Savage Drift

EPILOGUE

Our room is over the kitchen because the room over the kitchen is the warmest in the house.

All that worry about Niko’s uncle—would he take us in? would he be willing to sponsor us?—disappeared the moment we rolled up to the farmhouse in Sandy’s Ford Focus.

The tension had been building on the drive. Sandy, who took the day off to drive us here, filled the ride with her sunny chatter. Astrid sat in the back, next to the baby’s car seat (which Sandy had some how procured). I sat in the front and worried.

I worried when I saw the sign, “Pfeiffer Family Farm—Pick Your Own!” It sat in a field studded with old apple trees, barren now. There was also trash in the field, lots of it. It looked like refugees had been camping out there—there were burnt-out circles where campfires had been lit and pits dug, littered with bits of toilet paper.

Not very promising.

I turned back to Astrid, who was gazing at little Charlie in his seat.

Charles Everett Grieder Heyman. Charles for Astrid’s father. Everett for Jake’s. Grieder for me.

I still couldn’t get over it. After all my worry about Astrid and her feelings for me—she put Grieder in her son’s name. She had named me into his life permanently.

She loved me back.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded.

Charlie’s tiny wise-man face was the only part of him you could see. His completely bald head was covered by a knit cap they’d given him at the USAMRIID.

As we continued up the long gravel driveway, which was pitted in parts, there were signs posted on the trees. “No room!” “All full up.” “No food.” “Stay out.”

How many refugees had passed this way?

But as we drove on—and the road was long—the signs disappeared and the scenery changed. The fields of trees ambled up and down the hills. A wooden bridge spanned a cheerful brook. It was a big, rambling farm, that was for sure.

The doctors at USAMRIID had insisted on doing some testing on Josie, Astrid, and Charlie, as well as on me. Blood work, MRIs, CAT scans, more blood work. We set limits on what they could do, especially on Charlie, and Dr. Cutlass made sure everyone respected our limits.

Dr. Cutlass actually attended every test himself, even when they just took our blood pressure. He was hanging around, I suspect, more for the details we could give him about Brayden’s last days on the earth than to make sure the tests were run right, but I didn’t fault him for that. I told him everything. Well, not exactly everything. I didn’t see any reason to tell him about how Brayden had bullied me. But I remembered stuff like how Brayden had built the Train, and how he’d been a good friend to Jake, when Jake was campaigning to be the leader of the group.

Dr. Cutlass seemed to change into a nice guy, right before our eyes.

They released Josie before us. Astrid needed more time to heal from the caesarian and I was still a bit scrambled from the concussion. We stayed another week.

They taught us how to take care of the baby and we also learned that he was, in fact, extraordinary. Because Astrid had been exposed to the compounds, he had been growing at an accelerated rate. The average weight for babies born at twenty-eight weeks is around two and a quarter pounds. Charlie was double that. His lungs were fully developed. His ears were fine, eyes were fine. They were studying the accelerated rate of growth.

They wanted to continue to study Charlie.

We said we’d think about it.

Finally we pulled up at the farmhouse. Niko’s uncle came striding out on his long legs, arms open wide. Niko and Josie were right behind him, Josie so excited to see us she was nearly jumping for joy.

Maybe it was because of the backdrop—the weather-beaten clapboard farmhouse, an oak tree complete with tire swing, and the flock of chickens darting underfoot—but Niko and Josie already looked like farmers. Niko in a plaid shirt and jeans. Josie wearing a skirt and a sweater and a pair of Keds.

“I’m Tim,” Niko’s uncle said, opening Sandy’s door. “Welcome to the Pfeiffer Family Farm! No trouble finding the place?”

“Followed the directions just like you said. Easy as pie,” Sandy replied. Tim gave her a hand out of the car.

“Well,” he said to me. “You must be Dean. I’ve heard so much about you.”

He crossed to me, took my hand in his broad grip and shook it firmly.

“Thank you so much for letting us come here,” I said.

He waved it off. “Thrilled to have you. Truly. Wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re family now! I mean it.”

I opened the door for Astrid and helped her out.

“I’m Astrid,” she said. The uncle swept her into a hug.

“Easy, Uncle Tim!” Niko said. “She had surgery.”

Astrid was fine, though, grinning. She gave Niko and Josie an even bigger hug.

I reached in and unlatched the car seat from the base.

Our son was swaddled tightly, the way only a nurse can do, and was asleep.

“This is Charlie,” I said.

“Lookit that,” Tim said. “A real baby.”

“Charlie’s a sweetie, there’s no doubt about it,” said Sandy. She was arm in arm with Josie by now. “All the nurses at USAMRIID—can you imagine how happy we’ve been?—usually we just get sick people but there’ve been babies this year! SO many wonderful babies!”

Then a man came out of the house and walked over to us. He was short and chubby, and grinning ear to ear.

“Who’s that?” I asked Niko.

“You’re never going to believe it!” Niko said.

The man crossed down to us, extending his hand. “I’m Patrick Wenner. So pleased to meet you! Really, a pleasure. Can’t tell you how much.”

It was Sahalia’s dad!

Niko filled me in as we walked up to the house. When Niko had shown his uncle Alex’s letter to the editor and told him our story, Tim agreed that the farm should be home to anyone from the group who wanted to come. Tim had been hosting two families of refugees, and had asked them to find another place to stay, so that we could have the space. He told Niko he was glad to have them leave—apparently they didn’t help much around the farm, ate a lot, and complained all the time.

Tim had also contacted the Canadian government and officially requested the release of Alex and Sahalia into his custody. They were due to arrive within a few days.

Apparently shortly after that, Mr. Wenner had contacted Alex at Quilchena and Alex had told him to head straight to the farm. Alex was keeping this news from Sahalia. My brother loved to surprise people.

But I sort of wondered if this was too much. Wouldn’t she want to know as soon as possible that her dad was alive and she was about to see him?

Even though Tim had offered that they could come to the farm, the McKinleys were staying in Canada, for now, and still had custody of Chloe. The Dominguez family might be moving to New Mexico, where Mrs. Dominguez had a sister. Max would be adopted by them officially.

So. We weren’t all going to live on the farm in a big commune. But they’d all visit. I knew they would. The kids would love it here. I could already imagine Chloe and Max fighting over that tire swing.

Back at the hospital, Astrid had written a letter to Jake, care of his mom down in Texas. She had told him about Charlie’s birth and asked that he come up and meet us at the farm. I wrote my own letter and repeated the request. I think seeing Charlie could be what Jake needs to straighten up for once and for all.

Josie had been on her own letter-writing campaign, working on getting the orphans she met at Mizzou put into Tim’s custody.

After the “Massacre at Mizzou,” as the papers called it, the government finally had to admit that the drifts are real. How could they not? There were hundreds dead at UMO.

The papers are now filled with stories of the drifts and the campaign to keep them a secret. President Booker has demanded a full inquiry into the cover-up, but some people think he was the one who ordered the cover-up in the first place.

The upside is that the safety measures have been set up in the areas where the drifts are still a risk. And, thank God, those O containment camps are being shut down. I still can’t believe the stories Josie told us about what happened to her there.

The Pfeiffer Family Farm was the new home to me, Alex, Astrid and Sahalia, Josie and Niko, baby Charlie and, now, Mr. Wenner. More would be coming. And the farm could handle them. Lots of space. Lots of promise.

“You’re not going to believe this place,” Niko told me. “We’ve got thirty acres of apples, fifteen of plums, and fifteen of white peaches. And the farm used to have a flock of a hundred sheep. We don’t have any now, but my uncle wants to start up again, now that he has us to help him.”

“There’s a swap meet in town,” Josie said to Astrid. “We got a bassinet and some clothes. But now I worry the clothes might be too big. I don’t know.”

“It’ll be fine,” Astrid told Josie, linking her arm through Josie’s. “And thank you.”

Niko and Mr. Wenner were talking about farm machinery and Sandy was talking to Uncle Tim. Was she flirting with him? Hard to tell, but he looked flushed and pleased with her attention.

Tim showed me, Astrid, and Sandy around the house with pride. There were braided wool rugs in every room. Handmade, we were told, back when the flocks were big. Amish quilts lay on the beds, and some hung on the walls, too, as decoration. “That one’s been in my family for more than a hundred years,” Tim told us, pointing to a quilt with a dozen ovals interlocked. “And that one was given to me by my wife on our wedding day, God keep her soul.”

Beautiful kerosene lanterns with mirrored backplates were affixed to the walls in the hallway. Framed portraits in black-and-white of people posing with prize livestock and farm machinery.

“Each generation, our family got smaller. At one time there were twenty Pfeiffers from three generations living in this big old house,” Tim told us. “But I guess we’ve had bad luck. After my sister—Niko’s mom—died, there was only me to farm the place. None of my cousins wanted anything to do with the farm. It’s felt just miserable here for years. I was going to sell the place and move to Florida and probably go crazy with nothing to do.”

He showed us our room, with an old carved wooden bedframe with probably the nicest quilt of the bunch. An empty bassinet standing at the ready. A pack of diapers resting on an old hope chest. A rocking chair that looked at least a hundred years old.

Astrid took my hand. Her eyes were shining.

“Can’t tell you how happy I am to have this house filling up again,” he told us. “Makes it seem like a home again.”

I’m up with Charlie every couple of hours, it feels like. Of course I don’t mind.

I give him to Astrid. She nurses him and then I change his diaper and swaddle him up again.

I rock him in the chair and he opens his nighttime-blue eyes and holds on to my finger with his tiny fingers. He yawns. I marvel at his little mouth. His small voice cooing, calling to who? Maybe he is speaking to me. Or to the blanket. Or to God.

I never knew how much goodness a newborn has wrapped around him until I held my son in my arms. I get it, why everyone wants to hold the baby. They’re filling up.

Today, Alex and Sahalia will arrive.

We’re all giddy with excitement.

Alex’s and Sahalia’s bedrooms are on the second floor. We put Alex down at one end of the hall and Sahalia at the other and Mr. Wenner in between. A little space to encourage them to… take their time.

We had so much fun cleaning the rooms. Niko and I hauled out the mattresses and beat them with a broom. We scrubbed the floors with Murphy’s Oil Soap and dusted away the cobwebs in the corners and in the dresser drawers.

They’re going to love it here.

Alex and Niko will have a dozen ideas for ways to fix up the farm and improve productivity—all of them good. And I can’t wait for Sahalia to see her father.

Alex’s been very specific in his instructions about how we are to handle the moment when they arrive.

First of all, only Tim was allowed to go pick them up at the airport. I told Alex (on a landline they allowed him to use at the Air Force base) that I wanted to come with Tim to pick them up, but he said he was afraid I’d blow the secret. He insisted that we stay home.

The truck only fits three comfortably, so I relented.

It’s taken forever. The airport is an hour and twenty minutes away and the plane was supposed to land at 11 a.m. I don’t miss minitabs too much, but I’d kill for a text right now.

Where are they? Why’s it taking so long?

We’re on the front porch. Astrid’s rocking Charlie, who just nursed, and I’m pacing back and forth.

“They should be here by now, don’t you think? What’s taking them so long?”

“They’ll be here soon,” she tells me.

“They should have been here an hour ago!” I say.

“We’re going inside, aren’t we, Charlie. We’re going to do what Alex told us to do.”

According to Alex’s plan, I’m in the wrong place. Astrid and I are supposed to wait inside with the baby, so Mr. Wenner can walk up to the truck and surprise Sahalia.

Mr. Wenner, meanwhile, is inside, pacing laps around the kitchen table.

Finally, finally, I hear the crunch of gravel on the drive.

“They’re coming! They’re here!” I say. (Okay, I shout.)

“Get in here!” Astrid shouts to me.

“Oh my God,” Mr. Wenner says as he pushes opens the screen door and steps out. “It’s really happening.”

I give him a hug and my congratulations and I go to stand inside the kitchen, looking out the age-rippled glass of the window above the sink.

I pull Astrid and Charlie to me.

He’s asleep in her arms, smiling and milk-drunk.

“I can’t wait to introduce Alex to Charlie!” I say.

Astrid ducks her head and presses it into Charlie’s blankets. She is already crying. It’s very sweet.

“Look!” I say.

The truck comes into view, and God, it’s going really slow, ambling over every pothole in the drive. No wonder it took so long.

I see now, that there are two figures in the bed of the truck, riding in the open air. It’s kind of weird. Maybe they wanted the open-air view?

The engine isn’t even cut before I hear Sahalia shout, “Daddy! Daddy!”

She jumps down from the truck bed and Mr. Wenner sweeps her into his arms. They go around and around, laughing and crying and hugging like it’s too good to be true.

But it is both good and true and it makes my heart ache with old-fashioned joy to see them together.

Sahalia has changed so much. Her dad is going to be amazed at who she’s turned into. Or maybe it’s that she always was a kind and thoughtful person, but was just hiding behind a crappy attitude.

I kiss Astrid on the top of her head.

“Dean,” Astrid says. “Look. There’s another surprise.” She points out the window with her chin.

Alex has hopped out of the back and he’s opening the passenger door.

I peer closer to the window.

A man gets down.

I think… I think… it’s my dad.

And now I stride to the door, and I open it and it is my dad.

I’m running now, down the gravel drive.

My footfalls crunching fast.

I see that behind my dad, still in the cab of the truck is a woman, very frail.

She needs a hand down and she is my mother.

“Mom!” I shout. “Mom! Dad!”

I reach my mother and come to a stop, my feet sliding in the gravel.

Gently, gently, I hug her. She’s thin and I see, no, I feel, against my cheek, that she’s suffered some terrible burn down the side of her face and over her neck. The skin is bandaged in places and shiny in others and she’s in my arms. She’s thin and fragile and she’s in my arms.

My mother.

My dad puts his arms around the two of us and Alex wriggles into the middle and we’re all laughing and crying. We’re in a big knot. A knot of Grieders. A cluster. A group. A family.

My dad kisses the back of my head and Alex’s grin is a mile wide. I’ve never seen Alex so happy and I know I never will see him happier. He did it. He reunited us.

In a moment, Astrid will make her way down the drive and I will introduce my parents to my son and my (someday soon) wife.

But right now I just let my mom cling to me.

“My sweet boy,” she says. “I thought I lost you forever.”

I hold my mother, taking care to be gentle, and I tell her I love her.