For the next hour, people arrive with boxes filled with clothes, toys, and beauty stuff I don’t know how to use. There’s even a cage bed for Future to sleep in at night.
We stick the boxes in a front room that Anders has no use for. Actually, I think most of this house is unnecessary.
“I don’t know what to do with all this,” I tell Topanga as the doorbell rings again.
“We’ll organize everything by groups and figure out what you want. Whatever you don’t need, I’ll donate.”
I stand next to Topanga, overwhelmed by the constant doorbell ringing and all the boxes. I don’t understand what a lot of the stuff is used for, and I wish the house was quiet. Anders should come home, and we can watch the Indiana Jones movie. Then we can sleep. Too much is happening far too fast.
Mama finally picks up Future and takes Dove’s hand. She gestures for me to follow her into Anders’s bedroom, where she shuts all the doors. We crouch in the large closet with all his giant clothes.
“I think these people will be the end of us,” Mama says, wincing at the pain from her eye.
Despite my fatigue, I ask, “Don’t you like it here?”
“Anders is your grand sequoia, and he kept us from starving. Those are good things, but you are no miracle worker, Pixie.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do,” Mama says, frowning until she remembers her bruised eye. “The man is broken inside. He expects you to fix him. How can you do that?”
“I’ll give him love like you give me.”
“It’s not enough. He lives in this big house. I heard those women say how the house is just like his leader’s house. Anders isn’t a man. He’s a shell. Someone broke him long ago. He’s lost, but you can’t be his anchor.”
“I can try,” I insist, refusing to give up on him. “Anders is sweet to me. He’s so big and strong. I know his heart was broken, and he says no one ever loved him. But he poops normal. That’s better than John Marks.”
“Pixie.”
“Mama.”
Sighing at how I’m no longer a child quick to obey her, she explains, “Weakness is a disease that eats up the good in people. I don’t want you to be scared and fragile. But I can’t support you taking on a man like Anders. I see his sad eyes, and I know he cares for you. But he’s filled with darkness. Though I hope he finds peace.”
“But?”
“But if he loses control of his huge body one time and lashes out, you might not survive. He’s like a demon gun. It only needs one shot to take a life.”
Nearby, Dove begins to cry. I assume she’s remembering Papa, but she looks at our mother and whimpers, “You’re going to make him hate us. Then we’ll have to go back.”
“The Village is our home,” Mama says, reaching for my sister’s hand. “Not a great home, but a good one until John Marks.”
“There’s not enough sun,” Dove whimpers.
Future stops looking at his three blocks, sees Dove is crying, and decides he should too.
“This is why I was whispering,” Mama scolds me as she cradles the boy in her arms.
I crawl over to Dove, hugging her against me. “Your whispers are too loud.”
Mama rolls her eyes, but she knows her voice echoes.
“I’ll be careful with Anders,” I say while caressing Dove’s face. “He needs a family, and we can be happy with him.”
“He wants you, Pixie. Not us. And how can we live in this place? Will I go to the supermarket and fill a cart full of trash? Then have my children eat it, so you’re full of garbage?”
“Why can’t you buy good food and feed that to us? Don’t they have fruits and vegetables at the supermarket?”
Mama frowns at me. I know she’s making a point about how this world corrupts. At the Dandelion Collective, we never fought with our fists. No one starved. Anger was dealt with in other ways. People shared.
Our life is different now. I’ve killed a man. We’re in a community with beautiful houses filled with guns. The men here take lives. They keep the Village from eating.
The outside world has already corrupted us. She’s right about that. Papa wouldn’t want us living in this house. But he never would have liked the Village either. The dour faces, the mismanagement, the favoritism—Papa would rebel.
But he’s gone on to his next story. We’re left behind. Mama knew we couldn’t survive in the outside world, so she agreed to come to the Village. We tried to be happy there, but it was never easy.
“I miss the Dandelion Collective,” I say, reaching for Mama’s hand. “Life on the commune was best, but the government stole it from us. We tried the Village, but John Marks stole that. Now, we should try this community. There might be bad parts just like at the Village. But, at least, there’s food, and Dove can sit in the sun, and Future has the energy to smile.”
My words burn Mama’s soul. Her life was so good at the old commune. She and Papa were deeply in love. The people in the commune were our family. Everyone had known each other for generations. I only have good memories of my life there.
I understand how much Mama misses Papa and what we lost. There was never any time for her to grieve. She had to keep fighting—the government, the people at the apartment complex where we lived for a few short weeks, the elders at the Village. Yet her children suffered, and her face is bruised, and her helpmate is missing. Mama feels as if she’s failed, and my words rub salt in her wounds.
“We should try to live here,” I say, stroking her bruised knuckles. “At least until John Marks makes the biker men too angry and they kill him.”
Mama looks at a wet-eyed but quiet Future. He shows her his block with the letter “B”
