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The man had a face that maybe his mother had been disappointed by. He looked awkward as he smiled, but he still did, grinning at the people walking past him on the street. Carol was the only one who bothered to stop.
“Hello, Carol.”
Carol nodded. He looked too old to be sitting on the concrete, burning under the sun. The only other thing on the dusty mat the man sat on was a bucket of apples. She could see they were bruised: most likely seconds, fruit too damaged to sell. A sign asked for any donations if possible, with a smiley face drawn in sharpie underneath.
“Hey. How’re you doin’?” she said.
“We’re good, Carol. Thank you for asking,” the man said.
“People treating you okay?”
“Yes, everyone has been very kind. Today, Sofia Zavarce donated us some fruit from her orchard.” He beamed. There was a faded bruise under his jaw, and a scrape across the bridge of his nose.
“Do you accept money?”
The man nodded, so Carol gave him her spare change. Twenty-three dollars and a nickel she thought she picked up when she was still with Helen. She watched as the man placed it carefully in an interior pocket of the burlap sack he still wore. Manousos had been horrified when the Others had finally returned to Albuquerque wearing smocks woven out of hemp.
Across the street, a few young men were lounging on a concrete balustrade, smoking. Cans scattered around their feet. Carol could feel their eyes on her. She wanted to ask the man what his name was, but didn’t bother: the Others had given up their individual’s former labels in year two; Zosia had only kept hers because of Carol’s insistence. Instead, she leaned close. She could smell him: sweat and apple juice. “Zosia?”
The man’s teeth were stained, his breath clean. He looked rueful. “She’s still here, Carol. Nothing’s changed, unfortunately. She says ‘Hello’.”
Carol left him. Her meeting started in five minutes, and she couldn’t be late again. Behind her, she heard music start to blare from the speaker of one of the young men’s phones - a loud sound, disjointed. She had to stop herself from turning back around.
The Others weren’t the World any longer, but they were still a part of it. Just smaller. A fraction of their impossibility, from ruling class to underserved minority. Unable to cause harm. And above all, unable to spread. Unable to fulfil their biological imperative. Courtesy of Carol Sturka and Manousos Oviedo. You’re welcome, assholes.
And they still loved her. All twenty-odd million of the Others, the Hive, now scattered across the globe like corn kernels. They all still uncomplicatedly, fully, loved her.
A year after they had started dating, Helen had begged Carol to go to AA. Like, actually begged, head pressed against Carol’s lap. Tears running into the crease of her jeans. Then, she threatened to leave. When none of that had worked, when Carol had finally shared with Helen what had - how Freedom Falls had happened - Helen had cried one last time and then blissfully stopped asking. Almost half a decade following her wife’s death, Carol couldn’t let herself think about how Helen would feel, finally seeing her holding a ninety-nine day chip in her sweaty hand.
My past does not define me: I am creating my own story now. I am worthy of love, respect, and happiness.
I am perfect just as I am.
The meeting was okay. Carol had been going to them for a while now, and none of them compared to how amazingly, shitfuckingly great it had felt to be solidly wasted seven days a week. But sobriety meant no hangovers, and Carol hadn’t vomited up on herself in four months. Her fine-motor dexterity was improving, enough that she hadn’t dropped a pen or a plate in a while, and she could look at a bottle of vodka without getting the sweats.
Afterwards, most people took off, but a few stayed - to mingle, to talk. Carol usually left as soon as the final affirmation passed her lips, but after seeing the man on the street, she wasn’t keen to return immediately home. She helped herself to a dry-ass donut and was thinking about even chancing the coffee when she felt rather than heard someone standing slightly behind her. “Can I help you?”
An intake - a woman. “Are you Carol Sturka?”
“I thought the whole point of this thing was that we didn’t do names. Just say what you want to say.” Murderous cunt was usually the insult of choice during these kinds of interactions.
“It’s nothing. Just, that - uh -” the woman’s voice was high, and slightly raspy. Ex-smoker, probably. “I’m a big fan of yours. I was, anyway, before…”
Carol finally turned around. The woman had olive skin and hazel eyes, and a few streaks of grey hair above them. A loose blouse with trimming around the neckline sat easy across her collar bones.
“I can’t tell you when the next book is coming out,” Carol said.
The woman smiled. “I would never ask.” She held out her hand. “Meredith. Unless you actually respect the Anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous,” she said.
Carol’s lips twitched at that. “Carol. But you already know that.”
Meredith’s handshake was firm, her smile tentative. “Do you want to get a cup of coffee?”
Being picked up at an addiction help group was a first for Carol. She followed Meredith on foot down the street to the last remaining late night diner in the area. This one, Lauchlin’s, had managed to survive the suburb’s ongoing beautification efforts due to the Others rebuilding it after a convenient fire had burned it down. It was one way to fight gentrification, but Carol wondered how the owners felt, about their long lost restaurant returning to life after so many years as an empty lot. Carol didn’t say anything about this to Meredith. Inside, Bri was nowhere to be seen, thank Christ; as always, the diner’s greasy floors and sticky table tops reminded Carol of her past life with a pang. Past lives, this time.
They ordered coffee, and Meredith got pie, too. Cherry. She was easy to talk to, Carol learned. Meredith was a twice-divorced elementary school teacher who had followed her second husband into New Mexico and had never managed to rustle the cash to leave. The drinking had gotten bad during Covid, she said. “It was just so easy.” When her speech had started slurring during her morning Math Zooms, Meredith had known it was time to get help.
“It took me thirty years to get to that place,” Carol told her. She had seen the man had vanished from his spot as they walked past it. His things were still there, though: the bucket of apples and woven blanket, flies buzzing over the fruit. Not that he would ever call them his things. She hated that she was worried for him. “You should be proud you made it,” Carol continued.
“The worst part is that it's everywhere. I thought I’d be able to cut it out like a wart. But then my colleague asks me to come to her gender reveal, and there’s champagne, and I’m allergic to orange juice,” Meredith said.
“You throw up in the bassinet?”
“Exploded the reveal balloon. They’re having a boy.”
Carol laughed - explosive, unexpected. She sometimes forgot how unexpected people could be - can be, because of her, because of Manousos, because of - of -
Meredith was empathetic enough to feel her mood shift. “I was surprised to see you at the meeting. Didn’t realise famous people could actually choose to live in Albuquerque,” she said.
“Well, Santa Fe has too much traffic. And all my stuff is here, y'know,” Carol said.
“I was glad when you got acquitted. That lawyer you had was a real hot shot, thank god. Where did you even find her?”
“Right here.” Kim Wexler’s grit had overcome her lack of expertise in international human rights law. She had been cheap, and cunning enough to build a strong social media following around Carol that painted her as a desperate hero who had accidentally killed millions in a strange new world. Plus the gay thing… and the dead wife thing. They hadn’t been friends, but Kim had hugged Carol when she had been found innocent of mass slaughter, and Carol had let her. She had advised Carol against staying in New Mexico, though. Called her a nut when Carol had refused.
Meredith was gazing into her coffee dredges, unfocused. “There’s a lot to be found here, isn’t there?”
Carol nodded. She finished her drink.
They’d parted ways, and Carol had made plans to see Meredith for dinner after their next meeting. She still wasn’t sure what it was the other woman wanted. A friend? A date? But it was something to do, other than gaze at her whiteboard, or watch Golden Girls, or lie on the couch with a golf club, convinced someone was going to break in and finally kill her. She was still getting hate mail; people whose mothers, brothers, spouses had died and were looking for someone to blame. And Meredith was cute. A little younger than Carol, a little more energetic. Similar in age to…
The man’s things had vanished from the street. Carol knew, most likely, that the police had found him - had forced him to move on - but a part of her looked for blood anyway. The young men were gone from their fence, but the street was pristine. It was like they had never been there.
It was called the trial of the 21st century. Carol thought being accused of crimes against humanity and genocide was the worst of it, but in fact, it was the boredom of waiting for the legal system to churn. Manousos was gone by then, shot in the chest while being escorted up the steps of the Corte Suprema de Justicia del Paraguay. Locked in a cell in the ass-end of Washington with only a Kindle, a television and an elliptical machine for company, Carol read the entire Wheel of Time series during her incarceration. Hell would have had better literature.
During her trial, the prosecutor had asked her if she believed the lives lost had been worth bringing the world back to the way it was. Kim had interjected - shouting about a leading query - but Carol had answered anyway. If there had been a way to do it without bloodshed, she would have done it. But there hadn’t been.
“You weren’t there,” she said, ignoring Kim’s signals, and the man - veneers, spray tan - had leaned in.
“Yes I was,” he said. “We were all there. Weren’t we?”
She and Meredith went to the Outback Steakhouse a five-minute drive from their Friday meeting. Carol deliberately avoided catching her sponsor’s gaze as they walked out together. It wasn’t against the rules for AA members to fraternize, but it was discouraged, and her chip sat heavy in her pocket. But this wasn’t a date anyway, Carol thought. Just two women of a similar age, with similar trauma, hanging out after their mutual support meeting. It was cool. Helen had wanted her to have more friends, anyway. And it was a distraction from thinking about... About...
Meredith’s hand on her wrist halfway through the Coconut Shrimp discounted Carol’s musings and confirmed that this was, in fact, a Date. All the bisexuals Carol ever met turned out to be teachers. She didn’t know why that was. They chatted, which meant Meredith told a series of amusing anecdotes about her students while Carol nodded and tried to ignore the Barrier Reef Punches the couple opposite were slurping. She learned one of Meredith’s students could not stop whipping his dick out on the playground, allegedly, which made the other woman choke on her laughter while recounting. Her teeth were wide and white. Carol had the grilled sirloin, Meredith had the Melbourne Porterhouse. They split a jug of Virgin Margaritas.
In a display of long-dormant gallantry Carol paid the bill: one big enough to make her thumb twitch. Her Wycaro coffers were starting to run - not dry, but emptier than they had been in a while. The most amount of money she had been offered after the Unjoining was five million dollars to be on 60 Minutes. Dr. Phil had offered her half that amount. Oprah would have gone higher - she had called Carol directly, and said she would come out of retirement for an exclusive - but Carol had shut her down flat.
“Wait for my book,” Carol had told freaking Oprah, and tried not to imagine Helen having a heart attack.
They made it back to the car, and Carol was halfway through offering her new friend a ride home when her tongue ended up in Meredith’s mouth. The gearstick dug into her hip as she craned forward; Carol tried to give herself to the moment. She tried not to feel like she was cheating on Helen. Her wife would want her to be happy, she knew this, just like she would have wanted Helen to move on, if she had been the one who had died. The lie was easier to believe with Meredith’s breasts under her palms. She ran hot; her lipstick tasted like tacky clay; Carol moulded her into something molten. Zosia hadn’t felt like this. Being with her hadn’t felt like betraying Helen, because Helen had been in there: in her smiles, her jokes, her teasing. A beautiful delusion. A well covered in grass. Where are you, Zosia.
“Nightcap?”
Carol exhaled. Meredith lived in a condo in South Embudo Canyon. The flower pots on the stoop were filled with dried sea grasses. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Right.” Meredith swallowed. “The whole replacing alcohol with sloppy, passionate sex thing. Probably a bad idea right now.”
Carol’s mouth was dry. AA mantra aside, her last time had been with Zosia, before… The Atom Bomb incident. “I’m trying to be… better,” she said.
“For who? Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean - look, I’ve really enjoyed this, but there is something I need to tell you.” Meredith breathed out. “Come in for a sec. I’ll make coffee.”
Carol’s radar pinged. “You can just tell me after group.”
Meredith’s smile curdled a little, and Carol’s toes clenched. The street was dark and quiet, but people were out walking their dogs, and a woman was vaping under the streetlight on the corner. She didn’t think the other woman would try to hurt her, but you never knew. Kim had recommended Carol be put into Witness Protection, but she had refused. She would rather be sent to jail again before abandoning Helen to the elements. Carol planned to be a little old lady in their house at the end of the cul-de-sac, drifting off with her wife into endless sleep.
Meredith spoke. “After the Unjoining I woke up at home, twenty pounds lighter and wearing a blue muumuu. Can’t remember much of the last few years. I think I was mostly on a food processing line.” Her voice fell quiet. “My Mom died in the joining. My brother… during those years we were… Them.”
She’d heard hundreds of these stories, but each one still pulled a lump to Carol's throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t blame you,” Meredith said. “I mean it, Carol. You got the world back to the way it was. You’re a hero.”
“...Thanks,” Carol said. What more could she say? Those two years had become a blur, some otherworldly fantasy land where beautiful pirate ladies drove blue sedans and played croquet like a pro. They were already fading back into nothingness. Just another make believe dreamworld she had thought out of nothing, written on stolen notepads.
She hadn’t been a hero. She had just been there.
“You’re never going to finish the last Wycaro, are you? Sorry, sorry,” Meredith continued, at the look on Carol’s face. “I’m getting to it, I promise.”
“Meredith…”
“There’s something. A memory. I think I’m supposed to tell you something. There was a tall lady, with dark hair. You sure you don’t want to come in?”
Meredith’s home was spotless. She had stick figure drawings stuck to her fridge, and a large wooden bowl with purple stones in it on the counter.
Carol thought of her own place. Scorch marks on the ceiling and a dent near the stairs from when Manousos had thrown Zosia into a wall. Three bottles of olives and a carton of rotting oat milk in the fridge.
“What kind of crappy alcoholic are you?” Carol blurted out before she could stop herself.
Meredith, to her credit, only laughed. “He got the dog, I got the house. Not a bad outcome.”
“What breed?”
“A yorkie. Cutest little dude you ever saw, but crapped on my rug too many times for me to fight for him. Sugar?”
She still used a filter coffee pot, and the coffee was only a little burnt. It came in a glazed ceramic mug that had obviously been handmade. Wycaros one through to four were in the bookcase opposite the television, between a few Phillipa Gregory novels and the Twilight Saga. Nestled on soft felted throws, Carol felt calmer now than she’d seen the inside of Meredith’s house. It was a home belonging to a woman, not a serial killer. Still…
“Your brother. When did he die?”
“A lady invites you to come in for coffee, and that’s what you ask? I don’t know, Carol. I only know Mom died during the Joining because her rest home had archived CCTV,” Meredith said. She sat down next to Carol, and their knees bumped. “Look, I trust the legal system. It got me this house, didn’t it?”
“So there’s no rat poison in my coffee, then?” Carol said. It was only half a joke.
Meredith smiled. “Just a Colombian blend.”
Manousos had been born in Colombia. He’d moved to Paraguay with his mother aged fifteen after his father died. Carol’d sobbed into her pillow for hours when they’d told her of his death. “The woman. Do you remember what she said to you?”
“She didn’t say anything,” Meredith said. “We just walked together for a while. It was… during that time when you told everyone to go back home, just before the Unjoining. I remember walking with her, down Lomas Boulevard, I think. We weren’t even wearing shoes. I remember knowing… I had to go home. And there were other people too, but she was closest to me. We were still connected, but it was fading in and out. I knew she was yours. I remember feeling sad, because you sent her back home. You didn’t want her anymore. Carol? Carol, are you okay?”
She’d spilled coffee all over her jeans, her hands were shaking so badly. “I’m fine. Do you - do you remember how she looked? Was she doing anything strange?”
“Not really. She was wearing a blue suit. And she was bleeding, I think. Her right wrist was pretty scraped up,” Meredith said. She let out an exhale. “Wow, it feels good to tell you this. Guess Joined Me was pretty invested in the two of you being together.”
“Guess so,” Carol said.
“If you don’t mind me asking… Was she your wife?”
“No.”
Silence. Carol sipped at her coffee, to distract herself from her trembling fingers and blurry vision. She couldn’t get the image out of her head. Zosia, walking on quivering legs through Albuquerque. Wrist scraped and bleeding. Feet bare on the pavement. I’m so sorry, Zosia. I should have been there. Meredith had no new information Carol didn’t already know. She should have just gone home. This was a terrible idea.
Next to her, Meredith shuffled. “Can I just say one more thing?”
“Shoot,” Carol said. God, she was tired. She was so tired. Where are you, where are you, where are you, the words rang through her head. You’re supposed to be here.
“I always knew Wycaro was too specifically horny to be written by a straight woman.”
Carol kissed the coffee from Meredith’s mouth. With her eyes closed, she could pretend the other woman was whoever the hell she wanted.
The sex was sticky, but satisfying. Like cheating on a diet. Afterwards, Meredith lay her head on Carol’s chest as Carol ran fingers through her hair. The bedroom was small so the air felt thicker. Blackout curtains kept the moon out, and a dusty ceiling fan rattled overhead. Carol always felt calmer after a good fuck. Helen had used that to her advantage quite a few times. The thought made her hurt, but a good hurt. Like pressing on a healing bruise. I miss you Baby, she thought.
“I’m sorry,” Meredith said suddenly, making Carol yelp. “I just remembered - your wife died during the joining, didn’t she? So that woman - she couldn’t have been-” Meredith looked up. “No, I’m not apologising for the sex. That was great.”
“Glad to know,” Carol said, exhaling. “No, that wasn’t Helen. Her name was Zosia.”
“Zosia.” Hearing the word come out of Meredith’s mouth did something to Carol’s insides. “I don’t remember hearing that name during the trial.”
They’d called her Yara in court, as a way of preserving her anonymity. Like sandblasting a name from a gravestone. “She was my… chaperone, after the Joining,” Carol said.
“A friend?”
“Eventually. She was one of them… Big Time. Even when we pulled her out, she still believed. We had to… respect her wish to go back in,” Carol said. The words still hurt.
“Woman A. I read about her,” Meredith breathed. “You couldn’t find her to take the witness stand.”
“After me and - when Manousos and I sent the signal out, it was chaos. I’d-” locked her in my downstairs bathroom handcuffed to the sink “- left her at home. By the time I’d gotten back, she was gone.”
“And she’s not here? In Albuquerque?”
“Definitely not. I’d thought she’d maybe gone back to Poland, but… I was wrong.”
Kim had searched. Her definitely not shady former clients had searched. Hell, motherfucking Interpol had scraped Gdańsk raw, trying to find this mystery woman whom Carol and the other Immune had all met. The first person to be pulled from the Others via Manousos’ Faraday Cage. But nothing.
“We don’t know where she is,” Carol said. During the trial, she had constantly searched the stands, half expecting to see Zosia’s big brown eyes looking back at her. But nothing.
Meredith was silent, ghosting her fingers against Carol’s side. “You’re still looking for her,” she stated quietly.
Everyday, Carol thought. Every goddamn day. She pressed a kiss to Meredith’s forehead and extracted herself from the sweaty pretzel they had found themselves in. “Bathroom?”
“Down the hall.”
Meredith had far too much potpourri for a woman of her age. Carol splashed water on her face, and, needing more, cracked open the window. A dog house sat on the perfectly mowed lawn outside, and, as Carol leaned her head out, she heard a rattle from inside. Meredith had managed to end up with the dog and the house. Lucky girl, Carol thought.
Under the ceiling fan, wrapped in Meredith’s arms, Carol dreamed. She was at home, in her kitchen. Manousos was there, speaking Spanish too fast for her to understand, his dark eyes wild.
Las hormigas, he said. They are las hormigas. We send the signal, and then they vete a casa ahora. Feromonas. They cannot reproduce.
I don’t understand, Carol said. I don’t understand, and she tried to say it in Spanish, but the words all stuck to her tongue. No… no entiendo…
Entonces despertarán. Verán sus hogares y despertarán. Manousos sounded desperate. ¡Despierta, Carol Sturka!
Wake up Carol, Zosia said from behind her, voice close to her ear. We want to know how you want your eggs, and Carol woke, sweating and gasping, to see a strange man above her, his face inches away from hers.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” Carol’s scream was so loud it set off a nearby car alarm. It also woke Meredith, who screamed too, then somehow managed to fall across the bed to tip off the side onto the floor.
“Sorry, Carol,” the man said. He was holding a spatula. He was also wearing a speedo, Carol saw, and had a dog collar around his neck. It was sparkly. “We just wanted to know how you’d like your eggs. Meredith usually has hers poached, but we know you prefer scrambled. We’d have to run down to the store, though, to get more. Meredith, would you like us to go?”
“What the fuck is going on!” Carol scrabbled for her shirt, pressing her wrist against her chest to hide her nipples. Outside, the car alarm whoomphed, before stopping with a small beep. “Meredith? Who the fuck is he?”
“Jesus, Keith.” Meredith’s voice wafted up from the carpet on the other side of the bed. “Just scramble them. It’s not fucking rocket science.”
The man - Keith - nodded. “Of course, Meredith. Sorry.”
Carol froze halfway through clipping up her bra. A horrible realization. The house. The dog. The dog house. Last night. “Oh, Christ - is this your ex? He’s still one of them?”
Meredith’s face, curly haired and bleary, appeared over the mattress. “Keith, give us a minute,” she muttered. “Also, I told you to wait in the yard when I have company.”
“Sorry Meredith. We’ll start on the coffee.” Keith left, red buttcheeks twitching behind him. Carol saw that Pooch was written on the collar in pink letters and fought down a gag. They dressed in silence, broken only by Meredith’s intermittent yawns.
“It’s not what you think,” were Meredith’s first words after pulling on her dressing gown.
“Oh, really? Because I think you’re using your ex-husband for free labour and sex because he has nowhere else to go after the Unjoining.”
“Okay, it’s exactly what you think.” Meredith sat on the bed with a sigh. “Look, I’m not a psycho. Or a sadist. This is… a unique situation. One that both parties are absolutely fine with, by the way.”
“Of course he is! He can’t fucking say no!”
“So what? Last time I checked, kink isn’t illegal. Carol, we both know that, if he could, Keith would have us both with him right now, frying eggs in our panties. They’re not good people. Isn’t that why you fixed things?”
“I.. I didn’t… I don’t…”
“He chose to stay with them. You sent them home and gave them a choice, and some of them chose to stay with the Others.” Meredith paused. “Just like Zosia did.”
A slap would hurt less. “Don’t you dare say her name.”
“Would it make you feel better if I said he cheated on me? Hit me? Slept with my best friend?” Meredith said. “Before I met him, I was the type of gal who only drank a glass of sherry on Christmas.” She gestured at herself. “This? This… fucking wreck? Being stuck in fucking Albuquerque? This is all him. I’m just getting my alimony.”
“What happened to ‘I got the condo and he got the dog’. What happened to that, huh?” Carol asked. She tried to keep the disgust out of her voice, but Meredith heard it anyway, and her face hardened.
“This time, I got the condo and the dog. Because of you. So thanks, Babe,” she said.
“You - you’re - you're a fucking piece of work.” Carol stormed away before she did something she regretted, rushing out the bedroom door and into the living area. Her shoes were beside the couch, her keys and wallet still on the side table, next to a ring where her coffee mug had rested.
In the kitchenette, the individual formerly known as Keith whistled as he worked, beating a whisk in a large metal bowl. The domesticity of the scene made Carol fight down a gag. She saw brown eyes, a blue dress, and the floor wavered beneath her. Carol scrunched her eyes closed. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m
“Carol? Are you alright?”
“I’m - I’m fine. Keith, right?” Carol forced herself to take a deep breath. Then, another one. She was okay. She was fine. She opened her eyes and made herself look at him, carefully keeping her gaze above the neck. “Look, I’m leaving. I think you should come with me.”
“Oh. Does Meredith want us to go with you?”
“No, but-” too late, Carol realised her mistake. “Never mind, I guess. Fuck.” She reached for her shoes. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
Keith smiled, wide and honest. He was pouring the whisked eggs onto a pan, now. “Sure!”
Carol winced as oil spluttered. “You don’t want to put an apron on?”
“Meredith prefers us to have on as little clothing as possible. Was that your question, Carol?”
“No. Look, back when you and Meredith were married…” Carol paused, looking over her shoulder as she tied her laces. She could hear the sound of the shower from the next room. But damn, Meredith was confident. Carol hated knowing that the woman’s evil bisexual teacher pussy had been, all in all, a pretty enjoyable experience. This was why AA recommended against this stuff. “Did you ever hit her or anything?”
“Meredith enjoys being spanked as foreplay. She also-”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean… was Keith abusive? Did he hit her, cheat on her?”
Keith’s smile dipped, somewhat. “Seven years ago, Keith had sex with Meredith’s friend from recreational soccer, after finding explicit texts on Meredith’s phone between her and a co-worker. Afterwards, they got drunk and he pushed her during an argument. Aside from that, he never hit her. Apart from the spanking, of course, and one time, she asked him to -”
“Thanks, Keith. I, uh…” Carol couldn’t find the words. “I hope it works out for you guys.”
Carol had reached the door when the man spoke. “Carol? There’s something you should know. Meredith… She recorded your encounter last night. She plans to sell the information you told her to TMZ.”
“…”
“Carol?”
“Ah.” Carol was already slipping off her shoes. “Thanks for letting me know that, Keith. That’s, uh… That’s a really important thing for me to know.”
The man beamed. “We’re so happy to hear that, Carol. Meredith’s in the bathroom if you want to talk to her,” he said. He scraped the rubber spatula across the bottom of the pan. The man’s chest hair was now singed in certain places. “She doesn’t usually lock the door while showering.”
“Good to know. You’re going to hear some stuff in a bit, but you just go on making breakfast, now. We’re just going to be having a chat,” Carol said.
Keith looked up in alarm. “We hope what we said hasn't upset you, Carol. We just thought it was something you would want to know. Especially regarding your search for Zosia, which we know is so important to you. This information getting out could jeopardize it.”
Carol flapped her wrist in his direction as she crept across the floor in her socks, heading towards the sounds of the shower. On the pan, the eggs sizzled. “Of course not. No, Meredith just asked me to sign a book for her last night. I’m going to go talk to her about it now.”
“Okay, good. Fair warning: Meredith’s not much of a morning person. We learned that the hard way,” Keith said with a giggle. “We’ll put aside some scrambled eggs for you. And do you want bacon?”
“Bacon sounds perfect,” Carol half-whispered. “Thanks, Buddy.” She opened the bathroom door. Steam eked out, filling the hallway.
“You’re welcome, Carol. And thank you for the donation, yesterday. Zosia really appreciated it.”
Carol smiled and placed a finger to her lips. She slipped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
Carol went home. Meredith’s phone took several flushes to go down the toilet. Carol’s AA chip was so much easier.
Six whiskies in, Carol went for a walk. She put on her hiking shoes and headed off into the desert from her backyard, flask tucked into her waistband, following the setting sun. She knew where she was headed - she had seen the encampment on the news. It took a while, but eventually, she saw the flash of waving tarpaulins where they were fixed against the side of a rocky plateau, huddled away from the wind and the elements. Blue plastic bright against yellow sand and stone.
Something that was new about this world, about the Others being a minority, was that they now never knew when Carol was coming. A dark-skinned woman broke into a grin as Carol approached her, sitting outside the entrance to a crumbling shack. She was wearing the same blue smock they all were, plus a wide brimmed sun hat. “Hello, Carol!”
“Hi,” Carol said. The sun and the whiskey and the beating she had given Meredith in the shower had all combined into something drug-like and eerie. She felt like she was walking on clouds. In a dream. “I need to talk to her. If that’s okay. I need to talk to her.”
Her face softened. “Of course, Carol. Come on in.” She ducked under the tent’s awning, and Carol followed. Inside, it was cooler. Carol could see shapes on the ground: an elderly woman and a teenage boy spooning as they snored. Behind them, a child drank directly from a jerry can, and a middle-aged man with small spectacles munched on an apple. About fifty Joined in all, hiding together in the desert, protected from the world outside by their ramshackle tent city.
The President - the new one, the one that Carol had actually met - had made it illegal for more than two Joined to be together in one place. Carol could have told him he might as well just kill them all. (Some countries were). The Joined were made to be together. Being apart, being alone - that was just agony. She understood that.
“Carol? We’ve found a space for us.” It was the sunhat woman again, gesturing at her to follow her and crawl through another tunnel. She did so, and came out into a different space: half cave, half tent, with the outside air closed off behind a plastic sheet.
“Please, drink some water. We can tell you’re dehydrated.” The woman was already sitting down, crosslegged. “It took some time, but Zosia’s woken up now. She says hello.”
“Hi, Zosh,” Carol said. She stumbled as she sat down on a pillow, sloshing the cup placed next to her. “Heyyy.”
“Carol,” the woman said sadly, and Carol heard Zosia's accent in the lilt of her voice. “You were doing so well.”
“I know, I know. Don’t nag me, okay?”
“It's okay, Carol. You know you can just start again, right? Tomorrow. Call your sponsor and tell her what happened. She’ll understand.”
“I know,” Carol said, and burst into tears. “I know, I know, I know.”
The woman clucked, and Carol clutched at her. Her knuckles throbbed.
During her trial, when all attempts to find Zosia had failed, Carol had asked Kim to go to the Others. They hadn’t wanted to tell her, but eventually, the lawyer had learned that Zosia had boarded a plane to Morocco shortly before the Unjoining.
“Why?” Carol had asked. “What the fuck? Morocco? She told me she was Polish? The fuck?”
“She was,” Kim had said. “Is. Carol, the Others said she doesn’t know where the fuck she is right now. I think she’s… in a bad situation. It sounds like she doesn’t want you to know the details.”
Carol had shouted, and raged, and determined to get free so she could track down Zosia and kick her perfect ass for boarding a plane to Morocco, of all places?? Why the fuck Morocco? And Kim had sat down next to her, on her shitty cell bed, and had quietly explained that she believed Zosia had been trafficked as a child to North Africa from Poland, to work in a compound owned by a notorious Russian oligarch. A photo matching her description had been found in a Moroccan woman’s prison database, following a raid on a brothel in 2002. They’d listed her name as Zaika. Bunny.
"Show me the photo," Carol had said, and, when Kim had hesitated, she’d thrown her Kindle against the wall. "Show me! Show it to me now!"
The Zosia in the image was at least two decades younger than the woman Carol had met. She looked bruised and scared, with dark circles under her green eyeshadow-laden eyes, and she was wearing bright red lipstick. It didn't suit her skintone.
Carol had promptly vomited over the elliptical. It had to be removed from her cell. "So, she's in Morocco," Carol had said, once she'd finished heaving. "So, we can get her back. Search the prisons. Find her."
Kim had just shaken her head. Pity in her eyes. "The people she's mixed up with... My source doesn't think she's in Morocco, anymore. She's gone, Carol. I'm sorry, but she's gone."
The first thing Carol had done after getting out from prison was tracking down the first Joined she could find and asking them, why didn’t you tell me.
We didn’t want you to be sad, the woman - eighties, still spry - had said, and had held Carol as she sobbed on the street, the Washington Monument behind them.
In the present, Carol drifted in and out of consciousness. She felt a cloth pressed to her forehead, and a straw slipped between her lips. She sucked, and water flowed.
“I’m sorry,” Carol said, behind the straw, pushing the words out beyond cracked lips. “I’m so sorry, Zosia.”
“It’s okay. We still love you, Carol.” The woman brushed a cool hand over Carol’s forehead. “Do you want to know what we can see?”
“Has anything changed?”
“No.” The woman paused. “We’re still in the same room. They changed the lightbulb, though, so we have light now.”
“That’s - that’s good, Baby. That’s helpful. You know I’m coming for you, right? Meredith… That was a mistake. I forgot - sometimes I think you aren’t real, that I dreamed you up. I tried to stop drinking for you, yannknow. Tell me a story, Zosh,” Carol begged, and knew, if she had water in her body, she’d be crying again. Her flask dug into the flesh of her hip. “Tell me a story from when you were young.”
So Zosia, through the woman holding Carol, began a story, one that her grandmother had told her when she was very small, when she had crept into her bed during a thunderstorm. It was about a young prince, who ended up married to a frog after he shot an arrow into her pond. It turned out the frog was actually a beautiful princess who could weave magic blankets and bake magic cakes. Eventually, the frog revealed her true form at a banquet, and was accepted by the prince’s father and his brothers.
“There’s more to the story, but we can end it here for now.”
“I love it. I love the story,” Carol said. Above them, through a crack in the overheard covering, she could see stars. Maybe even Kepler-22b.
“I love you, Zosia.”
“We love you too, Carol.”