When the Pain is Gone

by P. A. Glaspy

  Gary smiled at the intelligent woman. “Yes, ma’am, we sure did, and instant milk, too. You reckon you could whip up some biscuits or cornbread to go with that soup, make it go a bit farther?”

  She grinned and nodded. “I reckon we could do that. There’s a big kitchen in there with the pots and pans we need to cook that big. I can’t do it by myself, mind you, but I can surely take charge of it if I can get some helpers.”

  Gary mouthed, “Thank you” to her and surveyed the crowd. “That sounds like a great plan to me. Who would like to volunteer to help Miss Loretta? This will be an everyday thing, people. Don’t offer if you aren’t willing to be here when she needs you. We’ll also need people to cut and haul wood for cook fires for them.”

  Dozens of hands raised, both men and women. “I’ll help.” “Me, too.” “Count me in, Sheriff.”

  Gary said, “That’s great. Everyone who wants to volunteer, see me after this meeting. We’ll get started first thing in the morning.”

  Silas whined, “But what about tonight? What about now? We’re barely getting enough to survive and all that food is in there …”

  Gary rolled his eyes. “Silas, you are not going to shrivel up and blow away before tomorrow. Go home, go to bed, and try not to think about food. You’ll make it. We are not going to waste a bite of this food. Now everyone who isn’t volunteering can go on home. Come by in the morning for an update.”

  There was some grumbling, but most of the people disbursed. The volunteers stayed and talked to Loretta, Gary, and Angie. A plan was made to start early the next morning on their first meal.

  There were a few hiccups at the beginning. Estimating how much they needed to make to feed all the people took some practice. They didn’t have ovens to bake bread in, so they started with a collection of Dutch ovens and skillets, cooking over an open fire. One of the men in town saw the dilemma and built them a large cob oven. They only served one meal a day in the late afternoon, so they had plenty of time to bake bread all day for them to have enough for the meal. Some of the fresh produce was used for the meal but anything that could be canned was done while the cooking was going on. The hunters brought in game for the meat used in the soups and stews. On Sundays, there was some type of cobbler or sheet cake if they could get their hands on some eggs. Loretta was in the middle of it, and seemed much younger than her eighty years. The townspeople were getting one good meal a day. With the gardens still young, that was more than Gary and Angie could have hoped for. Life in town became a bit more bearable.

  Chapter 12

  While you wouldn’t think there was much time for anything other than eating, sleeping, working, and security, the heart finds a way to wiggle itself into the mix. There were folks pairing off, including the teenagers. However, with four teenage boys and only one teenage girl on the farm, the competition was fierce. Matt and Nick didn’t seem particularly interested in Shannon; more like they were interested in giving Rusty and Ben a hard time about it.

  When Shannon showed up with her family, there was a marked change in our teenage boys. They seemed more concerned about their appearance and when they weren’t doing chores or working sentry duty, could usually be found in her vicinity. They began to argue over little things and seemed to be growing apart. I brought it up to Russ one evening while we were lying in bed not sleeping because it was sweltering in the room.

  “I hope they won’t let a girl destroy their friendship. They’ve been friends almost since they were babies. Maybe we should talk to Rusty.”

  “Stay out of it, Anne. They’ll work it out or they won’t. I’m pretty sure their friendship is strong enough to get through this, but you meddling in it won’t help. In fact, it could make it worse.”

  “How so? I just want my son to be happy. How could I make it worse? What if he needs to talk to someone? I want him to know he can talk to us about this or anything.”

  Russ turned to look at me. “What do you know about being a teenage boy?”

  I paused, then said, “Nothing, but—”

  “Nope, stop right there. You cannot understand what he’s going through. If he wants to talk to anyone, it will probably be me. And that will be on his time, not mine, or yours. Now, try to get some sleep.”

  I huffed. “In this heat? Doubtful.”

  He smiled, kissed me and rolled onto his side. “Night babe. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I rolled onto my side as well. A thought hit me and I looked over my shoulder at him. “You’ll tell me if he talks to you though, right?”

  He laughed. “Yes, dear, I’ll let you know. Good night.”

  ****

  “You’re a dick, Rusty. Get away from me. Leave me alone!” Ben stormed off to the sound of Rusty’s laughter and Shannon’s giggling.

  “That was mean, Rusty,” Shannon said, trying to be serious. “Guys don’t want other people to know stuff like that.”

  Rusty was still laughing as he watched Ben stomp up the porch stairs into the house. “Well, it’s not my fault he peed the bed until he was ten. It’s not like he still does it—I don’t guess.” He grinned at Shannon, who smiled back. “Anyway, he’ll get over it. You wanna go see the baby goats?”

  She nodded. “Oh yes, they’re so cute!” They walked toward the barn together, talking about their lives before the pulse, and what they missed from then.

  “I really miss gaming,” Rusty said, “and talking to my friends online.”

  “Yes! And texting. And selfies!” She held up an imaginary phone over their heads. They both stuck their tongues out as she pushed the imaginary button to take the imaginary photo. She pretended to show him the phone, at which point they both laughed and continued walking. “Do you think that stuff will come back, Rusty? I mean, if we had it once, we should be able to have it again, shouldn’t we?”

  He was slowly shaking his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. My dad thinks we will, but he said it could be years. Like, we could be grown-ups before we get the power back.”

  “Years? Oh my God! That’s like forever!”

  “I know,” Rusty replied. “We could be as old as our parents even.”

  The shocked look on Shannon’s face said that she hadn’t considered the situation could last that long. “Wow. I guess I never thought about the power not coming back in like a few months. That sucks.”

  “Yep, sure does.”

  “But, why will it take years? I mean, when the power went out from a storm, it was back on in no more than four or five hours, and that’s if the storm was really bad. Why is this going to take so long?”

  Rusty looked at her. “Well, from what my dad told me, the EMP took out all the transformers and sub stations and everything. Those things are real expensive, so there aren’t a bunch of replacements sitting around to fix the broken ones. Plus, the plants that make them don’t have power if they’re in this country, and we’d need to get them from some other country that still has power and could make them. Then, we’d have to wait for them to come over on cargo ships. Once they got here, we have another problem: the trucks that we need to haul them everywhere don’t run. We’re kind of screwed from all directions.”

  Shannon looked dejected. “Now I’m depressed. And that’s something else I miss—chocolate! Chocolate always makes me feel better when I’m sad. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some dark chocolate.”

  Rusty grinned at her. “Let me talk to my mom. She has some of just about everything stashed somewhere. Maybe she has some.”

  “Oh, Rusty, that would be awesome! Yes, please ask her!”

  He gave her a thumbs-up. “You got it.”

  ****

  From the kitchen, we heard the door slam then feet running up the stairs. Millie looked toward the front of the house. “What in the world? Sounds like an elephant going up the stairs.”

  I went to the living room and heard a door slam upstairs. I went up and the only door that was shut was the boys’ room. I knocked softly. From inside, Ben yelled, “Go a
way!” I opened the door a little and looked in. He was lying on his bed facing the wall with a pillow over his head. I stepped in, closed the door, and walked to where he lay.

  “Ben, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  He pulled the pillow tighter to his head. “I don’t want to talk about it! Leave me alone! Please!”

  “Ben, you know I’m not going to leave until you tell me what’s wrong. Would you rather talk to your mom, or your dad?”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone!”

  I sighed. “Ben, we’re in too tight of quarters here for there to be problems between people. Now tell me what you’re mad about. I mean it!” I changed to mom-in-charge voice for that last part.

  He snatched the pillow off his head and looked at me with eyes full of rage. “Your son and his big mouth! That’s what I’m mad about!”

  I was shocked. “What do you mean? What did he say?”

  With angry tears coursing down his face, Ben lowered his voice and replied, “He told Shannon about me wetting the bed until I was ten. And he laughed about it to my face.”

  Now I was the angry one—at my son. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry. He had no right to do that. He’ll be punished for it, I promise you that.”

  Ben shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Aunt Anne. It’s done. She’ll probably laugh about it every time she sees me now.” He looked like his heart was broken and I’m sure it was.

  “It does matter. I’ll talk to Shannon, too. There were medical reasons for your problem and Rusty damn well knows that. I won’t stand for him acting that way. You stay here until you calm down. He will apologize to you, in front of her.”

  I stormed out of the room, preparing to go to the door and yell for Rusty. As luck would have it, he was coming in with Shannon. The smile on his face immediately faded when he saw the mom look. I was livid, but I tried to calm myself. “Rusty, come with me. Shannon, please excuse us.” I jerked my head toward the stairs. Looking down at his feet, Rusty slowly started climbing. I gave him a little shove and hissed through clenched teeth, “Get your ass to our room now!”

  He walked into mine and Russ’s bedroom, turned to face me, and immediately started making excuses. “Mom, it was an accident; it just kind of slipped out.”

  With my hands on my hips, I glared at him. “If it was an accident, why were you laughing?”

  Now Rusty was getting perturbed. “I can’t believe he ratted me out. Some friend …”

  “Friend? Friend? What kind of friend are you? You embarrassed him in front of Shannon! How do you think you’d feel if the shoe was on the other foot?”

  “But I didn’t wet the bed.”

  “You sucked your thumb until you were six, right before you met Ben. Do you think it would be funny if that were told to Shannon? Not only that, but you know Ben had a bladder problem that took surgery to correct. He had no control over it. Now why would you do that to him, your supposed best friend?”

  “I told you, Mom, it just slipped out. Besides, he called me a dick. That wasn’t nice either.”

  I stopped for a moment. “No, it wasn’t, but unfortunately it’s true. I’m very disappointed in you, Rusty. You will apologize to Ben, in front of Shannon. You will explain that it was a medical condition. And you are on rabbit hutch and chicken coop cleaning duty for two weeks. Every day, by yourself.”

  His eyes got wide. “What? That’s the little kids’ chores.”

  “Well, maybe when you stop acting like a little kid, you’ll be treated like the young adult you are supposed to be. I want you to stay up here and think about what you’ve done to a boy who has been like a brother to you almost your entire life because you were trying to impress a girl. When you come down, be ready to try to fix this. Do you understand me, young man?”

  With his head down, he softly replied, “Yes ma’am. And Mom?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  I headed for the door. “I’m sorry you did, too.”

  ****

  As happens with kids, Ben forgave Rusty easily, which seemed to impress Shannon, so much so that she and Ben began spending quite a bit of time together alone. Trips to pick berries or gather apples became longer and longer. Rusty was crushed at first. His attempt to secure her affections by trying to make Ben look less of a man in her eyes apparently backfired and made her draw closer to Ben. But his brotherly love for Ben, his best friend for most of his life, won out over his puppy love for Shannon. Seeing them together, he knew what they shared was something special.

  I was walking back from the chicken coop after checking on a batch of new chicks when Rusty came up to me. “Mom, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, honey. What’s up?”

  “How do you know when you’re really in love?”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Wait, what?”

  He laughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  Making sure my heart continued to beat, I replied, “No, no, it’s okay, you just caught me off guard. Um, let’s go sit at the table.”

  We walked over to the table and sat down across from each other. “So, what’s brought this on?”

  He looked down. “I thought I was in love with Shannon, I really did. My stomach did this fluttery thing whenever I saw her. But now, she looks at Ben the way I think I looked at her. And he looks at her the same way. I thought I was in love but I guess she wasn’t. Not with me anyway.”

  A mother’s instinct is to protect her children—from harm, from pain, anything and everything. I had a slight twinge of anger at this young woman who had broken my son’s heart; maybe bruised it anyway. But you can’t help who you fall in love with. It wasn’t her fault. I looked at my son, almost a man, which was scary enough. Yet that little boy who used to pick weed flowers and bring them to me, who crawled up in my lap to snuggle when he was sick, who stuffed dozens of rocks in his pockets that didn’t always get discovered before entering the washing machine—he was there as well. I struggled for the right words to ease his pain and prepare him for the right girl to come along.

  “Well, I think sometimes it’s hard to know if it’s love, or lust, or attraction, or infatuation, at least at first. Your dad and I hung out as friends before we started dating. We went to movies, talked on the phone all the time, studied together, those kinds of things. When we finally figured out we wanted to start dating, be a real couple, we already knew each other so well, it was just a natural progression. Your dad is my best friend, and he feels the same about me. There is nothing we don’t know about each other. For me, I knew when I looked at him one day and saw us as an old married couple, sitting on a porch, with grandkids running all over. I could see it as clear as I can see you right now. So, it may be different for everybody. I just know what it was for me.”

  Rusty looked thoughtful. “What about Dad? When did he know?”

  I giggled. “According to him, it was with the first taste of my turkey and dressing. Which is probably why every year at Thanksgiving he proclaims, ‘I’d marry you again for this dressing!’ ”

  We both laughed at the memory of the annual occurrence. After a moment, he said, “Do you think I’ll know, Mom? When the right one comes along?”

  I reached across the table for his hand. “Without a doubt, honey. Your heart won’t let you down.”

  He nodded his head, got up, walked over to me, and wrapped me in a hug. I hadn’t gotten a hug like that from him in a long time. When he finally released me, he looked down at my face (when did he get so tall?) and with a smile replied, “Thanks Mom. Love you.”

  I replied with my standard, “Love you more.” He walked away, leaving me there to contemplate the fact that my little boy was becoming a man. I don’t think I was any more ready for that than I was to live without electricity. I had the same amount of control over both. None.

  Chapter 13

  Les walked out of the office he had taken for himself, his perpetual bad mood apparent on his face. T
he store they had boarded up to look vacant was still working as a living and storage facility. There was a distinct smell of unwashed bodies permeating the area, an issue that added to his discontent. If we’re all gonna keep living here, these jerkwads are gonna have to find a way to wash their nasty asses. To make matters even more irritating for him, since their run from the confrontation with the people from that last neighborhood, his men had been less than enthusiastic about any more looting. Ray offered his reasoning for their stance.

  “Les, man, we got tons of supplies. We don’t have to take chances like that no more. We lost two guys out there. There ain’t no reason to lose anybody else.”

  Les shoved him away, the smell of sweat and filth almost too much for him to bear. “Yeah, right, we got tons of supplies. The food might last us six months, maybe up to a year. Even gettin’ rid of those skank bitches ain’t gonna make that much difference. What happens then? You think the stores are going to magically fill back up? Or were you not planning to live longer than that? And what about water? Have you found some magical fountain that’s flowing without electricity? Obviously not, from the way you look and smell. Get it through your thick skull, dumbass. There ain’t no more deliveries. There won’t be any manufacturing plants making canned corn or chicken noodle soup. Whatever is out there is all there is. If we don’t get it now, someone else will. So, you’d rather fight people for their supplies than get them the easy way, from the places nobody came back to? Think! This is the easy pickings. It’s only gonna get harder the longer this lasts.”

  Ray glanced down at his filthy shirt and jeans. “Well, when we find some water we don’t need to drink, I might be able to wash up some. Hey, what about that place that was locked up tight as a fortress? We never went back there. I bet there’s something really good in there, or in one of those houses beside it. It ain’t but a couple of miles from here. You know those guys ain’t there no more. Hell, there wasn’t hardly anybody on that street anyway. We should go check that out.”