Sanctuary

by Courtney McPhail

  Right now the twins were racing to be the first to finish weeding their sections of the garden, while Jenny pointed out the weeds from the plants so Ruthie and Hannah could pull them. Audrey was moving along in her own patch, the girl working systematically to check over her section of the garden, pulling weeds and clipping the shoots like Elaine had taught her.

  They’d all worked hard on the garden and it was nice to have proof of their hard work right there in front of them.

  “Matthew, be careful there,” she called out as she saw him seize one of the bean sprouts in his haste to beat his brother. “That’s a plant, not a weed.”

  “Gotcha, Mom,” he replied, releasing the sprout and shuffling further down his row to pull up one of the milkweeds that had taken root.

  The sound of the ATV engine drifted towards them and a minute later, Elaine appeared, hauling several watering cans in the wagon. She pulled up to the edge of the garden and killed the engine.

  “The water delivery has arrived,” Elaine called out as she climbed off the ATV and Janet joined her at the back of the wagon to start unloading. “You know, I’m really praying for a couple days of good rain. Hauling this water is a pain in the ass.”

  The skies had been clear since they had gotten to the island and without watering, the tender shoots would fry in the sun. The rain would definitely be welcomed, though Janet wasn’t sure a couple days straight of it would be good.

  The kids had been making up for the summertime they had missed holed up on the drive to the island, spending all their free time outdoors. A couple days with them stuck in the cabins and they’d go stir crazy.

  Ruthie and Hannah came running over and Janet handed them the two smallest cans and they rushed off with a quick thanks. Watering was their favourite part since they got to walk through the garden barefoot, squishing through the mud they created after pouring out their water.

  Audrey came over to help them finish unloading the last of the watering cans. “Janet, I was wondering if I could go fishing at the north point after I’m done with the watering?”

  She knew the girl was feeling pretty down after seeing Claudia kiss Trey and Janet felt for her. Heartbreak always seemed so much worse at that age.

  “Sure, just be back at the lodge for lunch and make sure you check in with Claudia out on watch. Let her know you’re out there so she doesn’t get surprised,” Janet told her.

  “Okay, thanks,” Audrey said and took her watering can over to the garden.

  Janet knew she had made the right call. If the girl had agreed to face the source of her upset in exchange for the chance to be alone, she obviously needed it.

  The boys came running over for their watering cans, dirt already smeared over their faces.

  “Mom, can we ask you something?” Matthew said as she handed him a watering can.

  “Of course,” she replied as she gave Mark his can.

  “Are you going to marry Dr. Quinton?”

  Janet’s hands froze on the watering can handle and a whole host of thoughts ran through her head as she slowly looked over to meet her son’s gaze. “Why would you ask that, honey?”

  “We saw you kissing him like Uncle Malcolm kisses Miss Kim,” Matthew said. “When we asked Uncle Malcolm if he was going to marry Miss Kim he said absolutely he would, as soon as we find a reverend to do it. When he finds one, are you going to marry Dr. Quinton?”

  She knew she had to give them an answer. Brushing off the question would only make them more curious but she wasn’t sure what to say. Of course, she had no intention of marrying Quinton any time soon but maybe she could use this opportunity to gauge their feelings about him.

  “Well, marriage is very serious. It’s for life so when you get married you have to make sure it’s the right person.”

  “Like with Dad?” Mark asked, his eyes serious.

  She nodded. “That’s right, like with your dad. I knew I loved your dad very much when I married him. I still love him.”

  “But you aren’t married to him anymore since he’s gone to Heaven, right?” She nodded. “So that means you could marry Dr. Quinton if you wanted to.”

  “Yes, I could if I wanted to,” she said. “How would you feel if I did?”

  Matthew smiled. “We like Dr. Quinton.”

  “Yeah, he showed us how to tell the difference between the turtles out in the marsh,” Mark said. “They’ve all got different spots on their tummies so we can tell them apart. He also promised to look out for green ooze today so we can try and make them into mutant turtles.”

  A grin split her face as a weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying was lifted off her shoulders. Since she had started up with Quinton, the worry of how her kids would deal with it if they ever found out had been in the back of her mind. She hadn’t realized how heavy the worry had weighed on her until it was gone.

  “Well, I’m glad that you guys like him,” she said, “But I’m not planning on marrying him any time soon. He is special to me though and I think I would like it if he spent some more time with us. Maybe even come stay at the cabin with us some nights. Would that be okay?”

  “Sure. Sleepovers are fun,” Mark said as Matthew nodded along his agreement.

  “Alright, let’s get watering. If you finish early enough, we can go play some badminton before lunch.”

  The boys ran off, water sloshing out of their cans, but thankfully most of it ended up on the plants.

  “So are you and Quinton going to make it official now?” Elaine teased her as they picked up the last cans. “I think everybody’s been waiting for it to happen.”

  “I guess there really isn’t a reason not to,” she said as they walked through the garden, giving the plants a healthy dose of water.

  “It’s sweet, you know,” Elaine said. “Seeing everybody finding love here. It’s good, even if it makes us single folk wistful.”

  Janet laughed along with her, drawing Jenny towards them. “What’s so funny?”

  “Janet has decided to finally ask Quinton to be her boyfriend,” Elaine told her, “And I was just telling her how her relationship pains us single girls.”

  Jenny smiled but Janet could see it was strained and her hand dropped down to worry the wedding band that was on her left hand. Janet realized the mistake they’d made instantly. Sometimes it was easy to forget with everything else going on that Jenny was still newly widowed.

  She didn’t talk about it much and she always had a smile on her face but Lorraine had confided to Janet that she had heard Jenny crying in her room some nights.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny, we didn’t think,” Janet apologized but Jenny shook her head and tried to make her smile more genuine.

  “No, it’s fine. I’m happy for you, really, and I don’t expect anyone to try and pretend they aren’t happy to shield me.”

  Janet realized how much they had neglected Jenny. They should have been there for her--she should have been there for her. She knew the pain of losing a spouse better than anyone here.

  “No, it’s not fine,” Janet told her. “We haven’t been there for you and that’s on us.”

  A single tear rolled down Jenny’s cheek and she wiped it away with the heel of her hand. “That’s not your fault, it’s mine. I haven’t wanted to talk about it, it was just too hard.”

  Janet could understand that and she rubbed her back. “Have you talked about it with Angela?”

  “Some,” Jenny admitted. “I told her what happened but not much more than that.”

  She ran her hands over her belly, a gesture Janet was familiar with. There was something very frustrating about being pregnant. You could feel your baby when it was restless inside you and all you wanted to do was hold your child and calm them but they were beyond your reach.

  “Y’all have been great and I don’t want to take anything away from you but I feel alone.”

  She gave them a shaky smile. “I know I could come to you but it’s not the same. My entire life I’ve never been al
one. I was my parents’ only child and they kept me close until I went away to college with Alan. After we graduated, we got married. I never thought I’d be alone after that but now I am.”

  Janet wrapped her arms around the woman, cradling her as she began to weep. She shared a look with Elaine and the woman read her mind. She headed over to distract the children as Janet herded Jenny over to the greenhouse where she could sit her down on the bench beside it.

  She sat beside her as she wiped her tears away, trying to choke back her sobs as she sniffled.

  “I’m sorry,” she whimpered as Janet handed her one of the clean rags that was on the bench.

  “Oh, sweetheart, you don’t ever have to be sorry for your tears,” Janet told her. “I’ve shed enough tears, sometimes I think they could fill the ocean. My mother once told me that tears are our pain and our sadness and our worry. When we shed them, it’s because we’re letting go. Each tear is a relief and we have to let them out or they’ll drown us. You cry all you want.”

  Jenny dabbed at the corner of her eyes with the rag. “I’m just so tired of it. I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of feeling scared, I’m tired of all of it. When this all started, we were housesitting for Alan’s parents while they were over in Europe. Alan’s mom had always wanted to go there and she knew the only time Alan’s father would go was before Alan started training camp. When they were back, we’d make the move to Massachusetts. My parents retired to Arizona after I got married but they were going to come back for the baby. We had everything planned and then the news started on about the infection and Travis showed up and told us people were evacuating to Fort Lee.”

  She let out a watery laugh and shook her head. “Alan wanted us to stay at the house. His parents lived in a gated community, he said it was safer there than going to the base. It was me who convinced him to go. We saw on the news that the hospitals were being quarantined and I was scared that if something happened to the baby, we wouldn’t have medical attention. I knew there would be doctors at the base so I insisted. One of the few times I put my foot down with him. If I hadn’t done that, he might be alive. Travis too.”

  A fresh wave of tears came on and Janet held her, murmuring reassuring words until she had calmed down again.

  “Sweetheart, that’s not your fault. I would have done the same thing in your shoes. You’re a mother. You did what you thought was best for your child.”

  Jenny nodded her head but her eyes were on the rag that she twisted in her hands.

  “I mean it, Jenny, you can’t keep blaming yourself,” she said. “That only leads to you poisoning yourself. You’ve got to be strong, stronger than you’ve ever been because you aren’t alone anymore.”

  She reached over and put a hand on her swollen belly.

  “You’ve got that little one just waiting to come into this world and he or she is gonna need their momma strong and ready to kick ass to keep them safe.”

  Jenny’s hands joined her own and Janet could feel the distinct sensation of a tiny foot banging against the palm of her hand. Jenny laughed.

  “I think she agrees.”

  Janet smiled as the foot kept up its thumping beat. “You know it’s a girl?”

  Jenny shook her head, a tiny smile playing on her lips. “We wanted to be surprised so the doctor kept it secret. I guess I just have this feeling that she’s a girl.”

  Janet knew that feeling. She’d had it with the twins and with Ruthie, even before the doctor had told her their sexes. There were just some things mothers knew about their children.

  “Well, she’s a very lucky little girl, just like her mom,” Janet said. “She’s got you and you’ve got her.”

  Jenny looked at her with bright eyes, still a little red but no longer filled with unshed tears. “And she’s got plenty of aunts and uncles and cousins too.”

  Janet laid her other hand on Jenny’s. “That she does.”

  Subject File # 742

  Administrator: The others told me you went off alone with this man, Darren, I believe.

  Subject: I did.

  Administrator: And what made you trust in him enough to do that?

  Subject: The look in his eye. I could see that he’d lost a lot but he hadn’t let it break him.

  Malcolm walked in step with Darren as they backtracked through the town, the man quiet as they turned the corner and the street with the MacGregor house disappeared behind them. Malcolm wasn’t that concerned about leaving his people behind. They were competent and knew how to take care of themselves and the leverage that Quinton’s medical degree provided gave him assurances.

  However he was concerned by this man. He was clearly one of the men in charge, if not the man in charge, and he had recognized the same in Malcolm. It wasn't a coincidence that had had chosen Malcolm to be the one to accompany back to the vehicles. This was an opportunity for them to take each other’s measure.

  “So, how have things been here for you?” Malcolm asked, figuring the man was waiting for him to take the first step.

  “Hard,” Darren replied, squinting off into the distance, “But I figure it’s the same for most people nowadays. You guys?”

  “Same,” Malcolm admitted. “It was a hard road up here. Kentucky was just a pit stop. We started out in Virginia.”

  There, a little morsel of truth offered up without question, hopefully enough to get Darren sharing.

  Darren let out a low whistle. “That’s quite the trip. You guys must know what you’re doing if you’ve made it this far.”

  “We lost people along the way,” Malcolm told him.

  “So did we,” Darren said. “There are only one hundred and eighty four of us now.”

  Malcolm was floored to hear that number. He knew there were a lot of them with the size of that fence but he never would have guessed that there could be that many of them.

  “That’s amazing,” Malcolm said but Darren frowned.

  “Not if you consider there used to be a lot more of us. The town’s population used to be just under eight thousand. When the power went out, people were worried but we worked together. The local stores opened up, operated on IOUs. Neighbours helped each other out, sharing what they could. Some people left town, went to join other family or went to the bigger cities. We heard on the radio that there were relief centres in Traverse City with power and food. More than two thousand went there but we’ve never heard anything from them.”

  Darren paused, looking over at a one of the upper windows in a two storey house on the corner. He waved and Malcolm saw a hand pop out from the window to give a thumb’s up.

  “One of our watchers,” Darren explained. “They are posted around the town and we have a mobile patrol.”

  Malcolm nodded as Darren spoke, the pieces falling into place. “That’s how you spotted us. How long were you following us?”

  “Since you parked your cars,” Darren admitted.

  “Then I gotta say we’re damn lucky you guys weren’t hostile.” Malcolm hated the idea that they had been followed so long without any clue that it was happening.

  “Well, we try to live by certain rules of engagement,” Darren said. “Mostly that we try not to engage unless there’s no other choice. We hung pretty far back from you, waiting to see what you would do.”

  Lucky for them these people were cautious. They were smart too.

  “Back at the house you said the infected came through,” Malcolm said. “Is that what happened to the rest of your people?”

  “After the first wave left for the relief centres, the rest of us focused on our own families, our own homes. We weren’t paying attention to who was coming and going in town. We still aren’t sure how it started but someone brought the infection into town. It spread to a lot of people before anyone realized what was happening. That’s when there was a mass exodus, most of the town fled rather than staying and fighting. Those of us who stayed did our best to stop the spread but it took us nearly a week to hunt down all the infected and get rid of
them.”

  “After that, we made the decision to move everybody into the shopping centre. Being spread out, not knowing what was going on around us was what hurt us. So we moved everyone there and built the fence. Working together on the fence, on turning the mall into a place we could live, it brought us together.”

  “That’s good,” Malcolm said. “Not everybody could make it work after something like that.”

  “We’re doing our best. It hasn’t been easy. Our biggest problem is getting water to the shopping centre. We have to haul it in from a nearby creek. We’re trying to figure out a way to pump it to the mall but it’s taking some time.”

  “We’ve been trying to grow our own vegetables,” Malcolm said. “How are you handling the food situation, especially with so many people?”

  “We cleaned out the grocery store and all the houses for non-perishables,” Darren replied. “We hunt for fresh meat and we have the chickens. We’ve talked about building gardens or even planting crops in the farmland north of the town but we put it on hold. We heard from one of the other groups that passed through that there is a distribution warehouse down in Alpena. Full of non-perishable food, enough to feed an army. We’re planning on sending a group to check it out soon.”

  Malcolm nodded. “Some of our people found one of those down in Ohio. We got ourselves fully stocked and left plenty behind. It’s a good idea.”

  They neared the burned out section of town and he saw Darren’s steps falter as the black shells of the former homes appeared up ahead.

  “You okay?”

  Darren nodded. “I’m fine.”

  But Malcolm could tell that he wasn’t fine.

  “Must be hard for the others to lose their homes like this. It’s one thing to choose to leave it behind, it’s another to have it taken from you. At least if you leave it behind, you know it’s still there if you ever want to go back.”

  Darren nodded but Malcolm could read from his slumped shoulders and the way he avoided looking at the homes that Malcolm was digging at a barely healed wound. As much as he wanted to believe that this man was on the up and up, he knew there were things Darren was hiding. He needed to know if those secrets were a threat to his people.