“We’re leaving, Terra.”

I brace my hands against the countertop as my knees buckle.

It is only for the briefest moment, and I could easily blame the collapse on dehydration, exhaustion, or the fact that I have barely eaten these last four days…

But I know better.

And so does Nora. She’s noticed- how could she not? She’s known me my entire life, was there the day I was born, my body is almost her body- the twin to my mother with a handful of random additions from my father who never was.

So she knew what her news would do to me-what it does to me now- that I will fall apart and try to hide it.

Just as I know that the pressure of carrying such news will make her lose confidence, lose control, and she will pull the sympathy and attention to herself.

Immediately, before I can pull myself together, there is the clatter of Nora’s hard porcelain coffee mug as it hits the table, then the crash of it smashing to the floor.

I spin and bend down in one movement, a faded yellow dishcloth in my hand, and begin wiping up the mess of watered-down coffee already spilling across the floor’s heavily grained and ancient-feeling wood.

It’s one of the reasons our group chose this house, the flooring. Not that we had a wide range of options, but here you can’t move from one room to the next without the wood planks announcing your presence with a sabotage of squeaks and grunts. Even now as I crawl across the floor the meat of my palm finds a soft spot and the wood creaks in alarm- “someone’s here! Someone’s touched me!”

When your life is constantly in danger, when threats are everywhere, you start to see the world in terms of alarms and shortcuts.

I reach out with my other hand to mop at the small pool of dirt-brown liquid that has snaked behind the kitchen table’s thick wooden leg. It slithers away from me, and I have to move quickly- sprawling myself across the floor to move out and around the escaping trail of what is essentially just ground up dandelion roots and which we have the nerve and desperation to claim as coffee.

But I remember coffee. Real coffee.

Nora lifts her feet from the floor, allowing me better access to clean up her mess. Without a word she slowly exhales loudly, then shakes her head.

“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry Terra. I really am. I’m just a mess…Jesus Christ…” She brings a gloved hand to the bridge of her nose and squeezes as she closes her eyes.

But she doesn’t turn, doesn’t climb out of her chair to help.

Nora takes another deep breath before opening her eyes and speaking again. “I’m just so anxious about …about everything…and I didn’t even want to come here…I didn’t want to see you like this. I’m so sorry.” She drops her hand into her lap and stares ahead, out the window to the withered garden and the wall beyond it.

The last of the water soaked up and the mess cleaned, I push myself up from my knees and place the dirty dishcloth in the empty sink before turning and facing my aunt, my godmother.

But Nora won’t look back at me, her eyes are still focused on something outside the window and her hands are still folded in her lap, as if awaiting some punishment.

I understand.

Terra three years ago was the bull who didn’t take no for an answer- who wouldn’t let anyone give up on anything and would tell you the truth even when I knew it would hurt. Who had overcome her own demons and didn’t have the time or patience or anyone else who wasn’t wiling to deal with theirs.

The Terra of three years ago would have argued, would have tried to force Nora to not give in- would have talked in circles for twenty minutes about how to change John’s mind. And finally, if Nora hadn’t succumbed to my wishes, I would have raised my voice and shouted her out of the house.

But I’m not that Terra anymore. I don’t have the time, or the energy. I am an entirely different person now.

I look at Nora, sitting so prim and quiet and realize sadly that so is she.

I let my eyes rest on this woman I’ve known my entire life, my mind wandering not for the first time in the last several years over the Nora of my childhood- of my teens and early twenties. She had been the most beautiful woman to me, a constant font of information and advice about all things beauty.

The silence between us should be tense, but I am considering and don’t care, and I know that Nora will be patient. The quiet isn’t new, the world is so quiet now, and I wonder if her ears are also straining for the sounds of my housemates outside. Of course, I am really listening for any sound from Mabel, who is sleeping in the room next door.

One door between us, that’s all that is allowed these days. I turn back and open the cupboard beside me, pulling free a once-obnoxiously bright and now faded yellow mug that shouts “MAMA’S MEDICINE” from one side. I open the fridge door and remove one of the drinking water jugs, busying myself with filling this new mug, my eyes glancing to Nora every second or so as I take in the details of her that have changed so subtly it has created this entirely different person.

Gone is the mane of deep black curls- now her hair is cropped short, like mine; so short there isn’t a scrap to grab and use against you. Like many of the women in my group, and around town, she is wearing a fabric headband; some scrap of silk from a beloved blouse or dress that will never really be worn again and has been turned into something new, something practical, something that reminds her of how things used to be. How they were not so long ago.

As I replace the jug in the darkened fridge Nora picks at her short fingernails and I remember the long, artistically painted and diligently maintained silk and gel nails of before times. I remember Nora taking me many times to the nail salons of those days for pedicures, manicures…strange to think there were whole businesses and days dedicated to decorating nails.

I spread my fingers and look down at my own hand; nails bit brutally short, the hangnails red and raw from my nervous chewing and sucking. I was never one for glamor, but it’s hard to believe that once soft hands and manicures were even real, let alone normal.

More like a half-faded dream than a memory.

I drop my hand and take the mug, crossing to Nora and placing the water before her.

“Here. That was the last of the coffee so all we have is water.”

Nora’s voice is timid.

“That’s fine. Thank you, again I’m so sorry about the coffee…”
Nora nods and reaches for the mug, robotically bringing the cup to her lips but not taking a sip. She still doesn’t look up at me.

Pulling out a chair I take a seat facing her and the door that separates me from Mabel. As I sit down our eyes connect over the rim of that irriatating mug. Her eyes are wide, her face tense- I sigh loudly.

“Jesus Nora, it’s fine. Take a breath.”

She lowers her gaze into the mug and speaks lowly.

“You’re not mad then?”
I lean back in my chair, bringing one hand to my face and massaging my temple. I am dehydrated, but water is harder and harder to find. These jugs in the fridge are all we have and I say a quick prayer Layla will find more in town today.

For now I just shake my head.

“No. No, I’m not mad. I figured you two would be leaving…and with you just showing up like this it made sense-”
Nora interrupts, spitting out the rest of her truth like rapid fire bullets. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you.”
Now the old flame inside me stirs, the flame I can barely tend and have to keep low for my own sake and sanity these days.

Now I am angry.

Christ.

I drop my hand from my face and look at Nora who has gone quiet again. From her blank expression I can’t tell if she realizes exactly what she has said, her eyes are glancing over the giant tubs that line the floors of the kitchen and dining room before her- food storage for the nearly twenty people who still live here.

I watch her a moment, deciding time hasn’t changed her that much- she has always and will aways be simple. Through and through.

She takes another sip from the mug, her eyes coming back to mine. She smiles apologetically, sweetly.

No, I tell myself. That isn’t fair. Nora isn’t a moron. She’s just a little…selfish. She was before, her and John were always the ones to have the greatest new tech or the fanciest designer clothing, and these years of hard living have only taught her to be more selfish when it comes to wants and needs. It’s become socially acceptable, necessary even, to get what you can while you can and fuck all to everyone else.

It’s why we live in a group, and she and her husband live just the two of them in town.

Not to say they aren’t needed there, and what are their options really?

A grumble in the pit of my stomach reminds me of something else. Isn’t this the very subject of tonight’s meeting? And why aren’t I telling her? Because of some forced loyalty to the group?

I chastise the grumble and remind it why secrecy is so important these days when it comes to group meetings- fractions in a group are a life or death matter, and I don’t need John butting his ego into my groups affairs, not now. Not again.

But still…I have to ask…

I angle my head and speak delicately.

“Do you…do you know this other group well? The group you’re joining?”
Nora shakes her head.

“No. But John knows one of them from medical school- he says he trusts him and so his group must be trustworthy.” Nora bites her lips, and her next words stumble out like water cascading through a broken dam- splintery and shocking in their effect.

“…and John said we can’t bring your group…anyone from your group…with us…he wanted me to make that absolutely clear.”
My shoulders drop. I knew it, but I needed to hear it. If John had wanted us to come he would have made it happen, would have pushed his agenda immediately. The fact that I am hearing this the day before they leave shows he wants my interference as little as I desire his.

So instead of biting at Nora for her inconsideration I lean forward, pushing the sleeves of my greying Henley up past my elbows, then placing my forearms down on the table and leaning in.

It’s intentional, and whether or not she notices my manipulation tactics I don’t care. Some good of my past lawyer life has carried into this new world, just as she continues to nurse- I continue to arbitrate- only in new, more direct ways with much more immediate consequences.

And I want to get the truth from her right now. No funny business, no lies or placations.

I lean on my elbows, my face only a foot from Nora’s. I reach out one hand and place it over the top of her mug, applying enough pressure to make her move the mug down from her face before I ask my question.

She doesn’t fight me, the mug lowers slowly and I hold my aunt’s eyes with my own.

“Are you ok? Is John hurting you again?”
She shakes her head no immediately.

“No. No, I swear I would tell you…” Her eyes drift away and I know she is remembering that time, when this all started, when John started taking his anger about everything out on her…not for the first time in their lives either.

She is babbling now.

“He hasn’t touched me since…well since you and Anthony talked to him for me. He hasn’t done a thing.” Her eyes snap back to me and she smiles, but the smile is fake, pleading. “Really, he’s helping so many people…so many people these days…I don’t know how he handles the stress…” She lowers her eyes to the mug and taps the rim with her finger. “He says it all keeps him from losing his mind, that if he couldn’t help people… with everything the way it is… he would blow his brains out…”
Her eyes go wide and snap back to mine, her hand dropping back into to her lap.

“Not like that though. He would never kill himself, he just means it as…you know…”
I smile gently and nod once.

“As a figure of speech. Don’t worry Nora, I get it.” I glance down the room out the window to my right- to where she has been looking but I see nothing. “We all have to have something to do, something to distract us.”

I pause a moment, considering what I actually want to know- what I need to know.

It isn’t much, or rather, there isn’t much I could know- that she could know about her future.

I turn back to Nora and reach out, taking her hand in mine.

I smile again.

“I’m not upset Nora, Ok? I promise.” My smile falls and there is an uncomfortable tightening in my throat. Funny, but it’s a comforting feeling- knowing I can still cry after all the tears I’ve shed over the years. I thought I’d hardened myself by now, turned more stone than flesh. But here I am, holding back tears as I look into the deep brown eyes of the my last remaining tie to my mother, to my sister, to my father and grandfather-

To all those who were lost in these last years.

First to disease, then to fighting, then to the Others.

I take a breath and let it out my nose. I know my eyes are filling with tears and I let it happen.

Nora frowns, squeezing her eyes shut as she shakes her head.

“No- no, don’t cry Terra. Please don’t cry…you’re so strong. If you cry I’m going to cry and I…I…”
I squeeze her hands and sniff hard. She’s right. We need to be strong. Besides, Mabel should wake up any minute now, and if tonight goes as I think it will things are going to be hard enough.

I swallow hard and force a smile.

“I’m just going to miss you is all.”

I bring my other hand atop our clasped ones and hold her gaze once more.

“And please, please take care of yourself.”

Nora nods and sniffs.

“I will. I promise.”
I squeeze her hands again.

“And I don’t just mean from John and the Others. I know you and John will be welcome anywhere, but people might try and take advantage of you.” I let these warning land before continuing. “People will do anything to have a doctor these days, we were lucky to have you and John as long as we did.”

I can see Nora absorbing this information. She squints once, her eyebrows lowering, and I see she hadn’t considered this before. It makes sense. She and I have been in the same communities since all this began, first in our hometown and now here, and she hasn’t known all I’ve done, what I’ve bartered and organized to keep her and John safe; to her I’m sure she feels as if her nursing duties are constant, but if she knew the amount of haggling and threatening Anthony and I do to keep her and John from being overworked it would stagger her.

 She squeezes my hands once in response and nods determinedly.
“I hadn’t thought of that, I will.”

Her face softens and she looks apologetic. I wait for her to excuse John in some way and she doesn’t disappoint.

“But I’m sure John has. Please, don’t worry about us. We’ll be ok.” She smiles again, a hopeful smile this time.

“And I’m sure our paths will cross again. I know it. And you’re so strong, and you have Anthony….and Mabel.” Her eyes flick down, then back to me. “You’ll be ok too, won’t you?”
I nod, completely unsure if we will be, but I don’t see the point in being morbid about our situation. It’s sickeningly macabre as it is.

I really don’t like the idea of our town’s only doctor leaving. I know I should be angry that Nora hasn’t asked our group to come with her and whoever is taking her and John away- but know that this is probably some sort of deal that has been struck- and that I am powerless to change it.

But without Nora, there are only two other nurses, both over an hour away.

Leaving has suddenly become a necessity.

My stomach falls.

If only Nora had come to me sooner. Just a couple days sooner. Maybe I could have spoken to John myself, found a way to negotiate the merging of our group and his new one...

But now we’d never know.

I swallow- an irritatingly painful motion for so dry a throat.

I should have set our own group meeting earlier- I’d been putting it off or almost a week now. But I’d finally been forced when, for the third time in as many weeks, there’d been more Others in the pits than healthy adults to remove and dismember them.

I get why Nora and John are leaving.

There are too many of them, too many Others suddenly; like maybe they’re migrating through our area.

Or, an even more horrifying possibility, multiplying.

This fear is chased from my brain as a long, scraping sounds from the other side of the door beside Nora. My heart jumps and Nora rips her hands away as she leaps out of her chair.

We both know the mistake we’ve made.

Here, now- we are vulnerable.