In the blue house, Wanda’s presence began to take root. The study became hers in a much more permanent way. A twin bed frame with wooden pineapples carved into the headboard was assembled, hauled home in pieces from an abandoned house. A lamp shaped like the moon appeared on the desk, plucked from a garage sale. Little spiky sky plants were hung from nails on pieces of purple thread and dry driftwood. Rocks and fossils and shell fragments gathered from the permanent plots lined both windowsills. A wallpaper of botanical drawings accumulated, tacked one by one to the wall, each more detailed than the last. And the milk crate that had been Kirby’s, the remnants of a mother she’d never known—these artifacts of Frida finally were hers.
Together, they settled into a new routine while society disintegrated all around them. The school did not reopen in September, so Phyllis devised a sixth grade syllabus of sorts and for the first time, Wanda delighted in her studies. Data collection and biology became the focal point of her education. Drawing, fishing, canning, gardening, and first aid were also core subjects. Irrelevancies like cursive and gym and a version of U.S. history Phyllis referred to as “garbage” fell by the wayside. She taught Wanda another kind of history, an older one. Before the country had states. Before it was a country at all.
She taught Wanda how to use hand tools, how to make soap, how to shoot a rifle. Literature became a leisure activity that Wanda pursued on her own, no assignments required. It was a good syllabus. Each module was carefully designed for the world that was coming to bear rather than the one that was quickly receding. Without peers, Wanda relaxed into learning in a way she never had before. She asked as many questions as she wanted without rebuke and Phyllis answered them all to the best of her ability.
At the end of September, Hurricane Salina approached. They listened to its progress on a little hand-crank radio and when it was close, they stripped the garden of its produce, herded the chickens into the house, set the furniture up on bricks, and moved the valuables to the second floor. They latched the storm shutters and brought the solar panels in just as the sky began to darken, and by the time the winds arrived, they’d tucked themselves away, too. The blue house was as indestructible as an old house could be. Phyllis had spent years making sure of it. As Salina raged, the humans waited. The chickens fluttered and clucked in the bathroom, exploring the tub while Blackbeard listened, pawing at their shadows beneath the door. Outside, debris hurtled through the sky and wind clawed at the trees. The ocean waves swelled to the height of four-story buildings. The Intracoastal rose and then overflowed. The streets became rivers, the swamps became lakes. Rain fell in sheets, not drops. And then, after many hours of waiting and enduring, the storm moved on.
Under clear skies, Phyllis and Wanda took stock. The water did indeed trickle into the house, but only just. Being farther inland and on high ground kept them drier than some, but nothing here was fully dry anymore. The ground was sodden. The air, too. Water coursed down the road set just below the house in a thick, sludgy brown river. Sewage and seawater, trash and mud. The garden would not yield again that year—its greenery was flattened, its soil swollen. One of the old lemon trees had broken off at the waist, a bow it would never rise from. All told, they were lucky. They were ready. This was how it would be now.
In other parts of the state, counties began to announce closures. Through that winter and into spring, whole communities slipped away, one by one. Piecemeal evacuation orders were issued and military vehicles began to patrol, ready to take refugees if they wanted to go. Many left. Some held on. Eventually the federal government announced the widespread closure of Florida as a whole, as if it were a rundown theme park with a roller coaster that was no longer safe to ride. And in some ways, it was. Hadn’t Florida always been the end of the line? The butt of the joke? Alligators that stalked Disney World’s children. The Florida Man. Headline after headline, rejoicing in absurdity, in poverty, in addiction and mental illness, in aimless violence. In one year, they said, Florida would be released back into the wild. Released, they said, like a creature the country had tried to tame but ultimately couldn’t. They made it sound like there was a plan. An orderly transition that would unfold. A whole year to wind things down, to strategize. But it didn’t happen like that. Once the announcement was made, the changes came even faster. That summer, panic spread. Supermarkets stopped restocking. Gas stations sold their last gallons. Hospitals and clinics closed their doors. And finally, well ahead of schedule, the post office stopped delivering with little to no fanfare.
Phyllis observed all of these developments and was unsurprised. She watched the military’s trucks splash through the sodden streets of Rudder, collecting refugees, reminding holdouts that they would be alone if they stayed. A melancholy twist of excitement gripped her. She had been right. About everything. The only thing she hadn’t planned for was the little girl who chased her chickens through the swamp, who drew orchids at her dining room table, who begged to explore the sunken lowlands of their town by canoe. Phyllis had never had to worry about anyone but herself until now. Should she do it differently? Unsure, she carried on.
Lucas called in a panic when he heard about the statewide closure. He’d been calling every weekend since he left, but the phone calls had gotten shorter. His life in California fuller. He told Phyllis he was uneasy with the idea of them staying, and she didn’t blame him. But she had spent decades preparing to stay. It was more than stubbornness or ego that made her determined to press on. She couldn’t turn away from the principles she’d arrived at as a young woman, fresh off her undergraduate degree, working as a park ranger in the Everglades and understanding for the first time that the very idea of civilization was irreparably broken. “It will get bad out there, too,” she told him. “At least here we’re ready.”
Lucas wanted to trust this, but there was doubt in his voice as he once again cycled through the options for Wanda, each option its own sacrifice. He asked her outright: “Do you think I should bring her here? I could move out of the dorms. Find a place. Take out another loan.”
Phyllis answered him as best she could, knowing full well that it wasn’t her decision, and also that she was desperate for Wanda to stay. “She’s old enough. She can decide.” Was this dishonest, knowing that Wanda would not want to go? Was it wrong to want to keep her so badly? If she were a parent, maybe she would have chosen differently. Maybe she would have moved, just as Kirby had planned to, anything to get Wanda a few more years of normalcy. But nothing was normal anywhere and she wasn’t a parent. In fact, this was why she’d never wanted to be. She did the best she could. Phyllis knew she would live with these questions for many years, but a decision was made. For now, Wanda would stay.
The dissolution of society was a peaceful thing to watch in many ways. In others, violent. Time took on a dreamlike quality. Days of the week ceased to matter. Months bled together. At the height of that summer, Phyllis and Wanda encountered a middle-aged man throwing rocks through the post office’s windows. They were riding their bicycles, tires whizzing through the water in the street, shallow but enduring, when they heard the breaking glass. Phyllis’s hands jerked on the handlebars at the sound.