The Ballad of Ami Miles Read online

  This was before his family finally made good on their threats and cut him off. By then, he had made his changes to all the trailers and locked them into concrete block foundations besides, so they left him with what he had. I noticed that as I got older, Papa left out this part of the story. Or maybe it was as he got older and the idea of rebellious offspring became less appealing to him.

  “While he still had money and credit, he laid in supplies. Bought every kind of book on survival and homesteading and edible plants and herbal medicine that he could find.” He pointed to the shelves that lined one side of the room, where those very books still sat, dog-eared and with covers half torn off. “What he knew would be hard to grow or find or make, he bought.” Papa waved his hand in the vague direction of our storage barn as he went on. “You seen that big metal barn back on the rear of my property? The whole thing is insulated and refrigerated, runs on solar. Using the sun to keep food cold, think on that! Jed got it rigged up, then loaded it with fifty-pound bags of flour, sugar, cornmeal, coffee, and oats piled near about to the roof, all in them big plastic tubs to keep the critters out. We got cases and cases of candles and matches, tools and guns and ammunition. He bought seed enough for fifty years of crops.” On a farm ten times the size of our little garden, I thought but didn’t say.

  “He bought hand-cranked grinding machines for peanuts because he had a weakness for peanut butter.” Here Papa gave a fond little laugh, and for once I thought of him as a little boy with a grandpa who loved peanut butter. It was strange, and I couldn’t quite picture Papa as a little boy. “But he drew the line at storing more than a few cases of his favorite kind. He knew that the Lord requires sacrifices of those he chooses, and he did not want to appear unworthy.” Was it my imagination, or did he look pointedly at me then? I sat up a little straighter in my chair. “He built a henhouse and stocked it with laying hens and put a couple of roosters behind a fence so there could be generations, chickens in perpetuity! He even bought a few head of cattle and put them to pasture out back so there would be fresh milk, butter, and sometimes beef. I bet you never had beef before, have ya, boy?” Zeke looked like he might not like being called “boy,” but he wisely held his peace. He might not know what to make of me yet, but I saw he was getting the measure of Papa pretty quick.

  “Ol’ Jed bought bolts and bolts of muslin and five working antique foot-pedal sewing machines, which my grandmother had to learn how to use. Women was spoiled back then, you know, used to the easy life.” He sneered at those lazy women and shook his head sorrowfully. Ruth nodded in agreement, but Rachel and Billie darted their eyes at each other and then away. Rachel smirked, but Billie looked mad. “He started his own church there in the dealership office and preached the hard truth of what was coming to the farm families that came around, until pretty soon there was eleven families besides his own living right here on this compound. They called him crazy, but ol’ Jed got the last laugh.” Did he? I wondered. They had cut themselves off from the world, I knew, but that didn’t keep the sickness from touching their daughters.

  Zeke looked around the table. There are only a few other people on the compound now besides Papa Solomon and Ruth, who are my grandparents. My mother’s two sisters were still there: Rachel and Billie. They were not much older than her, but they had caught the invisible sickness that kept so many from being able to have babies, and Ruth said it had just dried them up and made them bitter and old before their time. There was Rachel’s husband, David, though they had lived in separate trailers for as long as I could remember, and David’s sister, Amber, who was strange and did not come out of her own little single-wide much. She told me that her and my mama were friends from the day David brought her to live with us, after their parents died. Their family owned one of those old farms about a day’s walk from us, and when they died, Amber was the last one left there. I don’t think the rest of my family was all that thrilled to have her, with her puffy yellow hair hanging loose just barely past her shoulders and her hand-me-down, store-bought clothes carried in two big sacks, but they were not going to leave her out there by herself to go crazy and waste away either. Plus, there was always the chance that she could bear a child by Jacob, just like Bilhah did for Rachel in the Bible (which is Billie’s real name too).

  But one way or another, that never did work out. Jacob was the only boy and the oldest child. He always seemed nearly as old as Papa to me, although I guess he cannot be. I know he had a wife once, named May, but no one would ever talk about her, and if I asked, they all got real stiff and mad-seeming, so I learned not to ask pretty quick. I thought maybe she died and they were still sad about it. I doubt she would have left. She couldn’t have any babies, so there was no need for her to go off and hide like my mother had to after I came. There was nowhere to go and no one to go to, anyway, after all that had happened. No way to get there if there was. This was what I was taught from the time I could talk and understand words. I know different now, but I’m still not sure if it was all lies or if they believed it themselves and just didn’t know any better.

  I guess Papa saw the question in Zeke’s face, because he went on before there was a need to ask it. “Out of those eleven families, only four had daughters who were blessed with children.” He shook his head sorrowfully. I definitely saw Billie roll her eyes then, but luckily Papa didn’t notice. “Of those four, three had only sons who lived past infancy. That shook the faith of the weak, and things got bad between Jed and some of the other men.” I didn’t know all the details, but I knew that one by one, then all in a flurry, the others went away. “Jed’s son Micah was a grown man by then, and he had married one of those precious daughters, so her family stayed. Her name was Leah, and she bore Micah two sons. You’re lookin’ at one of ’em.”

  Leah’s younger son was my grandfather, Solomon Miles, and he stayed at Heavenly Shepherd to carry on with Jedidiah’s plan. Micah died when I was just a baby, but I remembered my great-grandmother Leah as a cranky old woman whose bony face and hands terrified me. She died when I was about six.

  By the time my grandfather was born, the world outside had gotten terrible. The government put out reports saying that only one in every ten thousand women could still produce a child. When I was around ten, I found some boxes full of old news clippings that told about scientists who worked day and night to figure out the problem and fix it. At first, Ruth just snatched the box away and refused to answer my questions, but I kept asking until she finally gave in. Those scientists had done studies—“more like experiments,” Ruth would say with a shudder—that showed how it was a virus that caused the barrenness, and those rare women who didn’t get it seemed to be immune. Over time, those “lucky” girls became nothing but the government’s breeding stock, kept hidden and safe from any threat to their ability to reproduce. Later, the government heard rumors that a few babies were being born in secret, outside of their control. No one saw the C-PAFs as a safe haven anymore or went into them willingly. Then there were agents assigned to wide territories, making their rounds over the course of a year or so, checking in with folks in case any miracles had occurred. But that was a few years off yet.

  Solomon and his bride, my grandma Ruth, were blessed with four healthy babies, three of them girls. Three children still safe at Heavenly Shepherd, but one of them lost. That was the youngest: my mother, Elisabeth, and when she was born in 2084, they didn’t have to worry yet about the C-PAF men, as folks came to call them. But by the time Elisabeth had me in 2104, she did have to worry about the C-PAF men. My family knew this, and like Great-Great-Grandpa Jed, they made a plan. By the time that agent came around, they knew that spies might have told him I had been born. Somehow, they often seemed to know before they got to the families that a baby would be waiting for them. Just hiding me would be too dangerous, so they dug a tiny grave and filled it with the bones of some poor baby buried a hundred years before in the old church graveyard. They would say my mother had run off, crazy with grief, headed north to the
C-PAF, where she could have more babies under the proper medical supervision. This story would be checked, of course, and he might be back again when she did not turn up.

  It was easy enough to hide a little infant on a moment’s notice, but my mother couldn’t risk being found and dragged behind those walls to be bred like a dog to strange men. She had run away, and I liked to think that she was filled with grief for the daughter she left behind, but she surely was headed south, as far from the Centers as she could get. Soon after that, the president of the United States took his own life, as thousands of others did in those terrible days so empty of hope. Ruth used to say that despair is a sickness, and it spreads the same as any other. The new president announced a change of policy: We would cut our losses, she said, and focus all our resources only on those who wanted to be helped. Lines were drawn, and those who chose to remain outside them were cut loose. We thought then that my mother would come back, but she never did.

  “So now here we are,” Papa said, looking around the table at all of us and letting his eyes come to rest on me. “These is hard, strange times, no doubt. A man has got to make his own way if he wants to find what the Lord has in store for him. But there comes a time when every wanderer must find his home. It just might not be where he left it.” This was an invitation, and everyone knew it. I saw Jacob shift a little in his seat and look down, hiding his expression. Rachel and Billie both had their lips pressed tight in a line, their faces so alike in disapproval, but they took care not to meet their father’s eyes. David was sopping up the juices on his plate with a roll and seemed to be the only one not interested in the conversation.

  “Well, sir, I believe that you are right,” Zeke said. “A man is not truly a man until he has a home and a family, is he?” Now, slowly, all eyes turned to me, not just Papa’s. I felt my cheeks burn with shame, and then Jacob knocked his glass right off the table and it landed on the linoleum with a dull thunk, sloshing out cloudy sassafras tea as it rolled. Ruth jumped up to mop up the mess while Jacob made apologetic noises.

  Papa focused his gaze on his son now in a way that made me squirm. “That’s the truth,” he replied to Zeke’s question. “Sometimes I fear that the lack of children will keep a man from fully reaching his potential, no matter what he comes from.” Poor Uncle Jacob. He had always been sweet to me, whittling me little animals from pine branches and telling me silly stories he made up as he went along, singing me songs that Ruth claimed she never taught him. It wasn’t his fault if May couldn’t have a baby. And I didn’t think he was such a poor example of a man. He was not like Papa, but maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing. Surely there was room in this big empty world for more than one kind of man?

  Jacob didn’t seem to feel as sorry for himself as I did for him, though. If Papa’s hurtful words had found their target in his heart, he didn’t let on. Instead he looked at David and said, “Speaking of a man’s family, David, I hate for your sister to miss out on this fine meal.” David jumped a little, like he’d just remembered something his belly had made him forget all about.

  “Well, Amber is feeling a little poorly today. Women troubles, I suspect. Why don’t you take her a plate of this delicious supper, Ami? I think it would do her good, don’t you?” His voice was light and even, but his eyes were steady on mine in a way that felt serious. I jumped up before Ruth could protest. I knew she would want me to help clear up, show off my woman skills for Zeke. And then Rachel and Billie surprised me by jumping in.

  “Bless her heart,” Rachel said. “Lord knows we’ve all been there. That is sweet of you to think of your sister, too, David! Billie and me can take care of all this, can’t we, B?” Rachel was already up and stacking plates with her quick, strong hands, so Billie gave a little grunt of agreement and followed suit. I moved quickly then, grabbing a clean plate and filling it with dainty portions of each food. Amber did not eat much, and I had my doubts about whether she would want this dinner at all. I wasn’t sure what my aunts and uncle were up to, but wasting food was still a sin, so I went easy.

  All this time, Papa sat still, a king on his throne while the women buzzed around him. David was swapping hunting stories with Zeke now, keeping him talking, while Papa listened and interjected the occasional comment or his gruff bark of a laugh. If Zeke was concerned about my leaving, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed more relaxed than he’d been all afternoon. As I swung toward the door with the full plate, Rachel put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Don’t forget the bread,” she said, just an ordinary reminder, but her eyes seemed to search my face. Everyone was behaving so strangely. Suddenly I needed to get out of that room. I wished I could drop the plate and run across the road and into the woods until the house and everyone in it disappeared. Maybe I could have gotten away with that as a little girl, but those days were over for me now, and I knew it.

  “Thanks,” I said to Rachel, grabbing a roll and adding it to the plate. Then as quick as I could go and still be walking, I was out the door and headed toward Amber’s trailer.

  Three

  Amber called for me to come in as soon as I knocked, as if she had been expecting me. Her trailer was the farthest one from the main house and the closest to the road. I had always wondered how she filled her time, sitting alone in there day in and day out. She liked her privacy, I guess. I could count the number of times I’d been inside on one hand. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the darkness in her trailer after the still-bright sunlight outside. Before I could even see her clearly, she was pulling me by my wrist back to her bedroom and closing the door behind us. And then she was talking, her face very close to mine.

  “There’s not a lot of time, Ami, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do this sooner, but now we just have to make the best of a bad situation, so I’m sorry for what I’m about to say. Do you understand why that man is here?” I felt embarrassed and could only stare at the floor. “He is here to try to make you have a baby. Has Ruth ever … do you know how that happens?” I nodded, still studying the ratty brown carpet at my feet. “I know what your papa says, and I know you’ve been taught that this is the right thing to do, but I don’t think so. And neither does David or Jacob or your aunts. And Ami”—she put her hand under my chin and pulled my face up to look at her—“neither did your mama.”

  Now my heart started pounding and my stomach felt like every fluttering thing on earth was in there flying around. My mama? My mama hadn’t seen me since I was a week old. What did she know about it? Amber must have seen the confusion in my eyes, because she answered as if she had heard me.

  “I know it’s hard that your mama never came back for you. I know it’s hard for her too. If your grandfather wasn’t such a…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “It just wasn’t like you think, Ami. It was complicated, and I wish I had time to explain it all to you now, but I don’t. I think they’ll give you tonight to yourself, but tomorrow they’re going to expect you to get cozy with that man, and tomorrow night I don’t think you’re gonna have much choice in the matter. So I’m askin’ you now: Is this what you want? Because if it’s not, I’m gonna help you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. What did my wants have to do with anything? This was my duty. It was my place in God’s plan, according to Papa and Ruth. I had to try, didn’t I? I had to make myself a vessel for His will. How could Amber help me? Could she make me not a sixteen-year-old girl with a good chance of being one of the last fertile mothers on earth? Could she rewind time and keep my mama here to protect me? Could she make me be born somewhere else, in the time before the sickness? All those thoughts raced through my mind in the space of a few breaths, but all I could say to her was “How?”

  She turned around and took something out of a dresser drawer. “When you were little, maybe nine or ten, a … a traveler came through. You probably don’t remember. He knew your mama. He knew where she was. He only told that to me on your mama’s instructions, but I told David, and pretty soon your aunts and Jacob knew too. He gave this
to me, and over the years, we all agreed that when this time came, when they tried to breed you to some stranger, we would give it to you and let you choose.” She put the thing she held into my hand.

  It was a thickly folded rectangle of glossy paper covered with words and a photograph of a big building by a lake. Across the top it said Lake Point Resort. I looked down at it, confused, and then understanding began to dawn on me. Could it be possible? Amber must have seen the question on my face, because all she said was “Yes.” My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped that paper, but I held on to it like it was the only thing keeping me standing. Mama, I thought, over and over like it was the only word I knew. Mama, Mama, Mama. And just like that, I knew that I would go. I would run away from Zeke Johnson and Papa Solomon, from Heavenly Shepherd and everyone I had ever known, and run toward the person I had never known but always needed—my mother.

  “What do I do?” I managed to choke out while the tears spilled over and my breath felt trapped in my chest. But Amber was focused and determined, and she started moving around the room, collecting things and piling them in one place, talking all the while.

  “All right now, Ami girl, it’s all gonna be okay. I know you wasn’t expecting none of this, least not like this, not today. I’m just sorry we didn’t never tell you or do more to get you ready. I tried to tell your aunts we was running out of time, but what do I know? They don’t never listen to a word I say. But what’s done is done, and we’ll just have to make the best of it now. You’ll take your bedroll and a change of clothes. The one good thing about the way you’ve been raised is that you know how to take care of yourself in the woods. Eufaula, where this place is, is not really that far from here, I think. I went there once with my parents, when I was a little girl, and it seems like it was just two or three days’ ride on horseback. I don’t know; it was a long time ago…” I wondered if she was really talking to me anymore, or to herself, as she paced around the small trailer picking things up and sometimes putting them back down, sometimes adding them to the growing pile on the couch.