It was a familiar question. What they talked about, now that they didn’t talk about the crew. Sometimes Bullfrog said he’d get a big steak, with curly fries and ranch dressing. Or he’d go to a resort. Take settlement money and move to the beach in Mexico. “I won’t suffer another day in my life,” he said. “I’ll eat at different restaurants every meal. I’ll order three meals at each place, and take the best bites from each one.”

The way he talked, it was like he made up the answers on the spot. But he said the same things every time, so Mara knew he thought about them.

“Hedonism,” she said.

“Something like that.”

Sometimes his dreams were smaller. He wanted to smoke weed and watch boxing on TV. He’d buy the nicest shoes he could find, so his feet never hurt again. He’d start getting massages. Maybe he’d go to church.

But there was one dream he always came back to. He wanted to build a house for his daughter.

“I don’t need to live near her,” he said. Like he was reminding himself. “Fuck, maybe she still won’t talk to me. But she’s gotta be settling down soon. Having kids, if she hasn’t—if she hasn’t already. Wherever she wants to live, if she finds land, I’ll build it. Five bedrooms. One of those kitchen islands, you know what I mean? Big windows on every wall.”

“You can build a house for me,” said Mara.

“I already did. It’s her turn.”

But Bullfrog seemed pleased with the comment. He chopped more wood, and Mara gathered the pieces in a pile.

“We should talk to Ashley,” Mara said. “If we’re gonna leave. We should just do it.”

“You doing the honors?”

“I can. But not yet.”

“Before the berries dry up.”

“Okay,” said Mara. “I’ll talk to her then.”

THE NEXT DAY, MARA SAT DOWN ON THE COT AND PUT HER HAND ON ASHLEY’S shoulder. “Ashley,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something. But I haven’t known how to say it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Well,” said Mara. “This is the part where we harvest your organs.”

Ashley stared at her for a long time, and then she started to laugh. She laughed and laughed.

Things were good in the cabin. They weren’t perfect, but they were good. Sometimes Mara got a funny feeling in her chest, not déjà vu but close. It was the way the survivors baked corn bread in the afternoons, blending cornmeal and canned milk in a cast-iron pan, and then sat on the grass and ate it with their hands. The way the stove was always roaring when she woke. Ashley’s performances, and Bullfrog’s booming applause. Mara did not want to live in a city, but she understood, for the first time, why people might.

In the mornings, while Bullfrog tended his traps, Mara and Ashley sat and talked. Mara told Ashley about her parents, how they lived in a parallel world. How, growing up, she had never known if their fears were right. How she still didn’t know for sure.