by K. M. Fawkes
Was the kid comparing this birthday to others he’d had? Anna had said that she’d always thrown him a big party. They hadn’t had a lot of money, but she’d kept a special savings account for the purpose. Sammy wasn’t a spoiled kid by any means, but going from a skating party where his mom had rented the whole rink and invited his whole class, to a slice of cobbled-together fudge was probably a little difficult.
“You know what this party needs?” Brad asked briskly.
Sammy looked up at him, momentarily too curious to be sad, which was exactly what Brad had intended. “What?”
“Games,” Brad replied. “It’s not really a party without them, is it? Come on.”
He got up and walked away, trying to come up with something they could all play. There were board games, but he didn’t think that was quite what the kid would have in mind. Sammy and Anna followed behind him into the living room.
“What are we going to play first?” Sammy asked eagerly.
“Red light, green light,” Brad said, surprised by his own answer. His subconscious mind had really come through for him. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.
Anna gave him a grateful smile when Sammy grinned in excitement. They played two rounds of that before Sammy started to get bored.
“How about freeze dance?” Anna suggested. “I mean, I know we don’t have any music, but…”
Brad began to hum “Pop! Goes the weasel.” Sammy clapped his hands, and he and Anna began to dance. When Brad stopped humming, Anna was the first to freeze, mainly because Sammy was laughing so hard at her enthusiastic dancing.
“Do it again!” Sammy called, and Brad obliged him.
He didn’t call a halt until his throat got scratchy from humming nearly an hour later. They had switched from freeze dance to a kind of musical chairs game with rules that had gotten crazier and crazier with each game.
“Aw,” Sammy said, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear. “Come on, it’s not that late.”
“How about a game of poker?” Brad asked with a smile.
Anna laughed, pushing her hair back out of her face and shaking her head. “How about I get you something to drink and we play I Spy?”
She built up the fire and three of them took their places around it. Brad leaned back against the oversized armchair and took a sip of the hot tea Anna had brought him. Who knew that humming was such a strain on the throat? Sammy curled up against his mother’s side in the other chair and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, dropping a kiss onto the top of his head.
“I spy, with my little eye…something blue,” Anna said, starting the game.
“Brad’s coffee cup!” Sammy said. “Come on, do something harder than that!”
“I spy…something gray,” Brad said, and the boy twisted around, looking eagerly.
About half an hour after Sammy had discovered the picture frame Brad was looking at, Brad cast Anna a smile and spoke in a low voice. “I spy a sleepy birthday boy.”
Sammy had slowly moved from an upright position to where he was now, sprawled as flat as he could get in the chair with his head in his mother’s lap.
“Do you think that nine is too old to be carried to bed?” Anna asked softly, brushing her son’s hair back off of his forehead with gentle movements.
“Nah,” Brad said, eyeing the boy. He had gotten a little lankier, but he hadn’t hit any major growth spurts yet. “You’ve got a few more months of being able to lug him around. I’ll get him for you, though.”
He moved to stand, but Anna shook her head and waved him back to his seat. “Not yet. It’s so much warmer right here.”
“Do you two need more blankets?” Brad asked, concerned.
“I didn’t see any extras,” Anna said with a shrug. “I looked in the wardrobe and in all the drawers under the bed.”
So, that was a yes. He wished that she had told him that she was getting cold. He wished that he’d thought to ask.
“There should be some in the attic,” he said. “We can look in the morning.”
“Before we do everything else in the world?” she asked with a grin.
“Exactly.” He stood and scooped Sammy up, laying him down on the couch and covering him up with an afghan. The kid stretched out and immediately went back to sleep.
Brad dropped into the chair beside Anna. They sat like this a lot in the evenings, her shoulder just brushing his.
“I think he liked the party,” she said, looking up at him. “I was afraid it would be a huge letdown.”
“With fudge like that?” Brad asked. “No way.”
“The fudge was okay. The games were the best part,” Anna returned. “I really should have thought of that…and thanks. I’m not used to someone else helping with him.”
“It’s no problem,” Brad said. He could tell that she felt a little awkward at having to say it, but he was pleased that she had opened up enough to thank him. He changed the subject to make it easier for her. “I celebrated my ninth birthday up here, too, you know.”
“You did?” Anna asked. “When’s your birthday?”
“October eleventh,” Brad said. “I only saw my dad in the summer, though, so the year I turned nine he got me an early birthday present. A really nice mountain bike. He taught me how to ride on the walkway.” Brad smiled at the memory. “We spent the weekend riding some of the trails out there and camping out.”
“That sounds really fun.”
“It was,” Brad agreed. Lee had let him make s’mores that night and he hadn’t even insisted that they talk about any survival-prep. They’d just talked about Brad’s upcoming school year and some improvements Lee wanted to make to the cabin.
“Riding that bike was the one thing that my dad wanted me to be good at that I actually was good at.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh when Anna looked puzzled. “I know that sounds ridiculous. It took me years to learn to shoot. I couldn’t even gut a fish till I was twelve. But I learned to ride a bike in about five minutes.” He remembered Lee’s shocked and exuberant laughter as he’d watched his son ride easily.
“Is that how you stayed so in shape?”
Brad wasn’t quite sure, because of the red glow of the fire they sat in front of, but it looked like her cheeks had reddened slightly. It was the first thing she’d ever said that led him to believe that she noticed him for something besides his knowledge of survival. He cleared his throat and then nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, that and running. I did marathons back in Bangor. Usually two or three a year.”
She was still looking determinedly into the flames. “It shows.”
“Thanks.” A wave of the good old-fashioned awkwardness he’d spent most of life feeling around women swept over him. It hadn’t showed up a lot lately, but it appeared to be back with a vengeance, now. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say in return.
“Well…” Anna said into the sudden silence. “That’s a really good present. My ninth birthday wasn’t nearly that cool, gift-wise.”
“Oh yeah?” he angled himself around so that he could look at her more closely. “What’d you get?”
“A scarf.”
“A scarf?” he repeated incredulously. “Who gives a nine-year-old winter gear on their birthday? Sounds like something my dad would do.”
“My sister knitted it,” Anna said, her voice soft with fond memory. “She was the crafty twin.”
“Twin?” Brad asked in surprise.
Anna nodded, looking into the fire. “We decided on a German chocolate cake,” she went on.
Brad wanted to press for more information about the sister that he hadn’t known she had, but he decided to take what he could get. Anna didn’t talk about herself very often.
“All of the grownups went off into the other room for drinks after dessert, so we grabbed the rest of the cake and hid under the table with it. We ate till we felt sick,” she admitted with a laugh.
“No one caught you?” Brad asked.
�
�We had this really long, fancy tablecloth,” she said. “It hung down nearly to the floor, so they didn’t even know we were there till I let out a giggle.”
“What happened then?”
“The usual. They sent us up to our rooms, but it was okay because she snuck into my room a few minutes later. We were up till midnight just laughing and talking. Totally jacked-up on sugar.”
“Lucky,” Brad said without thinking before he spoke. “I always wished that I had a brother for stuff like that.”
Anna’s voice broke slightly as she said, “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s better not having to worry about anyone but yourself.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” Brad asked as gently as he could. “Were you separated during the outbreak, or…before?”
Anna’s lips parted, but then tears sparkled on her eyelashes and she shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She stood up. “Sammy and I should probably be getting to bed.”
She was out of the room almost before she’d finished speaking, leaving Brad even more curious than he’d been to begin with. There was still so much about her that he didn’t know, and it didn’t look like that would be changing anytime soon. He stood up as well. It had been a long day, and bed didn’t sound like a bad idea.
Chapter 2
“Hey, Sammy,” Brad said the next morning as he stoked the fire in the stove, trying to get it going. The morning was chillier than he’d expected for late September and he was eager to get the cabin warm before Anna woke up. He reminded himself again to check up in the attic for extra blankets. “You’re up early today.”
He didn’t have any electronics to prove it, but he would have guessed it was just barely past six in the morning. Anna and Sammy liked to sleep a little later; they usually emerged from their room sometime between eight and nine in the morning. Brad had always been an early riser, with an internal alarm clock that went off around five, so he usually had the cabin to himself for several hours in the morning. But he didn’t mind the company, especially when Sammy dragged the kindling basket a little closer before he pulled a chair out and plopped down into it.
“I’m hungry,” he said after a few moments of watching Brad get the fire going.
“After that big birthday meal?” Brad asked with a grin.
“It was really good,” Sammy said quickly. “But, you know, it wasn’t beans and sausage.”
Brad raised an eyebrow. “Is that a hint?”
“Kind of,” Sammy admitted, squirming in his chair a little. “So? Can we have that for breakfast?”
“Sounds good to me,” Brad replied. “I don’t think we have any of the stuff for it up here, though. Come on down to the cellar and help me carry it up.”
Sammy pulled his jacket and shoes on and followed Brad out the door.
“Wow, it’s really cold,” he said in surprise. “Look, I can see my breath in the air!” He puffed a few times like a dragon. “Cool!”
Brad grinned, but then he noticed that the boy’s jacket might be a little thin for the upcoming winter. “When I go up to the attic, I’ll see what I can find for you to wear,” Brad said. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he hurried to add when the kid’s eyes lit up eagerly. “I spent my summers here, not my winters, so I don’t know if there will be anything you can use.”
“It’ll be fun to look,” Sammy said with a shrug as he followed Brad down the stairs into the cellar. “What else do you think is up there?”
“With my dad, there’s no way to tell,” Brad said honestly. “Who knows what he thought was worth saving.”
They gathered their breakfast ingredients and headed back inside. Brad put the beans into a pot and then pulled a cast-iron frying pan out for the sausage. Once it was sizzling, Anna appeared in the kitchen doorway, rubbing her eyes.
Brad was pleased to see that she looked okay this morning. He’d run into her in the hallway on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and she’d mentioned something about having bad dreams. She’d looked pretty shaken, but hadn’t seemed to want to tell him what she’d dreamed about.
That wasn’t really unusual. Anna didn’t tell him much of anything about herself. He’d been giving it time. They were together day in and day out, but in the grand scheme of things, they really hadn’t known each other that long.
“You’re up early,” she said to her son.
“That’s the same thing Brad said,” Sammy replied, setting the table as quickly as he could. He was clearly starving this morning.
Anna gave Brad a quick smile. “I guess we’ve been living together too long if we’re starting to say the same things. Breakfast smells great, by the way. Sausage and beans are a great combination.”
“Thanks,” he said. “It was Sammy’s idea, though, so all compliments should go to him.”
She dropped a kiss onto her son’s hair before she took a seat at the table. “You two make a good team.”
Anna was still wearing what she’d slept in—a pair of sweatpants and a blue T-shirt with a gold bobcat on the front and the name of Brad’s high school printed below it. She looked great in blue. Lately, he’d been noticing that she looked good in everything.
“Okay,” Brad said, mostly to distract himself. “Let’s go over some plans for the next few weeks.”
Sammy stuffed a huge piece of sausage in his mouth and spoke around it. “Okay, what do we need to do?”
Anna watched him in alarm for a few seconds before turning her attention to Brad. The two of them ate leisurely while Sammy wolfed down two helpings of everything. As they ate, they went over everything that needed to be done in the upcoming days—harvesting, drying, and medicine preparation. Brad went over his idea of building a smokehouse, since salt was going to be in short supply over the coming years, and there wasn’t really a replacement for it.
The more Brad spoke, the more often Anna bit her lip. Her food had grown cold on her plate once he’d started talking about supply shortages. Sammy reached over and stole a piece of her sausage. Anna pushed the rest of her plate to him absently, resting her chin in her hand as Brad spoke.
“Is everything okay?” he asked finally. He was starting to worry that she was going to chew her lower lip right off if he didn’t stop her.
She gave him a quick smile that didn’t go anywhere near her worried green eyes. “Sure. Of course. Sammy, if you’re done, go ahead upstairs. Get washed up and changed. We’ve got a lot to do today.”
Once the boy was out of the room, Anna turned back to Brad and asked, “Isn’t this an awful lot of work?”
Brad blinked at her in surprise. She’d never minded hard work before. In fact, he’d been impressed at the number of hours she’d been willing to put in when it came to things like caring for the garden and the orchard, as well as canning and pickling the produce and salting the game he brought home. “No,” he said, and then corrected himself. It would be a lot of work, but no more than projects they’d tackled in the past. “I mean, not really. Like I said yesterday, once we get into it—”
“There aren’t very many vegetables,” she cut in, her voice harsh.
“What? Sure there are.” He really didn’t understand what she was saying. They had a cellar full of canned produce and at least one harvest still to do. Not to mention the orchard.
“There aren’t going to be enough to get through the whole winter,” she countered, moving to begin clearing the table. The dishes clacked together with a little bit more force than necessary and he winced.
“We probably can’t have them every single day,” Brad allowed, standing up and taking the small stack of plates from her. They didn’t have many and her hands had started to shake. “But—”
“I’ve got a growing kid here,” Anna cut in, snatching cutlery off of the table and dropping it with a clang into the stainless steel sink. She crossed her arms over her chest and jerked her chin up, looking at him like he was a complete idiot. “He kind of needs to eat this stuff ‘every single day,’ Brad.”
“We’ve got one more harvest,” Brad reminded her, wondering what in the world was happening. He’d never seen her so combative. She certainly hadn’t been that way yesterday. He remembered her talking about the bad dreams she’d had the night before and couldn’t help wondering if it had something to do with that. He strove to stay calm in the face of her challenge. It wouldn’t do any good for both of them to get upset. He wanted to put his arms around her, to pull her against him, but he knew better.
He set the plates down in the sink gently and made sure that his voice was low and calm. “The root vegetables—”
“I think we should leave,” Anna said, speaking over him once more. Her voice was blunt and her face was flushed. She was still trembling.
Brad’s mouth dropped open in shock. She couldn’t have shocked him more if she’d said she wanted to perform a sacrifice to a crop god for a mild winter.
“What?”
She nodded, her movements rapid and nearly frantic in her intensity. “We shouldn’t stay here.”
He pushed his hands through his hair and dropped back down into his chair, simply staring at her. He’d never in a million years expected to encounter an objection to staying here. He didn’t even know where to begin with why it didn’t make any sense to leave.
“That’s—” Brad cut himself off this time, before he could say that her idea was absolutely insane. That probably wouldn’t be the most helpful approach. Not when she was so clearly on edge already. And she clearly wasn’t about to back down. Her jaw was clenched and he could see her pulse pounding in her throat.
“Where do you think we should go?” he asked instead. Maybe he could help her see what was wrong with the idea on her own, without having to tell her that there was no way in hell he was leaving this cabin. The very idea was insane. They had everything they needed here.
“Well…” Anna floundered for a moment, clearly unprepared for the question. “I don’t…” Then, she raised her chin once more. “We could go somewhere warmer. We’ll have better luck with a garden there.”
