The Forever War

Back at his mother’s apartment, Mandella meets Rhonda Wilder, Beth’s roommate—single people are not allowed two-bedroom apartments. Wilder offers her room to Mandella, but he tells them he’s heading to South Dakota to “flop” with Potter’s family. Later, after Beth goes to work, he asks Wilder about her relationship with his mother, and she replies: “Very good friends. Sometimes lovers” (145). Mandella is shocked, but Wilder tells him that society has changed and that he will have to adjust. Beth, she claims, is struggling with the sudden age difference between her and her son, and she needs his love and understanding more than ever. Feigning an excuse—an “emergency” with Potter—he books transport to South Dakota.

After a tortuous journey—by helicopter and then dilapidated bus—he arrives at Freehold, a network of farm communes in Sioux Falls. He finds the Potter farm, a collection of “plastic domes and rectangular buildings apparently made of sod” (147). Margay greets him and introduces him to her parents, Richard and April, and, later, over dinner, he offers to help work the farm. One of the duties, Richard informs him, is guard duty, defending the farm from “jumpers,” thieves from the city who prey on the farms’ isolation and the relative prosperity of the farmers.