S. Bodeen - The Compound

Despite being a devoted fan of Bob Dylan and similar musicians, Dad had stocked the CD collection with every genre, including music more off the mainstream. Grunge bands, punk, alternative, indie rock.

He’d actually been selecting it for me, since the media library was so big and I didn’t know what to look for half the time. When he managed to find some bands I liked, I had to transfer them to my player. No problem. I was made of time.

My mom came into the gym as I hit mile three. She raised her eyebrows. “If I can hear your music, it’s too loud.”

The music was too loud to hear her, but she’d said that so many times I could read her lips. The volume went down.

Naturally her balance was a bit awkward. She clambered onto the recumbent bike. Her long hair was in a ponytail and she wore an oversize YK T-shirt and black velour bottoms, the waist folded in order to accommodate her huge, pregnant belly.

She started pedaling, and then smiled at me. “I’m feeling cumbersome.”

I didn’t answer. My mom and I never really talked. To clarify, she talked to me all the time. I usually just grunted and nodded my head.

The only sounds besides the music were the whine of the treadmill and the whir of the bike.

“Today I’m craving peanut butter and banana sandwiches. On white bread even, if you can believe that.”

I didn’t feel like talking about her cravings. I had plenty of my own.

Mom pushed some stray hair out of her eyes. “Eli, you should visit them one day.”

I lost my footing and had to grab on to the rail to keep from falling off the treadmill. Did she say that just to get me to talk? It worked, because once I had found my rhythm again, I responded. “How can you say that? You know what they are.”

Mom fiddled with the control buttons. They beeped along with her words. “I know what your father thinks they are.”

She’d never broached the subject of the Supplements with me before, even though it was always there, hanging over our heads. She probably thought it wasn’t worth it, me being the cold loner that I was. Why would I give a crap about them? But maybe her catching me in Eddy’s room changed things. She’d figured out, despite my trying not to show it, that I did have feelings.

What the hell, the cards were on the table. It was the time to ask what I’d always wondered, but never had the guts to talk about. “Why did you do it? Agree to it?”

Mom stretched her arms, then folded them behind her head and leaned back, still pedaling. “It didn’t start out to be… Your father said we might be the only ones left. Or some of the few left. And we owed it to the world to give it the biggest population we could.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you bought that story?”

Her eyes narrowed. “He wouldn’t do it unless I agreed entirely. And I understood.” She set a hand on her bump. “Obviously I was the key.”

That much was clear. “But why? I mean, the situation changed once the food supply… was compromised. It was no longer about rebuilding the planet, was it? You knew what he wanted to do.”

Her shoulders went up and down once. “I love you and your sisters so much. Your father knew that; I’d do anything for you. After losing Eddy, your gram… I was just in a daze. It seemed like I was doing the right thing, saving the children I had left, securing your future. Something Eddy didn’t have anymore. Now, seeing them every day—”

“Supplements, Mom. That’s what they are. That’s all they are.” I picked the bottle out of the holder and took a cold drink.

She sighed, and her tone softened. “No, Eli. That’s not all they are.”

I turned up my music. With one motion, I undid my ponytail and let my hair drift over my face. I had nothing more to say to her.

Mom finished and took her time standing. She leaned toward me, her hands reaching on either side of my head.

I tried to move away as she grabbed the headphones out of my ears. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Eli.” She backed off, her eyes looking down.

I wanted to spit the words out. “Like what?”

She tried to find my eyes behind the curtain of hair. “I’m not sure, because there are things I don’t know, either.” She took a brief glimpse around before lowering her voice. “Your father has always kept things from me, even before we came in here. Lately I feel it even more. He’s got secrets, Eli.”

Her voice changed, lost its gentle tone. “And if those secrets affect you or your sisters or… the others?” With one sweep of her hand, she wiped the sweat off her forehead. “He may be my husband, but I don’t trust him. Not anymore.”

“Why not?” I’d never had this kind of conversation with my mom. It felt strange, having her open up so much. But I wanted to know.

“The other day I was in the bedroom. My feet smell bad when I’m pregnant, did I ever tell you that?”

I shook my head. Of course she’d never told me that. We hadn’t had a talk this long for the last six years. I slowed the treadmill down so I was walking.

“Only when I’m pregnant. It’s odd. So I got a bottle of talcum powder to sprinkle in my tennies, before I came to work out. But I’m so clumsy now, and I tripped on the carpet and dropped the bottle. The powder went all over the rug, everywhere. I pulled out the hose from the central vacuum to clean it up, but my hands were slippery, because I’d just put on some lotion. The hose snapped out of my hands and hit the headboard, knocking down the painting.”

“The Monet.”

She smiled at me. “You remember.” I nodded.

“I always knew it was merely a reproduction. How could it be anything else? We were camping, right? So far from home. There was no time to bring the original. But when I lifted the painting to hang it back up, I looked at it closely for the first time.”

Her smiled faded. “Do you remember the Monet?”

I nodded. The painting was of a woman wearing a white dress, viewed from behind, and her shoulders were bare, her hair piled on top of her head. The woman could have been my mother.

“Your father gave it to me the day you and Eddy were born. Could you imagine how it felt? To come from where I did, and then be given a painting worth millions, such a beautiful piece, to have for my very own? I looked at it every day for nearly nine years.” Mom’s eyes misted a bit with the memory.

“Once we came here, I never so much as glanced at the one on my bedroom wall. I didn’t want to see a reproduction, because everything in the Compound was that; the air and the light and even our daily life. They were all just reproductions of the real thing. But when I picked the Monet up to hang it on the wall, I did look at it. For the first time, I really looked.”

She paused, resting one hand on her belly as the other still held my headphones.

“The Monet is real. The Monet hanging on the wall of my bedroom in this godforsaken Compound, three stories underground, is the real thing. How do you explain that, Eli? How do you explain that?” Her eyebrows went up.

My mouth dropped. Was she waiting for me to give her an answer? Because I only had questions. “What? How can that be?”

“If your father had time to switch the paintings, it would mean he knew, somehow, he’d been warned of the attack. And if that’s true, why wouldn’t he have told everyone? Why wouldn’t we have come here earlier with your brother and my mother?”

“Did you ask Dad?”

She shook her head. “I have to wait for the right time. And I don’t think that’s now.” Her hand reached out with my headphones. “And he’s wrong, dead wrong, if he thinks I will let him go through with any plan involving… involving anything so horrendous.”

She handed me the headphones. I watched her leave. The treadmill beeped as the incline moved upward, starting a long ascent. I realized it was a mistake to assume gentleness was akin with weakness.