“Highlight it, then, if you feel so strongly,” Shirley-Rachel Mitchell responded. She had typed up each page herself and wasn’t budging. “Besides, we already have a motto.”

And they did, drafted by all twelve of them, including Adelaide McKenna, and approved by Elizabeth Purdue, the Founding Mother herself.

“Securing Our Future By Any Means Necessary”

— The Mothers of Meaningful Slumber (MOMS), Inc. 2041, Albany, NY

It was on page one of the handbook in bold eighteen-point Times New Roman. Underlined, even. And centered. That was as extravagant as President Purdue would go. Someone had once suggested changing it to Helvetica, and she had retired to her upstairs bedroom to lie down.

Ten years of hardship had beaten them all down, Adelaide included. “My Jimmy has been put into an induced coma. The meds came too late for him. And now I am back to changing diapers and singing lullabies. And he was on track to be the next governor of New York State.”

Everyone knew Adelaide’s son had been a stoner with bangs that covered his forever-red eyes and a penchant for sending unwanted pictures of his privates to random classmates even before he got the Plague. But the MOMS sat quietly while she spoke, as was their way. Not one of them breaking the code, not one of them pointing out that before the coma, Adelaide had been in the middle of signing little Jimmy up for military school down in Georgia. She had cut his bangs the first day he was put under, not that he needed to see better. His eyes remained closed day in and day out. But at least now she recognized her boy as the boy he was in her heart, the boy he was meant to be all along.

“Damn meds are doing nothing but making us into zombies,” said Shirley-Rachel. She was respected in the group—she was a great secretary and always brought the snacks—but there was the matter of her smoking. Not that she did it indoors, but she went outside so many times for quick breaks that her clothes and skin reeked. And because she was the secretary, they had to wait idly each time or fill her in on everything she’d missed so it could be entered into the official minutes.

“Honestly, the same damn four dreams every time. Every damn time. You’d think they’d get HBO involved in the lab so we could at least have some variety. I’m about to jump off a damn bridge. And I would, except jumping off a bridge is already one of the four dreams, so why bother?”

Veronica Smythe was the newest member, and Adelaide was still suspicious of her. She wasn’t alone in the feeling, but she was the only one who spoke her distain out loud, even if it was mostly after the meetings, when a few of them would meet for coffee or quilting. “What’s with the name? Veronica seems a little fussy, doesn’t it? And Smythe with a y? Well, that’s just putting on false airs.”