He led her along the sidewalk and into a house. She stood in the living room not sure of what to do, while he made a quick search of the cupboards in the kitchen. When he walked back into the living room, she asked, “Do you remember if you found the owners in here?”
“I’m not sure…” he paused and took a sweeping glance around the room for any signs that the owners had died there. “I think they were gone. I’d say about ten or fifteen percent of the folks left town as things started going to hell.” He looked back at her and started nodding. “These guys were gone.”
“You were looking for food in the kitchen?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t have anything that was still good. Besides food and water, I’ll look for clothes and furniture—things like that.” As he answered, he got the sense that she had never done anything like this. “While you were up in Indy with Jason and those guys, didn’t you ever go out searching for supplies?”
“Not really.”
“What did you do for food and water…and lights and heat…” the rest of his question died into a whisper as he waited for an answer.
“We didn’t have it like you have it here. I mean Jason sent out certain guys for food and water, but the girls…our job was to reward the guys. And we never had electricity…at least not that I know about. I’m not sure if he didn’t know how to rig up a generator like you do, or if he just didn’t want it, but our light came from torches and lanterns. “ She shook her head, “And I’m astonished that you have running water…we didn’t. It was a lot different. You look like you’ve been in that same house for quite a while. We kept on the move during the day. When night came we’d just find some hotel or house big enough to sleep in.” She looked at him for understanding. “Your breakfast was the first hot meal I can remember eating since it all ended.”
Until he heard that, he thought he understood how hard her life had been. But the hardship was more than simply living under the atrocious reign of a madman. It was also the daily struggle just to survive. “My guess is that you probably didn’t have running water because the water company up in Indy needed pumps to generate the pressure. Down here the pressure is provided by gravity’s pull on the water from the tower.” He paused as he organized the rest of what she said and made sense of any implications. Then a smile suddenly broke across his face. “Did you have hot showers?”
Her mouth dropped open and she took a step toward him. “A hot shower!”
His smile grew. “I not only have running water—I have hot running water.”
“Don’t be messing with me!”
“I’m not…I didn’t even think about mentioning it…figured it was no big deal. But yeah, you can take a hot shower as soon as we get back.”
Cindy started giggling as she trailed him out, but before shutting the door behind her, she paused to look inside one last time. “Can you show me where you took them?”
“You mean the bodies…I took them to the boat ramp.”
“Do you mind?”
“No problem,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. They walked back across Main Street and as they stepped around a slab of sidewalk pushed up by the roots of a shade tree, Cindy caught her first glimpse of the river three blocks away.
They crossed River Street and headed north along the brick paved sidewalk that ran along the bank of the river. A few hundred feet up river, they walked down the boat ramp to a piece of driftwood, rocking along the edge of the water. “I brought them all here,” he stated as he looked out to the middle of the river.
“Your wife too?”
He nodded as she took a stance next to him and matched his gaze out to the river. After a moment of silence, he respectfully said, “We’ve got plenty of supplies, why don’t we head on back and you can take that hot shower.”
“You sure? I can wait.”
“No…let’s go on back.”
Chapter 29
Chuck was surprised by how much more energetic he felt when he woke the next morning. Right out of bed he walked around to the parlor to check in on Cindy. When he saw her sleeping peacefully on the sofa, he smiled. He didn’t know why at first, but as he continued to look at her it came to him. It was because he felt responsible for taking care of her. It was something he desperately needed. It made him feel good about himself and gave him a purpose for living.
That night they opened a bottle of wine to go with their dinner of macaroni and cheese. Halfway into it, he found himself sitting there watching her eat, captivated by the differences between how she and his wife handled the fork and chewed their food. As his thoughts drifted to how Becky would never look up from her plate until after she swallowed each bite, he smiled and watched Cindy take a sip of wine. “What was your family like?”
She rolled the wine around on her tongue and studied him.
“What?”
After she swallowed, she covered her mouth and said, “Nothing…I’m just surprised. Most people don’t talk about the past anymore.”
“I understand if it’s too personal,” Chuck confided as he raised his hand in apology. “I was just wondering. I can only imagine how difficult this had to be for someone your age.”
Cindy looked down at her plate but stopped short of taking her next bite of macaroni. “When I was younger…Bracey, my little brother…we used to fight all the time.” She smiled as she thought back. “But it was amazing watching him grow up. He had just turned thirteen…” She took a bite, followed that up with a sip of wine, and while holding the next bite in front of her face, she continued, “I think he was the main reason I wanted to get into teaching. Mom always made me help him with his math and spelling as he came up through grade school.” She paused and smiled in reflection. “The way he looked at me when he finally understood how to multiply or sound out the spelling of a word was incredible. I saw so much pride in his eyes.” She took her bite and nodded as she chewed. “Yeah…that was my little brother…that’s why I wanted to be a teacher.”
She had Chuck’s full attention. “So your family was pretty close?”
“Yeah.”
“Did your mom ever think about remarrying?”
“No…I don’t think so. I think my dad was her one true love and that was all she needed. Besides, she always had me and Bracey.”
“What about you. Did you have a boyfriend or anyone?”
“Yeah, Marshall and I started dating my junior year. We were pretty close…don’t know if we would have gotten married. But we loved each other.”
“How’d you two meet?”
Cindy paused and looked at him with a slight smile.
Chuck held out his hands. “I mean unless you don’t want to talk about it. I’m just curious.”
Cindy’s smile broadened as she nodded. “No, its okay—but you really want to know?”
“Yeah, I’d like to hear about it.”
They finished the bottle of wine as Cindy told him about how she and Marshall met and fell in love: from their first date through their last night together. From there she told him about the other guys she dated and about growing up in Indianapolis. She had just started talking about family get-togethers and Christmas celebrations when the wine and late hour of the night began to take their toll.
Chuck yawned as Cindy folded her arms on top of the table and laid her head down. He looked at her for a second and then reached over and shook her arm. “Hey…if you want to…instead of sleeping on the sofa, you can sleep with me.” She opened her eyes and looked at him inquisitively. “I’m not talking about sex…just thought that it might be nice to know that someone is there with you. I’ve got a king—”
“I’d like that,” she interrupted. “That would be nice.”
Without saying another word, they got up and retrieved her pillow from the sofa and headed for the bedroom. Drunk and sleepy, neither hesitated as they undressed and climbed into the same bed.
~~~
The dogwoods and perennials came into bloom and then turned a solid gre
en as the heat of summer set in. Each night they continued their pleasant dinner conversation and she told him a little more about her life. He seemed really interested in listening to her, but he hadn’t told her anything yet about his life. It wasn’t until the hottest part of the year that he finally opened up. That was when their supply of drinking water from the public tower went dry.
Thankfully they were ready for it. Chuck had a 250-gallon plastic tank strapped to a flatbed for transporting water from one of the wells just outside of town. It was on their way back with their first load of sloshing water that Cindy observed, “You know in the long haul it might be easier if we move to the farm house.”
Chuck shifted the flatbed into second as he turned on Main Street and shook his head. “I can’t.”
She watched him maintain his stare straight ahead. “Why not?”
After a second of thought he said, “Let’s go for a short drive after we drop off the water…then you’ll understand.”
They parked the flatbed at the side of the house, jumped into his Chevy, and headed out again. Neither said anything until they were turning off Michigan. Chuck pointed across the street to a flowing field of grass and trees. “That used to be the golf course.”
Halfway down the side street he stopped and put the truck in park. He got out and by the time she caught up to him, he was standing at the head of a cracked driveway and looking out over an overgrown lot between two fire-damaged homes. Without looking at her, he said, “This was our house.”
As she matched his gaze of the weeds, she thought about asking what happened. But then he stirred and pointed. “My wife died right over there.”
When she looked back at him, his eyes were red and his lower lip was beginning to tremble. Out of nowhere her lips started to tremble as well. With a pull on her heart, she slid her hand across his shoulder and said, “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
Chuck lowered his head and covered his eyes with his hand. “I was so mean to her,” he confided, as he started shaking his head. “And the worst part is that I don’t really know why. I loved her…more than anything else in the world.” He pulled in a shaky breath. “Like the way you said your mom loved your dad. But I let us drift apart…I guess it was my pride. I don’t know.” He paused and rubbed his face as the redness continued to grow in his eyes. “The bug hit me first and put me down…she died while I was out of it. You know where she died?” he asked rhetorically. “She died down on the floor by my side, holding my hand.”
Cindy slid her hand down to his waist, “I know…I know…”
He added, “For all she knew I was already dead. She could have gone someplace where she wouldn’t have had to die alone, but she didn’t—she stayed right by my side.”
Cindy slid her other arm around him and pulled him closer. “Maybe in her mind she wasn’t alone.”
Tears were trickling down his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around her. By the time he mumbled, “I hope so,” he was already crying.
She put her hand on the back of his head, and guided his face down to her shoulder as she also began to cry. While she comforted him, he told her about giving up hope and burning down his old house. As she rubbed his back he confided that the night he found her in Indianapolis, he had gone up there to die.
Silence filled the truck for most of the drive down Michigan. It wasn’t the uncomfortable silence where you feel prompted to speak. This was the silence between two people that didn’t need the verbal communication to maintain the bond. They were almost to Main Street before Chuck collected himself and said, “The house you and I are in…that was Becky’s favorite house in town. It was the home she always dreamed about. That’s why I moved there. I wanted it to be her home.”
Cindy nodded. “I understand…we’ll stay right here.”
That was the start. With that hurdle out of the way, he started opening up to her and the relationship became more balanced. Frequently their excursions to find supplies turned into leisurely walks where their only finds were deeper understanding of one another. At first, they talked about the past. Chuck loved to compare their times in high school, and they would laugh about how things had changed from one generation to the next. She told him about her friends growing up and he told her about his adventures with Stan. As the days started getting shorter again, they began to talk about the future—their future.
Chapter 30
By the time the elm had gone through its leaves again, their water problem was solved. For as long as Chuck could remember, the city supplied the drinking water to the homes in town. So it never occurred to him to check the old Victorian for a well. Not that he would have known where to look if it had. But that was one of the side benefits to having searched all the country homes for wells—they learned their natural placement and where to look. One thing led to another and by the time they were on their second 250-gallon tank of water he was tearing up the wood floor in the back mud room. That’s where he found the metal plate covering the old well. It hadn’t been used in fifty years. Even so, when they dropped a garden hose down and hooked up a transfer pump—water came up. Of course the hardest part was that one of them had to taste it. After holding a glass of the well water between them for almost a minute, Chuck pinched his nose and tentatively took a swallow.
Finding a source of drinking water right there in the house fueled their ingenuity. Their very next project was a small windmill to pump water up to an elevated storage tank based on designs they found in the library. One windmill led to another and before long they had built four. The latter three were used to generate electricity. Those came just in time, as more and more of the stores of gasoline they depended on were beginning to take on the viscosity of varnish.
They retired to the parlor after dinner one chilly, autumn night and sat on the floor in front of the wood stove with a bottle of wine. Chuck was pouring their second glass when Cindy finally brought out what she had been hiding all night. With a grin matched only by the brightness of her eyes, she said, “Look what I found today,” and pulled a five-inch, plastic bottle shaped like a bear out of her sweater pocket.
Chuck’s mouth fell open as he leaned toward her with guarded enthusiasm. “Honey?”
“Yep!”
“Oh my Lord,” drifted off his lips as he stared at the golden liquid showing through the clear plastic. After a hard swallow, he asked, “It wasn’t covered in ants was it?”
“No. I couldn’t believe it either,” she answered as she handed it to him. “I had given up hope of ever tasting sugar or chocolate or anything like that again.”
A second later Chuck was hurrying back from the kitchen after cutting the tip off.
“How is it?” she asked.
“Your find, you get the first try,” he said as he handed it back to her.
She tilted her head back and squeezed the plastic bear as a thin, golden string dribbled down on her tongue. For the next ten seconds, Chuck heard moans and witnessed a slithering movement that he hadn’t seen for some years. The sight and sounds of which were not without affect. When she brought her head back down and giggled, it took him a second to close his mouth.
Even though he was sure that she didn’t mean it that way, when she looked at him and asked, “So…do you want some,” it came across flirtatiously.
He gasped, “Oh…yeah,” and held out his hand.
She was about to pass him the bear, but then pulled it back at the last second. “No…you’ll squeeze it all into your mouth.”
“No I won’t.”
She looked at him coyly, squeezed the bear across her finger, and laid a line of honey down on her skin. “Here…you can have this much.”
He was unsure what she meant for a second. That is until she held her finger up to his mouth and he saw the line of honey glistening on the black skin of her finger. With her moans still lingering heavily in his thoughts, the line of honey only held his attention for a split second. His eyes quickly wandered from her finger to the s
mooth skin of her palm. Before his admiration could flow up her arm, she slowly started pulling her hand back. He met her eyes, and again he saw that she had misinterpreted his lack of action as having something to do with the color of her skin. “No, that’s not it!” he spit out as he grabbed her hand.
She passively resisted before quickly giving in and allowing him to slide her finger into his mouth. For the sensual moment that followed, he battled to keep his natural instincts and arousal in check as his tongue shamefully took in the texture of her skin as much as the taste of the honey.
A long, delicious second later, she pulled her finger out of his mouth and said, “That’s all we get tonight. I want this to last.”
He licked his lips and smiled with the hope that she wouldn’t suspect the true source of his enjoyment. After a pleasurable sigh, he turned back to the fire and finished his second glass of wine.
~~~
It was a colder winter than usual in Madison. The baseboard heaters and wood stoves were working overtime just to keep them from seeing their breath. There was a blanket of snow four inches deep outside and a layer of quilts almost as thick on the bed that night. He and Cindy had grown very comfortable with their sleeping arrangement. On more than one occasion, each woke to find themselves in the comfort of the other’s warmth. Such was the case that night. They were sleeping peacefully until she gently nestled her rear against his crotch. The second such nudge caused him to swell. He woke and immediately rolled onto his back out of guilt.
She stirred again, and he thought she was going to follow his retreat and roll over next to him. But she didn’t. Then a quiver rolled through her, and the fear that something might be wrong woke him completely. A few seconds later he heard her mumble something before quivering again. This time it was followed by a soft moan. Cindy was having an erotic dream. After a moment of mental debate, he gave in and started to lift up the quilts in hope of seeing her hips in action. As he did, the cold air in the room rushed in under the sheets and woke her up.
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