Free For Tamara by Sarah Lang Page A

did Mum or Dad. / This just happened. / Shortwave radio.
    I’ve never missed you more / the day I met you.
    Your grandparents taught me how to be strong enough to do this. / And meds, electricity, space, and cooking, and. . . . / I wish they were here.
    You work in an underground lab that has a near-100% divorce rate. If you don’t think I knew what I agreed to, you’re just a sillyhead. / And how I miss that head, My Beautiful Idiot.
    How to do cpr . / Cancer runs in my paternal line. / Grow potatoes. / Find a great partner. / How to make a poached egg: get water to a slight boiling temp., add a bit of vinegar, crack the egg into water and coax it together.
    Thyroid meds. / I’m so proud of you.
    Even though I’m the woman who loves you regardless: / call home. / Magic a way. / I don’t care. / T. is only going to get so many more stories.
    I so do not want to tell you about making babies and birth. / But I have to.
    Get the kids Tamiflu ( oseltamivir phosphate) and Cipro (ciprofloxacin). And no, thanks to genetics, I don’t hallucinate until at least 104ºF/40ºC. Take care of them before that.
    Part of me doesn’t even want to tell you about what it was like.
    Husband of Mine, you need to figure out how to make a beacon for other survivors. / I’m dealing with these ones, can you do it?
    I never cried until I lost my first love. / There was never a fight, / just an agreement.
    We made up in a movie theatre. / Our hands slowly holding. I’m sorry I won’t always be there to help you.
    Secret: your Mum hates being understanding all the time. / So she knows you do too. / But do it anyway. / Like vegetables.
    I have this dream where you and I are sleeping / and T. jumps into bed / and we can’t even pretend to ignore her. / I think that is the memory I’ll write for her.
    Lick your wrist / then smell it. / Fruity equals infection, / that sort of thing. / Our bodies are better machines than we will ever be. / They will tell you what you have to know.
    Why doesn’t matter anymore. / They’re dead and we’re not. / So do your job.
    Because it starts on a normal day.
    Mum wants you to write books. / She wants you to have the time. / Eat bananas.
    Darling, I hope to do this for you, but if I don’t have a chance / I need you to calculate how much water everyone needs /wk, ok?
    We need to set up a perimeter, fortify it, and set up an alarm system that runs back to the house. / Not just noise, we need advance warning.
    I wish I could come up with something less cheesy / tell your grandparents.
    As a baby you weren’t as quiet as your grandmother said I was. / And you did grow up to be so headstrong. / Whenever I asked my parents about why they let me go out so late / they just said “because you wld have done it anyway.”
    There was never a first time we held hands. / It was you / buttoning a shirt / wrong side up.
    The well-water here should be okay. / I wouldn’t wish your job on my worst enemy.
    And that was me. / But without you I couldn’t have come as far as I did.
    I’m drawing you pictures of how it used to be. / But you save those ’til the end.
    There used to be these cities and they were remarkable. / They had parks and hot-dog vendors. / And buildings so tall. / Much taller than you.
    I was built to care about/for these people. I hope you are too. / Either way you’re strong enough to do it.
    I want to tell you how it was. We’d get cranky about the wrong temperature of water. But still / sit up straight. / You sure are pretty.
    Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes Mum wants to give up too. / Go practice your letters.
    This house isn’t built to deal with the cold without a furnace. / We’ll figure something out. / And wear layers. / Corn stalks.
    Chop down trees to make the barrier. / Yes, so: everything / one, in a sense. How I do not want to give that order.
    No, think like protecting a