eavesdropping. “Could Dad and Lisa have stayed?” I asked instead. “Not necessarily in Tulsa. But in a city somewhere? Could Dad have gotten work?”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “Maybe not. It’s all physical labor. But the only thing that mattered to him, besides Lisa and the baby, was getting home to you. He talked so much about you, I felt like I knew you before we ever met. You were on your swim team, and before that you used to figure skate, and you played Glinda the Good in your fourth grade play.”
“He told you all that?” I asked.
“And more,” Alex said. “About all of you.”
I thought about Dad, about how I’d even for a moment thought he could love anyone like he loves us, and I felt happy and guilty at the same time. But mostly I felt grateful to Alex, even though there was no way he could know how much his comment meant to me.
“Can I ask you a question now?” he said.
“Absolutely,” I said. LLBA was asking me a question.
“The bruises on your face,” he said. “When we got here a week ago, they were pretty bad. How did you get them?”
It’s nice to know the first thing he’d noticed about me was my ravishing collection of black-and-blue marks. “I took a header off my bike,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Julie and I had a bet going.”
“Who won?” I asked, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.
“We both lost,” Alex said. “Her money was on you and Syl having a fight. Mine was on Matt slugging you one.”
“Matt’s never hit me,” I said. “We weren’t brought up like that, like animals.”
“Neither were we,” Alex said. “You don’t have to be an animal to hit your sister.”
“Not in my household,” I said, sounding exactly like Mom.
“Fine,” Alex said, sounding exactly like me.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, except for when I told him to make a turn. But it was hard for me to stay sulky when I was so excited about all the food we were bringing back in our very own van with its very own containers of gas.
Mom and Lisa stayed inside, trying to find places for all the cartons, while the rest of us carried in the food. The excitement was contagious. Charlie sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” and Julie danced around, and Matt and Syl grabbed each other, and Dad cried with joy.
And I discovered that Alex knows how to smile.
You’d think with a houseful of food for the first time in a year, we’d be eating nonstop. Oh no. Not us.
First off, Matt pointed out that what seems like an enormous amount of food now is going to vanish in the blink of an eye with ten people eating it. Okay, he didn’t say “in the blink of an eye.” He said that if we each ate four ounces of rice a day, we’d finish the four twenty-pound bags in a month.
Four ounces of rice sounds like a lot of rice to me. And there’s all that other food we brought back, plus the food we get each week, plus whatever shad is still in the garage. But Mom agreed with Matt that we’d have to be very careful to stretch out our supplies for a long time.
Then Charlie—Mr. Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’— pointed out that some of the food might have spoiled, and it would be a disaster if we came down with food poisoning at the same time.
He suggested we become food buddies (that was his exact term, “food buddies”), and every morning two of us could take a nibble from one kind of food and two of us from another, etc., and then if we didn’t get sick, we could all eat the food we’d started that morning.
Matt and Syl said they’d be food buddies, and Jon volunteered himself and Julie, which left Alex and me. Dad and Charlie said they’d food-buddy, also, and we agreed Mom and Lisa shouldn’t risk it.
This morning Alex and I each had a bite of canned mushrooms, and Jon and Julie had a bite of beef jerky, and Matt and Syl had a bite of canned carrots, and Dad and Charlie had a sip of vegetable soup.
We’re all still alive.
And none of us have yet eaten our four ounces of rice.
My food buddy and I ate a bite of spinach this morning. I don’t like spinach and I’m not at all sure I like Alex.
It’s Sunday, so after breakfast Alex and Julie went off to the dining room and prayed there while Dad, Lisa, Charlie, Syl, and Matt prayed in the sunroom.
Jon looked conflicted about which group to join but ended up in the dining room with Alex and Julie. I guess he figured since he sleeps in the dining room, it was okay to be there.
I’m not feeling real religious these days and Mom never has, so we chose to organize our fabulous food supply, one cabinet for food that hasn’t killed us and another for food we’re going to try next and another for food we get from town. We also separated all the food with expiration dates from over a year ago. We didn’t throw it out, because who knows how desperate we might get when we run out of rice, but we tucked it away where it wouldn’t tempt us.
All this while Charlie and Lisa and Syl and Dad sang hymns. Matt kind of hummed along.
Eventually Gabriel decided to blow his horn, which broke up the sunroom revival meeting. The dining room Catholics (and potential convert) lasted a little longer.
While Mom and I flattened the cartons, we gave thanks, in our own way, for the merciful bounty that’s come our way.
Chapter 11
Jon and Julie biked into town to get our Monday food. Julie offered to drive the van, and Mom nearly had a fit.
When they got back, they were loaded with a dozen bags of food.
“One bag for each of us,” Julie said. “Including Gabriel. And an extra bag for Lisa.”
There was less in each bag than we used to get, but it was still very nice of them to include extra for Lisa and to throw in a bag for Gabriel. With all the food in the house and none of it poisoning us so far, the food from town is pretty much a supplement.
Amazing. Enough food for all of us.
“I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Mom said. “But let’s have a feast tonight.”
“Like a party?” Julie asked.
“Exactly like a party,” Mom said. “Lisa, is it all right with you if we have a party in the sunroom?”
“It’s a wonderful idea,” Lisa said. “Why don’t we move our mattresses into the dining room and spread blankets out, like a picnic.”
“Miranda, go tell the guys they need to come in early tonight,” Mom said. “Alex, too, of course. Julie, you go upstairs and tell Syl.”
“A party,” Dad said when I told him. “Great idea. We have a lot to celebrate. Matt’s marriage, and our homecoming, and the food, and our move to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.”
Matt didn’t look all that excited, and Alex looked uncomfortable, but Dad didn’t notice. Dad always liked parties.
Charlie, Syl, and I lugged Dad and Lisa’s mattresses into the dining room. Lisa took Gabriel into the kitchen with her while I gave the sunroom floor a good mopping. Julie and Charlie went to Mrs. Nesbitt’s to get her silverware and glasses. We’ve been eating in shifts, so we never needed service for ten.
Since we’ve gone three days without food poisoning, we had a lot of opened cans to eat from. Plus rice and shad.
The electricity cooperated by staying on almost all evening, so in addition to cooking on the woodstove, we
