Page 6 of Trade
I’m sitting on my butt with my feet flat on the floor, but nothing under me is solid. Like a dream of falling. Without thinking, my hand reaches for Bennett before I remember and tuck it back against my chest like I can staunch the bleeding.
He’s not Bennett. He’s the one who did this to me.
Tears stream down my face.
Susan Jordan clears her throat. “This change in circumstances will mean adjustments for everyone. You will move to the unmarried women’s dormitory, and of course, you will be entered in the lottery. This whole situation is highly irregular, and regrettable, and I assure you, leadership has discussed it at length, but we cannot make exceptions due to rank or position. Discipline must be upheld, and we’re all called upon to do our part for the continuity of government, the future of the bunker, and of civilization itself.”
“Did you? Did you do your part, Susan?” I ask, raw hysteria in my voice. I know she didn’t. She got married the day she turned eighteen, just like me.
For a split second, pity flashes in her washed-out blue eyes. “The bunker is grateful to all who sacrifice for our good and the future of the human race.”
It’s not an answer. She knows it. We all know it.
“How can you do this to me?” I ask Bennett, snot running down my face. “You’re sending me to beraped. Bennett, some people don’t come back. How can you do this to me?” My chair screeches on the tile. Somehow, I’m standing and shouting.
I’ve never shouted in public in my life. I’m shaking, weeping, and Bennett sits there with his shoulders slumped like this is happening tohim.
The door creaks open and a guard slips in. Susan and Neil back away from the table.
“I never wanted this,” Bennett says with great dignity, gazing up at me with pain in his eyes as if the question is cruel, and I’m heartless to demand an explanation when he’s hurting, too. He didn’t want this. He’s a victim of circumstances.
I’m going to puke.
I recognize the expression on his face. I saw it whenever I said something about Dad picking him over me for department head, and recently, I saw it every time I asked him what time he’d be coming home.
Why couldn’t I just accept that Dad felt he was the better candidate?
Why was I hassling him when he was so swamped?
Why am I so demanding? So impossible to please?
Rage and panic leave me in the same rush as they hit me, and I collapse back into my seat, crumbling into pieces, staring numbly at these people I’ve known my whole life. Susan and I grew up on the same hall. When I was young, years before Bennett and I got together, I saw her sneak into the ducts with her boyfriend. That’s how I knew the trick of getting in there.
Neil was Dad’s best friend. We went to a party at his quarters every Christmas Eve, and the adults would put us kids into the bedroom, which was actually separate from the living area. They’d play us movies from the Before to keep us out of their hair while they drank potato wine. I watchedThe Wizard of Ozcurled up on his bed with his children.
And he’ll trade me for a few barrels of oil or truck loads of grain. They all will. Even Bennett, my husband, who rested his chin on my lower belly just the other night, stared up at me, and said, “I love you. You know that, right?”
They’d all make that trade, and even though I’m apparently capable of ignoring all kinds of writing on the wall, I’ve never been able to lie to myself when faced with the cold, hard truth, so I can’t stop my brain from chanting,You’d make the trade, too, Gloria.
All these years, you’ve been safe. You let other women go in your place, just like they’ll let you go in theirs now.
You made the trade.
And it’s your turn now.
ChapterTwo
In a few minutes, I transform from a woman to a puppet.
Susan shoves papers at me, sticks a pen in my hand, and stares at me until I sign. Bennett’s gaze is riveted on his legal pad while the guard takes my elbow and pulls me to my feet. No one looks at me while the guard pushes me out the door.
Slowly, my sobs fade as he escorts me to my new quarters in an unmarried women’s dorm. As I stumble along, trying to keep up with the pace he’s setting with my numb legs and feet, the bunker shrinks.
The farther we descend, the lower the ceilings get. By the time we reach Level K, I could touch the tiles if I lifted my arms straight over my head. If I had the energy.
The halls are narrower down here, too, and darker. The lower levels are only allotted one fluorescent light per block, so as you walk, you move from pitch black to bright, blinding, garish white and then back again.
The farther I get away from the elevators, the tighter the grip the animal in my chest has on my lungs. In the blink of an eye, I’m not myself anymore. An hour ago, I was the Assistant Head of Agricultural Preservation, the woman who knows where things are and how things are done. People came to me for answers.
