That wasn’t going to stop me from relishing how strong his hand felt wrapped around mine. It didn’t matter that our hands were covered in gloves; I could feel the strength of him through that connection, and it assured me that everything would be okay, no matter what lay ahead.
As we began the walk up my aunt’s road, though, we had to separate. The snowflakes were falling faster now and the terrain was bumpier and steeper and we needed to be apart. Kevin broke the silence, pulling me out of an abyss. “We can’t tell Larry and Vera about this.”
I felt my heart thud as I asked, “What? About the house or…?” I just couldn’t bring myself to label our act. It had wound up being more than something simple like lovemaking or even fucking. I couldn’t describe it, but I didn’t want to take away its power or what had made it feel so profound to me by giving it a name.
“Yeah. You know Larry won’t listen to what you have to say about someone maybe still living there.”
“You think?”
“Yeah…and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d be willing to fight someone over it.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded as we continued our hike. I could tell that I’d been making that walk once or twice a day for weeks. Unlike the first couple of days of trudging up it, I didn’t get out of breath or feel my calf muscles burning, screaming at me to stop for a few seconds.
But I wasn’t thinking about that.
Kevin continued. “You know Larry.” I cocked my head but didn’t say anything. “He wouldn’t listen to you like I do. And if we said a word about it, he’d be there in a heartbeat, no questions asked. Nothing you’d say at that point would stop him.” We turned on a bend in the road. “So we say nothing.”
“I’m cool with that.” After a few more steps, I said, “I should probably leave my hair up in the ponytail, under a hat. They’ll be able to tell my hair’s clean.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Do you think they’ll be able to smell it?”
He shrugged. “We’re wearing the same old dirty clothes. I don’t think so.”
I was struggling and paranoid. “Maybe if they can smell it, we can say we used some lotion at the Branson place.”
Kevin laughed. “Yeah, ‘cause I look like a guy who’s gonna head over to the neighbors’ house just to put some smelly shit on.” I chuckled, too, knowing it had been a stupid solution. “They’re not gonna know. Stop worrying.” I switched the shovel to my other hand and Kevin slowed his pace. “We don’t say anything about the place, and we definitely don’t let on that we found a working shower. But—” Kevin paused and stopped walking, and it got my attention. I turned to look at him, even though I felt like we needed to hurry. “You and me? If we’re still here in a week or so for some stupid fucking reason, we rethink the idea of staying at your aunt’s.” I looked down at the snowy ground, considering his words, and then I nodded once more. “But for now, it’s our little secret.”
I didn’t mind holding that one close to my heart.
* * *
It didn’t take the storm long to rage in and it was a full-blown blizzard about an hour after we’d settled in, eating a hot soup I’d put on the fire earlier in the day. The four of us hadn’t done much talking in general. Overall, our spirits seemed low and we were tired. Fighting the weather had become exhausting.
Kevin and I hadn’t said anything to each other, but it was loud and clear to me that, in addition to not telling the Dingels about what we’d found or that we’d washed away weeks of grime, we weren’t going to say anything about how things between us had moved up a level.
I was okay with not saying anything, because what we’d done had felt almost like it had happened under duress, like we’d both felt pressured by our situation. Here we were in the middle of nowhere with no escape, no comforts, living day to day, and we had as companions each other and another couple who seemed to grow crazier by the day. It made me wonder if I would have sought comfort in any other man’s arms who’d been in Kevin’s place. It seemed possible.
But not likely.
Because most of what was fueling my feelings now was our past together. I probably wouldn’t have thought of him in that way had I not harbored heavy emotions from years gone by. It was that, coupled with unceasing days together in what felt like wartime, that had pushed me into his arms.
Be that as it may, I was a willing victim, and I’d do it again.
Unlike almost thirty years earlier, though, I was emotionally equipped to handle rejection now. I had no further expectations of life. I’d been fucked over by the bitch more times than I could count, and nothing anymore could surprise me.
Of course, some of that numbness had started to dissipate. Maybe I only thought I was less vulnerable now.
I was pulled from my thoughts when Larry said, “I gotta tell you guys—I’m getting some serious cabin fever.”
Kevin was sitting on the couch where he slept, and I was sitting on the end of it. I was not sitting closer to him than I usually did. Back to business as usual. “Meaning?”
Larry shook his head. “I don’t know what that means. Just getting stir crazy.”
Vera, who rarely spoke nowadays, said, “We get out every day.”
“It’s not that.”
I could tell Kevin wanted to press for more details but chose not to. Larry was beginning to feel a bit like the ground during an earthquake. Was he going to knock us down or instead rend himself in two and swallow us up? He felt like a loose cannon and we were all potential victims. Juxtaposed with my burgeoning feelings for Kevin, Larry was a wild card—and becoming a scary one at that.
“Then what is it?” I was surprised that Vera was continuing to speak. That in itself was unusual.
Larry puckered his lips in thought before speaking. “I don’t know. I just—I need to…” As his words drifted off and we realized he wasn’t going to say more, all of us grew quiet again. The silence was as stiff and uncomfortable as an overstarched shirt, making me think maybe I might want to go to bed early. After a while, though, Larry started talking as though he hadn’t even said anything weird earlier. “What do you think things are like back home?”
I didn’t want to think about it. If the power had been out here for what I knew had to be well over a month (but I was afraid that time had slipped by even more than that—I had no clue how long we’d been there), then how bad was it in larger areas? Or had the world maybe just forgotten about this little neck of the woods? That was possible…but I imagined the worst.
That was why I had to get out and find my kids.
Kevin took the words out of my mouth. “Well, considering what we know…I’d imagine it’s not pretty. There was a lot of looting and vandalism when we were leaving town and things were out of control. Didn’t look like law enforcement had a good handle on what was going on. Then the power going out here makes me think things got so out of hand that basic stuff might have gone to shit.”
“It seems that way. But how could that happen, you know? Don’t we, as a country, have our shit together better than that?”
I remembered something someone had said to me at work over the past year and I repeated it. “Consolidating the power plants to just a few key places—doesn’t anyone see how that’s a problem? And then letting the computers run the damn things…maybe this was inevitable.”
Vera asked, “What do you mean?”
“Over the past few years, the power companies have been taking power plants out of various smaller areas and moving control to a central location that covers lots of territory. When they did it in Winchester a couple of years ago, they said it would be efficient, but the people who were against it said it was a dangerous move, because it took away any control we had at the local level.”
“Exactly,” Larry spouted. “Don’t you remember me rantin’ about that, woman?”
Vera glared. “You rant about everything.”
I was glad to see Vera reemerging, but I didn’t know that I wanted to hear the two of them
arguing…especially when much of our conversation was mere speculation anyway. So I planned to redirect the conversation by asking a question that had been close to my heart every day. “So, when we get back, what’s the first thing you guys want to do?”
Larry didn’t hesitate. “Shower.” That made me feel guilty right off the bat. “Eat a hot meal. Oh, and no offense to you ladies’ cooking abilities, but I want something like what we haven’t had in quite some time.”
“None taken.”
“And then…I think I want to play a videogame. Haven’t done that in a long while.”
Vera was still glaring. She acted like she wanted to hit Larry. “Call Benny, you dumb ass. Call Benny and Jennifer and see how they’ve been holding out since all this shit happened.”
“Well, yeah, of course. We’d call them first and then do all the other stuff.” He looked at Kevin. “Our son Benny and his family.”
Kevin nodded. “I think that’s the first thing any of us want to do.”
He had that right. My kids had, for the most part, been present in a constant undercurrent of thought since we’d been here if not the uppermost thing on my mind. I added, “Yeah,” and left it at that. I didn’t trust myself to say much more. My emotions felt strange and raw, and I was starting to feel even worse that we hadn’t fessed up to the Dingels about the place I considered an oasis in this frozen desert. But, feelings aside, I wouldn’t have traded those moments for anything. It was a significant moment in my life, one I’d never forget. For a brief second, I imagined myself in a nursing home half a century from now, my brain clothed in the rags of Alzheimer’s, the only thing I could remember a brief hour with the man who was sitting next to me now—a boy I’d crushed on, been infatuated by, fallen for in the hugest way who had later become a man I’d felt mixed emotions over but who ultimately had become my rock out here, my salvation, a true partner—and a deep love, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.
Vera said, “That is the very first thing I want to do—call them, see if my grandbabies are okay.” She rested her head against the back of the chair. “Then, though…I think I want to bake a white cake and spread it thick with buttercream frosting.” She sighed. “I really miss baking—and eating it all.” As thin as she was, I never would have guessed her to have a huge sweet tooth.
Kevin smiled. “I think we’re all missing our favorite foods.”
I had to a degree, but food wasn’t turning out to be my biggest concern. I really was focused mostly on my kids. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t missing certain creature comforts. “Aside from music, which I’m starting to miss terribly, there’s something else. The heater vent. I miss the heater vent.” My companions all focused on me. “I mean…the fire’s nice, but it’s still cold everywhere else in the house, and no matter how close you get to the fire, some part of your body is still suffering. And then other parts are getting too hot. There’s no perfect way to warm yourself by the fire. But I used to stand over the furnace vent on really cold mornings—I’d be wearing my robe, and I’d stand over it, letting the heat rise underneath it and warm my body while I waited for the pot of coffee to finish brewing.” I grew quieter as I let my mind take me back to a thousand days of the same thing—I’d get up before anyone else in the house and turn up the heat, after having turned it down at bedtime to save money on electricity. The house would be ridiculously cold, but I’d turn up the dial and get the coffee started. By then, warm air would be blowing out of the vent and I’d go stand over it until the coffee was done. By the time it was ready, I’d grab a cup and head to the bathroom for a shower before waking up the kids for school. Even though it reminded me of hard times, it was one of those things that also brought half a smile to my face, because it was a lifetime of moments signifying how I’d try to take pleasure in the littlest things…because there was no pleasure to be found in the onslaught of real everyday life.
“Oh, that sounds nice,” Vera said. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll never complain about the cold again. Back home is nothing like here.”
Yes, the cold here at a higher altitude was definitely worse. But from what I remembered about back at home, Vera didn’t have it bad at all. She hardly had to do anything when it came to the cold—if she was going anywhere for the day, Larry would start her car, turn on the heater, brush off the snow, and scrape off the ice long before she hopped in the car and got ready to leave. He also shoveled all their sidewalks when it was needed. Me? My husband hadn’t been able to do any of that, and we didn’t have a garage to protect our vehicle from the elements—so it all fell on me. Vera had no idea how lucky she had it having a man who took care of her, protecting her from the elements—and I doubted she appreciated it.
Sometimes I wondered if I’d been put on this earth to learn something. I had no idea what my thoughts were about the meaning of life or the universe or anything having to do with a higher power, because what I’d been taught in my youth brought me no comfort as an adult. If there was a god, then he was punishing me—for what, I didn’t know. So I would sometimes wonder if—whether guided by a higher power or having chosen our own destiny—I was instead meant to learn something or if I’d needed to grow, and maybe that was why I had it rough. I wasn’t much for feeling sorry for myself, partly because I just didn’t have time to wallow, but just believing that some ethereal beings chose people to play Job—to be a pawn in a game between the forces of good and evil—wasn’t enough to make me think it was okay. I wanted there to be a reason, to be meaning, and oftentimes I had to believe that I had trials to face in order to make me strong.
When I took a good, hard look at the differences between Vera and me, that belief made more sense. She was struggling here. Sure, we all were feeling the rigors of living at high altitude with limited resources and no connection to the outside world, having to forage for water and heating supplies and trying to find a way out. Not one of us had escaped having to feel the difficulties or having to pull our weight—but Vera was visibly suffering. Sure, the last few days had seen her faring better—she was communicating again and even her coloring looked healthier—but I could see it in her eyes. They had a wild glint in them, like something inside her had snapped. She acted better, but I wondered what she would be like once we returned home.
I reminded myself that maybe part of it was that she had a mental illness—and not just being bipolar like they’d mentioned before. Maybe something else played a part in her struggles here.
I blinked a few times then, realizing the conversation had continued without me. Larry and Kevin were discussing beer, and I gathered that was one of the things they missed and wanted to enjoy again, once life returned to normal.
What would normal be? I had the feeling that, if we got back to normal, it might not be like the old normal we once knew. If the outside world was having issues just like we were…it might take some time to return to the lives we’d known—and if we decided that we wanted to improve on those lives, it might take even longer.
I sighed and sat up, stretching my back. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Not to put too fine a point on it, it had been a hell of a day. It had been full of memories I’d never forget, but I needed some sleep. I needed to recover and rest up for whatever the next day brought. So I waited for a break in their conversation—one I had nothing to add to, because I wasn’t a huge fan of beer—and then I said, “Guys, I gotta hit the hay. I’m tired.”
They all offered varying replies of good night, as did I, and then I tightened my coat around my torso, grabbed the flashlight off the end table, and headed back to the bedroom.
After the afternoon—in a warm, cozy home filled with light, in spite of the graying skies, infused with memories of passion and intimacy—this room felt darker and colder than it had before. I considered opening the door and heading back to the living room, returning to sleeping next to my companions, but something inside me reacted like a mama bear might protect her cubs. The bed was probably the one w
ay I could connect with my past and our previous lives. Here we had no electricity, no running water, no easy heat, no simple modes of transportation, no microwaves—nothing that we’d considered necessities before we’d wound up here. Sleeping in a bed, whether cold or not, was about the only thing I could do that was like my life before now, and I was not about to give it up. It was one of the few things I did here that made me feel like I was still human.
So I gritted my teeth as I took off my coat and draped it on the bedpost at the foot of the bed, then sat on the edge to pull my shoes off. Everything else I wore would stay on for bed, because it was the only way to bear the cold. I stood up and pulled the blankets back, already shivering, my teeth chattering, but I quickly slid under the covers and pulled them up to my chin.
As with nights past, I lay as still as possible, because my body heat was slowly warming the bed as the covers trapped the warmth instead of letting it escape. It was extremely cold—especially my feet—but I knew it would heat up eventually. If I moved, even an inch, I would be exposed to colder parts of the bed and have to begin the entire process again, but if I lay still, my shaking body would quiet more quickly and I would begin to feel sleepy as it warmed the small space.
Finally, I was thawed enough that I did grow drowsy, but my mind was no longer on the discomfort of feeling cold. And, for a change, I wasn’t wrapped up in thoughts of my children. I was instead thinking about Kevin Savage, that guy from my past, the boy I’d loved for longer than I should have who’d shown up in my life again, at first as a man I didn’t care for at all but now...now he was a companion, a trusted friend out here where I had no one else to trust. I hadn’t wanted to do it, but I found myself wondering what the future held. I had no business doing so, because I knew—I knew—that we were, right now, victims of circumstance, lovers of convenience. I had no promises, nor did I have any reason to believe we would have anything resembling a relationship when we returned to the real world.
Wilder (Savage #2) Page 6
