The Shade of the Moon (15 page)

“I told her I was sorry,” Jon said. “I’d been having a bad dream, and then Gabe waking
me up like that, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was nightmare.”

“You’d better learn the difference,” Lisa said. “I have enough problems around here
without Carrie reporting you for battery.”

“I was going to slap her,” Jon said. “That’s not battery.”

“Carrie said you looked out of control,” Lisa said. “Oh, Jon, I don’t even know why
we’re arguing about this. I have a headache, and I’m going to bed. When Alex calls,
tell him I couldn’t get the pass, but I called the hospital this afternoon and they
said Miranda is doing fine. He and Laura shouldn’t worry. Miranda’s getting excellent
care, and it’s much better for her to be in the hospital than working ten-hour days
in the greenhouses. Oh, and Jon, you visit Miranda next, and keep it to yourself that
she’s family. Just say I asked you to check up on her because she’s my domestic and
I’m too busy to go.”

Jon knew he wasn’t going to visit Miranda, but he also knew not to argue. He’d go
to the hospital and ask how she was doing, without actually seeing her. That should
be enough to shut everybody up.

“Good night, Lisa,” he said. “Feel better.”

Lisa paused before going upstairs. “You’re a good boy, Jon,” she said. “Sometimes
I think you lose sight of that fact. Give my love to Alex. Tell him things will seem
better in the morning.”

Saturday, June 27

“I’m here to see how Miranda Morales is doing,” Jon said. “My stepmother asked me
to. Miranda’s one of her domestics.”

“She’ll be in the grubber wing, then,” the nurse said. “Walk down the hallway to the
left, and take the stairs up.”

“Thank you,” Jon said. He found the door to the stairway, climbed the two flights,
and saw an immediate difference once he opened the door to the third floor. The floors
were filthy, wastepaper baskets full, and only half the lights were on.

Jon knew Sexton prided itself on having a grubber’s wing in the hospital, but it was
clear the people who bragged about it had never actually seen it. He peeked into the
various rooms. Almost all were empty, but in the handful of rooms that were occupied,
there were six beds where four were meant to be.

“We don’t encourage slackers,” the only nurse on the floor said. “Make things too
comfortable for grubs, they’ll never go back to work.”

Jon nodded. “I can see that might be a problem,” he said. “I’m here to check up on
Miranda Morales.”

“Why?” the nurse asked.

“She’s our domestic,” Jon said. “My stepmother wants to see how she’s doing.”

“Tell your stepmother she’s doing fine,” the nurse said. “The baby’s due in about
three weeks. The grub should be back at work a day or so later.”

“Do they usually recover that fast?” Jon asked.

“Grubs recover when we tell them they’ve recovered,” the nurse said. “Everyone is
making a big fuss over her because she’s the only girl in here due to have a baby.
No clavers, no grubs. Just her. She’s going to be spoiled rotten by the time that
baby comes, and your stepmother is going to have a lot of work ahead, whipping her
into shape. I’m glad it’s not my problem. You tell your stepmother that, and let me
get back to work, all right?”

“All right,” Jon said. “Thank you.”

“It’s my job,” the nurse said. “A lousy one, but a job.”

Sunday, June 28

It was a five-hour drive to Hilton, Tennessee, and by the time the bus got there,
not even Coach seemed all that interested in the match.

Jon played the first half and scored three times. Sexton ended up winning 7–2, but
there were no tirades on the drive back because of the low score. Instead all of them—Coach,
the team, and the guards—got drunk on potka. Endless speeches were made about the
complete and utter destruction the White Birch grubs were going to face on the Fourth
of July.

“We’ll leave them drowning in their own blood!” Tyler shouted, and everyone laughed
and cheered, Jon included.

Better that way than drugged and smothered, he thought. At least the grubs would have
a chance. That’s more than Miranda had offered Julie.

Monday, June 29

“Hey, Evans,” Ryan said in the locker room after practice. “Looking forward to Saturday?”

“Sure,” Jon replied. “We’ll slaughter the grubs. Make them beg for mercy.”

Tyler laughed. “It’s the grubber girls that’ll be begging.”

“Show them no mercy,” Zachary said.

“The plan is to stay in White Birch after the match,” Ryan said. “Right, Tyler?”

“Right,” Tyler said. “Make the eighteenth look like a picnic. You with us, Evans?”

Jon knew there was only one way he could answer. “Can’t wait,” he said.

Tyler walked over to him and slapped him on the back. “That’s a good slip,” he said.
“Now let’s get out of here before Coach makes us run more laps.”

Tuesday, June 30

The sound of a knock on the door startled all of them. Jon got up from the dinner
table, walked to the hallway, and opened the door. There stood Sarah.
Sarah?

“What are you doing here?” he whispered.

“I have to talk to you,” she said.

Jon checked. There was no one standing outside. “It’s not a good idea,” he said.

“I’m sick and tired of your good ideas,” she replied. “We’re going to get things straightened
out once and for all.”

“Who is it?” Lisa called.

“It’s Sarah,” he replied.

“Invite her in,” Val said. “There’s plenty of food.”

“Some other time,” Sarah said. “Thank you anyway.” She gestured to Jon. “Come on,”
she said.

Jon followed Sarah to the garage. There was a cot there now, one Lisa had found in
the attic and had had Val carry in.

Sarah noticed it right away. “This is new,” she said, sitting down on it.

“Lisa’s getting a new domestic,” Jon said. “She’ll sleep in here.”

“Cozy,” Sarah said. “Oh, Jon, stop looking like that. You can sit down. I won’t bite.”

Jon made sure to sit at the other end of the cot.

“Your mother came to the clinic on Sunday,” Sarah said. “She told us about Miranda,
and asked Daddy if he could check up on her. Last night Daddy decided he’d ask for
Alex to drive him to the hospital. He’ll see if he can slip Alex in to see Miranda
while he’s there.”

“Is that why you came here?” Jon asked. “To tell me that?”

“No,” Sarah said. “I wanted you to know, but that’s not why I’m here.” She took a
deep breath. “I like Luke, but he can’t keep a secret. He told me all about you and
Tyler, how you feel like you have to protect me. I wanted to slug him. No, I wanted
to slug you and then him.”

“Tyler isn’t a joke, Sarah,” Jon said. “He could hurt you.”

“Tyler is an idiot,” Sarah replied. “Which I’d think you’d know by now. Anyway, I
explained to Mr. Can’t Keep A Secret that my uncle is a United States senator and
anyone who even breathes on me the wrong way is mine meat.”

“Mine meat?” Jon said.

“That’s what we called them in my old enclave,” she said. “I’m sure Luke ran off to
tell Tyler right away.”

“I’m glad for you,” Jon said. “I’m glad there’s someone to protect you.”

“There’s something else,” she said. “Jon, I’ve thought about you and Julie, what you
told me, what you didn’t tell me. I asked you outright if you’d raped her, but you
didn’t admit it. You didn’t say anything. You wanted me to ask, didn’t you? You wanted
me to hate you so Tyler couldn’t hurt me. Well, he can’t, so you can tell me the truth.
You didn’t rape her, did you?”

Jon shook his head. “She thought I would,” he said. “She ran into the tornado to escape.
For a long time I felt like I’d killed her.” He thought briefly of telling Sarah the
truth, that Miranda had murdered Julie, but Sarah spoke before he’d decided what to
say.

“I know what you feel like,” she said. “I feel like I killed my mother.”

“I don’t understand,” Jon said.

“My mother had kidney disease,” Sarah said. “They tested my sister first, but she
wasn’t a match. Then they tested me and I was. Mother was on dialysis and that kept
her going, but the sooner she had the transplant the better. Mother and I weren’t
close, not like she was with Abby. When Abby found out she wasn’t a match, she cried.
When I found out I was, I cried, too.”

“How old were you?” Jon asked.

“Thirteen,” Sarah replied. “You can’t just walk in and donate a kidney when you’re
that young. It has to be approved. So they interviewed me away from my parents and
asked if I was okay with it, and I burst into tears and said I didn’t want to do it
and I felt like I was being forced to.”

“You were being honest,” Jon said.

“At the cost of my mother’s life,” Sarah said. “They told my parents I was too young
and Mother would have to stay on dialysis until another donor could be found. Five
weeks later Abby died. My parents were devastated. I thought I could make things better
by agreeing to the surgery, but by then they’d stopped transplants. Nobody was manufacturing
the drugs you need to keep your body from rejecting the organs, so everyone who ever
had a transplant died. There were a lot of deaths you didn’t hear about, like the
diabetics who couldn’t get insulin and the people with cancer whose chemo was stopped.”

“But your mother only died a few months ago,” Jon said.

“My uncle pulled strings and got us selected for an enclave where she could get dialysis,”
Sarah replied. “Things were okay until they decided to close all the dialysis units.
The people on dialysis weren’t doing enough to justify the resources. It took Mother
thirteen days to die. Daddy didn’t leave her side the entire time, when he should
have been working. The enclave board didn’t like that, so they held a hearing and
decided to expel him. My uncle got Daddy the job here.”

“Even if you’d agreed to the transplant, your mother would have died,” Jon said. “She
might have died sooner.”

“I know,” she replied. “The way you know things in your head but not in your heart.
I kept thinking Mother would have been the only person who never needed drugs. Or
they might have kept making the drugs, or we would have found a supply big enough
to last until they started making them again. And Abby was so angry with me for not
agreeing. We hardly spoke the month before she died. I hold that in my heart, also.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jon persisted.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah declared. “In my heart I’m always going to feel guilty.
Just the way you do about Julie. I don’t think there’s anyone else in this world who
could understand how I feel.”

He could never tell her the truth. He could never say it was Miranda who killed Julie,
who kept her from the kind of miracle Sarah dreamed of for her mother. She’d take
it as a rejection, as his way of saying he was better than she was. She needed him
to be guilty. It didn’t matter if it was a lie.

“I love you,” he said, because that was a truth she could accept.

“Hold me, Jon,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to be alone anymore.”

Wednesday, July 1

“Daddy’s arranged for Alex to drive him to White Birch today,” Sarah told Jon as they
walked to the bus. “They’re going to stop at the hospital first so Daddy can check
up on Miranda. He’ll try to get Alex in to see her.”

“That’s nice of him,” Jon said.

“Daddy likes your family,” Sarah replied. “So do I.”

“Are you coming to the match on Saturday?” Jon asked. “See me slaughter those White
Birch grubs?”

“You make it sound so appealing,” she replied. “But I’ll be at the clinic all day.”

“The clinic’s closed on Saturdays,” Jon said. “Besides, it’s July Fourth.”

“That’s why we’re staying open,” Sarah said. “Laborers will have the day off. It’ll
give them a chance to come in. We’re staying open until the last one leaves, and then
we’ll get a driver to take us home. What’ll you be doing after the match?”

“Staying in White Birch to celebrate,” Jon said. “We’ll get home somehow.”

“Will you burn any more schools down?” she asked.

Jon stood still. “You know about that?” he asked.

“It’s true?” Sarah asked. “I thought maybe Tyler made it up.”

“Tyler told you?” Jon asked. He grabbed Sarah by the shoulders. “When? What did he
say?”

“Let me go,” Sarah said.

Jon released her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need to know what happened.”

“It was after lunch yesterday,” Sarah said. “Tyler saw you eating with Luke and me.
Then you left for practice. Tyler came up to me when I was waiting for the driver
to take me to White Birch. Tyler said he had a problem, a moral issue, and he wanted
to talk to me about it. I said that seemed weird since he hates me, and he said that
was why he was asking me. He couldn’t count on his friends to give him an honest answer.”

“What was the problem?” Jon asked.

“He said he was with some of his friends that night, and they saw you with a bunch
of other guys running into the high school,” Sarah replied. “The next thing they saw,
the school was on fire and you were all running away. He’s been trying ever since
to decide whether he should tell the authorities. His friends said no, but it’s been
bothering him.”

“And you believed him?” Jon demanded.

“I didn’t know what to believe,” Sarah said. “I thought about asking Luke, but I couldn’t
trust him to keep his mouth shut. Tyler said the guys you were with looked like grubs.
But you don’t know any grubs, do you, Jon? Except for your family, I mean.”

“They weren’t grubs,” Jon said. If he told Sarah the truth, she’d confront Tyler or
go to the authorities. Either way, his family would be the ones to suffer. “They were
clavers, guys from college probably. We were drunk. We didn’t swap names and addresses.”

“Was it their idea?” Sarah asked.

Jon wanted to say yes, he hadn’t known what they were going to do until it was too
late. But there were only so many lies he felt like telling. “One of them had matches,”
he said instead. “We thought it was a great idea. I thought it was a great idea.”