‘That’s where you are wrong,’ Georgia snapped, ‘you are part of this, you knew and yet you said nothing, so you can get right back in here, while we sort this out.’
Not waiting to see if he was doing as she asked, she turned back to Lola. ‘So you put the girls up to this?’ Even as she said the words, she realized she knew the answer. She suddenly recalled Lola’s insistence of going outside with the girls to feed the dogs. Their whispered conversation, and the way they had all started guiltily when she came up to them. ‘Why would you do something like that?’
‘Like Jamie said, it’s no big deal. Tom was boasting about all his supplies when he thought he might interest me in staying. I told him I didn’t believe him, so he took me on a tour, and believe me he had more than enough to spare.’
‘I don’t care how much he had, it wasn’t ours to take.’ She spoke slowly, deliberately, anger threatening to take over the last vestige of her self-control. She felt her face suddenly flame as she imagined Tom’s reaction when he discovered what they had done. He would think of them as thieves and lowlife.
Then an even more horrible thought occurred to her. What if he had he already known? Was that why he was so keen to see them go? Why he had whispered those awful things to Lola? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Lola snorted. ‘I could care less whose it was. I took the decision that we needed extra food. He had it and we took some.’
Georgia shook her head. ‘You should have discussed it with me first. We are supposed to be working together, as a group.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Lola snapped. ‘Well, what you think doesn’t amount to a hill of beans and that’s why we didn’t tell you. You and your stupid ideas about not stealing. In case you haven’t noticed, we are trying to survive, and not by some dumb rule book, whereby you tiptoe around leaving stupid I.O.U.s all over the damn place. As if any of that matters anymore, just sayin.’
‘There is nothing wrong with having a code of ethics. We are not savages, and no matter what you think, you still should have discussed it with me first,’ Georgia persisted.
‘Why, so you could stop us? Anyway, it’s not like we got caught. I was careful, I kept Tom busy, and my girl Rebecca here, with a bit of tuition, stayed in the kitchen flirting with Bryce while Deedee snuck down into the underground store rooms.’
Georgia listened, slowly absorbing the full extent of the scheming that had gone on behind her back and the duplicity towards the man who had been their host. All the while becoming more and more incensed with what she was hearing.
Suddenly all her good intentions to remain cool, calm and collected, vanished as a white hot rage overwhelmed her.
‘Have you lost your fucking mind?’ she spat, not giving a damn about the children’s shocked faces, or Deedee’s accusatory, ‘you swore’, or even the sight of the three Boston terriers sitting under the table, shaking visibly and clearly terrified. She was furious and on a roll. To hell with cool, calm and collected. ‘Firstly let me remind you, that these children are all minors, left in my care. My care, not yours, and secondly, Rebecca is not your girl, and how dare you encourage a thirteen year old girl to flirt and carry on with a virtual stranger. For God’s sake, he could have done anything to her! What the hell is wrong with you?’
Lola started to say something, but Georgia held up her hand, practically snarling at her, ‘it was a rhetorical question, so don’t you dare say a word. I heard you out, and now you are going to listen to me. You have no bloody right to go behind my back and tell an eight year old to sneak into someone’s storeroom and steal. Hell, if Tom had caught her, he would have had the full right to shoot her, the full right in fact, to shoot all of us.’
Lola laughed, a harsh sound. ‘As if.’
Georgia slammed the flat of her palm down on the table, making everyone jump. ‘Not as if, looters get shot. That is how it is.’
There was a stunned silence in the room. Georgia’s hand stung like hell, her eyes smarting with the pain. She desperately wanted to massage her fingers, but she couldn’t do that without the others seeing, and there was no way in hell she was going to acknowledge how much that had actually hurt.
She breathed in, counting slowly in her mind, trying to calm down. This was not the way to resolve anything. One, breathe in, two, breathe out, three….
Jamie picked up several of the freeze dry packets from the floor, carefully laying them on the table then stood with his hands clenching the back of Deedee’s chair. ‘She’s partly right, Lola, you shouldn’t have got Deedee…,’
Lola gave a derisive snort at this, but Jamie continued speaking undeterred, ‘or my sister involved and you should have…,’
At this, Rebecca stood up, pushing her chair back so violently that she knocked it over. ‘You don’t speak for me, and you don’t know what you are talking about.’
Jamie held up his hand in a soothing gesture. ‘Whoa, calm down, you’re my sister and of course I…,’
‘I will not calm down,’ she yelled, ‘Lola was only looking out for us, so there’s no need for Georgia to be such a bitch. No wonder Dad had a girlfriend on the side!’
Georgia froze at Rebecca’s words, barely able to comprehend what she had just heard, as Deedee leapt to her feet, practically climbing over the table, trying to get at Rebecca. Jamie caught hold of her, forcing her back into her chair. Breaking free from his grasp, she lunged out of her chair again, glaring at Rebecca.
‘That was supposed to be a secret and you promised,’ she said, ‘you promised not to tell.’
Rebecca turned to her. ‘Yeah, well a secret is only a secret if only one person knows it, and anyway I bet he was planning to leave Georgia, and I wish he had, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.’ With that, she stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door so hard behind her that a picture flew of the wall, and crashed to the floor, the frame smashing to pieces.
For a moment Georgia thought she was going to faint. Her husband had been having an affair, and everyone knew except her! Lola tried to draw her in for a hug, saying something about how sorry she was, and how she hadn’t known how to tell her, but she pushed her away, blinded by unwanted tears. And as she fled from the kitchen she heard Deedee calling after her, ‘I’m really sorry, I kind of…,’ but she didn’t hear the rest. Instead she walked outside, closed the door quietly behind her and followed the path round to the back of the house.
She sat on one of the rails of the corral, barely taking in her surroundings, wondering what dreadful things she had done in a past life to deserve this. As if the whole Three-eighteen wasn’t enough, there had been the mobs, and the man she had shot, would she ever get that image out of her mind? The house blowing up, that dreadful encounter with Jamie and Rebecca’s grandfather, this whole nightmare of a journey trying to get the kid’s safely to Bethel. And for what?
Now the kids hated her, Lola was a loose cannon, and the group was running wild and out of control. Ruby was the only one who was behaving sanely lately, and yet she was the craziest of them all. God knew what her befuddled brain was making of this fight. And all the time she had been struggling to survive, struggling to keep the children alive, her low down cheating husband had been doing the dirty with some skanky tart.
She dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her t-shirt. Why was she doing this? If the kids didn’t want to be with her, perhaps she should just leave. Take the dogs, her share of the gear and food, and move on. But even as she thought that, she knew she would never be able to leave the children behind. Morally, if for no other reason, she was responsible for them, pity Nathan didn’t understand the meaning of the word, and anything else was just muddying the waters.
Suddenly she became aware of someone standing in front her, skinny legs in muddied boots and faded jeans, and a trembling hand holding out her cigarettes and a lighter. She looked up, surprised.
Rebecca stood there. ‘Here, I brought you these.’
She took them silently, cupping her hand as she lit a ciga
rette. Rebecca sat down next to her and they stayed like that for quite a while. Georgia smoked her cigarette looking out over the fields, and taking in the barn for the first time. An impressive Pennsylvania style structure, painted a deep red.
Rebecca finally spoke, her words tentative. ‘I didn’t mean what I said, about wishing Dad would have left you. The other stuff was true though, about Dad seeing someone. I knew before Deedee told me. I caught him on the phone to her one day, you were making lunch and he was in the yard. He made me promise not to tell you, because he said he didn’t want to lose you, and he swore he would end it. But I guess he didn’t.’
Georgia took another drag of her cigarette, then slowly exhaled, ‘it’s okay, we all say things we shouldn’t’
‘Yeah, you and Lola sure did.’
Georgia laughed softly. ‘Yes, I guess we did. I was pretty mad at her.’
‘I’m sorry about that too, I didn’t think it through, but I didn’t kiss Bryce or anything like that.’
Georgia slipped her arm across Rebecca’s shoulders and pulled her close, ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ She wanted to add words of advice, like flirting should never be used as a tool or a weapon, and that kind of thing should be kept for when you are in love, but instead she remained silent. There was time enough to teach Rebecca about that part of life.
They both turned as they heard footsteps on the gravel and Jamie and Deedee came into view.
‘Are we good?’ Jamie asked, as he hunkered down in front of them.
‘Yes, we are all good,’ Georgia said, holding out her free arm for Deedee to come sit by her.
‘What’s Lola doing?’ Georgia asked as Jamie picked a stalk of grass and began chewing the end.
‘She’s being a bit snarky.’
‘How so?’
‘She’s heating up some refried beans for her and Ruby, and brewing up a pot of coffee. She told me seeing as how you are in charge of us, we better get you to feed us, because she won’t be.’
‘Actually what she said,’ Deedee interjected, ‘was you can kiss her ruby red chicken-fried ass before she lets you touch her coffee.’
‘Jamie nodded. ‘Yeah, Ruby looked really confused about that.’
‘So normal then,’ Georgia said.
Deedee giggled. ‘Yeah pretty much.’ Then she looked serious. ‘I got you a present Georgia, but you have to promise not to get mad at me, cause it’s one of the things I hossed from Tom.’
‘Georgia bit her lip, trying not to smile, Deedee was irrepressible, and what was done was done, it wasn’t like they were going to take the stuff back. ‘Okay I promise…, wait, it’s not like something really valuable or sentimental to Tom is it?’
‘Deedee shook her head. ‘Nope, he had lots more.’
‘In that case, I promise.’
‘Be right back.’
They waited as Deedee ran off.
After a moment, Jamie stood up, ‘Do you think that maybe we should head on to Bethel on our own, without Lola I mean?’
Georgia looked at him, a little surprised by his suggestion.
‘I don’t know, let’s see how things pan out over the next day or so. It’s a big decision. Right now, Lola’s angry, because she is on the back foot, she knows what she did was irresponsible, and to be honest I didn’t handle things too well either. Getting angry like I did, never fixes anything, it only enflames a situation.’
Deedee came racing round the side of the house, something hidden behind her back. ‘Okay, so shut your eyes and put out both your hands.’
Georgia did as instructed, hoping that nothing slimy or nasty was going to be deposited on her palms. With Deedee you never knew. She delighted in the oddest things.
She felt something large and cylindrical, and opened her eyes, to see a large metal container. She turned it to read the label.
Best Virginia Gold Tobacco seeds, and underneath in smaller print, ‘guaranteed to remain fresh in can for ten years.’
She stared at it in disbelief. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you know what this means?’
‘Yeah, well you are kind of getting low on cigarettes, at least this way, you will still be able to have a smoke from time to time. And there goes any hope of being forced to cold turkey.
‘Once we plant the seeds anyway,’ Rebecca interjected.
‘And providing they grow,’ Jamie added.
‘Yes, there is that, but this means much more, this means that once we are settled in Bethel, we can plant out a crop, and if it is successful, we will always have something to trade.’
Suddenly the future seemed brighter, and despite knowing she had to go back into the house and face a super-pissed southern belle, the dramas of the day no longer seemed quite so important.
And as to what she thought of Nathan. Well for now, he could…, how had Lola put it? Yes, he could kiss her ruby red chicken-fried ass, for all she cared. She had more important things to worry about, than who he was playing hide the sausage with.
Chapter Fifty Five
The dogs greeted her enthusiastically when they returned indoors. Clearly they had forgiven her for her outburst. Georgia scooped Ant into her arms, hugging her close, as she made her way into the kitchen, expecting another battle. But the room was empty. There were dirty dishes in the sink, two empty cans of refried beans sitting on top of the trash can and a pot on the stove. The leftovers congealed and slightly burnt, where it had caught on the bottom. Well at least there is gas!
The foil packets had all gone, although the caddy was still lying where she had left it, half empty now. When she went to retrieve the cans of spam, as the poor dogs had still not been fed, she realized that Lola’s backpack was also missing.
‘Has Lola left then?’ she asked, as she began opening the cans.
‘I’ll go check,’ Rebecca said, scurrying out of the room. She was back less than two minutes later.
‘She’s still here, she says that she and Ruby will be sleeping in the back bedroom.’
Georgia shrugged her shoulders, as she set down three small plates with slices of spam for the dogs, watching as they wolfed it down. If that’s how she wants to play it that’s fine.
After they had eaten, water had been fetched so they could wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen. That done Georgia collected up the smashed pieces of the frame. Fortunately the painting had not been damaged. The frame though, was beyond repair, but without glue there was not a lot she could do about it. Regretfully she placed the pieces carefully in a drawer, propping the small picture on a shelf. Finally that done, the four of them went down to the river, to bathe, comb out their tangled hair and change.
In the living room Deedee found a shelf of children’s books, and selecting one she brought it over to Georgia. ‘Could you read to us? Like you used to.’
She gave a little smile. ‘Okay if that is what you would like.’
The four of them settled on the big bed in the master bedroom with the dogs stretched out between them, Ant snuggled under one arm. And with the pillows propped up behind them, she turned to the first page of ‘The voyage of the Dawn Treader’, by C.S. Lewis and began to read.
‘There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it’. Losing herself in the words of a book that she had loved as a child, she read on until the last of the daylight faded away and it was becoming too dark to read. By then Deedee and Rebecca were fast asleep, Deedee sucking her thumb. Jamie’s rhythmic breathing telling her he was practically asleep as well.
She silently slipped out of bed, careful not to wake them or the sleeping dogs and tiptoed into the hallway. She retrieved her shotgun from the kitchen, chiding herself for forgetting it there, she was getting as bad as the others with her carelessness, and made her way to the back bedroom. She tapped softly on the door. After a moment the door was opened a crack by Lola.
‘The others are asleep, I’ll take the first watch, and if it’s okay with you, I will wake you up in four hours.’
‘Sure thing,’ Lola said, her tone neutral. Then she shut the door before Georgia could say anything else.
Still mad at me then. She slowly made her way round the house, checking windows, making sure that everything was locked up securely. Then she sat in the living room, her shotgun over her knees. Thinking back over the day, flushing with embarrassment as she remembered how she had yelled at Lola. She had really lost it.
Then she thought of Nathan. Her raw anguish at Rebecca’s words, the truth of Deedee’s secret. How did Deedee even know, and for that matter, how had her sister in law known? Had Nathan told her? It seemed unlikely, an affair was not really something one talked openly about. Not unless…, she forced herself to finish the thought, not unless he had been serious about this other woman, and he really had been planning to leave her.
How had she not seen this coming? But she had, hadn’t she. She had chosen to shut her eyes to it. She thought again of the early morning appointments, how his shirt had smelled that night after she had picked it up from the bathroom floor. The times she had rung him and he had not answered, telling her later that his phone had run out of battery power, or that he had left his phone at the office, and once, that he had accidently switched it off. How do you even do that?
Had he been with her all those times? Surely not. Then she thought of the credit card statement, the condoms, and the lingerie and she felt like crying all over again. How could someone she loved and trusted so deeply, be so deceitful. He hadn’t even kissed her goodbye that last morning, no doubt too preoccupied with thoughts about kissing that faceless other woman. Was it someone she knew? His secretary, or someone else he worked with? Perhaps a waitress from the café where he sometimes met his clients?
She stood abruptly, refusing to think about it any longer. What was the point? And in comparison to Three-eighteen, her husband having an affair seemed trivial and unimportant, and it was with a shock that she suddenly realized that aside from acknowledging her somewhat bruised ego, she really didn’t care. What really mattered was the here and now.
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