. Maybe he would come around. “So what are you back here for?”

“I’m supposed to try to find local musicians.”

He cocked his head. “In Jory? There’s nothing here.”

“That’s what I said, too, but everyone I talked to says there are hidden pockets of music everywhere. I wanted to give it a try. See what I can find.”

“Like venues? Secret garage bands? Or people making professional-quality music on their computers?”

“Any of the above. Are garage bands a real thing?”

He nodded. “They used to be. I guess if it’s ‘any of the above’ you’ll find someone. Not necessarily anyone good, but someone.”

She woke early to feed the chickens and clean their coop, the closest she was willing to come to apologizing for deceiving her parents—both the deceptions they knew about and the ones yet to come. She drove the farm truck toward town on an empty two-lane. High overhead, a hawk sketched circles in the cloudless blue, while a package drone took the more direct route at a lower altitude. She’d only witnessed a hawk attacking a drone once, years ago, but she always held her breath waiting to see it happen again.

A second bird darted low across the road, small and quick, brown with wings and tail tipped electric blue. Even though you weren’t supposed to use a Hoodie for anything other than maps while driving, she asked for a quick ID: indigo bunting, male, winter plumage. A “First of the Season!” birding badge flashed in her peripheral vision, which wasn’t an accomplishment anyone should be celebrating. Buntings never arrived before summer, and this one was here before it had even put on its breeding finery.

She drove through the license plate scanner at the north end of town, where the county road became Main, past the twelve stately houses lurking behind their security fences, houses that told of a past Jory she’d never known, ten of them now subdivided for multiple families. Then the municipal lot, where she parked the truck and continued on foot. What remained of Main Street was a long strip of vacant two-story buildings with signage nobody had bothered to remove, for types of stores she’d never seen. Ghosts: laundromat, Lucky Chinese, Carrie’s Hair, Quigley Antique Mall. She didn’t remember any of them ever having been open, though someone once graffitied KILL THE POXIES—SAVE A LIFE on the side of Quigley’s, and her mother told her to look the other way, as if she hadn’t already seen it, and it was gone the next time they returned to town.