I kicked at the bottom of the fence. “Listen. I better—”
“Yeah. Say your goodbyes, man. I’ll have news soon. A few hours from now Cardinal Cassidy will be NYC bound!”
Gonzalez hung up. By then, scores of infected were coming into the park. I threw the phone into the backpack and got moving without any real destination in mind.
As the sun rose, the infected headed toward Monument Park or to the barricades. They gathered into work crews as they went. Some set about carting off the last of the riot debris, others fought back overgrown foliage or fortified the wall that stood between us and the rest of the world. On a tree-lined street one group stood around a vacant lot between two houses that had been cleared and tilled, revealing rich black earth.
“So we put cauliflower here,” a man said as he sorted through packets of seeds. “And the broccoli over there.”
“But then where does the cabbage go?” asked another.
“What cabbage?” a woman asked. “Where do you see cabbage?”
“Right there.”
“That’s not cabbage, that’s arugula.”
“What about the tomatoes?”
“Guys! Hold on, okay? Just give me a second.”
The group shifted, revealing a woman in a wide straw hat standing with her back to me, poring over a book. She looked from the garden plot to the book and back again.
“Broccoli,” she said, pointing to a spot by the fence and then ticking off three more. “Radishes. Spinach. Cauliflower.” She slammed the book closed. “We’re planting for a late fall harvest, so no tomatoes.”
Everyone moved away to start digging in the spots Mom had indicated. She looked a little less thin than she had the last time I’d seen her. There was a roundness to her face. A glow to her skin.
“Honestly, Sara,” one of the women said. “I don’t understand what you’re even doing here this morning.”
“Just wanted to get my hands dirty,” Mom said as she knelt in the dirt.
“Yeah, but don’t you have to get ready?”
Mom ripped the top of a packet of seeds. “It’s a party. We’ve thrown a dozen of them.”
I moved into a stand of trees across the street and watched as she planted row after row and then gently covered the seeds with soil. Eventually, the rest of the crew insisted that she go home and get ready for a party that was happening later that afternoon.
Mom took her book and left the garden, strolling down the sidewalk. I made a slow count to twenty, then fell in behind her. She ended up in the yard of a small yellow house at the end of a cul de sac, the same one I’d broken into that night weeks ago. She crossed the lawn then disappeared into the backyard. It wasn’t long before others arrived, singly and in groups, and followed her. Some carried small boxes, others baskets filled with bread or bundles of flowers bound in twine. I watched them for a while, then started to leave. Before I could take more than a few steps, though, a group of men and women swept by me toward the house.
“Where ya going?” one of them called. “Party’s this way!”
“No, I’m not—I was just—”
Someone laughed and hooked her arm through mine, pulling me along, even as I protested. Before I knew it, we were in the backyard, and the group dispersed. I knew I should leave but the scene behind the house kept me rooted in place.
The backyard was full of people, dozens of them, mostly milling around a long table loaded down with food and glass pitchers of water with thick slices of lemon floating inside. Everywhere I looked, there were flowers. Daisies mostly, and sunflowers, bundled on tables and on the seats of mismatched chairs. A man with a guitar showed up and then a woman with a violin. The crowd cheered as they started to play. So many infected in one place triggered this bone-deep instinct—to turn and go, to run, to get away. But then I remembered that I was safe. Immune.
I found myself weaving through the party in a kind of dream. Even though my clothes were ragged and grimy from old sweat and ash and blood, the people who noticed barely seemed to care. It was crowded enough by then that my arm or shoulder kept brushing someone else’s. At first, I’d jerk away immediately, but they’d simply smile and go back to their conversations. Once, I passed by a man telling a story, and when he was done the people around him laughed so hard that I felt the rush of their breath against my skin and didn’t even flinch. And the smells! Without my mask, I picked out the scents of sweat and soap, of fruit and grass and flowers.
By the time I made it to the other side of the yard my head was spinning. I grabbed hold of the food table to steady myself. There was a pitcher of water nearby. I filled a glass and drank it in one long gulp. It was cold and sharp with the flavor of lemons.