by R.G. Chilton
Coming home feels weird, Clare Marsh thought as she passed the gravy. Not as weird as going to college did, but weird.
She inwardly scolded herself for being ungrateful. Not every freshman college student could afford to come home for Thanksgiving, so she had no right to feel weird in her childhood home. That said, she did feel a bit weird.
"So, what do you think the King will say in his speech today?" Jessica Marsh, Clare's mother, asked to start a new round of conversations.
Clare didn't join in that conversation, but it gave her a new thing to be thankful for - the fact that she lived today and not 60 years ago before they had a King. But then everyone who wasn't around then was thankful that they hadn't had to live through the collapse.
Since history wasn't her forté, Clare didn't know all the factors that led to the collapse. It was something about energy and pollution or something along those lines. All she really knew (since it had been on almost every history test she'd ever taken) was that 52 years ago there had been a Constitutional Congress that rewrote the constitution from the ground up. Clare had heard about the 'checks and balances' system, but only as one of the causes of the collapse. History (as written by the new government) had judged that without those checks and balances the old government would have been more effective, more efficient, and able to prevent the collapse. Some said that this judgement was suspect since it had been a worldwide collapse, but those debates had never made it into any history class that Clare had taken. She had heard a few people (mostly seniors) debating the pros and cons of a republic versus the current monarchy, but as far as Clare was concerned, having the executive powers (such as they were) in the hands of a figurehead monarch clearly worked best.
"Do you think he'll try to reach out to some of the more, um, different areas?" Aunt Mona Kasey, Clare's mother's sister, asked.
Clare tried not to think about the different areas. The years of the collapse had taken their toll, as had the rebuilding, and not everywhere had been rebuilt along the same lines. Her professor for Economics 101 had said that the country was now more a commonwealth of locales than a true nation, and Clare believed that. In some areas you could walk into any drugstore and, if you could pay for it, leave with the drug of your choice, from old-fashioned heroin to the latest blend of S; while in others possession of alcohol was a capital offence. Most areas were somewhere in between those extremes, but mind-altering substances weren't the only issue that split the nation. Name the issue and most of the country was somewhere in the middle of it, with extreme positions taken in various jurisdictions.
Clare knew that it paid to research before travelling across state lines. Or even county ones, she thought, glancing at her cousin Jane.
It was nice that the family got together for the holidays, but Clare had never been close to the Kaseys, not even her Cousin Jane Kasey who was basically the same age. Try as she might Clare just couldn't picture growing up like Jane had. The county line might only be 20 miles away but as far as Clare was concerned it was a whole other world there.
At least it was on one issue. Wellington County, where Clare's family lived, was around the national average on the topic, but Hazard County, where the Kaseys lived, was as extreme on that issue as you could get. And it wasn't even a profitable issue, like one of the countless weed/tobacco borders where smokes of one sort were smuggled across the line in exchange for the other sort of smokes with both sets of smugglers supplying the black market in their home jurisdictions. No, the issue between Hazard County and most of the world was an embarrassing one. The folks in Wellington County were moderate when it came to corporal punishment while the people in Hazard County were spank happy.
Growing up, most of Clare's friends had spent hours talking about the difference, and hours more gossiping over whose parents might have taken them across that county line. 'Crossing the line' had a special meaning in this part of Wellington County, at least to kids. Countless parents had thundered "If you cross that line then we're crossing the line" and not all of them did so in jest.
But that phrase, like so many other things, belonged to the old part of Clare's life, to her childhood ... and living in a campus dorm made that all seem so distant, which made being in her childhood home seem so weird.
Lost in her thoughts, Clare missed the end of the meal, only clueing in as people rose from their seats. As the women cleared dishes most of the men headed to the video display where the King would soon be giving his Thanksgiving speech. Most of the kids trailed after them, but Clare thought that the King should stick to opening shopping malls, executing executive power, whatever that meant, and leave the speeches to the politicians. She knew she was in the minority there, that most people saw the King as a unifying force, perhaps the only true point of unity in the country, but she didn't feel like fighting for space in front of the video display just to hear the King speak.
Looking for somewhere else to be, Clare almost stumbled into her youngest brother, Roy. She didn't think that he was avoiding the King's speech as he looked deep in thought. Their nine year age difference meant that Clare had sacrificed countless nights acting as an unpaid babysitter, but she had rarely seen Roy this deep in thought.
"So, what's bugging you?" Clare asked. She didn't really care about the answer, but asking gave her something to do, at least something that didn't involve clearing dishes or getting ready for the King's speech.
"Um, well, um, can you keep a secret?" Roy asked.
"Of course I can," Clare replied. Not that I'm promising to keep yours. Clare told herself that she never lied, she just didn't make her meanings clear enough. If someone assumed she meant something different, well, that was their assumption.
"Um, well, um, well I was over at a friend's house, and, um, well, Anna's mom took her across the line and she brought back one of those foldout things. You know what I mean?"
Clare nodded. Those foldout things were souvenirs that were sold in Hazard County. The front had the subject's photo, usually looking mad or upset, and the back had a later photo, one that normally included tear-stained eyes and a red face. Sometimes, depending on factors that Clare didn't know and couldn't guess at, the back photo would show more than just the upper body. The subject's T-shirt would be there, going mid thigh or lower (at least that's what all the ones that Clare had seen had shown), with jeans and underwear gathered at the subject's feet.
Of course the interesting photos were the ones inside, which were impossible to snoop on. The two sides were maglocked together and you had to have the right DNA to open the lock. If you were the right person then you put your thumb just there and it opened, but if you weren't then you couldn't open it.
Clare, along with everyone else in Wellington County, had heard horror stories about the places where they sold those things; unholy places called punishment centres where any parent could take a kid and order a spanking for it.
"Um, well, I was trying to open it, and Anna was trying to stop me, when her mother came in," Roy continued.
Clare nodded again, trying to picture Mrs. Galloway. She had met the woman countless times, but Clare's mental image wasn't of a woman who would cross the line.
"Um, and Mrs. Galloway said that if I was so curious, she'd take me to where she got Anna's so I could see it first hand," Roy blurted out.
"So what did you say?" Clare asked.
"Nothing! I just came home. But, um, you don't think she would, do you?"
"Do what?"
"Take me across the line," Roy slammed his mouth shut as if those words had terrified him.
"Nah, she wouldn't," Clare assured him, then decided to tease. "At least not without permission."
"You don't think she'd tell mom, do you?"
"Tell her what?"
"Um..." Roy searched his mind for the worst case, but couldn't decide so began to list things. "That I was wrestling with Anna, or that I wanted to see that foldout, or that she might want to take me across the line, or..."
"Who knows what Mrs. Galloway will do?" Clare said, cutting off his list of worries. "Adults do what they want to do. They're strange like that."
"Oh," Roy muttered, walking away as confused as he had been before their talk.
Clare bit back a giggle and headed to the backyard. The trees were there, bare of leaves, which struck her as odd: this was the first year that the leaves had changed colours and fallen without her seeing them do it. When she left at the beginning of September the backyard had been green and full of life, and now it looked almost ready for Winter.
"Penny for your thoughts," Jane Kasey said as she came out to the back porch.
Clare was happy to see her cousin, especially since Jane was carrying a box of wine coolers. Technically the drinking age might be 21 but Clare had never heard of anyone over the age of 16 being busted for drinking - at least not in Wellington County.
"Just thinking about changes," Clare responded, accepting a wine cooler. "How different everything is, yet, well..."
"But nothing's different, it's all the same, so the difference has to be you?" Jane suggested, then took a pull off her wine cooler. "Yeah, I'm getting the same vibes. It seems like one minute I was an adult hanging out with friends at the dorm and the next I'm back being a kid in my parents' house. And thinking that it's their house, not mine."
"Yeah, that's it," Clare agreed. "So the world's the same and it's us that's different?"
"I guess so."
The two sat and drank, letting the silence fill the space between them. Sitting there, Clare felt she had never been closer to Jane. Not that they were close now, but they were both going through the same thing and that counted for something, didn't it?
They were on their second coolers before Jane broke the silence.
"And Christmas is going to be weird this year. Dad won a trip, but the prize came with only so many tickets, so he's taking the rest of the family to a ski lodge while mom and I stay home," Jane confided.
"What? You're missing out?"
"No choice," Jane said sadly, then took another gulp from her bottle. "The trip is tied to a fixed departure date and I've got two exams scheduled for after they leave. If there was one more ticket I'd spend Christmas at school, but since there isn't I can't stay because that would leave mom at home alone and I kind of want to be there for her."
"That's good," Clare nodded. "Family is important."
"Speaking about family, what's up with Roy?" Jane asked. "It's like he's walking around in a trance or something."
"Oh that," Clare said dismissively. "Call it the difference between Wellington and Hazard."
"Uh?"
"One of his little friends got herself taken across the line and came back with one of those foldout things," Clare revealed, blithely passing on her brother's biggest secret.
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