“Why? I just don’t understand why? After all this time trying to stay alive, why?” her mother asks.
This is the hard part, because she’s not sure how to explain it. It wasn’t what her mother was obviously thinking. How can she explain an impulse, which is almost inexplicable by its very nature?
“Mom, I promise I wasn’t trying to kill myself. That’s not what I was doing?”
“Then what were you trying to do, because you came really close to doing just that.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I just saw them, grabbed them, and took them. I just didn’t want to feel how sad everyone is. I didn’t want to see any more people fall down dead. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking anything.” Charlotte stops, sees how little sense this makes to her mother, and says, “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I scared you.”
Tabitha says nothing for long moments, but Charlotte can see her thinking, trying to fit such disorganized pieces into a sensible picture. She can also see that it’s impossible. That’s not a surprise because it doesn’t make sense even to her. There is no sensible picture to be formed.
“Mom, it wasn’t a plan. I promise. I just did it. I don’t really know why.”
After a time, she either accepts that or accepts that she can’t make sense of it, because Tabitha gets up, kisses her cheek, then says, “I’ll go get the doctor now. After he sees you, you can rest. Okay?”
“Okay.”
*****
They keep her there for four days, but it isn’t so bad because Tabitha shares the room with her. Two different shrinks come, one female and one male. In the end, everyone seems to agree that it was an impulse, though a self-destructive one.
Her meds are changed, but the new ones don’t seem to work quite as well as the old ones. There’s more edge, fewer rounded and hazy corners. She’s told that it’s possible the dullness created in her emotions dampened her natural ability to resist the dark impulse that caused her to take the pills. She’ll have to try living with the new pills, which should be less intrusive.
Of course, any emotional edge creates another set of dangers. The Dying comes more easily to those who feel too much.
By the time Charlotte returns to the module with her mother, the wave of deaths that followed the official government hearings regarding the cause of The Dying have stopped, or at least mostly stopped. The news that they can find no cause, which means there is no way to stop it, was too much for many of the women.
They’d been hanging on, believing that eventually life would once again be something they could live without fear of inexplicable and sudden death. There’s no room for that belief now. Most people, including Tabitha, believe the reports weren’t made public for so long because they knew this would happen.
This notion is supported by the rapid dissemination of a new plan for a more permanent living situation for the women. Nothing so complex could have been worked out in a few weeks. They’re mistake was in not announcing that first. They might have avoided a lot of deaths if the women in the camp had been able to hold onto something positive after the medical reports were released.
Tabitha is examining all the materials they’ve been provided about the new town. She’s with Charlotte in the day room, both of them ensconced on cozy loveseats near the windows. Charlotte shifts her attention between her mother, who taps intently at the tablet, and the window, which shows her a bright and shining day.
Once in a while she scans the big room with its groups of women doing different things. The knitters, the readers, the movie watchers, the game players, the virtual reality players who have moved furniture to make room for their wild punches and kicks.
Everything is so normal, despite the losses they’ve experienced recently. It’s weird. How can they just keep going on?
Her mother’s words break the silent evaluation. “Charlie, this doesn’t look bad at all. Not at all. Have you looked at this yet?” She’s holding out the tablet. Charlotte can see an idyllic picture of a perfect house on a bright green lawn.
“Not really. What’s it going to be like?” she asks.
Instead of answering, Tabitha examines the tablet again, rapidly flicks a few times, then holds it up for Charlotte to see. “What does that remind you of?” she asks.
That’s an easy one to answer. The house isn’t like theirs at all, but it’s the same general style. What clinches it is the horse visible to the side with a young woman on its back.
“Home,” she says, then smiles when she realizes how intently Tabitha is looking at her.
Her mother smiles and says, “Yes, home. They’ll be building a lot of different kinds. It will be more like a town. Apartments downtown, suburbs of a sort, then more country residences at the edges.”
“With horses?”
“It sure looks that way to me,” Tabitha says.
“Can we bring Scoot?”
Tabitha says nothing for a moment, then gets up to squeeze onto the loveseat with her. “Honey, don’t you remember? Remember when the sheriff called?”
“No,” she says, but that’s not entirely true. She doesn’t exactly remember, but there’s a feeling of dread.
Tabitha strokes her hair and says in a gentle voice, “Scoot passed away a few months ago. Don’t you remember? He passed in his sleep and had no pain. He was very, very old.”
“Did he look into the sky?”
“No, honey, no. He just passed away like all things do. He lived a very long life and he was a happy boy. And Lumpy is still fine and living with the sheriff. He misses
