Leave the World Behind

The adults consult each other about what to do, and G. H. insists Archie should go to the emergency room in the area, not back in Brooklyn. G. H. says he will draw a map, and Clay admits getting lost before. His lie secretly relieves Amanda because it means the world might still be normal outside of the house.

G. H. says they will all go, but Ruth is insistent that she’s not leaving the house and everyone should stay put. Amanda worries that they are all sick and need medical care. G. H. says it will be fine. They continue to debate who will stay and who will go, settling on Ruth staying behind with Rose while the rest go to get help for Archie. It’s at this point that they realize Rose is missing.

They search the house without finding Rose, and Amanda begins to panic. Clay keeps trying to calm her as they look everywhere, but she is unphased and continues to get angry at Clay and Ruth for trying to tell her that Rose is safe somewhere. As they separate and begin searching, Archie follows a hunch and heads toward the woods. Before he can get far, though, his knee gives out and he vomits pink liquid before collapsing.

The adults continue searching for Rose for some time before Clay and G. H. discover Archie bent over on the ground. They bring him inside and give him water; G. H. says they need to go to the hospital immediately, and Ruth asserts that she can’t remain by herself.

G. H. lays out the plan: He and Clay will take Archie to the hospital while Ruth and Amanda find Rose. Clay feels tingling in his joints but attributes it to fear. G. H. sets a timer on his phone for one hour, saying he will drop them off and come right back to gather up everyone still at the house. Ruth and Clay try to question the plan, but he starts the timer going and silences their protestations, knowing that action is required at times like this.

G. H. drives while telling Archie to let him know if they need to pull over; he feels fatherly toward him in this moment. As they drive past the neighbor’s egg shack (the same shack that Archie and Rose went into earlier in the book), Clay confesses that he spoke to the woman by the side of the road. G. H. tries to get him to pay attention and draw a map, but Clay continues telling the story. Though he doesn’t dislike Clay, the lie irritates G. H.—he needs information to make good decisions.

G. H. begins thinking about his place in this community as a rich Black stranger in a vacation home. Clay laments that he doesn’t know what to do about anything without his phone. G. H. realizes he doesn’t trust this place, and he is concerned that his status as an outsider might be dangerous. He suddenly has a thought, and tells Clay what they’re going to do: They’ll go see Danny, the local contractor G. H. has long employed and his only real acquaintance in the community. He and Clay debate the matter half-heartedly, but G. H. is sure that Danny will know what to do. 

Ruth finds Amanda in the shed and feels irritated by having to be the strong supporting player in Amanda’s story when her own family is in Massachusetts. She leads Amanda back to the house and they discuss the plan that G. H. made. Amanda presses Ruth for concrete answers about what will happen next, and they begin shouting at each other. Ruth brings up her grandchildren, and they both admit that the root of their anger is in wanting their children to be safe. Amanda wanders the house, stopping to fill a bathtub with water, before apologizing and continuing the search for Rose.

G. H. pulls into Danny’s driveway, and he and Clay leave Archie in the car as they approach the door. In the house, Danny, his wife Karen, and their four-year-old daughter Emma have had a similar experience with the noise and lack of knowledge about the outside world, with Karen particularly afraid that her son is with his father and out of reach.

Danny answers the door and is not at all happy to see G. H. G. H. realizes he has miscalculated. Danny does not particularly like G. H., and his thoughts reveal a racist undertone to this feeling. He tells them that he went into town and saw that it was quiet, and then upon hearing the sounds decided that he was staying put and solitary.

Clay reveals that Archie is sick and his teeth have fallen out, which gives Danny pause. He doesn’t know it, but Karen’s teeth are loose as well. Danny says this must be an attack, hinting at the news stories he’s read and interpreted to be signs of impending war.

Danny has closed the door behind him, and G. H. realizes that it was wrong to turn to him for help. Clay continues to tell Danny of his son’s illness, confessing he doesn’t know what to do. Danny tells Clay what he will do: lock the door behind him, get his gun, and wait, which G. H. interprets as a threat. Danny tells them that they can return, but all that he can give them is information, and it’s clear they aren’t welcome.

They head back to the car, and G. H. feels foolish, saying he doesn’t think they should go to the hospital after all. Archie is understanding. Clay says he wants to go home, and he means G. H.’s house—their house.

Rose wakes up that morning with a conviction that she needs to act. She has read many young adult novels about dystopian and apocalyptic societies, so she thinks she knows what to do. She gets up before everyone else, prepares, and heads to the house in the woods she found with Archie. As she walks, the narration details what’s going on across America: People are realizing society is collapsing and either clinging to it or letting it go. Rose knows that the sound they heard was the beginning of a new kind of life.

The narration moves further afield as Rose moves through the woods, detailing tragedies that are happening around the nation and moving into the future to speak of generations of deer born white and tent cities full of cancerous people set up outside of airports, which is where the owner of the house she’s headed toward will die.

Rose arrives at the house and rings the bell, then breaks a window when she realizes no one is home. She explores the house until she finds a collection of DVDs; she puts on an episode of Friends, comforted by the familiar noise of television. She continues to search the house, planning out who will live in each room, unaware that her mother is in a daze in the egg shack and her brother is mortally ill. The narration moves into the immediate future to detail how she would go back to the house where her family is and they would spend the rest of the day doing typical things. They did not know what the future held before any of this happened, and to Rose, now is no different.