Free California: A Novel by Edan Lepucki

it. Don’t worry, he told himself. She had not fainted or been kidnapped. She had not been mauled by a bear or stung by some deadly mosquito. She was safe inside. She was just flaky. Always had been.
    As he got closer, he saw that the front door was open to let in the last light and some air. And him, he supposed. Was that a sign that she’d forgiven him? Or that she had forgotten about him all together? The door was a mouth, and if he passed through it, he would fall into the dark throat of night. He shivered. Once the sun went down, he could easily imagine an evil out here. A stranger could come after them, a Pirate in search of food, tools, blood. Or a coyote might step through their open door, tongue out, eyes squinted. They weren’t safe, not ever. He hated to think that way, but it was the truth.
    He yanked two torches from the ground and made his way forward. He wished he had his gun, but he’d left it behind for Frida.
    Cal had purposely stayed away for as long as possible, so as not to overhear Frida’s conversation with August, her confession about the pregnancy. As if August were a priest, or even the pope. August was powerful: he knew everyone, could travel freely, and had probably heard everyone’s secrets. But why did he have that privilege? That burden.
    “Babe?” Cal called out. He said the word lightly but not obsequiously; he had apologized when Frida returned from the well this morning, and he wouldn’t do it a second time. He was keen on getting past their little quarrel, and he hoped she was, too.
    He tossed the mushroom bag on the card table in the kitchen area. He placed one of the torches next to the washbasin.
    He heard Frida suck in her breath, not from their bed, but by the cots that Jane and Garrett used to sleep in. He shined the torch in that direction. She was on the floor, lying on her back with her hands behind her head, her legs twisted like a pretzel. Was she doing sit-ups?
    “And then there was light,” he said. He smiled. She was safe.
    “I see that.” She began bicycling her legs frantically.
    “Are you okay?”
    “No. I mean yes.” She laughed; there was mischief in it, he thought. “I guess I’m just feeling antsy.”
    “Is it anxiety?”
    She sat up, rubbed a hand across her face, as if to wipe something away.
    He helped her to standing. Her eyes were pink. “You look terrible,” he said.
    “Thanks.”
    “Not like that. Sorry.” There was the accidental second apology. He wanted, stupidly, to take it back. Instead, he laid the torch on the cot and, after a moment, took her in his arms. She let him. She felt fragile and hard, like a marionette.
    “I got the garlic,” Frida said. “For free.”
    “So you told him.”
    She didn’t answer.
    “How did he react?”
    Frida sighed and leaned away from him. “Can we talk about this later?”
    “Why?”
    “Because it was so anticlimactic. He doesn’t have tests, he doesn’t know any midwives. It’s not like he’s tight with a shaman. And if he were, he’d never introduce us.” She picked up the torch and leaned it against the wall. This one they would leave here as their night-light. It would fade before dawn. Without it, back when they lived in the shed, Cal had felt his very limbs disappear in the merciless darkness.
    “He wasn’t worried? Or excited?”
    “He let me ramble,” she said. “And now I feel embarrassed.”
    “Don’t be,” Cal said, but he could understand it. There was something about August that made you want to confess, and his silence kept you talking even after you wanted to shut up.
    They began the nightly task of setting the card table for dinner. Frida peeked into the mushroom bag but said nothing disparaging about its contents or lack thereof. She seemed to move about the room as if in a fog, humming along to herself. In Cal’s youth, his mother would sometimes stay up all night, editing a local commercial for extra cash or designing banner ads that no one ever clicked on, and