Page 8 of Homestead

He’s probably right. I do feel better sitting here on the stoop, away from the cheerful voices and hustle of the house. Like I can actually breathe.

I don’t say anything, and he doesn’t either. We sit there together like that until a bell starts clanging.

“That’s dinner,” Jimmy says, stretching his back as he stands up. “You think you can eat somethin’? I can bring a plate out here if?—”

“No, I can go in.” I already shirked my bean duty. I’m not going to act snobby or antisocial as well. After all, these people are the ones who can keep me alive. “I can eat.”

2

Four weeks pass quickly,and I go through most of them in an exhausted daze.

I’ve never worked so hard in my life.

There are only three other women in the spare room right now—two are youngish like me and one, Paula, is in her sixties—and all of us have assigned chores. Running the farm takes a lot of work, so it makes sense we’d be expected to help out.

Paula has bad knees, so she mostly does mending and kitchen work she can do sitting down. But the rest of us help with raking leaves, feeding the chickens and pigs, and cooking and laundry.

I do know how to cook. Grandpa was a traditional type, so I did the cooking and cleaning while he did all the harder, rougher tasks. But my previous experience with chores does me little good here. Grandpa and I ate only processed foods—either canned or dried for long-term storage—and we had the solar generator for power to help with dishwashing and laundry. Everything at the Carlsons’ farm is done by hand, so I have to learn it all from scratch.

The other girls have been here longer, so they know what they’re doing. One girl, Laura, was actually born and raised a few miles away, but her parents died from some sort of viral infection two years ago. She, Nicky, and Paula go about their daily tasks easily and quickly, leaving plenty of time for rest and recreation.

I have to work all day long to get my chores done.

Greta is always kind and helpful, but she has certain expectations about speed and performance, and I almost never meet them. More than once, I’m forced to redo a job because I don’t accomplish it well enough the first time.

Even when I’m dead on my feet, I never utter a word of complaint or protest. If this is the only way I can survive, I’ll attempt any work put before me.

Everyone is nice to me. The meals are better than anything I can remember, and my bed is comfortable. I don’t like using the outhouse. In fact, it’s incredibly gross. But overall I’m safe and taken care of, which is not a small thing in the world after Impact.

And it’s not these people’s fault that I’m not used to doing hard work.

Grandpa never made me get dirty or sweaty. He’d tease me and say I was too pretty for hard work. My grief for him is still raw, but occasionally I can’t help but wish he expected just a little more out of me.

But it’s not his fault. It’s mine. I could have learned how to use a rake or a hammer if I’d pushed back against his gender views even slightly.

I didn’t. I accepted my cushy situation just like I accepted getting anything I asked for as a kid. So now life has ended up a lot harder for me than it had to be.

So almost a month goes by before I can even begin to adjust to my new position, and I try not to think too deeply about whether my future will consist of nothing more than day after day of backbreaking work.

I used to daydream about being a movie star or marrying a handsome billionaire. About traveling all over the world and living a life of luxury. About being loved and adored and envied by everyone I encounter.

I haven’t fantasized about anything like that since Impact. It’s no longer even dream material. My only daydreams now are safety and security and to maybe one day be able to have an afternoon to read again.

Not that I have books any longer. Grandpa’s collection is lost to me along with him and everything else we used to have.

This is what I have now, and it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

That’s what I believe and keep telling myself, and I have no reason to think differently until a Saturday exactly four weeks since Jimmy brought me to the Carlsons’.

Sundays are their real rest days, but even Saturdays tend to be lighter in work than the weekdays. Most of the people in this neighborhood get together for big meals on the weekends and talk and sing and share news and generally have a good time.

I’ve been looking forward to today, hoping it will grant me a bit of a reprieve, and I’m utterly thrilled when—after breakfast when Greta hands out chores for the day—she asks if I’d mind helping her bake bread.

She makes bread from scratch, and naturally I’ve never done it before this month. But I picked it up quickly, and it’s one thing I actually enjoy. Kneading and pulling and pounding out the dough. Letting it rise. Forming it into loaves. Sliding them into the oven. Waiting for them—like magic—to turn into warm, bready goodness.

I’ve rarely done anything so satisfying.

Plus baking bread always happens on a clear timeline. It will get done in the morning, leaving the afternoon for me to rest.

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