Whoever had lived here was a canner. They had a pantry filled with jars of carrots, corn, peas, green beans, homemade salsa, jelly and more. We also found cans of brown bread which Dan got absolutely giddy over. We found butter in the fridge and a bunch of food in the freezer and chest freezer on the back porch.
“We could winter here if we had to,” Dan said.
I felt a pang of anxiety at that idea. I didn’t want to stay. I wanted to push on, wanted to find Lana just up the road at the next house or the next. Surely Dan felt the same way, but he wouldn’t look me in the eyes as he opened the brown bread and sliced it for our dinner.
While we goggled at all the food, Paisley found pots and pans and began heating up some soup. Dan put the bread on a tray for the oven and I opened a jar of salsa when I found the tortilla chips on a shelf. “We’re going to have a celebration tonight, you guys,” I said. “We need to appreciate the fact that we’re still here. We’ve mourned them and we shouldn’t give up hope we’ll find Lana, Owen, Ivy, and the girls,” I looked at Dan, “but we should be grateful we’re alive.”
Paisley and Dan both nodded and when our food was cooked, we took it to the living room and ate it by the fire, toasting each other with the wine Dan had found in the back of the fridge. It was terrible wine, but it was great wine too.
Isaac slunk downstairs after a while and got some food. He stood near the doorway like a feral dog wary about the people in his territory. After shoveling down some soup, he said, “There’s hot water for showers.”
Paisley’s eyes grew wide and she shouted, “Call it!” then ditched us all to head upstairs. Isaac didn’t even turn to watch her go, just stared off into the distance, soup bowl held close to his face.
I poured the last of the wine in a glass and held it out to him.
“What’s that for?”
“To celebrate another day of survival.”
He didn’t move to take it, so I placed it on the coffee table.
“It’s okay to be happy you survived, even if your brother didn’t. He wouldn’t want you to kill yourself because he’s dead.” The words slipped out before I could stop them and I waited for him to blow up, but he didn’t. He just nodded his head slowly.
“I know. I just can’t stop seeing him laying there with his throat ripped out. Human teeth did that. I just can’t stop seeing it. I can’t stop thinking if I’d gone with him he’d be okay. If I’d gone after him faster, he might have lived. I keep thinking about how scared he was, how it must have hurt, and I can’t … I can’t think of anything else.”
Trauma had a way of enhancing worry until it was the only thing you could see. The kids I worked with often obsessively worried over things, their brains playing out the traumas in their heads incessantly, making it hard for them to sleep, eat, live life without thinking about what hurt them.
“I can’t fix it, but I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.” I paused, debating whether I should stop there or keep going, then decided what the hell. “A lady I knew once, long ago, told me she managed to help minimize her obsessive worrying without really understanding what it was she was doing. The obsessive worrying and thinking about things manifested as spinning in her dreams. I know, it’s weird, but hear me out,” I said. I’d thought she was a little nut balls myself until a couple of my kids tried it too, and it worked. “She hated that she would spin in her dreams. There she was, enjoying herself and then bam, she was spinning. Pissed her off. Now, she was into meditation, okay? Those self-hypnosis tapes too. So she spent a lot of time imagining stuff. Working with her thoughts. Maybe that helped, I don’t know. Anyway, she got so tired of her dreams being ruined by the spinning, that she would practice spinning and then stopping herself from spinning. It took a lot of work, she said, because it was hard to stop herself once she got started. Sound familiar? Anyway, when she figured out how to stop herself, how to change direction, how to be in control of what happened, the obsessive worrying also got better.” I spread my hands, feeling a little dumb for sharing the story. I’d never had a ton of anxiety issues, but my friend swore by this technique and a few of my kids did too. “What you’re going through? Those constant intrusive thoughts of your brother, well, that’s your brain’s version of her spinning. You have to figure out how to change the story.”
He looked thoughtful rather than annoyed I’d said something, and I was glad. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I saw Lana’s body, Lana’s throat ripped out … “I could picture us rebuilding my Mustang,” he said slowly. “We worked on it together out in our dad’s garage. Best …” He had to swallow the tears back, then continued, “best time of my life.”
“It sounds wonderful.” I fought with myself for a moment, then decided I’d already started, might as well finish. “I don’t want you to kill yourself. And running into buildings without backup or going out into the streets all angry with a machete isn’t going to change what happened. It’ll only get you dead.”
“I thought it would help. I thought if I killed enough of them the visions of him dying would stop.”
I stood. “Can I hug you? Do you need a hug? Because—” I didn’t even finish before he crossed the room to me and wrapped his skinny arms tight around me. The sobbing came next, the
