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looks at my dead father. A man who’s become a stranger.  Dad would never do this to me. Dad warned of death from the unclean air, this is death he brought on himself.
    Mom leans into his lips, letting hers press against his, and I want to look away, but I can’t. My father just killed himself. She lifts her hand, slapping it hard against his cold cheek.
    “Coward.” She spits the words in his just-kissed face, her hand trembles as she pulls it back. She wipes her cheeks dry with her palms and breathes in deep.
    “Mom….” I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know if I want to know, seeing as this was the plan Dad, Forest, Diane, and Mark had in the works all along. A group suicide. “How did they … why didn’t we…?” I point to Dad, not wanting to say out loud the word “die.”  She looks over at me, as if having forgotten I’ve been here all along.
    “The tea was mixed with poison.” She keeps her eyes on Dad while she speaks. “Diane and I had measured the quantities earlier while you were in the hatch, we all knew it was going to be tonight. Dad, Forest, and Mark had decided how much to use … I don’t want to talk about this, Lucy. Not now.”
    “So they put the poison in the cups of tea? You knew what was going to happen?”
    “Yes, but that’s beside the point, try to understand. What matters is no one tried to alter the amounts, they could have resisted, but they didn’t. They will….”
    “They willingly took their lives.” I finish for her. “So why didn’t you change everyone’s? You could have saved them all .” I’m the one shaking now.
    “No, Lucy. I couldn’t. They didn’t want to be saved.” She takes my hands in hers, leading me to the study. She closes the door; the one Forest has sealed every single night of my life, effectively shutting off the room of the living from that of the dead.
    Once in the study, we both sit down in chairs. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, not for the warmth, but for a sense of security. I want to ask Mom more questions, to understand the why and the how, but I don’t. I’m not ready to speak of it because then I have to admit the truth. They are gone because they chose to leave.
    “I trusted him,” I say out loud, realizing I never knew what that word meant before. But now, it’s not that I understand what trust means, it’s more like I know what distrust means.
    “You shouldn’t have,” Mom answers.
    I close my eyes and focus on the stars dancing under my eyelids, falling asleep to the nightmare of the day.
     
    The rising sun is hidden since Mom and Diane closed all the blinds last night. Still, I know it’s morning by the way my stomach lurches around, and I wake knowing there’s nothing left here to keep us alive. I look around the study, realizing it’s empty. Mom’s not here.
    For a moment my heart races, fearing something’s happened to her, but then I hear noise in the dining room, and I focus on calming down. Her being dead is impossible, we spent the night tossing and turning. Her from the demons of her past, I suppose, and me left worrying about the unknown.
    “Mom, you in there?” I call, standing as I retie my waist–length hair in a ponytail and then zip my oversized hoodie. Hearing grunting, I walk into the dining room and see Mom struggle to pull Forest onto a tarp.
    “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d start. We need to take them outside.”
    “How are we going to do that?” The task is impossible. Not just physically, but emotionally. 
    “We’re going to do our best. We can’t keep them in here. The whole house would be unlivable in a few days. I need your help.”
    She’s a strong woman, weakened by too little food for too many years, but she must have always been a determined person, otherwise she would have never prepared so hard for the blackout. Now with her creased forehead and tight mouth, it’s hard to believe she could have ever been more intent.
    “Of course I’ll help,