When the Pain is Gone

by P. A. Glaspy

  We didn’t have to talk too hard to keep Ben and Rusty from joining the fight. Well, okay it wasn’t us. It was Shannon and Tate. Shannon grew into a beautiful young woman who swept both Ben and Rusty off their feet without trying. It was touch and go for a while there—the boys starting fighting over stupid stuff and we all knew why. Rusty was less aggressive though and when he saw the light in his best friend’s eye when the girl walked into a room, he backed off. Ben and Shannon were married soon after they turned eighteen and had a fat little boy two years later they named Pete with Sara’s blessing. About a month later, Ashley announced that she was leaving us to live with Tim Miller. We were all in shock, none more so than Charlotte and Jim, since no one knew they were that serious, but we wished her well. She came out to visit about once a month and seemed happy.

  Rusty met Tate at the Dotson farm not long after Ben and Shannon were married. He was really contemplating joining the militia and I laid awake many nights in fear that I would lose him after everything we had been through to survive. The day he met her, he came back with a gleam in his eye I hadn’t seen since he thought he was in love with Shannon. He was so excited to tell me about her that evening, and I told Russ that night, “I think we just dodged a bullet. Literally.” From that point forward, they were together every moment they could find. Tate moved to the farm about a month later, taking the sewing room that had been designated for single gals. Marietta and Brian had moved into their own cabin by then. Two months after that, they said they wanted to get married. Rusty and Ben built a duplex cabin of sorts, and the two couples were together all the time. No grandbabies for me, but no hurry. No seriously, get busy you two. I need grandbabies.

  With no birth control, babies were popping up everywhere. I mean think about it. No television to watch, no movies to go to, no bowling leagues, nothing that could be considered leisure activities that required electricity were done anymore. We set up a horseshoe pit and a cornhole game. We had croquet and badminton, as well as board games that had seen better days. But when night came, after working hard all day on food and laundry and security and living, we didn’t want to do much else but go to bed. See where this is going?

  My labor and delivery with Rusty was bad, really bad. We both almost died. After the C-section, the doctor told me I shouldn’t have any more. We were heartbroken, but Russ was adamant that my life was more important than another child. So, I’d had my tubes tied. We didn’t have anything to worry about. No more babies for me. Kate had had her tubes tied as well.

  At twenty-eight, Janet had an abnormal pap smear come back as pre-cancer. She’d had a partial hysterectomy which took care of the problem and kept her from having any more children. Charlotte was past her childbearing years. All the rest of the women were not.

  Casey had gotten pregnant about a year after the power went off. In her fifth month, she’d started hemorrhaging. She lost the baby but Kate saved her life. Doc Hanson came out and checked her the next day. He congratulated Kate on a job well done, and gave the Callens the sad news that they likely wouldn’t have any children. So far, he was right.

  Marietta never got pregnant. She’d told us that her doctor had told her years earlier she probably wouldn’t because she had sustained damage after an abortion at sixteen, and the scar tissue would likely not hold an egg. She and Brian were happy together, just the two of them, so we were happy for them. She was always available to babysit, possibly living vicariously through everyone else’s babies.

  Sara and Lee were married not too long after the attack. Lee said life was too short to play games and he wanted to make her his wife before anything else happened. We didn’t think there would be any babies from them after a couple of years, but Sara finally got pregnant. She was close to forty, so Kate had kept a very close eye on her during the pregnancy.

  We heard a scream, long and sustained. Janet and I looked at each other. “It’s coming!” We all watched the door of the cabin, waiting for the news. After a few minutes, the door opened, and Lee stood there, sweat on his forehead but a smile so wide it didn’t seem like his face could hold it.

  “It’s a girl!” We all jumped up and down and hugged each other.

  I looked at Lee. “Are they okay? Both of them?”

  He nodded, the grin never waning. “Yes. Sara is fine, tired but fine. The baby is beautiful, ten fingers, ten toes. Kate said she guessed her to weigh close to eight pounds.”

  My eyes grew wide. “Wow, big girl. Have you picked out a name yet?”

  A hint of moisture and sadness touched his eyes as he replied, “Her name is Jackie.”

  ****

  The farm wasn’t the same after the loss of Millie and Monroe. We buried them on the hill by Pete and Bill, as they had requested so many years ago. For as long as I had been going there, they were a part of the place. They were “the farm.” It was hard seeing their things in the house, around the yard, even in Monroe’s junk sheds, knowing they were no longer with us to use them. His chair was left vacant in the living room for a long time. Finally, Bob walked over to it during a family meeting and sat down. Voice full of emotion, he said, “Monroe didn’t like anything to go to waste. I’m sure he’d want us to use it.” From that point forward, the men made a game of trying to get Monroe’s seat when we had a get-together inside. No one moved into their bedroom. After a time, we put the bed in Ryan and Carrie’s cabin, and set the ham up in its place. It was still our link to the world outside of our town, but we didn’t really monitor it throughout the day. We used it get information about how things were going in the war, always hoping to catch a mention of one our people who were out there fighting for our freedom.

  We tried to replicate Millie’s fresh bread, but we never got it exactly right. Janet did her proud on biscuits and my cornbread was pretty close. Charlotte took over as head canner and continued to teach the younger ones this priceless task. Even with all the people we had, our gardens produced well, our flocks and herds flourished, and we could have lived on what we had put back at any one time for a couple of years.

  Our group was growing, mostly by the natural process, and small homes had been built around the main one. Some families chose to have meals at their own homes during the day, but we usually all got together for the evening meal. With multiple kitchens, albeit primitive, we were able to cook different dishes in different places to create a buffet-style dinner. Some cabins had open hearths, some had scavenged wood stoves, some of the women even cooked over open fires outside. We had all developed new ways of doing things we took for granted before. The wood cook stove on the screen porch had been moved inside when the propane was gone. It took some practice, but we got the hang of it. The gas stove had been relegated to the shed, until such time as propane was available again—if it ever was.

  We got wind and solar power to the house, enough to run the ceiling fans and lights with low watt CFL bulbs, as well as the refrigerator and a big chest freezer a few hours a day. Mike’s “soldier showers,” as they had been dubbed, continued to provide us a means to get clean, so my pleas for hot water indoors had been tabled, but hey, we could make ice. Iced tea was back on the menu, and I, for one, had missed it terribly. However, it was now considered a luxury, as the tea bag stores were dwindling. We were drinking instant coffee, which we had stocked up in huge supplies because it lasts almost indefinitely. Yet, without any change in the outside world coming back online any time soon, that too would be gone someday. We had started limiting ourselves to one cup a day. Man, that sucked.

  Clothes were worn until we couldn’t patch them anymore. Marietta turned out to be a fair seamstress. Sewing was another of Charlotte’s gifts. Winters would find both of them, as well as most of the gals, sitting by the fireplace with piles of mending to do. We let some of the men try their hand at it, but they ended up making the hole worse than it had been to begin with. Besides, we liked our girl time. It was a whole lot like a quilting bee without the quilt. We still had some clothing put back, but those st
ores were diminishing just like everything else. Before joining up, the Thompson boys went on scavenging runs and brought back any clothing they found, no matter the state of the pieces. We sorted through what they brought, washed and dried it, and decided what was salvageable and what would be used as patches, bandages, or for feminine protection. No one ever thinks about running out of those items, but when you do, you have to change the way you do things. Welcome to the past, ladies.

  We had adjusted our lives to the world we were left with. This wasn’t a new concept. Man has been adapting to his environment as long as he has walked the earth. It’s what we do. I won’t lie—I missed electricity. I really missed air conditioning and hot running water. I missed settling down with my family and a big bowl of popcorn for movie night, and keeping up with my friends and extended family on social media. I longed for tacos and hamburgers and pizza. Oh, and ice cream with chocolate syrup. I really missed chocolate. We cooked hearty, wholesome, and in large batches. No room for junk food, not that we had any anymore. We had tried our hand at making potato chips. They were a little thick, but man they were awesome. We kept trying and everyone encouraged us to continue. Bob’s exact words were, “Keep tryin’ ’til ya get it right. I’ll keep tastin’ for ya and let you know.” We had the feeling that, as far as Bob was concerned, that day would never come.

  The longed-for luxuries and amenities were nothing we had to have to live our lives. We had built a clan on the farm. A clan of people who cared for and watched out for each other. A tribe that put the needs of the group before themselves. Yes, I had selfish thoughts from time to time—we all did. I wondered if my house was still standing and, if it was, what kind of shape it was in. We never went back to check. What good would it do? We were safer here than there. But I missed it. I missed my little family in our own space. I selfishly longed for my old life. But even if the power came back on tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the same. Rusty was grown and had his own family now. That life was gone. I looked around at the people who had become my life—my world—and knew I was right where I was supposed to be.

  Sitting under the trees outside the house at the tables that still looked almost as good as the day Lee built them, we oohed and aahed over baby Jackie. The sun was going down and the bats were doing their job at pest control. We were talking and laughing like we always did after dinner as the kids were gathering the dishes to take to the house when everyone stopped dead in their tracks. Not a word was spoken as we all looked toward the driveway.

  The yard light had come on.

  Acknowledgements

  This series has been quite a journey for me. I still find it hard to call myself an author. Maybe I shouldn’t yet. Maybe I need ten books under my belt before I could wear that title, or a New York Times bestseller (not gonna happen), or some kind of literary award (again, not gonna happen). Or maybe I just say screw it–I wrote some books, people bought them, so that makes me an author. Yeah, I think I’ll work with that.

  I made mistakes in my writing which my attentive readers brought to my attention. Thank you if this applies to you. I did not take it personal. I love that you let me know you were paying attention well enough to catch my screw ups. I tried to research when I needed to but didn’t if I thought I knew it. Note to self: next time, research more.

  Wait, what? Next time? Yes, there will be more from me. I am starting a new series before the end of the year but I am not setting any kind of deadline for when it will be done because apparently, I suck at meeting deadlines. I don’t want to give too much away but it will be prepper fiction, just from a different point of view. If you aren’t on my mailing list, and you enjoy my work, I encourage you to join so you can get updates about the new series when it’s time. You can get there from my website.

  Since I went with a publisher, my thank you list will be a bit different this time. First and foremost, my thanks go to my husband. He gives me whatever time I want or need to put the words together. He lets me bounce ideas off him and work out the logistics to make them viable parts of the story. He is my biggest fan and I couldn’t have done any of this without him. He read the first words I wrote of this tale and tells me he still loves it. Thank you, baby.

  Next, I’d like to thank my advanced reader team. They got on the stick and got me the issues they found in just a couple of days. You guys are amazing and I am very grateful you wanted to be a part of this project.

  I want to thank all my readers. The ones who follow my Facebook page; the ones who are on my mailing list; the ones who left reviews, good or bad. You are all a part of this adventure. A writer is nothing if no one buys or reads their books. Thank you for checking in to find out where I was on the last book. Thank you for nagging me to finish it. Thank you for encouraging me to continue when I wondered if what I had written was good enough. I guess it was.

  As always, last but in no way least, I want to thank God for the gifts he has given me to entertain you and hopefully make you think about “what if.” I give Him all the glory. I placed my life in His hands and all I have is because of Him. Thank you, Lord, for the many blessings you bestow upon me every day.

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