“Well—” Ethan tried to think of something kind to say, but Ainsley was right.

“No, I take a long time to warm up to people in general. It’s not you.” She tried to smile, but it was forced and looked more like a grimace. “I’m just bad at…life.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Ethan pointed to the couch. “You don’t have to just stand there. You can sit.”

She shook her head violently. Then she shifted on her feet.

“I don’t bite, Jeez.” Ethan tried to laugh.

“I’m just awkwardly swaying like a crazy person, huh? Look, this is going to sound insane…but I’m better in large groups. One on one, I get batty. Like there’s this magnifying glass on me. If there’s some God out there, he or she has some sick sense of humor. Hey, Ainsley Krause can’t function in small clusters of people…let’s force her to live in a small cluster of strangers for the rest of her life.”

Ethan’s mouth dropped open and then he smiled. “That was a whole paragraph. You just put like whole sentences together…”

“Yes, this is perfect. Let’s keep doing this. I’ll warm up to you much faster if it’s just nothing but witty repartee.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“Indeed, my entire modus operandi of any relationship is just to exhaust you until you don’t have any will power left to tell me to get lost.”

“Does that work?”

Ainsley took a step toward the couch and then a step away; then she took four quick steps and plopped herself down at the far end. She waved. And Ethan waved back, amused.

“I just want to start over. I want to go back to the place where I’m not the crazy doctor’s kid who gave you a sponge bath,” she said.

“I don’t remember a sponge bath,” Ethan replied. “Baby wipe bath?”

“It sounded really wrong in my head to say it accurately,” Ainsley said with a shrug. “But as you wish. The crazy girl who cleaned you off with baby wipes.”

“You are right. Much worse.” He laughed and then stuck his hand out across his body, trying with everything inside of him not to grimace or show that it pained him to reach toward his leg. “I’m Ethan.”

“Ainsley.”

Their hands met. His was warm and clammy. Hers was cold and dry.

“I’m an amputee. By way of a car accident caused by the apocalypse. And the oldest of six.”

Ainsley sniffed. “The Northwest’s only nurse. Premiere yo-yo enthusiast. And the youngest of three.” Then she sighed. “Although now…I guess I’m an only child.”

“I don’t know what to think about you, Ainsley,” Ethan replied and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Everything about this is weird. But this must be even worse for you?”

The question gave Ainsley pause and she lowered her eyes and looked around at the items littering the side of the couch. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I’m in shock. This isn’t real life. I don’t care how many weeks pass. Sometimes I wish Spencer had just let me die.”

“What?” Ethan paused and looked at her. He remembered Darla saying something vague about the Krause’s being forced to help him, but no one had ever told him the whole story.

“Spencer stuck me with the needle…to vaccinate me…to force my mother to also take the vaccine. I think he was afraid that Darla would kill him if he didn’t deliver the product, but that’s how he saw us. Commodity.” Ainsley tried to run her fingers through her hair, but she didn’t get very far. She gave up and flopped her hands into her lap. “My mom and dad discussed it and said, no thank you. We will not divide our family. And then he took that choice away. He used me, to get to her.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said back.

But Ethan hated when people responded to empathy with that comeback. He frowned. “I’m not sorry because I personally caused your pain. I’m sorry because I understand it is an awful situation.”

Ainsley nodded, and then she looked right at Ethan. While bringing her curly hair into a ponytail, she said, “But your father did cause it. So. That’s the elephant in the room.” Immediately after saying that, Ainsley shrunk backward on the couch and covered her face with her hands. She splayed out her fingers and looked at him through the web of digits. “Bad Ainsley,” she mumbled. “Normal people would find a way to build that into natural conversation. It’s just been on everyone’s mind. The subject of conversation, actually. Oh, I have to stop. I’m stopping.”

The expression of it being an elephant in the room took him by surprise. He hadn’t really thought that his personal albatross was causing grief among the outsiders. Other than basic curiosity or, he imagined, anger, he had a hard time envisioning Spencer, Joey, and Doctor Krause dedicating much time to discussing his relationship to the release of the virus.

Now he knew he was wrong.

“Okay, well, now you can’t just stop there. Spill it,” Ethan said and he adjusted himself on the couch so he could lean over and pry Ainsley’s hands off of her face. She groaned and fought him and then relented, curling her hands into her lap, picking at her cuticles.

“I think Spencer wants—” Ainsley paused as if she heard something, craning her neck and peering out the den doors.

“He’s not anywhere near the house. I would be able to smell his bullshit a mile away.”

As if on cue, Spencer appeared around the corner of the den. A sick smirk plastered on his scruffy face. He held an easel and a white flip chart under his arm; he cocked his head and stared at Ethan and Ainsley. Then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, settle in, chief. I’m bringing my bullshit in presentation form,” Spencer said and he tapped his office supplies with his free hand.

“You have a presentation?” Ethan asked incredulously.

“Gather the troops,” Spencer replied. “I’ve got something to say.”

Before he worked his way into administration, Spencer was a social studies teacher. He spent his hours lecturing children on World War II and the principles of the New Deal. He taught about mob mentality in Sociology class and the effects of a bull market in economics. In his tenure as an educator, Spencer developed an affinity for the flip chart. As he stood before his neighbors in the Whispering Waters complex, he blinked a red laser pen on and off against a title page that read “Spencer’s Plan” in thick strokes of Sharpie.

He’d clearly given this a lot of thought.

“What’s this about?” Darla asked, with Teddy on her lap.

Joey and Doctor Krause had gathered in the den as well, waiting for Spencer to begin his big announcement.

“I’ve prepared my little speech with some visual aids, which I think will be helpful to your comprehension.” Spencer said. He held a hand on the first sheet of paper, ready to turn it over. “May I begin?”

“You’re calling the shots,” Darla replied, rolling her eyes.

Spencer cleared his throat. “Great. Just the way I like it.” He flipped to his first page. Written at the top it said: Why are we here? Drawn in the middle was a stick figure with one leg. Dripping from the missing appendage was blood, drawn with a red marker.

With a quick click, Spencer trained his laser pen on the image. “As you can see, I’ve answered this question with a clear drawing of Ethan.”

Ethan groaned. He looked around the room and he saw that everyone was staring at the chart with interest, so he settled in and crossed his arms.

“We are here because of Ethan. All of us, in some way, are connected to him. He helped you,” Spencer nodded toward Darla, “or he needed you.” He looked to Doctor Krause. “Okay?” Then he flipped to the next page. A smaller version of the same one-legged Ethan had been relegated to the bottom part of the page and an arrow pointed upward to a larger stick figure: A man in a lab coat holding a test tube. Spencer labeled him plainly as: Ethan’s father.