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is in their final resting place I shake a branch above my head and watch as the delicate blossoms fall on the masked faces of the dead. Burying them is not an option … that would require work we don’t have the calories to waste. Unlike the compound, we have no battery-powered system to replenish our weakened bodies.
                  “Should we say something? About Dad at least?” I ask. The suit muffles my voice, but I know she hears me.
                  Mom stands with her hands on her hips, sweat trailing from her forehead. “Everything I wanted to say to him I said before the blackout. There’s nothing left for me to say now.”
                  I want to ask what was worth saying then that can’t be repeated now … but that is territory I don’t have the right to tread. I’ll never have the privilege to know that piece of the world. I wasn’t born there; therefore I have no claim to what it felt like to be known and loved in a time when the world had certainty.
    Something should be said for Dad, but I can’t find the word-piece that would fit into my puzzle of emotions. So I just keep shaking the branch, wanting to be covered in blossoms too, they land on my shoulders and around my feet, and that is enough.
    “We should eat, Lucy,” Mom says, snapping me from my reverie. We were brought to this place today for this exact issue. No food. But I don’t want to move forward yet. Anything I do, from here on out, will be as a fatherless girl. I’m not ready to say goodbye to the only life I know.
    “Apples,” Mom says, picking one off a low hanging branch near her head. I watch in silence, confused as she lifts her shirt and fills it with the red fruit. “But let’s go to the other side of the house. I can’t look at this anymore.” She starts walking and I follow her, reluctant, but also curious about what she’s going to say or do next.
    Mom plops the apples out of her shirt and sits down in the green grass next to them. Picking one she begins polishing its skin with the tail of her cotton T-shirt.
    “The first one is for you,” she says handing it up to me.  The piece of fruit is disturbing on so many levels. It’s a forbidden item like in the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Mom is the wicked witch, offering me a poisonous red apple.
    That doesn’t fit with what I know of Mom … she’s always looked out for me, stood up for me when everyone else sheltered me from living. I want to trust her, but I trusted Dad and he chose to leave me without saying good-bye.
    “Lucy, it’s okay. Take off your hood, sit down next to me, and I’ll tell you what comes next.”
    I’m too exhausted by the past twenty-four hours to disagree any longer. Tired of this bulky suit, and not just that, tired of carrying around the overwhelming weight of fear living inside every choice, every step, and every thought I’ve had for sixteen years.
    I want to simply sit in the lush, green grass, and eat an apple with my Mom.
    Slow and with trembling hands, I pull off the hood. With care I remove my gas mask; the one Mom says is a useless confinement. I hold my breath as I place the mask on the ground. This moment, when I unharness a false identity, should be more ceremonial then just breathing in, breathing out.
    I struggle, knowing I can only last a minute holding my breath. My eyes sting as tears appear, fearing the inevitable, knowing it’s going to happen. I want it to happen.
    Wanting and doing are two different things, but I can’t change my mind on this one. The mask is off, and I need to breathe. I pull in a breath. A smile forms on Mom’s lips. I don’t smile back; just because we can breathe the air now, doesn’t guarantee we’ll survive later.
    “It’s okay.” She reaches for my hand, trying to downplay my fears, but this doesn’t feel okay , everything I’ve ever believed was false, and that’s a loss, not a gain.
    I breathe in and out, filling my