Future Home of the Living God

Cedar travels to the reservation where her biological family lives. While traveling, she notices people preparing for the imminent social collapse. One sign in a barren field reads “Future Home of the Living God” (14) and Cedar stops to photograph it. After getting temporarily lost at the reservation, Cedar finds the right house.

She sees a woman she assumes to be her mother slapping the dust from a cushion with a garden hose. After an awkward introduction, Mary invites Cedar into the house, and they drink tea. Mary’s wheelchair-bound mother—Mary Virginia, Cedar’s biological grandmother—enters and makes jokes, but Cedar jumps straight to her blunt questions: She wants to know why Mary abandoned her and whether the family has any hereditary illnesses.

Mary explains that she was “stupid” (17): In her youth, she took drugs and had sex with many men before settling down with her current partner, Eddy. Though the Songmakers sent Mary updates about Cedar, she asked them to stop. This bothers Cedar, but her anger is interrupted by the arrival of Little Mary, Cedar’s biological sister. Little Mary wears dark, heavy makeup, appears to be high on some substance, and her appearance makes Cedar cry. Cedar is happy that she was raised by the Songmakers, but she tells Mary how Little Mary is a clear indication that she is an excellent mother.

Later, Mary reveals that the 16-year-old Little Mary is the only girl at her school who abstains from sex and drugs. Cedar does not believe her. After Little Mary leaves, Cedar continues to talk with her mother and grandmother. They talk about Eddy, who has a doctorate from Harvard and who tried (but failed) to fix the schools on the reservation. Now, he works in the family gas station and is writing a book. Cedar attends a meeting of the tribal council where Mary will give a presentation about erecting a shrine dedicated to Kateri Tekakwitha, the “patron saint of Native people” (19). Mary’s proposal passes a vote, and Cedar accompanies Mary to the parking lot behind the casino where the saint supposedly appears, and they begin laying the sod to build a shrine. Eddy arrives and awkwardly introduces himself. He talks in a strange, intellectual manner, and Cedar suspects that he has mental health issues. Cedar invites Mary and Eddy to lunch—a strangely normal action amid an escalating crisis in which “the world is going to pieces” (23).

They eat lunch in the casino restaurant. Mary leaves early, leaving Cedar alone with Eddy, who talks about his unfinished book—a long, winding biography that discourages suicide. Cedar believes that Eddy uses the book as a rudimentary form of therapy, much as she does with the book she is writing to her unborn child. Eddy is the first person in Cedar’s biological family to listen to her, so she tells him everything including the identity of her baby’s father. Cedar says that her baby’s father is “an angel” (26) and Eddy laughs at the joke.

As she prepares to leave, Cedar meets Grandma Virginia again. Cedar talks about her pregnancy and asks about any illnesses in the family. Mary Virginia tells stories from the family’s past and then falls asleep. Cedar lays her grandmother in the bed and then sits down beside Little Mary, who counters all of Cedar’s conversational attempts with stinging insults. Cedar accuses her sister of substance use, and Little Mary falls into a fit of tears, begging Cedar to say nothing to her parents. Cedar nearly agrees to clean Little Mary’s chaotically messy room but cannot face such a massive task. Mary returns home with Eddy, accompanied by Cedar’s adoptive parents. Cedar is shocked. She takes her things and hides in Little Mary’s room. She begins cleaning the mess and, despite the disgusting state of the room, she would still rather be cleaning than meeting with both sets of parents.

Cedar eventually reaches a point where she cannot clean any longer, so endures the awkwardness of her two sets of parents. Everyone decides to take a sunset tour of the reservation. When they reach the gas station, Cedar watches as Sera politely eats a hot dog offered to her by Mary, even though Sera is a vegan who loathes unhealthy food. Cedar sees Sera in a newly heroic light. That night, Sera and Glen stay in the casino hotel and Cedar’s plans to leave are scuttled. She tells Mary about her pregnancy and asks about any family illnesses. Mary reluctantly talks about Cedar’s biological father, the man she met before she settled down with Eddy, but quickly becomes embarrassed and says nothing more.

The next morning, Cedar watches the increasingly bleak news reports of last-ditch experiments and breeding problems in animals. She discovers that Sera and Glen have checked out of the casino hotel. She cannot reach their cell phones but assumes they have gone home. Cedar leaves Mary’s house. She is handed a note, reminding her of the concept of martial law, and pages from Eddy’s book which describe her visit. Cedar tries to withdraw money from her bank account on the way home but the bank refuses as they have no available cash. They only allow her to withdraw thousands of dollars when she reveals that she is pregnant. Cedar buys baby items with her money, as well as ammunition, cigarettes, and alcohol in case she needs to barter for food after society collapses.

Cedar has an ultrasound. Her baby is between four and five months old and she sees the child for the first time on the monitor. She notices a strangeness about the medical staff. When Cedar shouts at them, they reveal that the baby’s measurements mean that they need to keep Cedar in the hospital. As soon as the technicians leave the room, the doctor urges Cedar to leave, instructing her to bind him to a chair and stage that she overpowered him and escaped. As she obeys, the doctor asks whether her child has “any special ethnicity” (38). He warns her to keep the pregnancy secret.

Cedar, Glen, and Sera watch the television. They tune into local programming as the “government has seized the cable companies” (38). The channels brim with unfamiliar, frenzied newscasters and scientists. People are concerned, but there is limited information available. Cedar has still not told her adoptive parents about her pregnancy, but they are so anxious that she cannot bring herself to share. They discuss religion and science as an expert on the television discusses human evolution, which may now be “going backward” (40).

Cedar goes to the kitchen and reflects on her adoptive parents’ view of evolution. Modern humans are a relative blip on the long timeline of evolution, she recalls. Sera appears and begins preparing food, as she does when she is “troubled” (42). Sera is struck by a sudden worrying memory: She always refused Cedar vaccinations, and now she is concerned that it is too late. Cedar teases her mother, then reveals that she sought out her own vaccinations. The family sit and eat pancakes. Cedar recognizes the distress in Glen and Sera’s behavior. That evening, they chat about their plans. Cedar goes to bed. Before she falls asleep, she remembers to record everything in her diary. To do so, she sneaks out and travels back to her small house. As she drives away, she realizes the neighborhood no longer has electricity.