Red Zone Son

Chapter 40

Adah

The next morning they’re still there. I call Alice again, and this time she picks up, but not on video, which is normal for her since her family doesn’t have a good data plan. I tell her what happened, but not about the letter I didn’t reply to. “You should come stay with us,” she immediately says. Her voice carries a subtle strain. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I know you don’t want to give up your house to them, but what if they do something to you?”

“Isn’t your brother home injured right now, though?” I reply. “Do you even have room in your house?”

“It’s fine, you can share with me and my sisters and Loala.”

I’m not sure it’s fine, though. I’ve been to her house, it’s the size of mine except with even more people. Alice’s mother has been super nice to me but I know she’s stressed out, she already took in Loala when her parents died, and with Alice’s brother back from the militia on convalescent leave, I can’t just show up and demand she take care of me too.

And besides all that, I don’t want to just run away and give my house to these people. They don’t deserve it, no matter what papers they have! Umma and Dad worked hard to buy this house. I grew up here. It’s the only part of them that I have anymore. I can’t let them win this way.

“Don’t be stubborn, Adah,” Alice tells me, when I explain all this to her. “This isn’t a game, you could get really hurt.”

“I don’t think they’re going to hurt me,” I reassure her. “I told them last night that Solo was in the militia and that he was going to come back and kill them and they left me alone after that.”

Alice sighs. “Okay, well, that’s good at least, maybe they’ll leave if they’re scared of him. But it’s been a long time that he’s been gone, right?”

We talk a little bit more, but then Alice has to go, she has work again. I take a deep breath. I can’t let myself feel scared or I’m going to crack. I can tell with these people that I can’t show them a single bit of anything I might be feeling. I go downstairs and it’s a mess, the kitchen is a disaster, they ate almost everything. I manage to find a handful of food that I gulp down before going back to my room.

When I come back down later in the afternoon, though, the kitchen is clean, and Mrs. Bole is putting away groceries in my fridge. “You’re not allowed to eat these,” Mrs. Bole tells me.

I ignore her. “You’re not allowed to steal my house.”

“We’re not stealing it. We’re reclaiming it under the militia’s policy.”

“This house isn’t empty!” I yell. “I live here! My parents bought it! It’s mine and my brother’s!”

“You don’t need this big of a house all to yourself.”

“What, are you a blue zoner or something?” I shout. “You don’t get to decide that for me, my parents bought it, it’s my house!”

“What’s your proof?”

Proof? Like I need to show them some sort of house receipt? I don’t know anything about that kind of thing, my parents took care of it when I was younger, and then Solo after they disappeared. I was taught that girls don’t need to worry their pretty heads about that kind of stuff, so I didn’t. All I know is that the house is paid off, it was supposed to be some sort of equity thing, something to help Solo and me when we got older, like passing money down to us. “You give me proof that you have the right to be here!” I demand.

And then Mrs. Bole does: she pulls out of her purse some kind of document with my address stamped right at the top. I stare at it, my heart sinking. “This is my house,” I say again, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “Look at the family pictures on the walls! I was at school when you came in! You know that I live here! It doesn’t matter what that paper says!”

“It’s our house now.”

“No, it’s not. It’s mine, you’re stealing it from an orphan, and God is going to send you to hell for it.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say to her. It’s the only thing I can think of to say to myself. And I have to keep on saying it. It’s all that’s blocking out the whispers in my heart that keep going, this is your fault, you were stupid, you’re a stupid girl, you lost your house by not answering that letter, you deserve to lose it for being a stupid girl…

Mrs. Bole hobbles closer, her eyes shining with rage. I think she’s going to slap me again so I duck, but instead she grabs my hair and yanks on it. I jerk away from her. I almost hit her back. I could do it, she’s got that twisted foot, even though I’m only sixteen I’m taller and bigger than she is. Why shouldn’t I hit her? She keeps hitting me!

But I don’t. Good girls aren’t supposed to hit back, they’re supposed to be nice, and I’m already not being very nice by telling her she’s going to hell all the time. So instead I run back up the stairs to my room. I spend the night hungry, wishing I knew what to do. I’m not like Solo, always reading some book, always thinking, always having some reference to something that happened in some historical period. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like looking cute, and Umma always told me that’s fine, that every girl is allowed to be herself, and that she might not be like that but it’s okay if I am, God loves me just as He made me.

Should I give up and go to Alice’s house? But I don’t want to! That’s not the kind of girl I am either.

That night, I listen to Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera. Thank God it’s summertime, so I don’t have school. Otherwise the Boles would probably change the locks on me when I go out.

***

At one in the morning I sneak out, trying to walk quietly down the stairs. The Boles are sleeping in Umma and Dad’s room, and I’m so angry at them for it, it feels disgusting, but I go straight to the kitchen. I start cooking, moving as quietly as I can, not wanting any pots or pans to clank and wake the Boles up. After I eat, I clean up after myself, then I go back to bed. I’m tense the whole time, anxious that they’re going to wake up and start screaming at me.

In the morning I’m woken up by pounding on my door again, which I locked when I went to sleep. Mr. Bole is cursing at me, calling me all sorts of names. “You stole our food, we’re going to call the militia’s police line!”

“You stole my house!” I scream back at him from where I’m sitting up in my bed. I think he’s bluffing. If they haven’t called the police line yet, they’re not going to now. “You’re going to hell, my brother is going to kill you when he gets back!”

It worked last time, so I think it’s going to work again, but Mr. Bole shouts at me that he doesn’t believe me. He’s banging on the door so hard I think it’s going to break, so I get out of bed, get the framed picture of me and Solo in his militia uniform, and slide it under the door crack.

The pounding stops. A little while later, Mrs. Bole comes to the door. “We have to work this out, you can’t eat our food, you have to pay us for it.”

I’m shocked at her utter hypocrisy. “How about you pay me for my house?” I snap.

She’s quiet for a second. Then she says, “How about you cook and clean for us, and we share our food with you? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

She’s absolutely insane. She’s suggesting that I work for them for free, in my own house? And all she’ll cover are my meals? That sounds like slavery to me. And even during slavery nobody tried to act like it was fair! It’d be one thing if Mrs. Bole was just like I don’t care about you, I’m going to make you work for me, but from her tone of voice it sounds like she thinks she’s doing me a favor!

So why in the world am I considering taking her up on the offer?

Maybe it’s because I know I can’t keep this up. I’m too afraid they’re going to find out that I didn’t reply to that letter, too afraid that they’re going to realize they do legally own my house. The only thing protecting me right now is them thinking that the militia made a mistake, them thinking that if the militia gets involved, they’re going to lose their claim. I can tell they’re scared of Solo, too. I think Solo is the only reason Mr. Bole hasn’t physically thrown me out yet. But Solo’s missing. If he weren’t I’d laugh in their faces and rest easy knowing he was coming back but I have no idea when or even if he’s returning, and I can’t let them know that because otherwise they might really hurt me. They don’t care that God is going to punish them but they do care that Solo might. If I make it too difficult for them they might dig deeper into where Solo is, and if they find out he’s missing, I’m really in trouble.

“I’ll think about it,” I tell her.

I wish I had answered that letter. I should have taken it to Alice’s mom when I got it instead of ignoring it. But I didn’t. I was stupid, and now I can’t tell anyone about the Boles. Although it’s not like I have a ton of people to tell, anyway. My grandparents on Umma’s side were living with Eemo and Eemobu and my cousins in Chicago. They tried to flee to a blue zone after ethnonationalists took over that area but we haven’t heard from them so we don’t know if they made it. And my grandma on Dad’s side died before the Great Splintering, and my grandpa at the start of it.

As for my friends, well, I know even if I do ask some other friends from school for help they’re just going to say the same thing as Alice, that I should leave the house. Especially if they find out that I didn’t reply to that letter. Maybe my next door neighbors who we were close to would’ve been able to figure out a way to get the Boles out. They were the type to fight back. I know they would’ve jumped to help me. But they were Jewish Democrats, so some of the first to get arrested when the militia took over this area.

After about an hour, I get up. I go downstairs and pan fry chicken breast and roast carrots, making enough for three. I eat while standing in the kitchen right after I’m done cooking, since I don’t want to sit down with them. When I’m done, I leave everything on the stove for them to serve it up to themselves. I don’t clean up, I just go back to my room. At least I won’t be using any of Solo’s money anymore for anything, I tell myself. Let the Boles pay the water bill. I’m going to take as long of a shower as I like.

And I do. But when I get out, fully dressed, Mrs. Bole is outside waiting for me. “You didn’t clean up. That was the deal. So I took your phone from your room and broke it, to teach you a lesson.”

Heat floods my face, and a hard knot forms in my stomach. I burst into furious tears. It takes all my self-control not to put my hands around her neck. “Okay,” I sob, gasping for breath. “I’ll clean up. And God will make hell just a little bit hotter for you.”

She slaps me again, and again. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

But I don’t back down. Like I said, it’s one thing to do wrong to someone, it’s another thing to ask the person you’re doing wrong to to act like it’s fine. They’ve got power over me so okay, I’ll cook, I’ll clean, I won’t get kicked out of my house, but I’m never going to pretend it’s anything but evil what they’re doing to me, and I’m never going to hide that from them.