She nodded. “Halle made up a song. She makes up a song for everything. It used to drive me crazy. I try to remember some of them, but I can’t,” she whispered the last bit. “Having all of Halle’s artwork from school all over my Suburban was maddening. I remember getting on to her for it so many times. I wish to God I had just one piece of that now. That picture is all I have of them.”
Her blue eyes glistened, and I fought the urge to wrap my arms around her. Before that thought was complete, her soft, red hair was under my chin, and her hands were interlocked at the small of my back. It took me a moment to realize what was happening, but then I rested my cheek against her hair and squeezed her tight. She wept quietly in my arms, and I waited patiently until she stopped shaking.
She let go first, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was probably a weird thing to do.”
“Nothing is weird anymore,” I said with a half-smile.
She laughed, for maybe the first time since this all started. It sounded like music and sunshine. “That’s true.” Her eyes wandered back to the crest of the hill, and we waited in silence for a while until Zoe called for me. I left her alone to tend to my daughter. After an hour, Zoe tugged on my slacks.
“Is she going to stay out there all day?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Scarlet hadn’t moved. She watched the road like she was expecting her children to come over the hill at any moment.
Minutes later, Scarlet tore herself away and came back in, immediately checking the nails in the slats, and then finding things to organize or clean.
Miranda and Bryce emerged from their bedroom. Miranda’s eyes were swollen. It looked like she’d been crying again. Bryce was holding her hand, and squeezed it once before letting go to make them some breakfast.
“We should be careful what we consume,” Joey said. “We’ll probably have to go back to Shallot eventually for supplies.”
“Not for a while,” Bryce said, opening the cabinet. It was stocked full. “There is a pantry, too. A big one.”
“What about the water situation?” Joey asked.
“Well,” Ashley said, following Cooper out of her room. They were more affectionate toward one another than Bryce and Miranda. They reached out to touch each other recurrently, like a dolphin rising to the surface for air.
“Well what?” Joey said.
Ashley smiled. “Water well.”
“Is it electric?” Joey asked.
“The pump is,” Scarlet said. “Why?”
“How much longer will we have electricity, and what will we do for water when we don’t?” Joey said matter-of-factly.
Everyone traded glances. I felt the same way. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was only a matter of time before we were without power.
Ashley looked to Joey. “How much longer do you think we have?”
“It depends on if the operators and utilities had enough warning to take measures to keep things running for a while,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this area is run by a hydroelectric power station, otherwise we would have been off by now.”
“How do you know all of that?” Miranda asked.
“It’s what I do,” I said. “Or what I used to do. If operators had time to isolate key portions of the grid to reduce connections, and then terminate power delivery altogether to areas prone to potential drains, a hydro plant could easily function for weeks or months. In theory, they have an unlimited fuel supply, assuming normal rainfall. We’d basically be waiting for an essential component to fail or wear out.”
“So we should prepare,” Joey said. “We have food, we have weapons, but they won’t mean anything if we don’t have water.”
“Should we find containers and start filling them?” Cooper asked.
Joey nodded. “That will work for a while, but we’ll eventually need something more long-term. We need some kind of a water filtration system.”
Ashley sat at the table. “How much longer is this going to go on? It’s not permanent . . . is it? They’ll fix it.”
“Who’s they?” Joey asked.
“The government,” Cooper said.
Joey shook his head. “We shouldn’t assume this is temporary. We should take measures now to . . .”
“I’d just like to know who the f**k died and left you running the show,” Bryce said, cutting Joey off.
“Bryce . . . ,” Miranda said.
“Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “We’re all tired and stressed. I’m sure with the storm last night not many of us got much rest. Bryce, you’ve got a point. We need to work together and come up with a plan. Joey, you seem like you know what you’re talking about. You’ve had training?”
“He just got back from Afghanistan,” Miranda said. Her input only agitated Bryce more.
“Okay, then,” I said, trying to avoid a scene. “Joey, why don’t you look around and see what you can come up with? We’ll need to fashion some sort of water-holding cistern, and we’ll need to go into town for a hand-pumped water filter, replacement filters, and some purification tablets if we can find them.”
“That’s asking a lot,” Miranda said. “You would find all of that at a large camping outlet. The closest one I can think of is over two hours away.”
“I used to watch those preparation shows on TV,” Scarlet said. “They showed someone pouring water through sand once, and then putting cloth at the bottom. Sand is a really good filtration system. There is charcoal out back. We just need a large jug or barrel, gravel, sand, and charcoal and put some cloth at the mouth. Turn it upside down and voila! Water filter . . . that is, in theory.”
“That’s a pretty good theory,” I said with a small smile. She smiled back.
“It’s still a theory,” Bryce grumbled.
Joey glanced over at Bryce, his jaws working, and then nodded, leaving out the side door.
Miranda glared at Bryce, and then continued making her cereal.
Bryce held out his hands. “What?”
I noticed Scarlet had quietly excused herself to the porch, standing in the same place she had that morning, staring at the road. She wore a man’s T-shirt that swallowed her and a pair of navy scrub pants.
“Now I know why the bedroom is a mess,” I teased. “You raided the doctor’s wardrobe.”
Scarlet looked down at her haphazard appearance and absently pulled a lock of stray hair behind her ear and then smoothed the rest. “Just the one T-shirt,” she said. “I actually didn’t ransack his room. It was like that. I was going to clean it—I actually needed to after I’d cleaned everything else and ran out of things to do—but I decided it was his room, and for some reason I had to leave it the way it was. Maybe for the girls.”
“His girls?”
She nodded to confirm, but soon her eyebrows pulled together and I realized too late my casual question for clarification reminded her of who she was waiting for.
“I can’t imagine waiting for Zoe, wondering if she was okay, or if she was coming at all.”
Scarlet laughed once. “You’re not helping.”
“But you have to believe that they’re coming.”
She closed her eyes and a tear slipped from beneath one of her eyelids. “I do.” She looked at me. “Trust me, I believe it. Andrew was a terrible husband, and to be honest, he wasn’t that great of a father, but what he lacked in compassion and patience, he more than made up for in efficiency and sense. He’s smart. Quick witted, you know? He could think on his feet. If anyone can get my girls here, to me, it’s him.”