She’d first seen the flier for the local ham radio club while out on a walk in her new neighborhood. Though whether that hillside could be considered a neighborhood, Sadie wasn’t sure. In her mind, a neighborhood, like where they’d lived before, had sidewalks and cafés and a name. This was a long dirt road flanked by ponderosa pines, residents few and far between, the nearest cappuccino a thirty minute drive and, as she learned on her first visit to that small town’s fluorescent-lit diner, hardly worth the trip.

​

     But it wasn’t the region’s culinary offerings she’d fallen in love with; it was the old farm house, the majestic view, the vision of her two boys catching frogs down by the creek instead of dodging traffic, inhaling fumes, crossing the street to avoid another fentanyl victim splayed out on a neighbor’s stoop. The moms at their daycare back in the city all had one of two reactions to her news of relocating: either envy for the bucolic peacefulness Sadie described for them or else nervous questions like: do you know anyone out there? Or: have you researched the county’s voting demographics? Or just: do you have any clue what life is like in so remote a place?

​

     Sadie brushed off their questions then, but now, six months later as she pushed a stroller down that uneven road to the lonely sound of a woodpecker, they returned to her. The view hadn’t yet lost its romance. The house was still everything she’d dreamed. And her eldest son, no longer hiding inside all day staring at screens, had come running onto their back porch just days before to show her a frog cupped in his little trembling hands.

​

     It was blending in with the locals that hadn’t gone quite as smoothly.

​

⎯

​​

     Once Gold Country, the area had more recently attracted back-to-the-landers who, these past couple of months, Sadie was coming to discover, come in all sorts of flavors. Her two immediate neighbors were a perfect example of the full sweep of them.

​

     On one side, an enormous yellow flag with a curled snake warned above the entrance Don’t tread on me and, beyond that, No trespassing, and Protected by the Second Amendment signs adorned every other tree. The week after unpacking, Sadie stood hesitating on their road for several minutes with a freshly-baked banana bread still warm in one hand and a friendly note introducing her family in the other. Later that afternoon, her husband and sons happily devoured the loaf themselves, her note discarded in the recycling bin.

​

     But it was the neighbor on the other side, the one who’d found Sadie’s baked gift on her front steps and reciprocated with a freshly-butchered and crudely plucked chicken, that unsettled something deep within her. From Sadie’s porch, living room window and, when one day he was old enough to gaze from it, the window of her youngest son’s room too, their view looked out unobstructed upon this wild woman’s yard. While not thrilled by it, Sadie could excuse the mess: the ragged poultry running amok, pungent compost heaps, a poorly fenced pigpen. Even the woman herself could be found running barefoot and, on occasion, bare-chested like just one of the many free-range livestock. Her gardens overflowed with towering weeds that Sadie watched this woman tend to as lovingly as her tomatoes and pole beans. And in the corner of that yard sat a hut frequented by occasional visitors, long-bearded or dreadlocked, donning animal hides or little more than sandals, often staying for several weeks at a time.

​

     But it was the night of the ritual that these eccentricities felt no longer harmless. Sadie, after putting her boys to bed, had sat down to unwind on the porch with a glass of wine and watch the sun set behind the hills, when she smelled smoke. Standing to look out over her railing, she discovered her neighbor standing beside a growing bonfire, a severed cow’s head in her hands, speaking to a small group circled around, singing, staring up at the moon. Someone stirred a big pot nearby, another banged slowly on a makeshift drum, then finally Sadie’s neighbor filled a horn with herbs and manure, ceremoniously burying it in the garden as the others piously watched.

​

⎯

​

     Sadie didn’t sleep that night. Not because the crowd next door had begun howling at the night sky but because she was lying in bed reliving a childhood spent traveling with her father as he followed around a charismatic man claiming to have discovered a hidden code in the Bible. More devout every year, eventually Sadie’s father took her out of school, sold their home, emptied his savings, and gave everything to a renegade church which by then, warning of vengeful heretics blind to the light, had relocated to a compound on an abandoned dairy farm. New revelations, speaking in tongues, a strange and mandatory diet. Then tall fences, barbed wire, secret passwords. And finally the night of the sirens, the alarm bells, the shootout.

​

     Sadie spent the next eight years in the foster system, a dozen different homes, no less chaotic, but at least there she could eat normal food again, could watch MTV instead of listening to some fiery sermon. At eighteen, no longer bound by the rigid structures of her father’s church nor by government bureaucracy, Sadie was set free. And yet, rather than liberation, she instead felt adrift, as if sent down a raging river with no boat, no oar, no destination even.

​

     Meeting Archie at the community college was like grabbing hold of a big rock midstream, cold and unexciting, but going nowhere. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle that man. He neither laughed too loud nor ever grew frustrated. Be it vacation or bad news or even their eventual marriage, everything to him was just a series of logical steps. And best of all: Archie wasn’t even charmed by coincidence, let alone could he fathom the allure of mystical thinking. And so Sadie grabbed hold of that rock and never let go.

​

     He was, as she’d soon learn, like ham radio: not exactly fascinating, but reliable even when all the world falls apart.

⎯

​

     When Archie took a job with a rural county two hundred miles away, the goal was a peaceful respite. But neither of them had expected anything quite like this. The morning after the ritual next door, Sadie sat her sons down and explained that while the excessive warning signs lined only one side of their property, from now on, it was the other neighbor they should avoid at all cost.

​

     The following week, feeling her newfound tranquility comprised on all sides, Sadie spotted the flier posted at the end of their road. She’d never heard of ham radio. But upon returning home, she jumped on her computer and looked it up online. Ham, it turned out, referred not to cured meats, but to amateurs, the use of radio frequencies by everyday people for non-commercial purposes.

​

     But why?

​

     Months before they bought that house, broadband had arrived to that hillside followed soon after by a new cell tower; they wouldn’t have considered such a remote place otherwise. And yet all around them were vestiges of a failed campaign to stop it: No cell tower and 5G kills signs littered the roads. Did the locals now equate her with unwelcome change, wondered Sadie, her family synonymous with a giant metal tower not only ruining everyone’s view but bringing closer the very civilization they’d all come out here to escape? It would certainly explain the tepid welcome. Aside from that bloody chicken she found on her doorstep, of course. But why ham radio if these hills were now nearly as plugged in as the city? A nostalgic hobby perhaps, like candle-making or vintage cars?

​

     At last Sadie found the website for the local club. “Not only is it fun,” she read on their quaint and outdated homepage, “our radios also come in useful during disasters. When the power goes out or communications infrastructure is destroyed, we hams jump into action!”

​

     Sadie had zero interest in electronics and she wasn’t all that prone to nostalgia either. But for the next week it was all she could think about until, one day, she overheard Archie on the phone fighting with—or rather calmly discussing options with their insurance provider, who was threatening to pull out of the area. One more surprise, one more uncertainty, one more thing to fret about, and yet here was this antiquated technology promising reliability even when all else fails.

​

     Besides, thought Sadie, maybe she’d meet some neighbors through this silly club. Aside from the two who unfortunately flanked her new home.

​

⎯

​

     The next week she attended her very first gathering of the local ham radio club. After ordering a sad excuse for a cappuccino, she settled in at the diner with four white-haired men in cargo pants, all of them at least twice—perhaps three times her age. Desperate for new members, the men tried to reassure Sadie that their community of local hams was, in fact, more thriving than might first appear.

​

     Each member gave their monthly report. One man giddily described having used Morse code to inform a fellow club member that he had cold beer in the fridge. Another had received a voice transmission from a hiker whose sole message was: “Here I am, on top of a mountain, very windy up here, over and out.” At last, another man, who bragged about his equipment and the highest class license from the FCC that allowed him to broadcast all over the world, described how the night before he’d made contact with a ham operator in Argentina. But when Sadie asked him what they spoke about, he looked at her as if it were an odd question.

​

     Making contact, she was slowly coming to understand, was the point; less important was what they said once connected.

​

     Undeterred, the next day Sadie jumped on eBay and ordered a transceiver, antenna, microphone, and even a backup battery. Then she took the online course to earn the lowest class of license, allowing her to legally transmit over the airwaves using no more than 100 watts. With that, she was assigned her very own operator code: X5OWF, otherwise known as X-ray Five Oscar Whiskey Foxtrot.

​

     When at last the equipment arrived, and after putting the boys to bed, she sat down at her desk. She slid on the headset and flicked on the machine and began turning dials in search of a signal. The club members had encouraged Sadie to just listen in for a while, to get the gist of how things worked. But for a long while she heard nothing, just the loneliness of empty airwaves. Then, at last, she stumbled upon a conversation, two men making contact for the first time. They introduced themselves by their codes, the technical formalities of hams, commented on the quality of their respective signals, asked about each other’s equipment, and then, after a brief inquiry about the weather, they happily signed off, as if fully satisfied with the conversation.

​

     That’s it? thought Sadie. She tried again, turning the dials, searching for life. But after another few hours, the conversations she stumbled upon were no more interesting, save for a couple of men discussing the Apocalypse. But even this amounted to little more than tips on which foods kept best and how to dispose of urine in a bunker. The later it grew, the quieter the airwaves, until finally, turning and turning, Sadie called it a night and went upstairs to lie down beside Archie, who’d been sound asleep for hours.

⎯

​

     Sadie didn’t touch that machine for another two weeks. Instead, she focused on keeping her kids entertained enough so they wouldn’t stray too far. Her neighbor must’ve gotten a new gun, as she could hear him trying it out, not a hunting rifle but something that blared a constant rattle meant for battle. On the other side, a shrine had appeared, a teepee-like structure of bamboo poles covered in feathers and yarn and animal bones. She tried to avert her eyes, just as she tried to ignore the shots echoing through their hillside, but it was no use.

​

     Archie had a big project at work that month and he arrived home late most evenings, with only enough energy to eat dinner, help their son with homework, and offer Sadie a few stoic but reassuring words before falling into bed. Unable to sleep, Sadie at last slinked back downstairs and sat at her desk, staring at her machine until finally she slipped back on the headphones. Another few hours passed of eavesdropping, conversations no more exciting than before: a few truckers describing their routes, a pair of men exchanging what they’d had for dinner, jokes about “the ol’ ball and chain” now telling them to hang up and come to bed. Again, the signals grew fewer and further between the later it got, as Sadie turned the dials back and forth. But just when she was about to give up, she heard something new: a woman’s voice.

​

     "This is Z9YTE, is this frequency busy?" Sadie sat upright.

​

     “Hello, hello,” the voice said again, playfully. "This is Zulu Nine Yankee Tango Echo, anybody there in outer space?”

​

     Another stranger in the night seeking idle prattle? No, this one sounded different.

“This is Ground Control to Major Tom,” sang the woman on the other end, laughing to herself. “Okay, tough audience, fine then.”

​

     Just as Sadie sensed the woman reaching for her dial to try another frequency, her finger pressed the button on her mic for the very first time. “Hello.” Sadie’s voice shook, and she immediately forgot all the rules of ham conduct.

​

     “Houston, we have contact! This is Z9YTE,” the woman repeated but then, defying the phonetic alphabet that Sadie had studied to get her license, the woman sounded off an acronym all her own, “Zebra Nine YoYo Trilobite—and, hm, how about… Entomology! And who do I have the pleasure of speaking with tonight?”

​

     “X-5-O-W-F,” recited Sadie, glancing at the Post-it note she’d placed on her machine. “X-ray Five Oscar Whiskey Foxtrot.”

​

     But rather than ask about her signal, her equipment, the formalities of ham life before signing off like all the others, this woman exclaimed, “Foxtrot! Have you ever danced it?”

​

     “Excuse me?”

​

     “Have you ever danced the foxtrot? It’s a good one, all slides and flowy steps.” 

​

      “No, I’m not—well, my husband’s not much of a dancer.”

​

      “Everyone’s a dancer! But hell, if he won’t do it, why not dance with yourself? Me, I can foxtrot with anyone, myself included. Jitterbug, too. How about bachata? Helps I’ve got two left feet. Makes the whole lead-follow thing easier. But this husband of yours, he should dance more. For his own sake, if not yours.”

​

     “Unlikely.” 

   

     “Why’s that?”

​

     “I don’t think he gets it.” 

​

     “Doesn’t get what?”

​

     “Like, I don’t think he understands why people do it.”

​

     “You’re not supposed to understand dancing. You’re supposed to feel it.”

​

     Sadie paused, suddenly remembering that anyone could be listening to their conversation, that no frequency was truly private. Then again, she’d been scanning the waves for hours with little luck and anyhow, nobody on the radio knew who she was.

​

     “Feeling,” said Sadie, “isn’t his strong suit.” 

​

     “Marry a robot, did ya?”

​

     “He’s just a very—even keeled guy, is all.” 

​

     “Where’s the fun in that?”

​

     “He has other redeemable qualities.” 

​

     “Like?”

​

     Sadie laughed to herself, in disbelief that she was discussing her marriage to a total stranger. But somehow, even though the whole world—or at least a few wayward hams—might be listening in, it felt easier talking here than it ever did with her friends back in the city, the other moms from daycare. Sadie glanced over her shoulder at the stairs leading to their bedroom on the opposite side of the house.

​

     “Well, for one, he’s dependable.”

​

     “So is the Postal Service. You banging the mailman too?”

​

     Sadie laughed. An unexpected laugh. In fact, she wondered, was that the first time she’d laughed inside their new house?

​

     “And he’s reliable.”

​

     “Wait,” said the woman. “Is that different from dependable?”

​

     “I think so. Sort of. Okay, he’s smart too. And committed. And he’s such a dependable father.”

​

     “There’s that word again: dependable. He oughta take you out dancing, that’s what I think.”

​

     “Not gonna happen.”

​

     “Then you oughta take him out dancing.” 

​

     “Kicking and screaming.”

​

     “Sounds dramatic for someone so even-keeled.”

​

     “You’re right, he’d probably come up with some rational explanation for why we can’t go, why it doesn’t make sense, that there’s no point to it.”

​

     Suddenly Sadie felt a rush of unease, the surprising comfort she’d felt just moments ago replaced by a sense of nakedness. Who even was this woman? Where was this woman? When Sadie first got started, she’d nearly opted for the cheapest radio available, but when she’d learned it wouldn’t reach more than five or so miles, she’d ponied up for something stronger. So instead, the big device now sitting on her desk promised a range of a hundred miles—even more if she tapped into linked repeaters. But she didn’t quite understand what those were yet, how it all worked, had grown exasperated by all the club’s technical jargon. Point was: this woman could be in the next state over, for all she knew. But still, at that moment, Sadie felt she was far too close.

​

     “It’s getting late,” said Sadie. 

​

     “Copy that.”

​

     “I think we’re supposed to sign off with our license codes again, is that right? FCC rules?”

“They have too many rules.”

​

     Sadie looked back at her Post-it note and recited, “This is X5OWF, signing off.” 

​

     “Hey,” said the woman. “I check this frequency most nights around the same

time.”

​

     “Nice chatting with you.”

​

     “This is Z9YTE, Zombie Nine Yellow Tyrannosaurus Epilepsy, over and out.”

​

⎯

​

     The following day Sadie drove to the county seat to stock up on groceries. But as she strolled the aisles, one son beside her and the other in the cart, she couldn’t stop staring at every woman in the store. In the checkout line she listened closely to each voice, wondering, picking up on any hint. And this continued all week, during every errand, dropping her son off at school, scanning faces while buying dog food and at the post office too. Silly, she knew, given the hundred mile range of her radio, the endless possibilities, but she couldn't help herself.

​

     Nor could she help her wondering one sleepless night as she lay beside Archie. He’d never known insomnia, his heart and mind far too untroubled. But Sadie, who knew it well, tossed and turned, checked the clock, and suddenly she was downstairs again. Headphones on, switch flicked, dial turned.

​

     “Hello—hello—hello,” came an echo, as if from within a cave. “Is there anybody in there—there—there—”

​

     “Hello,” whispered Sadie. “Is it you?”

​

     “Me?” said the voice, echo gone. “I hope so. Last I checked.” 

​

     “Um, this is X5OWF. Did we talk here a week ago?”

​

     “Z9YTE. Zamboni Nine Yodeler Tijuana Enema, coming in live from planet Earth.”

Sadie felt a weight fall from her shoulders and within minutes they were talking once more about dancing, then about kids and catching frogs, then about husbands and the ups-and-downs of marriage, how Sadie had been second-guessing her decision to leave the city, about so many other choices she’d made in life. They spoke for more than an hour and it no longer mattered that anyone might be listening in. Neither woman gave away enough to identify herself, Sadie focused only on what couldn’t be perceived from the outside: doubts, secrets, unrealized dreams. And anyway, based on the chatter she’d overheard elsewhere, it was hard to imagine those old men bothering to eavesdrop on such a meanderingly sentimental conversation as theirs.

​

     When at last Sadie signed off and went back to bed just before sunrise, sleep evaded her. She felt more alive than she had in years, felt heard and seen and known. As if that voice floating upon the airwaves knew her better than anyone ever had. Better than she herself had. Certainly better than the soundly snoring body beside her ever could.

​

⎯

 

     It took months for Archie to pick up on anything. Not only had Sadie managed to slip from bed every few nights without waking him, but her new mood escaped his notice too. Underslept and yet full of life, like a freshman in college away from home for the very first time. She felt torn by his obliviousness: on one side, relief, her secret safe, a nocturnal life all her own playing out on a private frequency where she wasn’t just wife nor mother nor even, the more time she spent with Z9YTE, the apprehensive woman she’d always known herself to be.

​

     But on the other hand, Sadie wanted Archie to notice the bags under her eyes after another long night downstairs. She wanted him to notice how despite this, she’d been smiling more. She wanted him to notice how, with the encouragement of her new midnight confidante, she’d been allowing their son to wander further, to climb trees without demanding he come down this instant, to take the risks that boys need in order to become men.

​

     She wanted Archie to notice how she moved through the house with a new rhythm, almost like dancing.

​

     “Darling,” he said one evening over dinner, months later, “were you gone in the middle of the night or was that a dream I had?”

​

     “Must’ve been a dream,” she said.

​

     “Interesting. Can’t remember the last time I dreamed. Or recalled a dream, that is.” Archie took another bite, staring down at his plate to think, then lifted his head. “Anyhow, I had another chat with State Farm today. Seems they’re pulling out of our area, too. So is Liberty Mutual. Don’t think there’s any providers left. We might need to switch to the state-provided option. It’s a sort of insurance of last-resort. Limited coverage and yet very pricey premiums, but if we—”

​

     Archie’s words drifted over the dinner table but reached her ears with no more meaning than they did upon reaching her son, who sat impatiently, waiting to be excused so he could go check the animal trap he’d set by the creek before dusk fell.

​

⎯

​

     Autumn exploded upon their hillside, leaves aflush with yellow and orange, cooler temperatures interrupted by occasional warm days. Days like this one when Sadie sat on her porch with another glass of wine. Archie was working late again. One son slept beside her, the other was off building forts. Or scurrying up rocks. Or playing with the pocket knife she’d given him for his birthday, a gift that only months before Sadie wouldn’t dare put in the tender little hands of her child.

​

     And yet despite the beauty of this day, all she could think about was nightfall, creeping back downstairs, flicking on the switch.

​

     When at last she got up to head inside and begin dinner, a faint smoky whiff filled her nose. Her neighbor, she assumed, grilling up a deer he’d probably filled with far more bullets than necessary. Or worse: another ritual bonfire on the opposite side, a naked woman smeared with mud and paint, and with turkey feathers tied into her long matted hair. But when Sadie turned to look, her neighbor’s yard was empty, only a single stray chicken pecking around the garden. And on the other side, she saw that the smoke wasn’t rising from that dark, wooded citadel either. Rather, above her, the sun had turned red, a warm wind picking up, the toasty scent stronger even than before.

​

     Sadie rushed inside and there on her phone: the evacuation warnings, news alerts of a wildfire moving fast, eleven missed calls from Archie and twice as many text messages. But when she tried to respond, her phone refused to work. Even the warnings, when she tried to refresh them, no longer came through. That was when she noticed her lights were off, the ceiling fan no longer spinning.

​

Seconds later she was back on her porch, screaming out one son’s name, bundling up the other, and grabbing the car seat. At last, her little boy emerged from the trees, pocket knife in hand. They grabbed only what they needed and loaded into the car, backing up onto the road. But just as her foot met the accelerator, she caught a glimpse down her neighbor’s long driveway. Beyond the Don’t Tread on Me flag waving wildly in the wind and the No Trespassing signs, a car. No, not a car. Bigger. A Hummer or some amphibious military vehicle from a war half a century ago. But in his haste to leave, the man must’ve swerved full speed, five tons of steel ramming into a line of trees, which had fallen onto him from all sides. From a crack in the window, Sadie saw the man’s arm desperately grasping from within, begging her to trespass.

​

     She took a deep breath in, looked at her children, up at the smoke-filled sky, and then back toward all the signs warning her to stay away. Jumping from her car, she ran down the driveway but when she reached the vehicle, laying eyes on her neighbor’s face for the very first time, it was clear she’d be of little help, much as she strained to move the enormous trees from his only exit. The man, wordless, looked at her helplessly through his windshield as steam rose from his hood. It would take her half an hour to reach town, assuming it wasn’t already evacuated, another twenty to reach the county seat.

​

     “Mayday, mayday!” she yelled into the radio, standing over her desk, back inside, car now idling with the boys in the driveway out front. One minute, she’d told them. One minute of trying, demonstrating for her boys what humanity, at its best, looked like: neighbors helping neighbors, no matter who they were. After that, though, he’d be on his own until they reached town.

​

     “This is X5O—” she began to recite, then stopped. “Ah, fuck it, this is Sadie, Sadie Smith! I live at 2546 Ponderosa Road outside Pine Flats. My neighbor needs help. Someone? Anyone?” She turned the dial frantically, searching and searching. But just as her watch’s second hand came full circle and she was about to give up, she landed upon her old familiar midnight frequency and said, “Hello? Hello! We need help!”

​

     Silence. A crackling. Then, suddenly a click, a rattling noise, “Z9YTE here, what’s your emergency?”

​

     “It’s you!” yelled Sadie.

​

     “Last I checked,” said the woman. “Got my ol’ HT radio here in the truck, plus a pig buckled in the passenger seat, few chickens in the back too, so please excuse the noise. Bit of a zoo in here.”

​

     “We need help! My neighbor, he’s trapped. In his vehicle. We can’t get him out.

​

     And the fire, I don’t know, it might be heading this way. Please, we need to do something.”

​

     “What’s your location, ma’am? I should be pulling into town any minute now, can send for help.”

​

     “2546 Ponderosa Road outside Pine Flats. He’s at the house next door.” 

​

     “Ponderosa Road!?”

​

     “Yes, please, quick!”

​

     “You’re talking about Jim, ain’t you? Fella with all the guns, yeah?” 

​

     “Yes! That’s him!”

​

     “I see town now. Bunch of fire trucks, and there’s the sheriff closing off the intersection now. I’ll send for help. But you, Sadie Smith, you best be getting out of there. Take Hillcrest road. It’ll be faster.”

​

     Sadie shot up, but just before she ran, she spoke one last time into the machine, “Who is this?”

​

     A crackle. Static. A chicken’s cluck.

​

     “Zipper Nine Yoohoo Titty Entendre, over and out. Now go, go, go!”

​

⎯

​

     The insurance payout, with that plan-of-last-resort, was hardly enough to rebuild the house. But Archie had a plan. He always had a plan. One with several logical steps. In fact, he shared this plan with Sadie the moment she reached the evacuation shelter, even before the flames had been extinguished, even before they found out their home was gone, even before he held her close to say, “I love you, I’m so glad you’re alive.”

​

     But Sadie didn’t like his plan. Not this time. Sadie saw no need to rebuild. She wanted to go back to the city. Find an apartment. Start a new life. One without Archie. And that, at long last, was one thing he didn’t have a plan for.

​

      These days, on the nights the boys stay with their father, Sadie returns from dance class and settles in at her desk. Covered in feathers and animal bones, it looks out a window at all the fire escapes on the next building over. Last month she aced the exam for the highest class radio license, giving her access to all frequencies, allowing her to reach fellow hams all over the world. But while she does entertain the occasional chat with a stranger in Austria or Paraguay or even Tasmania, most nights she just tunes in to the same old frequency.

​

     Headphones on, flick the switch, turn the dial, then: “X5OWF here, is this frequency busy?”

Static, another click, a donkey somewhere in the background.

​

     “It is now, ain’t it? This is Z9YTE, Zootsuit Nine Yorkie Trombone Egghead. How am I coming through over there?”

​

     “Loud and clear,” says Sadie, smiling. “Loud and clear.”​​​​​​​​

​

​