their homes, and those who did have bank accounts in Timber Falls would not have access to them during the quarantine. But to Charles, these seemed minor and necessary sacrifices.
“What if someone from Timber Falls comes in without hearing about the quarantine?”
Charles offered his idea about posting a sign, blocking the road, and stationing guards. He knew this might cause objections, so he tried to make light of it. “Guards would scarcely be necessary, as we have so few visitors. It would strictly be a precaution.”
After a brief pause, someone else stood. “Mr. Worthy, I appreciate all you’ve done for us, and you’ve cert’nly given me a fairer shake ‘n anyone else ever has. But, all due respect, havin’ guards is just a bit too similar to the kindsa work camps I came here to get away from.” The man sat down quickly, disappearing into the sea of heads, several of which were nodding in agreement.
Charles was unprepared for that remark. He had expected that some would oppose his idea, but hearing himself compared to the types of men who ran prisonlike factories wounded him. He felt his cheeks redden.
But before he could reply, a man in the row before Graham’s stood up to speak, wool cap in his hands. He had a thick brown beard and hair that his wife had tried to comb earlier that evening, barely succeeding. “I lost my first wife to typhoid thirteen years ago,” he told them. “Lotta people had it, and lotta people died. If something like that’s happening again, I say we close the town.” Several people murmured in response as he sat back down.
Charles nodded. He too lived with the memories of past epidemics, including the awful winter of ‘89, when he had lost his mother and his younger brother, Timothy. The sting of those deaths had faded, yet Charles had found himself thinking of Timothy more over the past few years, as the adoption of Philip had brought a boy of roughly the same age into his home. Soon Philip would be older than Timothy had ever lived to be.
A new speaker stood far in the back. “So if we close the town,” he said, his voice a deep bass, “I can’t see my family?”
There were a number of cautious husbands who’d initially come to work in the strange new mill but left their families behind, cared for by grandparents or friends in nearby towns. And some single men were courting women from Timber Falls, hoping to win their hearts and also their confidence in that mysterious hamlet deep in the woods.
“I understand your concern,” Charles said. “Any man in such a situation can of course leave Commonwealth if he wishes, and when the flu has passed, I promise you will have a job to return to. But until the flu passes, you will not be allowed back in.”
The man, who had remained standing, looked at Charles evenly. Charles knew, most likely, that he traveled to Timber Falls to see his family every Sunday, the most glorious day of his week. His choice was to abandon his family to possible sickness or turn his back on money that his family couldn’t afford to lose.
Graham stood up suddenly, then paused, as if realizing he’d never spoken to so large a group before.
“I don’t like the idea of being kept from coming and going as I choose,” he said. “But I like the idea of seeing my family fall sick even less.” Other men had sounded rushed, but Graham spoke slowly. Many heads nodded in agreement. “And I might not like the idea of guards either, but this ain’t a bunch of Pinkertons and cops we’re talking about—it’ll be us doing the guarding.” More nods. “I for one’ll be proud to protect this town.”
He sat back down. A man voiced a “Me, too.” As did another and another. The hall echoed with the pledges.
Philip nodded. “Me, too,” he was saying.
Rebecca saw Philip’s lips move and she looked away, at her husband, who again seemed calm as a snow-swept field. The two of them had already argued about this at home, behind the closed bedroom door. To her, closing the town seemed the antithesis of everything they had worked for. The founding of Commonwealth had not been an act of rejecting the world, she believed, but of showing the world how it could be improved, so that others could follow their example. If they closed their doors—if they approved this reverse quarantine—they would seal themselves off from that world. She also worried about her family’s health, and she had seen those haunted expressions of fear in Timber Falls when she accompanied Charles on his last trip to that suddenly desolate town. But she could not bring herself to support a quarantine.
She wanted to stand up. She wanted to say something, anything. She had spoken before larger crowds than this, crowds both supportive and hostile. But Charles had made his opinions plain, and the idea of making a marital disagreement public seemed untoward, if not downright wrong. She felt an uncharacteristic paralysis even as her heart raced.
Philip sat beside her silently as the meeting continued, more men and women voicing their concerns, but most of them in favor of a quarantine. After the silence between comments grew longer, Charles spoke again.
“I call for a voice vote,” he said.
Rebecca’s palms were sweaty; she rubbed one of them on her wool skirt. She wanted to stand. She wanted to stand. She stayed in her seat.
“All those in favor of the town closing its doors until the flu has passed,” Charles proclaimed, “say ‘aye.’”
The hall shook in response. Beside Rebecca, Philip voted quietly.
“All against, say ‘nay’”
In the hall were many dissenters, but they represented only a small fraction of the total in favor. The sound of the nays was heavy with defeatism, those voters having already realized that they were in the minority.
Rebecca voted nay, almost under her breath, aware that it barely mattered. The only person who heard her was Philip, who eyed her with concern.
Her husband nodded, the hall growing louder again as people spoke to one another, seemingly congratulating themselves on their decisiveness. To Rebecca, it was an empty happiness, for they had succeeded in an act of only ambivalent courage, some moral compromise whose weight, she feared, would begin to feel uncomfortable on their shoulders.
Next Charles discussed logistics: blocking the road and devising a schedule for the guards. After the meeting had adjourned and most people began exiting the stuffy building, a line formed in the left-hand aisle as men signed their names to volunteer for shifts. Rebecca wondered if as many men would have come forward if Graham hadn’t thrown the gauntlet at their feet. Perhaps some did so out of a sense of adventure, while others did so out of fear of what would happen if someone less trustworthy were given such a responsibility. She looked at some of the faces and guessed that they were driven by a sense of shame that they weren’t fighting in Europe. Some had registered for service but had been designated “essential war workers” owing to their duties at the mill; others had willfully turned their backs on what they considered a crooked war. Standing guard would prove to them and their families that they were indeed courageous men.
Beside her, Philip stood, and as he took his first step toward the line, Rebecca started to raise her hand instinctively to grab his shoulder, to pull him to his seat and tell him he was making a mistake. He was only sixteen! He should not stand out there and hold a gun against whoever might happen upon the town. But before she could grab him, he had stepped beyond her, into that long line, sidling up beside Graham, who nodded at his unofficial brother and patted him twice on the shoulder.
For many years Rebecca would remember that shoulder clasp and the way Philip’s back seemed to straighten under the weight of
