What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) (12 page)

Naomi laughed, then said, “Wait.”  She put Hades on a stay, and hurried into the kitchen.  She came back with a large baggie of cookies she’d baked – Macy’s favorite, to try to tempt her appetite.  “Can you hide these away somewhere, save them for yourself?  Think of them as a care package from your mom?”

He took the bag from her, and tears filled his eyes again.  “She bakes crummy cookies, just awful, but it’s the thought that counts.  Thank you, ma’am, I really do appreciate it.”

She nodded.  “Take care.”

“And you.”

He stepped back into the garage, and she followed, watching him exit out the side-door he’d jimmied open.  He shut the door behind him, then disappeared from view.

Naomi watched from the front window, rigid with tension, until the convoy moved on about 15 minutes later.  Then, she raced back to the bedroom.  Macy was right where she’d left her, as was Persephone.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s alright.”  She scooped her up, held her close.  “Are you okay?”

Macy squirmed to get down.  “Gotta pee, mom!  Really bad!”

Naomi laughed, giddy with relief, and swooped Macy into the bathroom.  When she was finished, Naomi picked her up again and they headed downstairs to find some breakfast.  She hadn’t carried Macy for years, but she’d lost so much weight, and she tired so quickly, Naomi had gotten back in the habit again.  The fact that Macy didn’t complain about it told her there was still a need.

She deposited Macy in the kitchen, checked out the front window again, then went to fix breakfast.  Granola, yogurt and canned fruit today, she decided.  This was not a good time to risk the smell of scrambled eggs.  As she worked, her euphoric mood dissipated.

She needed to get them ready to go, and how in God’s name was she supposed to do that?  What should she take?  She looked around the kitchen, thought her way through the rest of the house.  She and Scott had lived here since before Piper was born.  How was she supposed to leave a lifetime behind, not knowing if it would be here when she got back?

All day, she packed.  And unpacked.  Piled, un-piled, sorted, cried secret tears she hid from Macy, started over, and then started over again.  The photo albums?  How could she leave them?  How could she justify taking them?  Her great grandmother’s orange juice pitcher?  How much of the bottled water?  Which food?  By mid-afternoon, she was exhausted, heart-broken and thoroughly pissed off.

She trudged out to the deck where Macy was resting and reading in the dappled shade with the dogs.  Ares surprised her with a yowl as she stepped through the French doors; he was
stretched along the top of the cushion on Macy’s lounge chair, supreme ruler of all he surveyed.  Persephone was sleeping, but Hades sported a fresh scratch on the tip of his nose, and his dark brown eyes were locked on the interloper.

Naomi scooped Ares up and collapsed into the chair next to Macy’s.  “Well, look who dropped in for a visit.”  Ares stretched in her lap, pressing into her caressing hands, his purr vibrating against her legs.  His gray and black striped coat was scuffed in spots, and he felt leaner than before, but still fit and strong.  “Looks like life is treating you decently.”

“Good thing he came to visit today, since we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“If I ever get us packed.”  Naomi let her head drop back.  “I can’t believe how much stuff we have, and how much of it I want to take.”  She rolled her head and peered at her daughter.  “I don’t suppose you could look into your magic crystal ball and tell whether we’ll ever be back here again?  It would make deciding what to take and what to leave a little easier.”

Macy looked away, and the movement struck Naomi as evasive.  “I think you should plan on being able to come back.  And you could hide stuff in the secret food room – stuff you want to take but that doesn’t make sense.  Like your jewelry and pictures and things.”

“You,” Macy had said.  Not “we.”  Naomi stood up abruptly, dumping Ares to the ground.  “That’s a great idea,” she said briskly.  “We’ll just take what we need to get to the cabin and get settled.  The sentimental stuff can stay here until we can come back for it.  Do you need anything, before I get back at it?”

Macy closed her eyes and shook her head.  “No, I’m good.  I’m just going to sleep for a little bit.”

Naomi gave her cheek a soft stroke, but didn’t linger.  Spurred and energized by fears she absolutely would not give
voice to, she moved through the house methodically and swiftly.  Sentimental treasures, ferried to the basement to be stored in the secret room; supplies for the journey, stacked by the door to the garage.

She decided on five days worth of food and water, and concentrated on protein sources like nuts and canned meat.  Food for the dogs.  Clothing for both of them, including their winter wear – jackets, boots, mittens, scarves.  It could snow any month of the year in Colorado, and they were heading for a higher elevation.    Camping gear – area trail maps, back packs, sleeping bags, reflective blankets, fishing poles.  Flashlights, candles, matches.  All the over-the-counter medicine she had left in the house, plus her essential oils, herbs, tinctures and teas.  Toiletries, handy wipes.  Duct tape.

Just before dinner time, she got hung up again, this time on books.  She stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves in their home office, and agonized.  Some were easy to select –
Edible Wild Plants and Useful Herbs
, from one of Piper’s 4-H projects was an obvious choice, as was the
Outdoor Survival Guide
– the author lived in Montrose, and she and Scott had met him at a book signing.  Scott had collected an entire shelf of books on prepping, including how-to’s, and books on living off the land, and she needed to look through and decide what looked most useful.

After those selections, the real pain began.  Years of interest, exploration and enjoyment were collected here.  Books on crochet and quilting, making jewelry and rock-painting with kids.  Old friends from her favorite authors – Nora Roberts, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Hoffman.  Classics she loved to re-read every few years  –
To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind,
Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing
.  How could she leave behind Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, or Laura Ingalls Wilder?

A rustle in the doorway made her turn.  Macy was staring at the shelves, too, her face stricken.  “Mama.  Our books.”

“I know, honey.”  She held her arm out, and Macy moved to stand in the curve of it.  “I want to take every single one of them.”

“Can we?”

“Nope.”  She squeezed Macy’s shoulders, then steered her towards the door.  “Let’s get some dinner.  We’ll figure it out later.”

She didn’t return to the books until after she’d settled Macy into bed for the night.  As before, the break from the task had clarified it; she marched into the office, collected only those books she felt were necessary or useful, and left all the rest behind.  If she paused, even for a moment, to remember, to dwell, to think all this through, she wouldn’t be able to take another step.

She blacked out the one window in the garage with cardboard, then packed the back of Scott’s pickup using a tiny flashlight to illuminate the task.  The animals would ride in the jump seat – Hades might be a little uncomfortable, but it would have to do.  There was only one other item she needed for the front seat, and she’d been putting the task off all day.

Naomi checked on Macy, found her sleeping, and headed for the bedroom she used to share with Scott.  She leaned her forehead on the sealed door and tried to steel herself.  If only she had thought to do this before.  She took a deep breath, then started slicing through the tape with a utility knife.

She pulled her sweatshirt up over her nose when the door cracked open, but to her immeasurable relief, found it wasn’t necessary.  She had wrapped Zeus’ body in plastic and tucked it alongside Scott’s, then covered them both with an quilt she’d made.  Apparently, her make-do measures had sufficed; the smell of corruption was very faint.  Nevertheless, she avoided looking at the bed, and walked swiftly to the closet.

The gun safe was tucked on Scott’s side of the walk-in closet; she had already taken the key from the hook downstairs, and she fished it out of her pocket.  Opening the safe, she took out the 12 gauge shotgun she used when they shot skeet, and Scott’s .45 automatic pistol, then took their respective cases from the shelf above.  She carried the firearms into the hall and set them on the floor.  Another trip back to the safe, where she took all the ammunition they had on hand for the weapons she had selected, as well as Scott’s hunting knife in its scabbard.  She returned to the safe a third time and stood there, uncertain.

Should she take Scott’s AR15 rifle or his shotgun?  Piper’s youth shotgun?  What about the little .22 rifle?  The weapons were all in good repair, and she was at least moderately familiar with them all.  She and Scott still shot skeet regularly, though Scott had given up hunting years ago; one near miss from a drunken out-of-stater had been enough.

Naomi ran her fingers along the stock of his shotgun, comforted to know his fingers had touched it last.  Her friends had always considered it a strange hobby for her animal-loving self, but she loved to shoot skeet.  She was inexplicably good at it – the first time Scott took her, when they were dating, she had powdered the first 15 clay pigeons he’d thrown.  Piper had inherited whatever strange alchemy gave her the talent, and Scott had grumped and griped about trying to compete with Annie Oakley and Atticus Finch.

She had no earthly idea what she might need, and didn’t like to think about needing weapons of any kind, at all, ever.  Skeet was one thing, but she could not comprehend pointing a weapon at a living creature and pulling the trigger.  It wasn’t that she was opposed to hunting; she just knew it wasn’t in her to do.

             
She dithered around far longer than she should have, indecisive, and finally decided to leave the extra weapons behind.  She would hide the key to the safe, and hope they were here when she returned.  She carried everything downstairs, loaded the handgun and stowed it in the glovebox before she could second-guess herself, then packed the shotgun and the remaining ammunition in the back.

             
Her steps dragged as she headed back up the stairs for the umpteenth time this day, a fresh roll of duct tape in her hand.  She had managed to avoid looking directly at the bed on every trip into the room, and Scott deserved better than that.  She paused outside the door, paused for so long she wasn’t sure how to start her feet moving again.  On a deep breath and a stumble, she entered Scott’s crypt.

             
All that anxiety, and the shape on the bed wasn’t markedly different. She put her head to the side and allowed herself to really examine his corpse, really analyze it.  Her husband’s corpse.  The body she had been familiar with her entire adult life, the body she’d made children with, now returning to its basic elements there, in the bed they’d shared for more than 20 years.  His cells lived on in his daughters, along with his gentleness, his love of popcorn and books, his quirky sense of humor and his quiet, powerful intelligence.

             
There just wasn’t anything to be afraid of.  “I’m sorry I had to disturb you, love, but I promised you we would leave, and I needed a few things.”  She held up the duct tape and smiled, tears spilling over that ached and healed at the same time.  “I don’t know if or when we’ll be back, so I’ll re-seal the door.  I love you so much, Scott, so much.  I’ll keep the girls safe, I promise.”

             
It was after midnight by the time she finally snuggled into bed next to Macy.  She didn’t expect to sleep, and she didn’t, getting up twice in the night to add items to the truck or re-arrange the load.  Just before dawn, she gave up and returned to the truck again to dig out the backpacks.  She really ought to pack them with emergency supplies, in case they had to abandon the truck in a hurry. 

The thought made her snort.  The truck was already packed with emergency supplies; she guessed that meant the backpacks represented end-of-the-road catastrophic supplies.  Macy found her still at it an hour later, muttering and cussing under her breath as she tried to decide what should go in the packs and what she could walk away without.

“Mama?  Do you want me to fix some breakfast?”

Naomi looked up.  Macy was dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a zip-up hoodie, and the clothes hung on her.  She’d been wearing soft lounge pants or sweat pants since her illness, and Naomi hadn’t realized just how frail she’d become.  Her eyes were huge, her cheekbones too sharp, her little hand where it rested on Hades’ back too delicate and white.

“No, honey, I’m just about done here.  I’ll come in and we’ll do it up right with blueberry pancakes.”  She zipped the backpacks, set them in the back of the truck, and shut the cap.  For better or worse, they were packed.  “Is Ares still here?”

“He is.  Can we take him with us?”

“If we can get him in the truck.  He and Hades haven’t quite figured it out yet, I’m afraid.”

They went to the kitchen, and Naomi kept up a steady chatter while she mixed up pancakes, trying to keep Macy’s mind off the fact that they were leaving, maybe for good.  Macy chatted right back, talking excitedly about the craft supplies she’d
packed, and Naomi was fairly certain she was trying to do the same thing.