“We’ve both known her all our lives, but you were a part of her in a way that I wasn’t. I figured it was only natural for you to take longer to heal, Dad. It’s okay.” That was all she’d said on the matter and, just like that, it was dropped, never to be discussed again.
Life did change for us with Mother gone, though. I slept in later, read more, and learned about the world more than I had when I was younger. Our home was still an anchor for me, but I was becoming interested in what was going on out there and how it might affect us. I wouldn’t say that Mother had sheltered me from the outside world in any direct sense, but when she was alive, I never felt the desire to know about it; SHE was my world. But now that she was gone, I slowly came to the realization that it was there, waiting for me and Amity. We learned about the world together, from the safety of our own home. Amity, though- and as usual- was light-years ahead of me. Not only did she know that The World was out there, she had become adept at interacting with it, even if it was from the seclusion of our private homestead.
When I woke up from my grief, I’d learned that Amity had completely and totally revamped The System on her own, without any input from me. I guess I’d been sort of dimly aware of it, but I didn’t realize the extent to which she’d changed things. The first clue had been in how things arrived at our house. While I was growing up and for all the years after, parcels would be shipped to us piecemeal. When we discovered a need for something, we simply ordered it. Now, though, Amity had decided that using a weekly list and having it all shipped at once worked better and was more efficient. Instead of several small packages showing up, a big container, known in the military as a “tough box,” arrived by truck. Inside the box was everything we’d need that wasn’t a consumable grocery item (those came in a separate delivery from our local grocery store). Who packed these boxes for us, I still don’t know, but Amity assures me that it’s a completely anonymous process and very discreet. According to her, we could order explosives and no one would notice, least of all whoever packed the boxes for us. Sometimes the box was heavy, sometimes extremely light. Amity was a small, slight young woman and couldn’t lift too terribly much, so she often called upon me to bring the box into the house and then shoo me away so that she could empty it by herself. The emptied box would go back outside the night before our next delivery would arrive, much in the same way you’d set out the trash or milk bottles in earlier times- the empty container would be collected and a full one would be left in its place. This was something that Amity had arranged, so I left it to her to maintain it as she saw fit. I never inquired too deeply and she never filled me in on the details.
On the morning of her eighteenth birthday there was a soft tap at my bedroom door. I woke up with a start, having overslept once again. “Dad?” came Amity’s soft, lilting voice from outside the door.
wpDiscuz