All That Remains. Janice Johnson Kay
smell the bacon.
Wren sighed. Hungry as she was, she’d give up breakfast for a hot shower.
“Oh, well, we don’t even have soap.”
Alec laughed, a low, husky sound. “What would you do with it if you had it? You can’t tell me you want me to dip some floodwater up for you to bathe in.”
Wren scrunched up her nose. “I suppose it’s cold.”
“Safe to say.” The humor left his face. “Not very sanitary, either. The town septic system got overwhelmed, and God knows what’s floating around out there.” He rose to his feet as easily as if he hadn’t spent the night on a hard floor the way she had. “It’s not raining.”
“No. I noticed it quit.”
“Damn,” he said softly. “I should have filled some jars with rainwater yesterday.”
“Will we run out of water?”
He went to the window. “No.” The tension in his voice had dissipated. “No, it’s still drizzling. I’ll start collecting water.”
He figured out how to hang a jar out the window before coming back to discuss breakfast.
“I’ll have apple and cinnamon,” she decided.
“Not chocolate?”
“Who has chocolate for breakfast?”
He chose peanut butter. Suspicious, she asked if he was trying to leave the tastiest ones for her, but he insisted he didn’t care. There were more peanut-butter bars than either of the other flavors, so that’s what he’d eat.
Then, before Cupcake fell asleep, they took advantage of daylight to refold and smooth their bedding, pile the wet or bloody clothes in one place, sort through what was left for suitable diaper or menstrual pad material and continue searching boxes for anything that might be the tiniest bit useful.
“Hah!” Alec exclaimed when he unearthed a trunk of old quilts.
Taking them out, one by one, Wren breathed, “Ooh, look at these. They’re handworked. This one is from the 1920s, I think. Look at these fabrics. And I’ll bet this one’s even older. Alec, the fabric is so fragile. I hate to use them.”
“I don’t.” While she still kneeled in front of the trunk, he lifted out the entire pile and carried it to their pallet. “I don’t know about you, but my whole body hurts. That floor was hard.”
She giggled a little at his indignation. “Didn’t you ever camp?”
“You mean outside? Good God, no. I’m a city boy.”
“You don’t look like a city boy,” she said thoughtfully.
He glanced at himself. His jeans were faded and fit as if molded for him. They were also dirty, the denim stiff from wetting and drying—probably repeatedly. The equally well-worn red chamois shirt stretched across broad shoulders. It had a long tear above one cuff. He was walking around in saggy wool socks. His dark hair stuck out in every direction. The dark stubble on his cheeks was going to be a beard in another day or two.
In fact, he’d confessed as he dug through boxes, that he was wishing for a razor. Even an old-fashioned straight razor.
“Dull would be okay,” he’d muttered.
“Remember? No soap.”
“I just want to scrape it off.” He cast a look of dislike toward the first-aid kit. “If the scissors would just open farther—”
“I have that knife.”
“Did you look at it? It’s worse than dull.”
She shook her head, then smiled. “You look good in a beard.”
He scowled. “I itch.”
He found no razor. She’d noticed him scratching his cheeks and jaw unhappily every now and again.
By the time his watch told them it was midday, he’d filled several jars with rainwater. Finally, he hung a white sheet out the window again as a signal, the way she had…was it only yesterday?
While she nursed Cupcake again, Alec spread two of the three quilts atop their pallet.
“So, I think it’s time I give Cupcake a real name. Before she starts kindergarten and the other kids make fun of her.”
Alec grinned, as she’d expected he would. She loved his smiles, each and every one of them. The corners of those blue eyes crinkled, the creases in his lean cheeks deepened and the sense that smiles came rarely for him warmed something inside her.
“Might be a plan.”
Cupcake’s mouth slipped from her breast and Wren decided she had to change her diaper-slash-outfit. Alec saw what she was doing and picked out a man’s white T-shirt which he deftly ripped so that they could pass one fold between the baby’s legs and then tie it over her tummy. Wren had to laugh when she saw the final result. Cupcake gazed fuzzily at her as if bemused by the sound.
“The latest in baby wear.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should go into business.”
“Well…we could advertise in survivalists’ magazines.”
He gave a hearty laugh. “I could submit one of those housekeeping tips to them, too. Multiple uses for canning jars.”
Wren laughed, too, feeling ridiculously happy. Hungry, yes, but still happy.
“I want to name her after you.” Ignoring his stunned expression, she suggested, “Alexa? Only that’s not quite right. Alisha? Why didn’t you have one of those convenient names that’s easily convertible to a female version? Like Robert to Roberta, or…”
“Edwin to Edwina? What a hideous thought.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Definitely not Edwina. That sounds like my grandmother or something.”
“I had a Great-Aunt Edwina. Also a Great-Aunt Pearl.”
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