by Claire Vale
“That’s very considerate of you, but totally unnecessary. I’ll be ready whenever you are.” I blew out on a slightly ragged breath. “I would, however, appreciate notice in advance so I can prepare myself.”
“Notice in advance,” he murmured, the intensity of his gaze sending warm prickles skittering all over my skin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning quickly from his probing eyes, fleeing like prey from a hunter.
“Oh, and Georga,” he called out.
I stopped dead, glanced over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“When you are ready, you won’t need that advance notice to prepare for the arduous task.”
“I never said it would be an arduous task.”
“Didn’t you?” he challenged in that soft, rumbling tone.
I could have reminded him that the time-out was his idea, but that might make him pause to reconsider. And so far as I was concerned, duty and conscience aside, he could take as long as he needed to be ready—the longer, the better.
So I bit my tongue and grimaced, and left him standing there on the deck while I went to get ready for bed.
7
I went to sleep alone and I woke up alone. The cover on Roman’s side of the bed was rumpled, so he’d definitely been here for some portion of the night. I should have felt relief that I hadn’t had to wake up with a strange man beside me, but instead I got an unsettled, I’m living with a ghost, kind of feeling.
Before crawling out of bed, I examined my ankle. The gel and bandage I’d reapplied after my bath last night had done a good job while I slept. With the bandage support, I could walk painlessly so long as I kept it slow, sure and steady. I was halfway out the room before I realized Roman could be lurking out there somewhere and I wasn’t fit for company. I paused, deliberating between my pre- and post-married state of mind.
Did I really need to be presentable at—I checked my watch—seven-thirty in the morning?
Before, I’d felt the need to live up to the expectations on which prospective marriage offers would be based, live that perfect scorecard every hour of every day. Look like the girl in that photo. Act like the Capra lady described in that dossier. Watch my tongue. Never give away too much of the true Georga Hamilton who wasn’t beautiful or perfect.
But a lot had happened since. I’d already decided I was done with perfection. And besides, I didn’t think I could impress Roman any less than I already did. Sour morning breath and messy hair were just a tiny part of the full package he didn’t want.
I’d slept in my cotton pants and camisole, so I figured I was plenty presentable and continued on through to the living area. No sign of Roman. The drapes were open, but the sliding door was closed. I called out for him as I crossed to the kitchen bar. Only silence answered me.
Coffee was a luxury, a necessary luxury as my father put it, but an expensive luxury all the same. Given the drastic change in my circumstances, I wasn’t overly hopeful as I hunted through the kitchen cabinets. When I found an expresso pot and a tin of finely ground beans, my inner addict breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness Roman had his priorities straight. The more I got to know the guy, the more I liked him.
Wedding night indefinitely postponed. Check.
Personal space. Check.
Glorious coffee. Check.
While the pot was heating on the burner, I went snooping. The second door across from the kitchen led into a spare bedroom, which would have been really useful since we were living in sin—married but fallen into the temptation to not procreate. Unfortunately there wasn’t a spare bed in the spare bedroom, just a couple of stacked, empty boxes.
The door beside the fireplace was locked, one of those latch locks at eye level. Interesting. Why would anyone need to lock an inside door, especially if you lived alone—assuming Roman hadn’t installed the lock last night while I slept. The lock was brass, but not shiny new.
Wardens really were odd creatures.
And my curiosity was seriously peaked. I had to get inside there. I scratched my brain for what I knew about lock-picking. Nothing. I tried the handle again, just in case, gave it a good rattle. We had a similar lock on the back door of our home—correction, my parent’s home—and it could be sticky sometimes. The button used to catch the lock and keep it open didn’t always disengage properly when released. This lock, however, didn’t appear to have any character flaws I could take advantage of.
I stared at the problem until the pot hissed to inform me it was done. I grabbed a mug and poured the expresso from the top, diluted it with the steaming water from the bottom, then added a dollop of milk from the fridge. While I was there, hunched down before the small under-the-counter fridge, I couldn’t help but notice the sad contents. A bottle of milk. Some greens. A lone tomato. Some steaks wrapped in brown paper.
Now that I was noticing, I glanced around the kitchen. A woven bowl on the counter piled with red apples. No vegetable rack. I hadn’t seen any canned goods when I’d searched for the coffee, but that wasn’t unusual—to me, anyway. Our canning factories produced a limited variety of foods and Mom preferred to cook fresh and preserve her own stuff for the off season months.
But basically, the cupboards were bare and the fridge was borderline. There wasn’t enough here to feed a rat.
I’d just sat down at the table with my coffee when I heard Roman return, the door banging shut, his footfalls on the rickety timber planks in the tunnel.
He stopped short when he saw me, as if startled by an intruder sitting at his kitchen table. I didn’t hold it against him. This whole marriage thing was a huge adjustment.
“Morning,” I said brightly, taking in his grey sweats and black t-shirt shrimped around toned muscle, his damp hair plastered to his forehead. “You went for a run?”
“Yeah.” He got a hold of himself and came inside. “Morning.”
“I hope you don’t mind…” I held up my mug. “I helped myself to coffee.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
He stopped across the table from me, fingers folding over the top of a hardback chair. “This is your home as much as mine now, Georga. You may do as you wish without asking if I mind.”
“Well, then…” I hesitated. It was a toss-up between the locked door and the bare cupboards. Curiosity won. “I was wondering about what’s there.” I turned in my chair to gesture. “The door’s locked.”
“That’s private.”
Huh. I gave him a pointed look.
“That’s my study,” he clarified.
“My father has an office at home.” I shrugged. “He doesn’t keep it locked.”
“Your father isn’t a warden,” he said. “Look, you’re free to come and go everywhere else, just not there. My study is off limits. Is that clear?”
“What about when I have to clean in there?”
“That’s not necessary.”
I could feel myself losing this argument, but couldn’t let go without sinking my teeth into it. “I really don’t mind.”
His gaze hardened on me. “I do.”
“That seems rather paranoid.”
“Georga,” he said thinly, his face darkening into shadows and thunder.
Pity. He’d walked in relatively ungrumpy and it had actually been a pleasant change. Now he was all back to his usual self, but it couldn’t be avoided. It was imperative I remained sufficiently unclear as to how off limits that study was.
I tipped my head to slant an innocent smile at him. “Yes?”
“Did I make myself clear?”
“About what?”
He cursed beneath his breath. “Are you always this difficult to talk to?”
“I’m not particularly difficult to talk to,” I said. “Maybe you just don’t have much experience with women.”
“I have plenty of experience with women,” he growled.
That sounded awfully like he’d had plenty of experience with women, but was th
at even possible? Who were these women? Where were they?
Heat prickled my cheeks. “Um, okay.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“It really isn’t—” he cut off, threw his hands up. “Forget it.”
“Forgotten,” I said gratefully.
“If you want to go home to pack, I could drop you off on my way to work.”
“You didn’t get the day off?” I asked.
“Officially, yes, but I have some things to take care of,” he said, turning from me, shoving a hand through his hair as he walked off toward the bedroom. “Do you need a ride or not?”
“I’d love a ride,” I called after him. “Let me know when you’re done in there so I can get ready.”
He grunted something without looking back.
I settled lower in my chair, lifting the mug of coffee to my smirking mouth. I was starting to believe Roman and I would get along just fine.
8
In the broad light of day, I got my first proper look at the sleek, silver-backed panels strapped to the hood of Roman’s truck as he drove me home. “Those are portable solar panels.”
“That’s right.”
“Does your truck not plug in?”
“She plugs in,” Roman said. “The panels are a back-up.”
I could think of only one place you might find yourself out of range of a charging station. “For when you’re in the Outerlands?”
He shrugged. “I like to be self-sufficient, wherever I am.”
“But especially outside of town?”
He shot me a look, then turned that look out his side window. “I’m going to need directions.”
Stonewalled again. One day, I vowed, I’d crack him wide open. But obviously not today. I directed him around the town square and along the lakeside avenue to my house. “Are you coming in to say hi?”
“Yeah, sure.” He stopped the truck and cut the engine. “I’ve got time for a quick meet and greet.”
What’s the hurry? Not that it mattered. Mom was out and my father had already left for work. I assured Roman I had access and waved him off. He didn’t return the wave, didn’t glance over his shoulder, and I didn’t know about any hidden spare key.
I walked around to the deck at the back and flopped down on a sun lounger—not that the morning sun looked like it would be sticking around for long. Clumps of white cloud sailed in on the vigorous breeze, slowly stitching up the patches of blue sky.
My gaze drifted across the rippled lake to the dense forest on the far side. I could just make out the platform anchored off-shore. That area was a nature reserve with camping grounds, hiking trails and plenty of log cabins nestled in the trees. Or so I’d heard. Although my family could certainly afford the credits for a vacation there, my father always insisted we already lived on the lake, and we did so in style, we didn’t need to enjoy nature from a ramshackle hut in the woods. I’d never managed to convince him that it might be fun.
Beware what you wish for.
My eyes lifted to the horizon above the treeline. When the wind blew right, you’d see the blueish-grey puffs chugging up from The Smoke. There was nothing today, but The Smoke was still out there, billowing its pollution in some other direction. The industrial zone lay about five miles to the east of town, beyond the mountain range that hemmed in the nature reserve. It was walled, and I was pretty sure it fell under the jurisdiction of the wardens, and that that’s where all our canning, manufacturing and recycling happened.
And that’s about all I knew about The Smoke.
Other than that it was a place of men, officially. Men who couldn’t secure or hold onto a job in town. Men who broke the law. Outcasts, disappointments and the overflow of our society. If a family man got sent there, it was treated like a death, his wife and children taken in by WOE.
It was generally assumed, however, by mostly everyone that there had to be some women there. No hard facts, obviously. Not even rumor. It was more like a general knowledge thing, a truth that we all just knew (or assumed) without ever having to be told or remembering when we first learnt it. Maybe it was just too weird to imagine otherwise. The human race wasn’t male and it wasn’t female, it was a co-existence of both genders.
Is that where they’d taken Jenna?
If so, I couldn’t drum up more than a very dreary picture. Boarding houses with eggshell painted corridors, claustrophobic rooms packed with our discarded women. Locked in at night for curfew, closely monitored during the day for the subversive behavior that got them there. Would they be put to work? Long hours slaving in sweatshops or washrooms for measly rations and the roof over their heads? Maybe not, that veered too close to the concept of an independent woman and Capra would never tolerate that, not even in punishment.
Wherever Jenna was, I hoped it wasn’t The Smoke. I hoped she’d get to meet some special guy with all the time in the world to fall in love. I hoped she’d get her own citizen number, tattooed to her inner wrist instead of Ringed. I hoped she’d get to exist in her own right, not just an extension of a male legal guardian. I hoped that whatever she had now was worth giving up her family and friends, giving up her chance to be a mother, giving up everyone and everything she’d ever known.
I must have dozed off, lost in fantasies of Jenna’s new life, because the next thing my eyes were blinking open to Mom’s creased expression.
“Georga, darling, how long have you been here?”
“Not long.” I shuffled upright on the lounger, glancing at my watch. Jeez, almost midday.
“Where’s Roman?” she asked, looking around as if I might have stashed him somewhere on the deck.
“He dropped me off but couldn’t stay,” I said. “He had to go to work.”
“On his wedding day?” Mom shook her head, looking and sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
“I’m not complaining.” I slid my legs off the lounger, taking care with my rotten ankle as I stood.
Mom noticed my awkwardness. “Are you hurt?”
“My ankle,” I said with a grimace, hiking my jean pants up a little to show the bandage. “It’s okay if I step carefully. See?” I went on inside ahead of her, doing my flat-footed walk to spread the weight. “It’s perfectly fine.”
“Georga.”
“Yeah?” I turned to look at her
Mom’s eyes sunk beneath her scowl. “Was it Roman? Did he hurt you?”
Hurt me? I shook my head, confused.
“Because you remember what we talked about?” she said. “Some men need to abuse their power over us to make them feel like men. They tell themselves women deserve to be punished for the plague. But that’s not acceptable and you don’t need to stand for it, not even from your husband. The Guard takes such complaints seriously.”
“Mom, no!” I exclaimed, appalled at where this conversation was going. “I twisted my ankle jumping down from his truck. Roman actually tended to it, and he was very gentle.”
“Sorry, darling, I didn’t want to accuse him, but I had to be sure.”
“You can be sure,” I said firmly, feeling inexplicably protective. “Roman is…” Intense? Silent? Brooding? “…complex, but he’s a good man.”
“The strong ones usually are.” Mom’s smile literally blossomed over her frown. “I was surprised when you changed your mind, but incredibly happy.”
“Father wasn’t,” I said.
“He’s just worried about the warden aspect, and the fact that Roman was raised outside the walls. Your father will feel better once he gets to know Roman.” She put her hands together in a sharp clap. “Why don’t we start on that tonight? You and Roman could stay for supper. Roman won’t mind, will he?”
“No, of course not,” I said, still defensive of my new husband. Difficult husband. If he had other plans for tonight, I doubted I could talk him around.
“Excellent,” Mom said in her ‘that’s settled’ tone. “Would you like lunch now or later?”
“He probably takes his meals at the work canteen,” Mom said with a laugh. “I’ll put together a care package to tide you over, until you get to the store. Which reminds me…” She delved into a cabinet beneath the sink and came up with a cardboard box, tied closed with a pale blue ribbon. “Don’t forget to take this.”
My wedding day gift. I already knew what was inside, a set of pots and baking pans I’d helped choose with Mom months ago.
“I won’t, thanks.” I sat down at the kitchen table, soaking in the comfort of familiarity as I watched Mom go about heating a chicken pie in the oven. I didn’t live here anymore, but this was still my home.
After lunch, I went upstairs to pack. Waiting for me in my room was a beautifully decorated plywood chest.
“My grandfather made it,” Mom said as she came in behind me. “That was my mother’s moving chest, passed on to me, and one day it will be your daughter’s.”
“It’s lovely,” I gasped, running my fingers over the colorful, exotic birds painted on the lid.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Mom said and slipped out of the room.
It took around half an hour and only half the chest to pack up my life. Clothes, shoes, toiletries and a few pieces of jewelry. The bigger parts of me, the imprint of my body form on the mattress, the butterfly mural I’d painted on the wall and then painted over later, the sanctuary and sanity I’d carved for myself in this room, that would have to stay.
I shook off the fugue threatening to envelope me, irritated at myself. Time never stands still, and my time and place in this home had marched on.
