Getting Divorced in An Apocalypse: After Us

The thirst woke her first. That terrible, clawing dryness in her throat that she knew better than her own name. Emma bolted upright, gasping, her hands flying to her neck as if she could still feel the rope burns, the pressure of that man's fingers squeezing the life out of her while her husband watched.

But there was no rope, no man. There was only her bedroom, her old bedroom with the pale blue curtains she had picked out three years ago and the digital clock on the nightstand that read 6:47 AM.

She stared at the date below the time. June 12th.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. That couldn't be right. The heatwave had started on June 19th. The power had gone out on the 22nd. She had died on August 3rd, after forty-three days of hell, after her husband offered her to strangers for cans of beans and bags of rice, after she kicked one of them in the groin and he wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed until everything went black.

But the clock said June 12th. The air conditioning hummed softly. The room was cool. She could hear birds outside, actual birds, not the desperate scavengers that had picked at corpses in the streets by the end.

Her hands were shaking. She held them up in front of her face. They were thin but not skeletal. There were no scabs on her knuckles from fighting off men twice her size. No bruises on her wrists from where her husband had held her down while another man climbed on top of her.

She was alive, whole and was forty days before the world ended.

The door burst open, and her mother-in-law stormed in like she owned the place, which she did not, which she never did, but try telling her that.

"Emma! Why are you still in bed? The breakfast is not made and the child is crying, and my son needs his shirt ironed before work."

Emma looked at her. Really looked at her. Beatrice Rothschild, sixty-two years old, with her permed hair and her sharp eyes and her mouth that never stopped moving.

In Emma's previous life, she had given this woman her entire salary every month because Derek said it was the respectful thing to do. She had cooked Beatrice's favourite dishes even when she was so tired she could barely stand. She had listened to her criticize everything about her, her cooking, her cleaning, her inability to give her a grandchild without ever once talking back.

When the heat came, she shared her water ration with Beatrice. She had given her the last of the canned peaches because Beatrice said her blood sugar was low. And when Derek threw her out to search for food, Beatrice had stood in the doorway and watched her go without saying a single word.

"Did you hear me?" Beatrice took a step closer, her house slippers slapping against the floor. "Get up, now."

Emma swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her body moved before her brain caught up, years of conditioning making her hands reach for the robe hanging on the back of the door.

Then she stopped. "No."

The word hung in the air between them. Beatrice blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for water. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said no." Emma stood up. Her legs were steady. Her voice was steady. Something inside her chest felt like it was cracking open. "I am not making breakfast. I am not ironing any shirts. And I am done giving you my salary."

Beatrice's face went through about five different expressions in the span of two seconds. Confusion, disbelief, anger, and then a kind of vicious satisfaction, like she had been waiting for this moment so she could finally prove what a terrible daughter-in-law she had.

"Your salary? That money belongs to this family. My son works himself to the bone while you sit in an office all day doing nothing. The least you can do is contribute."

Emma almost laughed. In her previous life, she had worked forty hours a week at a logistics company and came home to cook and clean and take care of Beatrice and Derek and the child who was not even hers.

Her salary had been three times what Derek made. She had paid for the backup air conditioner that saved their lives during the heatwave. She had paid for the extra food storage. She had paid for everything, and they had kicked her out to die anyway.

"The money is mine," she said. "I earned it, and I am not giving it to you anymore."

She walked past Beatrice toward the door. Beatrice grabbed her arm, her fingers digging into her skin, and for a moment Emma was back in the apocalypse, back in that dark hallway with a man's hands on her and Derek's voice telling her to be grateful.

Emma yanked her arm free. "Do not touch me."

Beatrice stumbled back a step, more from surprise than force. Emma had never raised her voice to her. She had never raised her voice to anyone in this family. She had been the perfect daughter-in-law, the perfect wife, the perfect doormat.

Not anymore.

Emma made it to the living room before she heard the crying. A small, thin wail that came from the bedroom at the end of the hall. The child, Daniel, three years old, with Derek's eyes and Rachel's smile, though Emma had not known that in her previous life. She had thought he was hers.

She had thought the complications during his birth had left her unable to have more children, and she had poured all her love into him, this boy who was not her son, this boy she had raised while his real mother lived with them as Derek's adopted sister.

Rachel was standing in the kitchen when Emma walked in. Twenty-six years old, with long black hair and delicate features and a way of looking at people like she was measuring their worth. She was holding a basket of dirty clothes, and she thrust it toward Emma without even saying good morning.

"Dan wet the bed again. Wash these before you leave for work."

Emma looked at the basket. Then at Rachel. In her previous life, she had taken that basket without complaint. She had washed those clothes by hand because the washing machine was old and temperamental, and she had not wanted to wake anyone with the noise. She had hung them to dry on the balcony while the sun came up, and then she had gone to work, and then she had come home and cooked dinner, and then she had done it all over again the next day.

"No," Emma said.

Rachel's eyes widened. "What?"

"I said no. Wash them yourself."

Emma took the basket from Rachel's hands and pushed it back against her chest. Rachel stumbled, the way Beatrice had, and Emma felt a small, dark satisfaction at the confusion on her face.

Rachel was not used to this. She was used to Emma saying yes, used to Emma doing whatever she asked, used to Emma being the unpaid servant of this household while Rachel played the role of the delicate little sister who needed to be protected.

"You cannot speak to me like that," Rachel said, her voice rising. "I am family."

Emma walked past her toward the front door. "You are not my family."

The door slammed behind her. Emma stood on the front steps of the house she had paid for, the house Derek's name was on because she had been too trusting to insist otherwise, and she breathed. The morning air was cool against her skin. The sun was rising over the rooftops of the neighbourhood, and in seven days, it would rise over a world that was dying.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw Derek's name on the screen. Forty-one years old, with a receding hairline and a smile that used to make her heart flutter.

In her previous life, she had thought he loved her. She had thought the way he held her at night meant something. She had thought they were partners, building a life together.

He had thrown her out to die. He had offered her to other men, watched her struggle and suffer, and starve, and when she had finally made it back, he had not even opened the door.

She answered the call. "Emma, what is wrong with you?" His voice was sharp, the way it always got when his mother complained about her. "My mother says you refused to make breakfast, and you were rude to Rachel. What has gotten into you?"

Emma closed her eyes. In her previous life, she would have apologized. She would have made excuses, blamed herself, and promised to do better. She would have begged for his forgiveness, even though she had done nothing wrong.

"I want a divorce."

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. She could hear him breathing, could almost hear his brain struggling to process what she had just said.

"What?"

"You heard me. I want a divorce. I will be at a lawyer's office this afternoon. You can either come willingly, or I will make this very, very difficult for you."

"You can not be serious. Emma, this is not funny."

"I am not laughing."

She hung up. Her hands were shaking again, but it was not from fear. It was from something else, something that felt like relief, like stepping out of a cage she had been trapped in for so long she had forgotten the door was never locked.

Forty days. She had forty days before the heat came. Forty days to prepare. Forty days to build a safe house of her own, far away from this family, far away from this house, far away from everyone who had ever hurt her, and this time, she was not going to save them.

She was going to watch them burn. Emma started walking down the driveway, and she did not look back.