Surviving the Fog (22 page)

Ralph looked uncomfortable, and then, behind
the boys, he saw Mary smiling at him and waiting for him to
respond.  "Uh, you're welcome," he answered.  Mary’s
smile widened.

"He has been working on those spears for a
long time," said Mary.  Ralph reddened, and he mumbled
something incomprehensible.

The rest of February passed uneventfully, to
Mary's relief.  She was always aware of Ralph and where he
was, and one time she had an erotic dream in which he made an
appearance, but for the most part they tried to pretend that their
feelings for each other did not exist.  In early March, Paige
had a birthday.  Again Mary baked a cake, and Comet presented
the girl with one of his toys, but this time, instead of making
Paige a gift, Ralph suggested that they hold a dance.

Mary had a now useless cell phone with an MP3
player feature that was chocked full of music.  They hooked it
to a pair of speakers and played a mixture of fast and slow music.
 The twins were not crazy about the idea, but since it was
Paige's birthday they stoically went along.  Once they started
dancing, the twins had a lot of fun.  Star demanded to be
taught to dance, and Comet got in on the action by prancing around
the living room.  It was fun, it was silly and the house rang
with laughter.

Afterwards, Kylie asked if they could have a
slumber party in the attic.  Ralph agreed to sleep in Nathan’s
bed for the night, and the six children tromped up to the attic.
 Mary knew that it would be forever before they went to sleep,
so she decided that only work that would be done the following day
would be work that was essential.

With the kids gone, Mary and Ralph were
alone.  "Well, that was a riot," he observed.  Mary
laughed.

"It was great.  I can't believe that you
suggested a dance.  That was a wonderful idea," she said.

"They're girls.  I thought that they
might like it.  It was fun teaching them the steps to the slow
dances.  I used to dance with my sister like that.  She
stood on my shoes, and I moved around," Ralph said.

"My husband and I didn't know any dances,
fast or slow.  But sometimes we would get out on the dance
floor and bounce around.  If it was a slow dance, we just held
on to each other."  Mary smiled at the memory.  "Thanks
for teaching me," she said.

The MP3 player was still playing.  Roy
Orbison began to sing.  "Would you care to dance, Mary?" Ralph
murmured.

Mary's heart began to pound.
 
Are you kidding? Me and you?
 Alone?  That's the craziest idea I've ever
heard
. She thought of an old television
show that she used to watch on a rerun channel when she was a kid.
 She felt like stepping back, waving her arms like the robot,
and shouting, “danger, danger, danger.”

"All right," she heard herself say.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, and he
placed his hands on her waist.  Slowly, they began the steps
he had taught her; their feet moved perfectly together.
 Gradually, they closed the gap between them.  She lifted
her arms around his neck.  He moved his arms behind her back.
 The music was lovely, romantic, and suggestive, and their
bodies responded to each other; their breathing deepened.

Then the song ended, and a faster tune began.
 For a moment they stood there, clinging to each other.
 Then Mary gave him a little nudge, and he released her.
 She didn't know what to say.  Upstairs, she could hear
the sound of children laughing at something.

"Let's sit down and listen to the music,"
Ralph suggested.

"Good idea," Mary replied.

She walked to the sofa and sat down,
expecting Ralph to take the chair, but he followed her and sat down
beside her.  He put his arm around her; his hand began to
stroke her shoulder.  Hesitantly, she leaned against him.
 She sat there, tense, waiting for something to happen.
 When he spoke, his words were a surprise.

"I really liked Jackie," he began.

"The girl who was murdered?" she asked.

"Yes.  I really liked her.  She was
older than the rest of us, and the things we talked about were
adult things.  She told me that she had sex with her older
boyfriend, one night, when she was just fourteen.  Two weeks
later, she missed her period, and she knew that she was pregnant.
 She told me that she cried and cried.  She was
terrified.  She knew absolutely nothing about how to find
help.  Then her period came.  It was a false alarm.

"After that, she swore off sex until her
senior year in high school, and when she started having sex, she
made sure that she was on the pill first.  She made this guy
date her for three months before she slept with him.  She
wanted to get to know him before they had sex.  She wanted to
see if she could trust him.

"She said that she came to the camp as a
counselor, because she wanted to teach younger girls how important
it was to wait until they were older to have sex, not just until
they thought they were ready. She said that a young girl can't know
when she's ready to have sex until she understands the emotions of
a relationship, and that you have to be older to understand those
emotions.

"When I talked with Jackie, I felt older and
more mature.  She was a woman among all these girls.  I
felt like I was falling in love with her, but I was mostly just
infatuated.

"But then this fog thing happened.  At
first, she tried to pretend that nothing had happened.  Then,
I don't know why or how, she changed.  Something happened in
her head.  I wonder if it was the responsibility.  Then
she was murdered.  I think I went a little nuts after that.
 I stopped eating.  It was like losing my sister all over
again.  Every day, I went down to her grave, and I just sat
there.  But then Hector came.  Someone from outside the
camp.  Somehow, that made me wake up and get myself together.
 Strange.

"And now I'm here with you.  I feel like
I have something to live for again.  Like I have something,
someone, several someone’s to protect.  Being with you is a
little like being with Jackie, but better.  My feelings for
Jackie were like a crush on a favorite teacher.  My feelings
for you are like the feelings I think your husband must have felt.
 Not just feelings of desire, but feelings of caring and
cherishing.  I suppose it's wrong, but I can't help feeling
like Comet and Star are our kids, not just yours.  I hope
you’re not offended by that, Mary."

Mary could not respond at first, so she shook
her head and laid her head on his shoulder.  She used a finger
to daintily wipe moisture from the sides of her eyes.  Finally
she collected herself and spoke.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Ralph.  I
do have feelings for you.  I care about you very much.  I
love the way you interact with my children.  I can see how
much they mean to you.  But I’m troubled by these feelings.
 I'm still mourning my husband.  I need more time to come
to terms with these feelings I have for you."

"I'm fine with that," he said, and he bent
and kissed her lightly on her cheek.

Prudently, they parted and went to bed.

After that night, Mary felt as though the air
was cleared between her and Ralph; that even though she was
unwilling to further their relationship, they had reached an
understanding about their future.  Her mood lightened
considerably.

And she was busy.  She was determined
that when the kids emerged from the Lodge, she would be there to
feed them.  She baked loaves of bread and froze them.
 She scrounged her house for every container she could find
and then scoured and washed them, and she filled them with soups
which could also be frozen.  She knew that the taste and
texture of frozen milk changed for the worse after a few weeks, so
she waited until two weeks before April’s arrival before she began
freezing milk.  But until then, she skimmed the cream off the
milk, and she made plenty of butter in her blender.

On the first day of March, she had the boys
empty the containers in the solar room and refill them with fresh
dirt.   Then she planted them with tomato and cucumber
seedlings.  She had grown chard and spinach all winter, and
what the members of her household did not eat, she cooked and
froze.  She made the boys catch as much trout as possible.
 They didn't mind catching the fish, but they sure minded
cleaning them.  She had separated the potatoes when they were
harvested, and she had soon replanted the thumb sized ones.
 Now the leaves of those tubers were poking through the snow.
 Except for meat, she thought that she could feed the campers
for a month.  After that?  She would deal with that when
it happened.

Mary welcomed the advent of spring.
 There was still snow on the ground, heavy in some places, but
the sun had shone for much of March, so far, and now the plants
would get more than twelve hours of sunlight.  Soon she would
need to get the plow ready to till the earth.  She needed to
get down to the camp to see if there was any available land that
could be tilled.  Mary intended to put as much land as
possible into production this year.  She knew that the amount
of land she could cultivate would depend on the amount of fuel that
could be spared.  Hector had told her about the fuel tank at
the logging camp.  She needed to convince him that the best
use of that fuel would be for food production.

For the kids, it was a great relief to get
out of the house.  Even chores were welcomed, if it meant
getting out in the sun.  Most of the chickens and rabbits had
survived the winter.  Fishing was fun, even if they had to
clean what they caught.  Ralph enjoyed walking over the
fields, marveling at the hardy potato plants, and throwing the
spears with the twins when they practiced.

One morning, he allowed Comet and Star to
accompany him.  They wandered around the fields, before
heading toward the water tank to see how it had fared during the
winter.

"Carry me, Daddy!" Comet demanded when he
grew tired.

Star glanced at Ralph, but she said nothing.
 She had grown used to her brother's endearment for the young
man.  Ralph picked up Comet, and he set the boy on his
shoulders.  As they walked toward the water tank, he asked
Star what she knew about her mother's plans.

"Mama thought that we could grow beans out
here," Star explained.  "We were going to use that black
plastic stuff to drip irrigate the plants.  I know that we
have a lot of seed.  But mama never got around to it last
year."

"What kind of beans does she grow?" Ralph
asked.

"I think they were more like peas," Star
replied.  "I know she talked about peas from China and
snapping peas.  Then she said she was going to try to grow
black eyed peas and green beans.  But she didn't think that
green beans would grow very well here."

"Chinese and snap peas," said Ralph
thoughtfully.  "That's right.  They’re supposed to grow
well in cool weather."

"Oooo... a tiger," Comet exclaimed.

Ralph and Star laughed.  "You see a
tiger, Comet?" Ralph asked.

"There," Comet replied, pointing to the water
tank.

Star gasped, and Ralph stopped.  It was
not a tiger, it was a mountain lion.  It was pacing towards
them, head lowered.  It seemed to be limping slightly.

Ralph lowered Comet to the ground.
 "Let's go back," he said.

"I want to see the tiger, Daddy," Comet
complained.

Ralph and Star took Comet by his hands, and
they began pulling him towards the house.  The lion's stride
towards them quickened to a slow lope.  The trio had only
moved a dozen paces before it became clear that the animal would
soon catch them.

Chapter Nine Jacob

Ralph stopped, and he placed
Comet and Star behind him.  He was frightened.  The
animal's coat was dirty, and its ribs were showing.  Ralph
wondered if the animal might be starving.  He wondered if it
would attack.  
How can I stop
it
?
It will surely
go for Comet
.

"Star, you need to be ready to take Comet and
run to the house," Ralph said as calmly as he could.  "I'll
try to distract it."

Ralph wished he had brought his spear.
 The big cat stopped a few paces from the trio; its tail was
twitching.

"I'm scared, Daddy," Comet whimpered, sensing
that something was amiss.

"Are you ready, Star?" Ralph asked without
turning.

"Yes, Dad," she replied.

She took Comet's hand
firmly.  As young as she was, she could tell what was about to
happen.  The huge cat would spring, and Ralph would try to
wrestle with it, while she and Comet ran as fast as they could to
the house.  
Will Ralph die?
 She had a moment's regret that she had never
told him the truth, that she loved him.

Then Star heard a yell, and the big cat's
attention was diverted.  Ralph heard the sound of his own
spear whizzing by his head.  The mountain lion leaped back as
Ralph's spear landed at the very place where the large cat had been
crouching.  The cat turned and fled as Nathan and Kevin,
panting and out of breath, reached the trio.  They were
carrying their spears.

Ralph took a stunned breath.
 His legs were shaking, and Comet was clinging to his leg and
crying.  Regaining his composure, Ralph reached down and
picked up Comet.  He turned around to see Star sandwiched
protectively between Nathan and Kevin.  In the distance, Mary,
who had been running to them with her shotgun, slowed to a walk.
 
Everything is
alright
, he thought.
 
My family is safe
.  Comet felt the change and stopped crying.

Ralph looked at the twins.  "Thank you,"
was all he could say.

They blushed, but they were pleased.
 "We were coming to get you," said Kevin.  "I had your
spear, because we wanted to practice throwing."