Page 2 of Everything Under the Sun

Sosie complained a lot. I hated it, but I never said much unless I wanted an argument I knew I’d never win—Sosie was always right, even when she was blatantly wrong.

“Well, I haven’t seen Alice or her inbred sons outside today either, so—”

“Sosie,” Father scolded, his voice sharp. He turned to look at her. “They’re not inbred, and you shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”

I sighed, and shook my head at my mouthy sister.

“Well, they act like heathens,” Sosie argued. “And I don’t say those things to anyone but the two of you.”

“You still shouldn’t say it.” He turned back to the fish; the sound of the blade sawing through another head made me wince. “It’s not the kind of rumor you want to be spreading,” he added.

“Fine, Daddy,” Sosie said with mild exasperation. “But I still haven’t seen them today, so please clean the fish out back.”

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t home,” I chimed in. “And if they are, the second Daddy goes out back to clean the fish, they’ll come right on over and invite themselves to dinner.”

Sosie huffed, and then walked farther into the kitchen, tapping her walking-stick against the floor out ahead of her. She sat down at the small table across from me.

“They can catch their own damn fish,” Sosie said with a sneer. “Besides, when you cook it they’ll probably smell it and come running over here anyway.”

Neither I nor my father said anything more on the matter—Sosie was actually right this time.

When it came to food we harvested or hunted separate from the rest of the town, we had to be careful to hide it. The people in our small community always looked out for one another, but with food and scarce supplies, the same people were also known to turn on each other if they’d gone without for too long. And twelve days without meat was just on the cusp of being too long.

Father boiled the fish over a small fire in the fireplace, using water I had drawn from the lake yesterday. We ate in silence, mostly because we were so hungry all we could focus on were the tiny pieces of fish in front of us.

“I can go fishing again before it gets too dark,” I said from the couch. “They were really biting today, but I heard something in the woods and left before the bait ran out.”

“I don’t want you going anywhere this late,” Father spoke up from across the room.

He was standing at the window overlooking the front porch, his back was to us, his left hand touched the side of his face as if to soothe the growing ache in his mouth. But he seemed more focused on something outside the window, rather than the progressing pain.

“But if the fish are biting—”

“No, Thais. No more fishing.” He turned and looked across at me sternly. “Understood?”

I nodded, always respectful of my father’s wishes. It didn’t mean I always agreed with him, but he was my father, and I trusted him more than anyone so I could never bring myself to argue.

Noticing my father rubbing his mouth again, I got up, placed my hand on the doorknob. “I’ll go see if Ms. Mercado is home yet.” I started to open the door.

“She’s not,” Father said, stopping me. “The peppermint oil isn’t going to help with the pain anyway. It never really does.”

“But Daddy—.” I stopped when his eyes fell on me, filled with concern. And then I said instead, “Is something wrong? You seem worried.”

“I am,” he confirmed. “The fact that Emilia and Fernando still haven’t come back—well, something’s not right about it.”

I had been having these thoughts all afternoon.

“They’re probably just looking for supplies,” Sosie called from the couch.

“For two days?” I pointed out. “Not even Fernando would stay away from home that long without telling anyone.”

Fernando was a tall, handsome young man of eighteen, just four months younger than me. He hoped that he and I might be married someday. But I wasn’t interested in Fernando, or any other man for anything other than friendship, and even friendship I was cautious of—rarely did men ever want to be “just friends” with women.

Over the years of our incredibly difficult life, I witnessed the death of two women trying to give birth, several babies that were stillborn, many that were premature and died hours after birth, and one infant death too horrific to speak of. Life in this new world was not fit for children, or the mothers who risked giving birth to them. And I was terrified of ever being part of the statistic. But I was a young woman, and I did find Fernando Mercado attractive, and I did sometimes imagine him kissing me. But thoughts were as far as I would ever let myself go. Like death, rape was something that I could never un-see, and I went out of my way to keep it from happening to me.

“I’m going next door,” Father said, moved in front of me and opened the door. “Stay here and clean up. I’ll be back soon.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

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