Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain Read Free Book Online

sure: Dad doesn’t need any more reasons to be stressed out right now.
    I try to imagine where Mom is, what she’s thinking. I don’t know what it means that she’s gone, but I know by the strain on Dad’s face that it doesn’t mean anything good.
    I try to picture her going off on a short visit to her distant cousins in Fresno, then coming back once she’s gotten used to the idea of living in the middle of nowhere. I can’t, though. I just can’t see her getting used to this place. None of us understood before we came here exactly how bad it is.
    I don’t know why it never occurred to Dad that she’d freak out. Maybe we’ve all been taking her for granted too much, though, assuming she’d be there no matter what. But looking back, I think of the distant look in her eyes, her distraction, her researching graduate schools, her rarely seen smile, and I realize we have all been kind of clueless.
    And now that she’s not here? Now what?
    What if she never comes back?
    Dad might be the person driving the car in our family, but Mom is the engine that makes it run, and a car isn’t really a car without an engine.
    I head off to the east, down the gentle slope of the hill, where fallen leaf matter and tree branches cover the earth. I am already getting used to walking through these woods, where so few trails exist except those traveled by deer and other animals. When I reach the bottom of the slope, I can see where a deep creek would run, if this past winter hadn’t been so dry. There is only a shallow flow visible now. I follow it over rough land for a while until I come to the pool Wolf mentioned. It’s maybe a foot or two deep, so I take off my boots, roll up my jeans, and wade in to cool off.
    The water here in the shade is cold. All water in these parts is snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada, Dad made sure to inform me on the drive north. Mostly clean, good for drinking.
    But there’s not much of it to drink, if this is our closest source.
    California gets its rain in the winter, so a dry one means no water for the rest of the year. In the desert, where we’d lived since I was thirteen, we didn’t notice the drought much, since there’s always a drought in the desert. I heard about it on the news, though, and now we have to worry about how we’ll get any water at all.
    I think of the wildfires that have been burning all over California since spring. Dad sees them as a sign of the coming collapse of society, but I think they’re just a sign of drought.
    Everything about our move here feels a little reckless, a little wrong, and Mom’s leaving seems like confirmation of that.
    Dad will come up with a plan, though. He always has a plan.
    *   *   *
    On day two of my mother being gone, the movers delivering all of our stuff arrived late. Once they were finished unloading everything from the truck, we unpacked, while my father stopped occasionally to stare out a window at the empty driveway. He never said a word about Mom disappearing. If Izzy and I were a different kind of sisters, we might have exchanged worried glances or talked about our missing parent, but instead she avoided my gaze when we passed in the hallway and spent most of the day in her room cleaning and arranging her stuff.
    We have a strict system for unpacking after moves, which I thought would unravel without Mom present to do her part, but somehow Dad redistributes the responsibilities so that we are entirely unpacked and the house is as set up as it can be by ten o’clock that night.
    On day three, Mom still didn’t come back. Our house, its run-down appearance only emphasized by our normal suburban belongings, is depressing to look at. Dad’s expression grew grim, and his silence had a weight to it.
    On day four, he announces to me that we’re making a trip to the grocery store. My sister stays behind while my dad and I get into his truck