You need to know that too. I am not and have not given up. No way. These recordings are the break-in-the-event-of-emergency glass, just in case I become a zombie.
Doesn’t that sound better than saying “just in case infection blooms and I die a horrible, painful death”?
I am sorry to do this to you. Maybe this is selfish of me. See, I’m a typical only child. You have my permission to fast-forward past any of this if you want to.
Yes, I realize odds are you are an only child. Maybe I am a dick.
You’ll be my only child no matter who you live with. But I think I can confidently say that you won’t be spoiled. I mean, how can you be, knowing that your dad and I are gone? I’m sorry you’ll never meet him. He would’ve been great at dadding.
Hey. Took a moment to regroup. And we passed through the same rotary checkpoints we were at, like, an hour ago. The police were confused by our new ride and Auntie Rams threatened to run them over if they didn’t let us pass.
I’m joking. Ha-ha, right? My jokes are usually better and I’m way more fun when we’re not navigating the zombie apocalypse—that was for you, Rams.
“Thank you. Please stop saying ‘zombie.’”
Za-om-bay, Za-om-bay, Za-om-bay-ey-ey-ey!
You’re kicking me like crazy right now. You do that when I sing. Or when I try to sing.
What else? I’m trying to think of stuff that no one else will tell you about me. I’m five-eight and I was that height in fifth grade. That wasn’t fun. I wonder if you’ll be tall or short. Sorry if you’re either and, um, you’d rather the other? Middle school was worse than fifth grade, but middle school is worse for everyone. I had a dog named Pete when I was a kid. He was a sweet, slobbery goof, as big and soft as a beanbag chair. My first job was scooping ice cream at a dairy farm. I love driving with the windows down, even when it’s cold out. I hate flying. To distract myself during takeoff I make up names and stories for the people around me. It’s weird but I remember a few of those random strangers because the stories got so big. Not big like action-movie big, but big in the . . . I don’t know, human way; the people they knew and loved, and the secrets they had to keep. I miss music being as important to me as it was when I was in high school and college. And I do and I don’t miss everything being as important to me as it was when I was in high school and college. I’m a terrible dancer but I loved dragging Rams to Stupid Dance Party on Thursday nights when we were sophomores. Rams had moves. The best night was when my Chuck Taylors exploded and the toes on my right foot were sticking out. Someone had a Sharpie and I got as many people as I could to draw on the sneaker and my toes. I would rather eat cookies than cake, or pies. I don’t really like pies. I wish I could draw better than I can. I read for at least twenty minutes before bed each night. If I fall asleep with the book on my face (which happens a lot), I’ll read two pages when I wake up to make sure I meet the reading goal. I’m agnostic but I have this fantasy of me as a cute old lady going to all different kinds of churches, mosques, temples just to hear people talk. If you couldn’t tell I like to talk and to listen to others talk. I don’t believe in ghosts but I’m afraid of them, or the implications of them. Maybe I’m more afraid of being wrong about ghosts. I initially kind of hated the house Paul and I bought. It was expensive and I was freaking out and it was too quiet and I just wanted to stay in Providence and live in an apartment. Neither one of us was very handy, and we knew nothing about home improvement and upkeep that didn’t come from a YouTube video. There was one fall weekend we pried the hideous wooden paneling from the porch walls and put up clapboard all by ourselves. I was so proud of us and it was our house after that. I never told Paul or anyone else that. So that belongs to you now. And Rams, too, since she’s eavesdropping.
We’re almost to Cobb’s Corner. That means we’re really close to our house now, and getting closer.
I—I’m going to stop now, I think. We’ll talk again later. I promise. If I break the promise, please know I didn’t mean to. It sucks, but promises get broken all the time. Promises are like wishes. Yeah. They’re great as long as you know they won’t always help and won’t always come true.
“Now you are Bummer Rabies Yoda. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. You can edit that part out, correct?”
I told you Auntie Rams is the best.
I love you. Sassafras and lullabies.
Rams
The first half of the trip toward Ames retraces their earlier drive, including passing over I-95, which is as still as a stagnant river. Ramola experiences a dissociative feeling of going backward—not quite déjà vu, but a sense of rewinding, of going nowhere. Listening to Natalie dictate her hey-in-the-event-I-die messages to her unborn child—a child with no guarantees of their own health or survival—isn’t helping. She worries they are moving further away—both in terms of time and distance—from getting Natalie the help she needs.
They approach River Bend, Ramola’s townhouse complex. Her bay window is a dark rectangle. The parking lot has the same number of cars as it did when they left. She wonders how the Piacenzas and Danielses are faring. Is Frank’s cat inside his house or will she see it, haunches slouched, drunkenly stumbling in the middle of the
