Bri would need food, Alex thought, and medications. She wouldn't be able to walk to school, so she couldn't get lunch there. He'd have to take Julie with him on the food line and hope that Kevin kept going. Even with what was in the apartment, and three bags of food rather than two, he'd have to give up supper most nights of the week if Bri and Julie were both to eat twice a day.

His sister wasn't fat as a kitten, he saw. She was pale and as thin as she was when she'd left last spring. Having her gone all summer had worked out well for him and Julie, but perhaps not so well for Bri herself.

But then Bri smiled. "I knew you'd keep your vow," she said. "I knew you'd be here when I got back. I'm never leaving again. Never."

Alex looked at his sister. Things will work out, he thought. The Blessed Virgin returned his sister to him. Through her intercession, they would find the way to survive.

Wednesday, September 14

As Julie and Alex walked home from school, they saw a man leap from a seventh-story window, falling to the sidewalk about twenty feet from them.

Alex grabbed his sister, feeling her thin body shake under her winter coat. "Hurry," he said, pulling her along as he raced to the body. "You get his shoes, and I'll look for his wallet and his watch."

Julie stared in horror at Alex. He pushed her toward the man's feet.

"Alex, I think he's still alive," Julie said. "I think he's still breathing."

"What difference does that make," Alex said. "He'll be dead soon enough. Now take his shoes."

Julie bent over and pulled off the man's shoes. Alex removed the man's watch, then ransacked his pockets, finding nothing.

"Help me with his sweater," he said. "You take the left arm; I'll take the right."

Julie did as she was told, and they pulled off the sweater. Alex took it and the shoes. "No wallet," he told her, "but this stuff should be good for a couple of cans of soup." "

What are you talking about?" Julie cried.

"What do you think I do every morning?" Alex said. "This is how I feed us."

"Does Bri know?" Julie asked. "No," Alex said. "And you're not going to tell her."

Julie stood absolutely still. "Do you want me to go with you?" she asked. "In the mornings?"

"No," he said. There was no need for this to be on both their consciences.

Friday, September 16

"So much food!" Briana said as Alex unloaded two trash bags onto the kitchen floor. "Three bags this morning, and now-all this. Where did it all come from?"

The three bags came from Alex, Julie, and Kevin standing on line for almost five hours in below-freezing weather. Fewer people were waiting on the food line, but fewer people were distributing the food as well. By ten that morning, everyone was coughing, but no one left his place. Kevin took Julie to Holy Angels while Alex took the bags home for Bri to put away. Then he gathered up four bottles of wine found in apartment 11F, one box of cigars from 14J, and a man's coat, watch, and shoes, peeled off a fresh dead man on Alex's walk home. Harvey turned down the watch, saying the market for them had dried up, but he was happy about the wine and cigars, and gave Alex enough food to last a week or more if they were careful. Alex was most excited about the two cans of tuna and one of salmon. The hell with vegetarians living longer.

"Things must be all right if there's so much food," Bri said, putting the groceries away in the cabinets, making them look full and normal again. "Oh, Alex. Powdered eggs! They're almost as good as real eggs."

"Did you have real eggs on the farm?" he asked. The temperature in the apartment was about fifty degrees, which was where he'd set the oil burner thermostat, but Bri made things feel warm and sunny again.

Bri nodded. "Every day at first," she said. "Toward the end, the hens stopped laying. It got harder to milk the cows, too. I pray for the sisters and the girls who stayed on. I think we have it easier."

"That's what I've heard," Alex said.

Bri turned around to face her brother. "Don't stop believing in miracles," she said. "La madre santisima is watching over us. I know she is because I prayed to her every night that I would come home and find you and Julie here."

Alex thought about all the prayers he had said in the past four months and how few had been granted. But why should God or even the Blessed Virgin listen to his prayers, he asked himself, when a can of tuna fish was more important to him than the suffering of Christ.

Sunday, September 18

Bri's face glowed as they approached St. Margaret's, and Alex knew he'd made the right decision, letting her go to Mass. Even when Bri slipped off her face mask and used her inhaler because she was starting to cough, Alex felt sure he'd done the right thing. It might be safer to keep Bri indoors, but her life had no meaning without the Church.

His mind wandered as it always did nowadays in church. If crops throughout the U.S., throughout the world for that matter, died from lack of sunlight, how long would New York City continue to get food? If Holy Angels or Vincent de Paul closed, where would the food come from to feed Julie and himself? If Kevin decided he no longer wanted to wait on line on Fridays for food he didn't even eat, would two bags be enough?

And that was the easy stuff. Alex chose not to think about the heating oil running out, or about the Hudson seeping eastward and reaching West End Avenue, or what he was going to do with his sisters when they'd have to leave New York.

Live for the moment, he told himself. Look at Bri. See how happy she is. She's no fool. She knows better than you do how fragile life is. But she rejoices in her faith. Can't you do the same?

The answer was no.

Monday, September 19

That morning Alex had told Julie he'd be late picking her up from school and she was to wait for him. When the school day ended, he went to Father Mulrooney.

"I'd like you to hear my confession," Alex said.

Father Mulrooney's eyebrows did a high jump. "Mr. Morales, it's been many years since I've heard confessions," he said. "Surely you can confess to the priest at St. Margaret's."

Alex shook his head. "He'd be too easy," he said.

"One of the other priests here?" Father Mulrooney suggested.

"No, Father," Alex said, politely but firmly.

Father Mulrooney paused. "Very well, then," he said. "I suppose this office has been used as a confessional before."

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," Alex said. "It's been five months since my last confession."

Father Mulrooney nodded.

"I pushed an old man to the ground," Alex said. "I stepped on him and I probably broke all his fingers. And I didn't save a baby from being trampled. They may both have been killed, for all I know."

"Did you choose not to save the baby?" Father Mulrooney asked. "Did you push the old man to the ground willingly and with malice?"

"There was a riot," Alex said. "I wasn't thinking. If I saved the baby, I might have lost my sister. If I hadn't pushed the old man, I definitely would have. I guess I did it willingly, but I don't know if there was malice. But that's not my only sin, not by a long shot. I steal from the dead. I take everything I can and barter it for food. I made my sister do it, too. I don't even care anymore if they're dead or alive, just as long as I can get food for us. And I don't just do it for my sisters. I eat my share."

"Are you angry at God?" Father Mulrooney asked.

"No," Alex replied. "I almost wish I was. It's like with my parents and my brother. They're all gone. Carlos is probably alive, but I don't even know that for sure. Sometimes when I think about them, the pain and the anger are so strong that I can't bear it. So I turn the feelings off. I just stop feeling. And that's what's happening with me and God. I used to pray and mean the words, but now they're just words. Because if I let myself feel the pain and the anger, I think it might kill me. Or I might kill someone else. I know it's wrong to feel that way about God and I know it's wrong to not feel anything. I hate it. I don't hate God. I hate not loving Him."