Surviving the Refuge (Survivalist Reality Show Book 2)

by Grace Hamilton

  “You need to tell him how you feel.”

  “I have!” Tabitha insisted as she picked another orange up and began all but tearing it apart in frustration. “He doesn’t listen. He gets louder and drowns me out and then he does this,” she said, gesturing to the empty spot at the table. “He walks away.”

  Regan swallowed down the harsh words about him that she wanted to say—complaining about the man wouldn’t help Tabitha. “Make him listen,” she said after a few seconds. “He has to hear you. He can’t expect you to get pregnant and deal with it all if you don’t want to. That’s insanely medieval. He can’t be that much of a caveman.”

  Tabitha smiled sadly, but it was clear even to Regan that she hadn’t said anything new. “I know. I will. I just don’t know why it’s such a big issue right now. I mean, we have a million other things to worry about and he’s worried about having a baby!”

  Regan nodded her head, completely agreeing with Tabitha. “It does seem a little strange to be worried about having a baby right this minute.”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of fear he has of not getting to procreate,” Tabitha mused. “Hopefully, this is all a phase and he’ll realize this isn’t something that needs to be addressed today.”

  “What’s a phase?” Fred asked, making his way to the table and plucking an orange slice off the cloth.

  Tabitha and Regan exchanged a look. Tabitha rolled her eyes and shrugged a shoulder. “Like Geno said, everyone is in everyone’s business anyway.”

  Fred stuffed the orange slice into his mouth, waiting for them to explain. The gun at his side no longer looked out of place on him. He wasn’t constantly touching it and moving the holster on his belt. He seemed to have finally gotten comfortable with the extra weight on his hips.

  “Geno wants to have a baby,” Tabitha explained a moment later.

  The look of confusion on Fred’s face was priceless. “What?”

  Regan started laughing. “Geno doesn’t want to get pregnant. He wants to have a baby with Tabitha.”

  Fred immediately relaxed. “Oh. And is this good or bad?”

  Tabitha shrugged again. “It isn’t bad, but it isn’t something I want to do right this minute, either. Maybe down the road once we have a better idea of what we can expect for our lives. Right now, it seems rushed. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. The lights could come back on tomorrow and Geno and I could go home. I don’t see the need to do this right now.”

  “The lights aren’t going to come on tomorrow,” Fred stated matter-of-factly.

  Regan rolled her eyes. “Okay, so, not tomorrow, Fred, but she means it could happen sooner rather than later. She doesn’t want to rush into getting pregnant now if she could wait until life got back to normal.”

  Fred had already begun nodding, surprising Regan and Tabitha both in that he seemed to agree with their take on the situation. “Why don’t you put together a presentation?” he suggested

  Tabitha burst into laughter. “This isn’t a college classroom, and I don’t think charts and statistics are going to be very effective. Geno isn’t the kind of man who will sit through a lecture. He barely sat through school.”

  Fred held up his hand. “Hear me out. I can help you put together bullet points. You’ll be armed with real facts as well as personal reasons why you aren’t prepared to take this journey right now.”

  Regan thought it was a stupid idea, but she could see by the look on Tabitha’s face that her friend was buying into it.

  “That might work. He isn’t listening to me, so maybe if I could show him a list of reasons why I don’t want to get pregnant right now, he’ll pay attention,” Tabitha said.

  Fred grinned, his eyes glowing at the idea. “I’ll help you this afternoon.”

  Regan looked between them, and spoke up before they could pull her into helping put it together. “I’m on dinner duty tomorrow. I’ll tell everyone dinner will be late. That should give you guys a little time alone.”

  Tabitha reached out and gripped Regan’s hand in a quick, appreciative squeeze. “Thank you, I would appreciate that. Of course, at this point, half of us know about the situation anyway,” she said with a laugh. “I cannot believe I’m having this discussion with people I didn’t know three months ago. It’s my womb we’re talking about.”

  Regan laughed. “It is strange. I hope I’m never in this situation. No one is going to be getting that personal with me.”

  Fred looked thoughtfully off into the trees before he commented, “Everything has changed for us. Technically, having a child while we are all living together and sharing resources does make all of us a part of the conversation,” he reasoned.

  “No,” Regan said firmly. “It doesn’t, not for me, and if you try to tell me when I should or shouldn’t have a baby, it’s going to get ugly.”

  Fred wasn’t bothered a bit by the threat, and just grinned at her in return. Regan ignored him and got back to work on the oranges. Tabitha was free to talk about her body with whoever she wished, but Regan was not going to be a part of that discussion or offer her own body up for group debate. She dreaded the subject coming up in general.

  “I’m going to go jot down some notes. We’ll meet up after lunch,” Fred said before he rose and headed back into the house, his hand moving to the holster and holding it as he walked. He was fine when he wasn’t moving. He’d learn not to swing his arms and rub across the gun—she had.

  Regan waited until he was out of hearing range before she looked at Tabitha. “You’re crazy.”

  Tabitha giggled. “I know it, but if I have to keep having this same argument with Geno, I’m really going to lose my mind, and a presentation can’t hurt at this point. I’m really running out of options here. Like you said, I have to make Geno hear me. I really hope him seeing my reasons all laid out will make them sink in.”

  “I hope so, too, for your sake. I don’t envy you.”

  “Thanks, and thank you for running interference tomorrow, too. Hopefully, I’ll only need fifteen minutes or so. Lord knows we’ve said everything there is to say on the matter.”

  With nothing else to say on the subject for the moment, they worked for the next hour at peeling oranges and splitting them up. It was a long, tedious process, but Regan hoped it would be worth it in the end.

  “I’ll put these in the water bath,” Tabitha said, carrying several jars off to the pot of boiling water. She used a pair of jar tongs to lower the jars into the water.

  “Is the water covering the tops?” Regan asked, looking at the book they had brought out for reference.

  “Yep. How long do we let them boil?”

  “Ten minutes, it says.”

  Regan and Tabitha exchanged a look. “I think I saw an egg timer in the kitchen. I’ll run and grab it,” Regan said, leaving the oranges on the table.

  “How’s it going?” Wolf asked when Regan came into the kitchen.

  “Good—just put in the first batch. Didn’t you say you had the screens we needed to dehydrate the oranges somewhere?”

  “I do. I’ll grab them from the shed,” he said, following her outside.

  Regan handed the timer to Tabitha and went to help Wolf. “What’s that?” she asked him when he pulled out a small wooden frame.

  “That’s the dehydrator. I’ve collected some old windows to put over the frames. It will heat the food up faster and keep the birds from stealing away our stuff,” he said, handing her a couple of screens while carrying two of the framed boxes himself.

  “Do we put the orange slices directly on the screens?” Regan asked.

  “Yes, just leave a little space between each slice for airflow.”

  Tabitha joined her at the table and they quickly went about placing the sliced oranges on the screens before each grabbed one and carried it back to Wolf.

  “Now what?” Regan asked, not entirely sure what he had planned.

  “I have a couple of pieces of driftwood I’ll balance the wood frame on to keep it off the g
round. That will allow air to move under the box and screen. The glass goes over the top, heating the inside and dehydrating the fruit,” he explained.

  Regan and Tabitha both looked through the glass, staring at the orange slices on the screen.

  “It seems very primitive,” Tabitha mused.

  Wolf shrugged. “But it works. I had intentions of building actual legs for these, but like so many other things, I put it off. I wanted to make a dehydrator with vents and the whole nine yards that could be used for drying meat and making jerky, but again, I procrastinated,” he said with disgust.

  “I need to go pull those jars out,” Tabitha said, walking back to the fire pit.

  “Thank you,” Regan said to Wolf.

  With that chore taken care of, he left them to the canning, and Regan and Tabitha spent the next several hours canning the oranges, which would provide them with much needed vitamin C in the off season.

  15

  Regan and Wolf sidestepped a tree that had fallen during the night’s storms, enjoying an early morning walk as they walked the perimeter before they had to start their usual daily chores. She loved the time together, holding hands and strolling barefoot along the beach. It was a lot like a treasure hunt, seeing what the tide had brought in while they’d slept.

  As she walked this morning, though, Regan was also trying to figure out how to bring up the whole baby subject without actually having to talk about it. “Hey,” she finally broke the silence, doing her best to keep it casual, “I’m going to have a late dinner tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Geno and Tabitha need a little time in the house.”

  He stopped walking and turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

  Regan giggled at the look on his face, imagining what he was thinking. “Not like that. She wants to give a presentation of sorts, and it would be nice if she could do it in the house.”

  “Okay. How late?”

  Shrugging, Regan reached down to pick up a shell and then answered, “Maybe thirty minutes, nothing major.”

  “What are your plans for dinner?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know—fish, fish, or maybe fish,” she teased.

  Wolf nodded his head, grabbing her hand as they walked toward the dock. “I think I’ll take the sailboat out and try to get something a little different for dinner. The water is nice and calm, and it would be great for some deep sea fishing.”

  “Like?” Regan asked, intrigued by the idea of eating something other than freeze-dried meals or tilapia.

  “Grouper, most likely. They’re running right now. I’ll take Lily with me.”

  “Do you have the equipment for that?” Regan asked, still feeling guilty about the ruined net from the other day.

  Wolf nodded his head. “We do. It’s been a while since I got to go fishing out on the open water, but the skies look clear enough for it. I don’t think there’s anything pressing to do around here today. A big meal with fresh grouper would be a nice treat.”

  Regan smiled, nodding her head in agreement. “That’d be awesome.”

  They spent another thirty minutes together, sitting on the dock and enjoying the peacefulness of the calm waters. It was moments like these that helped Regan forget about the turmoil among their group and out in the world. She could watch the birds and listen to the waves forever, she thought, just being there with Wolf and letting everything else drift into the background.

  “I should get back,” Regan said as the sun began feeling hotter on her arms—too much longer on the dock, they’d need suntan lotion if they didn’t want to burn, much as she wished she could stay right where she was all day.

  “Are you okay going back on your own?” Wolf asked.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “I’m going to go find Lily then. If I don’t see you before I go, I’ll see you tonight. I promise I’ll bring you a big, fat fish or two to fry up,” he said, ducking in to kiss her goodbye.

  “You better,” she said with a wink, waving as he headed down the beach in search of his wayward daughter.

  She walked back toward the house then, excited to get into the greenhouse. Planning variety in their meals was tough to do with their limited food options, but she wanted to give it a try—especially if Wolf was going to go to the extra effort to bring in something new. Eating fish day in and day out was getting old, but they were doing what they could to conserve the non-perishable food in the storeroom, and grouper sounded good. She knew Wolf was worried about getting deeper into hurricane season, when it would be too dangerous to sit out fishing or spend time on the water. They needed to conserve at every corner to ensure they weren’t left without food down the road, and any day that presented clear afternoon skies was a day to be out fishing if they could.

  Regan saw RC carrying his toolbox toward the shed and steeled her nerves to tell him about the later than usual dinner—she just didn’t want him to question her on why.

  “Hi, RC,” she said, hoping she sounded friendly enough.

  “Good morning, Regan,” he said, continuing to walk.

  “Um, I’m going to have dinner ready a little later tonight, okay?”

  He shrugged. “That’s fine.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled as she headed for the greenhouse.

  The plants and fish were healthy, which gave her a great deal of satisfaction. She used the fish net to scoop some of the duckweed from the top of the bins, carefully placing it on the screen before carrying it outside to dry in the sun. She loved how Wolf had put so much thought into long-term sustainability. It wasn’t a one-hit wonder for him. He was prepared to live on the island forever, which was both scary and comforting at the same time.

  Her chores in the greenhouse finished, Regan headed inside the house and grabbed a glass of cool water and ate a lunch of salad before drifting out to the patio, where she found Tabitha quietly sitting on her own, humming to herself as she used a knife to scrape fibers from a coconut shell.

  “What are you doing?” Regan asked.

  Tabitha looked up and smiled. She always had such a serene look on her face, Regan thought for the hundredth time—she often envied her ability to find peace no matter where she was or what was happening around her, though she rarely understood it.

  “RC told me his grandmother used to use the fiber from the coconut, coir, to grow plants in. Since the garden soil is going to get more and more drenched with the rainy season, I want to try and grow some herbs in the kitchen, too.”

  “Why don’t you just use the dirt?”

  “I thought of that, but the soil is really sandy.”

  Regan picked up a handful of the coarse fibers from the coconuts. “This is better?”

  “It’s kind of like the aquaponics, but without the fish. The fiber is a good grow medium. The fibers retain water and keep the roots hydrated. It’s loose, too, so I don’t have to worry about the roots getting bound.”

  Regan nodded her head, once again amazed at all there was to learn. “Do you have to fertilize the plants?”

  Tabitha nodded. “Yes, I guess one of the reasons the coconut fiber is so beneficial is because it has a neutral pH, which you know all about,” she added with a laugh.

  “Oh, but that means you’ll need nitrogen. How will you feed the plants without fish poop?” she asked right back.

  “Chicken poop.”

  “Uh, come again?”

  Tabitha giggled. “You know how Lily complains about cleaning out the coop all the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it goes into a compost pile. Wolf has been making his own compost for a while. I’ll mix in some of that compost with the coconut fibers to create a healthy growing environment for the plants.”

  “Wow,” Regan said, impressed.

  “Trust me. I didn’t think of any of this. Between what RC and Wolf know, and the books I’ve been reading about gardening, I’m learning. I just hope it works,” she said with a sigh.

  “I th
ink it will,” Regan said with all the confidence in the world.

  “Thank you. Now, I need to pluck all the fiber from the shells that have been laying around forever. Wolf says he rinsed them with fresh water, so the salt is pretty much gone, but I’ll need to give the fibers another rinse in fresh water. I don’t want to choke the plants before they have a chance.”

  “Oh, I’ll help you,” Regan said, taking a seat and grabbing one of the empty shells from the pile.

  Together, they scraped and pulled apart the shells, removing the dry fibrous material and stuffing it in the can.

  “Are you nervous?” Regan asked her after a while, knowing the conversation that Tabitha was about to have with her husband had to be weighing on her mind.

  Tabitha smiled. “No, not really. I mean, a little, but what’s the worst he can do?”

  Regan grinned. “True. Walking away is probably the most likely scenario, but it’s not like he’ll get far.”

  “Right—we’re on an island!” Tabitha said with a nervous grin, piling together what fibers had strayed from her pile as she finished up.

  “I’ll clean up out here,” Regan offered. “Go get ready for your presentation.”

  “Thank you. You’re a good friend, Regan.”

  “I try,” Regan said with a wink, scraping the leftover remnants of husks into a box to take to the fire pit outside.

  It was late afternoon when Wolf returned with two large grouper fish. Lily had gone back to her camp with the promise that she’d be up to the house later for dinner.

  “Those look awesome! I can’t wait!” Regan exclaimed, excited to eat something a little different.

  “I’ll clean them,” he announced, putting them in the kitchen sink. “Let me grab my knife and I’ll take them outside.