No Such Thing as Time

I get dressed again. Long underwear pants, then jeans. Boot socks. Undershirt, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt.

Always dress in layers now. I feel like I’m never going to be warm again. Well maybe next summer if we survive the winter, and then, of course, I’ll just complain about the heat. Welcome to the midwest where we’re never satisfied with the weather.

When I go downstairs it’s quiet. I know what Eddie has going on in his head, wonder what Amanda and Spencer are thinking about.

Eddie is filling his backpack with bullets. He doesn’t ask me where the cans are that he had in there, I’m sure he knows.

I don’t want to go practice shooting. I know it’s something we need to do, but I hate that we need to. After this morning I don’t want to know what the rest of the world is like now. I like my own little world that exists only here at the farm.

“Where are we doing this?” I ask Eddie.

“We won’t go far. Just out in the field, I guess. Practice for a little while today, then maybe every day for the next few days.”

“Yeah,” I mumble.

I stand at the sink staring out into the backyard. I close my eyes. If I think hard enough when I open them this will all have been a dream.

I think about my dad. When I open my eyes he’ll be coming out of the barn, walking towards the house. He’ll look up and see me and smile.

If it’s cold out, I’ll pour him a cup of coffee and set it at his place at the table, if it’s warm out I’ll do the same but with lemonade or iced tea.

I’ll ask him if he’s hungry and he’ll say ‘No’ but could probably manage a small piece of pie or cake or whatever my mom or I have made recently.

I’ll sit down to talk to him while he eats and he’ll remind me that he can’t eat alone. And then, of course, I remind him that I don’t want to be fat.

When my mom was alive and healthy she would be either busying herself with laundry or cooking, and we would all sit and talk, enjoy each other’s company. We’d talk about the new animals if it was spring, or talk about the holidays if it was winter.

Once she was bedridden, and after she died, it was more talk about school and what we needed from the store.

I miss my parents.

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly. I just have to think hard, try to wish my life back to how it was.

I feel someone wrap their arms around my waist, nuzzle my neck and then kiss it.

“Are you alright Mara? You seem lost in thought,” I hear Eddie say.

NO! I think in my head. It can’t be him. He ruined it. Now my wish won’t come true.

I open my eyes to what I knew I would see. Cold and bleak outside. Tim’s truck parked out there. I really want to break down and cry, but what’s the point.

I try to concentrate on what Eddie is telling me. Try to shoot like he wants. But I have one thing on my mind. I try to push that thought out. I can’t be pregnant. What would I even do with a baby? I don’t know how to take care of a baby. Never have been around babies ever. And really how many times have we fucked? Six? I should remember this, it hasn’t really been that many times. Ten at the most, or maybe twelve, but not that many. But yeah I know it only takes once. One fuck at the wrong time of the month and I’m pregnant.

“MARA! Jesus, you almost shot my fucking head off,” I hear Eddie scream.

I look over at him. Realize I have the gun in my hands pointing right at him.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

He roughly grabs the gun out of my hands. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you today, you’ve been spacing out. Not a good thing to do when you have a gun in your hands. Go home until you have your head on straight,” he screams and walks away.

I feel like he slapped me. Actually slapping me would have been better, I hate when people talk to me like that. Hate being chastised, especially in front of other people. My cheeks burn. I know they’re red.

I turn around and start walking towards the house.

What an asshole. I hate when he treats me like a baby. Okay yeah, I possibly almost shot him. In the head? I don’t think my aim is that good. I guess depending on how close he was. Honestly, I don’t remember even seeing him. Or maybe I did. Maybe I meant to shoot him in his stupid head for what he did to me…maybe…I’m still not sure. I’m only a day late, really it could just be because we don’t eat much. I won’t say my body is in starvation mode, but it is used to more food every day.

When I get back in the house I realize how stupid we were to leave the fire in the fireplace and the stove with a fire in it. Next time we need to leave at least one person inside. I’ll volunteer I think. I suck at shooting anyway.

I tend to both the fires, add some wood. I can’t believe how lucky we were the house didn’t burn down. What would we do if the house catches on fire? It’s not like we can call the fire department.

I remember two years ago one of our neighbor’s houses burned down. Since we live so far out from town it takes a while for anyone to get to us. They lost everything. It was the day before Thanksgiving and I felt so badly for them that it happened on a holiday, well near a holiday. Of course, everyone said they were lucky everyone got out of the house since they had family from out of town there at the time, but the whole house and everything in it were gone.

At the time I was so sad for them for losing their stuff. I thought about how upset I would be to lose my clothes, my cell phone, my laptop, and now that seems so stupid to me since I have lost all of that stuff. Well not my clothes, but it’s not like I wake up and spend ten minutes trying to decide what to wear. Now I get dressed to be warm. Dress for what I need to do. Maybe I should spend a day going through my closet and get rid of stuff I doubt I’ll ever wear now like my prom dress that I never got to wear.

My mind wanders to Thanksgiving. I wonder if we missed it? Maybe we should plan a Thanksgiving celebration, we do have a lot to be thankful for, mostly because of my family. I mean really it’s true if it weren’t for my family, my dad mostly, we would all be screwed now.

Maybe I’ll bring it up to them. We could have a feast of sorts. I can roast a chicken. I wish we had a ham, but a roasted chicken would be good. If we milk the cow or a goat I could make mashed potatoes. Gravy too. I know we have some canned sweet potatoes, and they aren’t as good as fresh, but they’ll do. I can sweeten them, but we don’t have marshmallows.

I could make some sort of dressing. Make bread and we have some onion, no celery but I think it will be okay.

We would need a dessert. I can make a cake, probably some sort of icing for it.

I’m excited thinking about it all. I hope everyone else is too.

They’ll probably say no, we’re wasting food. I can hear Eddie saying that now. Maybe we could invite Scott and his family? How would they get here? No. No way would Eddie even consider the idea of them being here. And really do I want Scott here after what Eddie told me?

I guess it better just be us celebrating…but maybe I could sneak some food over to them. Not sure how that would be possible unless I take the truck, there’s no way I could walk there.

I get the notebook and pen we use for inventory and menus and sit down to start making a list to see what we actually could make. I don’t think we should go overboard but we could make a few more things than we usually eat during a day.

I look through the inventory list.

I could make green bean casserole too.

We have cornmeal we picked up somewhere, maybe I could make cornbread. I’ve never made it before, but maybe I can figure out how. If it comes out bad I could use it in the dressing.

I can hear them still shooting. Somehow it’s comforting. Maybe it’s because I know as long as I hear the gunshots, I know they won’t be back soon. I like being alone sometimes. I think if I was alone forever, I’d end my life, but to have an hour or so alone is like heaven.

As much as I love Eddie, and I do think I love him, he can get on my nerves when we’re together twenty-four hours a day every day.

I make a menu for Thanksgiving. I’m going to cook it no matter what anyone else says. But I do feel bad about that. That first day we said we would all decide stuff together and here I am deciding to use a lot of food on one day.

Roast Chicken

Mashed Potatoes W/Gravy

Sweet Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Dressing

Cornbread

Cake?

I need to make bread a day or two in advance so I can dry it out for dressing.

I’m going to milk the cow and try to make butter. Maybe add cream to the potatoes.

I think we should plan for a week from now. That gives me time to prep the stuff I need. Make enough bread, milk the cow for enough cream for potatoes, and to make butter too.

I mark out what we had planned in the menu for a week from now and write in Thanksgiving. Fuck them if they don’t like it.

It’s quiet. I wonder if they’re finished practicing? Wonder if they had any luck teaching Amanda how to shoot?

Maybe I should start dinner. I had planned tuna casserole. Need to boil the noodles a bit, but I can do that while I’m mixing the other stuff together.

I decide to start dinner, gets me out of having to do anything else that I’d rather not do, and if Eddie’s still pissy at me for almost blowing his head off then I can just tell him I’m busy and to leave me alone.

I set a pot of water on the stove to get hot while I start opening cans and mixing the rest of the stuff together.

The can opener is starting to be hard to work. We need to find a new one, or two? How will we open cans if we can’t find one?

I know Eddie has one in his backpack, but he has it with him.

We need to grab some spares when we come across them.

I can hear them all talking so they are on their way home. I sometimes feel like the odd person out, like they all have secrets they don’t share with me. I hate that. It makes me wish that Eddie and Spencer had never come, that it was just Amanda and me here without them. We would have been okay.

I hear them walk up the back steps, I busy myself with making dinner.

They’re all laughing when they come inside. I could ask them what’s so funny, but honestly, I don’t really care.

Eddie comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me, kisses the back of my neck.

“Does this mean you forgive me for almost shooting you?” I ask him.

“Yeah. I’m hoping you weren’t really trying to kill me. You seemed pretty distracted. Everything alright?”

I nod my head.

I hear him sigh. “We can talk later tonight when we go upstairs.”

Do I want to tell him what’s been on my mind? I’ll feel really stupid if I say something to him and I’m wrong.

I turn around to face him, kiss his cheek. “I’m fine. Just worried about food and stuff I guess. And what we saw this morning. I know we can’t save everyone, but I feel like shit about it. Those are my neighbors, my friends, and I can’t do anything to help them.”

“You’re going to have to get used to that though. We’ll probably come across people at times, and we can’t help them. If we help one, then we’ll want to help another and it will keep going. And you need to realize that at some point we may have to kill someone. Someone you may have known before. If it comes down to them or us, we have to choose us, Mara.”

“I know that, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I kind of wish this was like a zombie thing, you know what I mean? It would be easier to kill zombies than people I know,” I say trying to explain it all to him.

He nods his head, pulls me to him. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard it must be. It’s been hard enough to see people I know suffer and die, but to maybe have to defend myself and kill someone I knew…that would be almost impossible. We have to change the way we think though. Really they aren’t your friends now. Try to think of it that way.”

Dinner actually turns out really good. I do miss the crunch from the buttered bread crumb topping I usually put on tuna casserole, but it’s still warm and creamy and delicious. I love comfort food. I seem to crave it now. Maybe I’m just looking for comfort. Stuff I’m used to.

Everyone else seems to like dinner too even though when I suggested making tuna casserole no one seemed excited. Maybe they’re just hungry or know we can’t be picky about what we eat now, we eat to survive.

“So…while you were all out shooting…I had an idea…” I say when we’re all almost finished eating.

“Yeah? Well, hopefully your ideas are better than the way you shoot…” Spencer says laughing. “I bet Eddie agrees.”

I look over at Eddie hoping he’ll say something to defend me.

He reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezes it. “Mara does a lot of things very well…doesn’t matter if she’s lethal with a gun in her hand.”

I pull my hand away from him and pout.

“Mara…baby…it’s okay if you can’t shoot…” Eddie starts to say.

“But it’s not. We all need to know how to shoot now. Especially after what you said happened this morning. We all need to know how to shoot,” Spencer says.

“I can shoot. Probably better than any of you. I was just distracted this morning and I’m sorry about that, but I know how to shoot,” I tell them.

I stand up, leave the table. Start cleaning up from dinner.

“She really does know how to shoot…and she probably is better than both of you,” Amanda says.

Eddie gets up, brings his plate to me at the sink.

“I’m sorry…” he starts.

“You’re sorry? For what? That she almost fucking killed you?” Spencer says.

I pick up Eddie’s plate and slam it into the sink breaking it. Eddie reaches over to pick up the pieces.

“I can do it,” I say annoyed.

I pick up the biggest piece and end up cutting my finger. “Fuck!” I say and drop it back into the sink.

Eddie sees the blood. “Jesus. Here…let me help,” he says and reaches for my bleeding finger.

I pull my hand away. “I can do it.”

I pick up a towel laying on the counter. I wrap it around my finger.

Eddie walks closer to me. “Mara, let me see it.”

I walk away. “No. It’s fine…I’m fine.”

I start to go upstairs.

“Mara…don’t be upset. Sit down…let me look at your hand and you can tell us about your idea you had,” he says.

“Just forget it. It’s not important,” I say and walk up the stairs.

“Mara…come on…don’t go upstairs…” he says.

“Let her go. You need to quit babying her. She needs to grow up and quit acting like a spoiled brat,” Spencer says.

“I think something’s bothering her. She’s not usually this emotional, or distracted,” Amanda tells them.

“I hate when you argue with her and piss her off because then she’s upset and mad at me. Takes it all out on me, so thanks Spencer,” Eddie says and goes out the back door.

“I’m getting tired of both of them. Always throwing these stupid baby tantrums. Why don’t me and you leave? Head to somewhere warmer,” Spencer tells Amanda.

“You do seem to always try to piss her off and I don’t know why,” Amanda says and goes upstairs.

Spencer picks up his glass, throws it against the wall, and is happily satisfied when it shatters and glass goes everywhere.

“You’re all a bunch of fucking babies. All of you need to grow up,” he shouts before he goes outside.

I lay on my bed and cry. I wish I hadn’t lived. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want them here. Maybe I’ll burn the house down…maybe with all of us in it.

I hear some shouting, door slamming, glass breaking. At least one person coming up here and slamming a door.

I wonder what’s going on? Seems like now everyone is mad at everyone and I guess it’s my fault…like always.

Why did I survive? Is there some reason like Eddie is always saying? Maybe I survived just so they all have someone to blame, someone to always complain to, to complain about. If that’s why I survived that’s pretty shitty, but if it makes the rest of them happy, then I guess I’ll be happy being miserable the rest of my life.

I fall asleep. I only wake up when I feel someone get in bed with me. Eddie snuggling into me from behind.

He nuzzles my neck. “You’re so warm. It’s freezing outside. I think as soon as I pissed out there it froze.”

He puts his feet against mine, moves even closer to me. “But you’re so warm,” he says while rubbing against me, kissing the back of my neck.

“Maybe you should wear more clothes to bed…”

“I’ve told you, I like you warming me up,” he says and continues kissing my neck, grinding his dick against my ass.

“What are you doing?” I ask him when he starts groping at my boobs.

“I kinda thought we could fuck tonight…we haven’t for a few days…I’ve missed it…missed you,” he says.

“It hasn’t been that long…”

“Are you sure? It feels like it’s been a long time,” he says.

Maybe he doesn’t remember the other night when he pretty much forced me. Should I remind him about that?

I reach my hand back and feel his naked hip. “You’re naked…”

“Yeah,” he breathes in my ear. He kisses my neck, sucks on it. “Maybe you should get naked…”

Do I want to? It is nice to be close to him like that…but I don’t like feeling like he’s coercing me. The last time I gave in to make him happy, and because I was a little afraid of him. If I resist, or if I say no, what is he going to do? Would he make me? I mean yeah I guess he would, the other night he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

I feel his hand moving down my body. His fingers very lightly gliding down me. Starting from my boobs, he briefly stops at my belly button, runs his finger around it, then sticks his finger in before he continues moving down.

His hand slides into my pajama pants, into my underwear. He’s kissing my neck, my ear. “I really wanna fuck…”

“Eddie…”

“Your body feels so good. I love touching you…love when you touch me.”

He’s pulling my pants down…I’m not sure if I should stop him…I mean…is there any point in trying to stop him? Seems like he’s going to do it anyway, and really the other night it was okay.

I do like fucking him, love him in between my legs, his hips rubbing my inner thighs while he thrusts his cock in me.

I love the way he kisses me. Sometimes so soft and sweet, and other times so rough, ramming his tongue in my mouth, or when he nibbles on my bottom lip while he pulls his lips from mine.

I just don’t like feeling like he’s making me do any of this.

I roll over to my back, look up at him. I reach up and cup his cheek, caress it for a second. Bring his lips closer to mine so I can kiss him.

He kisses me, then pulls away slightly, just so his lips are barely out of my reach.

“I love you, Mara,” he whispers.

He kisses me, one of his slow sweet kisses. His mouth staying connected to mine, his tongue slowly, gently entering my mouth, touching my tongue, gently teasing my tongue.

His hands still on my pajama pants, pushing them down. I reach down and take them and my underwear off.

He pulls his lips away only long enough to ask me to take my top off too.

I really don’t want to, I’m so warm right now and the thought of being cold makes me shiver.

“Please…” he says breathlessly in my ear.

I want to tell him no because I don’t want to get cold. It’s so hard to warm up once I’m cold and right now I’m so warm and toasty in my bed.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he says reading my mind.

I realize I’m taking my shirt off and dropping it on the floor. Can I ever say no to him?

He lays halfway on me, cups my cheek, runs his thumb across my lips. “I love you, Mara. I’ve never loved anyone before.”

I kiss his thumb since he’s still running it across my lips. I consider telling him I’m late and worried I could be pregnant, but again think if I’m not, I’m going to feel stupid.

Instead, I move my legs apart so he can get between them, mumble ‘I love you too.’

We’re kissing again. And again it’s a slow lingering kiss. I love kissing him any way he kisses…but I think this slow kissing is my favorite way. I can taste him. Enjoy him.

I’ve gotten used to being naked with him. I think about that first night and how awkward I felt when he stripped to his boxers, but now his naked body is normal to me. I enjoy looking at it…touching it…the way it feels against my naked body.

Somehow it feels right when he’s between my thighs. Everything with him feels right.

I wish my dad was still alive to tell me what he thinks of Eddie. He was a good judge of character. He could tell after knowing someone for ten minutes if they were good or bad. He could always tell when someone wasn’t telling the truth, and when I was young that got me into so much trouble. Of course, my mom would always rescue me when I got in trouble, but for the most part, I was a daddy’s girl.

I push the thoughts of my parents from my mind. I don’t want to think about them right now. I really want to think that they would approve of Eddie. And yeah I haven’t known him long, but I think they would be happy that he has fallen right into place with our farm.

He grips his cock firmly, guiding it towards me. He slowly enters me. My body accepts him.

I remember that first time, this felt strange and awkward and now it feels normal and very nice. I love being this close to him.

We get into a rhythm. I raise my hips to meet him when he thrusts inside of me. I love this time together, our alone time, but I hate that he always seems so distracted…or something. Focused maybe. Like he is so focused on fucking, he doesn’t talk or anything else. Sometimes we kiss, and he may say a word or two, but for the most part, he doesn’t even look at me while we fuck. I don’t know why he’s distracted, but it makes me feel alone at times.

I feel so close to him, but at the same time, so distant.

I realize he’s slowing down…and then laying on me. I rub his shoulders…his back…I love how smooth and soft his skin is, and he’s always so warm.

And he was right, he did warm me up.

I stand staring into the open cabinet. We only got two eggs this morning…that won’t feed four people. I could probably make french toast again, but we only have a few stale slices of bread left that really need to be fed to the chickens…

We have a box of pancake mix we picked up somewhere, says it only needs water, so I guess I’ll make them. I can check the inventory list and see what kind of fruit we have, I know we have cans of stuff downstairs.

I get the box of mix out and measure out enough for four servings. I decide to add the two eggs to it and add less water than it calls for.

I also add some cinnamon and vanilla.

I set the pan on the burner so it can get hot while I look through our inventory. We have a lot of cans of peaches so when Eddie gets inside I’ll have him go get two of them. I can poach them, or something so we can put them on our pancakes.

Eddie comes inside with the water. His cheeks are all red. He sets the two buckets of water down on the counter then stands by the stove trying to warm his hands.

“Cold?” I ask him.

“It’s freezing this morning. I even saw some snowflakes. I’m dreading when it does actually snow. We aren’t even close to being ready for winter. We need to really start working on getting everything ready, or we aren’t going to survive. We need to do so much…get so much stuff still. I’m afraid we won’t be ready.”

I go over to him, wrap my arms around him hugging his back.

“We’ll figure it out. Today we’ll talk to Amanda and Spencer and make them understand that we need to get this done today or we’re going to be fucked in a month,” I tell him.

He turns around to face me. “Yeah…I hope that gets through to them. Sometimes I feel like they might just decide to try someplace warmer…and then they’re just going to die because they don’t understand they won’t be prepared. They really need to understand that we’re in the best place we can be right now. Yeah, the cold really sucks, but it’s just a small thing compared to what we would have to deal with if we leave.”

I kiss him. “I need to go make breakfast. Boring pancakes again…sorry. Oh hey, can you go downstairs and get me two cans of peaches? I’m going to see what I can do with them to make pancakes taste better.”

He yawns, nods his head.

“Are you my sleepy boy today?” I ask him.

He nods his head again. “I didn’t sleep good last night. I kept hearing noises outside. Or I thought I did, probably just my imagination. Or me being paranoid.”

“I fell asleep right after…um…we…” I feel weird saying it. I always think, if my parents were still alive what would they think about all of this? About Eddie living here with me. Us being in a relationship. Having sex.

“I think you were asleep before we were finished,” he says sightly laughing.

I feel my cheeks get warm. He always seems to know how to embarrass me.

“I did not. I think I may have fallen asleep while you were still laying on me though. I’m so tired lately…must be the weather or something to do with it getting dark so early now.”

I hug him, lay my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around me.

“Let’s go back to bed…just enjoy each other all day,” he says.

“Didn’t you just say we have a lot to do today to get ready for winter…” I remind him.

“I don’t think so…doesn’t sound like anything I would say.”

“Go downstairs and get the peaches, I’ll start breakfast, and hopefully they’ll be up soon and we can get started on all the stuff we need to do. Are we shooting today?” I ask him.

“We need to. I don’t know…I guess we’ll get some other stuff done first, then if it’s still light out we can shoot. One day soon I want to make a trip somewhere for supplies,” he says.

I hear people moving around upstairs so I know they’re awake. I need to get started on the pancakes.

“Hurry up,” I tell him kissing him quickly on the lips before I turn my attention on my pancakes.

While the first batch of pancakes are cooking, I turn my attention to the peaches.

I open both cans and start to drain the juice from them but decide to just dump both cans in a pan, add some brown sugar, and hope for the best.

And they turn out delicious. Probably a little on the sweet side, but so good I only put them on my pancakes, I don’t even use any syrup.

I decide while we’re cleaning up to bring up my Thanksgiving suggestion.

“So I was thinking yesterday…um…we have a lot to be thankful for…and it has to be somewhere around Thanksgiving…so maybe we could celebrate…”

“Sure, let’s just go down to the store and buy a turkey,” Spencer says.

“What do you mean? Like just have a special dinner?” Eddie asks ignoring Spencer.

I nod my head. “Yeah. We can have a chicken instead of turkey and I can make bread to make dressing. I went through the inventory list to figure out what else we could make. And we could learn how to milk the cow and then we would have milk and cream and we could make butter from the cream.”

I look at everyone to see if they seem interested or think I’ve finally lost my mind. They’re all looking at me, but I can’t tell what they’re thinking.

“Can we make pumpkin pie? I’d kill for a piece of pumpkin pie,” Amanda says.

I shrug my shoulders. “I guess we could try…I think we even have some evaporated milk downstairs. I’d have to make a crust though, and we don’t have butter, but we can figure something out.”

“It’s all about the inside, I don’t care about the crust. I guess no Cool Whip though…but I think I’ll survive. Oh we have Jello too don’t we? Can we make that?” she asks.

“Seems like a big risk cooking so much food for one day,” Eddie says.

“Jello? It’s not like we would have that someday for dinner. It’s just a few extra things. I think every once in a while we should treat ourselves or we’re going to get burned out,” I say trying to explain.

“Do you have a list of what you were thinking about making? I think it’s only fair that we all see what food you want to use,” Eddie says.

“Yeah I made a menu,” I say while going to the drawer to get our notebook.

When I find it, I grab it and turn to the page with the menu I made. Eddie holds a hand out so I hand it to him.

He reads over it, then looks at me.

“I know it seems like a lot of food, and it is more than we usually eat, but I think we deserve to splurge every once in a while…” I say trying to explain.

“You think we can milk the cow? Or the goats?” he asks.

I shrug my shoulders. “We can try. The cow looks like she needs to be milked, but unless she’s recently had a calf then she wouldn’t need to be. The goats though, yeah we should be able to milk them.”

“We need to try to find other animals again. A bull and a female pig. What are they called?” he asks.

“A sow…well if she’s had babies before. If she hasn’t then she’s a gilt. We have a male, so he’s a boar. But his name is Freddie so we call him that. And yeah we do need to try to find them, although I’m still not sure where you plan on keeping all of these animals.”

“Well…once we find them…we’ll figure it all out. But I think in the spring it would be nice to have new babies,” he says.

That’s all I hear new babies. I can’t have a baby. I can’t. And it wouldn’t be in the spring anyway…I mean if I am. If somehow I am pregnant it would be more like in the summer…but I’m not pregnant!

“Mara…Mara…Mara…” I hear Amanda say.

“Sorry, just thinking about everything I want to cook…”

“I think it’s a great idea, and a lot of this stuff you want to make wouldn’t have been something for dinner anyway, would have gone with other stuff for dinner. So let me know what I can do to help,” she says.

“Not much we need to prep I guess. Just need to start making bread so we have some for the dressing, and today we need to try to milk the goats so we can build up enough milk to get cream from it, and then we can make butter. And save some cream if we want to put it in the mashed potatoes. I thought about making cornbread, but I’ve never made it before and have no idea how to. There might be a recipe in one of my mom’s old cookbooks.”

“I guess in a couple months when we run out of food, we get to eat Mara,” Spencer says.

“Because us making Jello and green bean casserole with a chicken for one day is going to make us run out of food quicker? Did we have Jello planned for dinner one night?” Amanda asks.

I’m surprised she is saying anything, she usually seems to take his side.

Eddie sets the notebook down on the counter, takes me in his arms, and kisses my neck.

“Let me know what I can do to help too. I think it’s a great idea. We will get burned out if we don’t splurge every once in a while,” he says.

We decide to hang around the house today. Eddie wants to cut as much wood as he can and they want to take Amanda out to shoot again.

While they’re gone I’ll start bringing up all the stuff I’ll need for our Thanksgiving. I can keep it all in the dining room, no one ever goes in there. Maybe we can eat Thanksgiving in there though. I’ll get our holiday tablecloth out and we can even use the good dishes.

I wish my parents were here. I used to daydream about when I was older and have moved out on my own. And then when I was married and had my own kids. Coming back to visit the farm. My home.

I was an only child, but not by choice. They tried after they had me, and my mom got pregnant again but lost the baby. And then they kept trying and it never happened. When she went to the doctor to see what was wrong, that’s when they found out about her liver. They were never really sure why it was so bad, she didn’t drink except maybe on Christmas she would have a glass of wine, and she had never done any sort of drugs.

I guess I was around ten when she got really sick from it. I hated seeing her so sick. And I always felt like there was nothing I could do to help. I wanted to quit school but my dad insisted I graduate. A lot of good that’s doing me now.

But I used to daydream about bringing my family here to celebrate holidays with my parents who had so much love to give kids and never had any but me. They would have loved being grandparents. And I think they would have liked Eddie too.

We get into a routine again. Mostly the same routine but now in the morning after we wake up and pee, we start fires in the stove and fireplace.

After Eddie helps me with the animals, he checks the wood and chops more if we need it while I make breakfast.

I’m really starting to wonder why it seems like we do the majority of the work and all Amanda and Spencer do is bring in the water.

Maybe we should have a ‘family’ meeting, figure out chores again. But really they sleep so late and most of this stuff has to be done early. We have to take care of the animals as soon as we wake up, we have to.

Maybe they can go back to making dinner. I got into the habit of doing it just to have something to do, but lately, food has been making me feel kind of sick.

Really though it will have to wait until after our Thanksgiving because I have extra stuff I need to make for it.

One morning after breakfast Eddie comes with me to attempt to milk the goats.

I know how to milk goats, we used to do it all the time, but when everything happened, I got lazy and stopped.

Now I need to teach Eddie how to do it.

We have three mama goats that we can milk. Or try to milk. Pretty sure I remember how to do it, seems like something that isn’t easily forgotten.

The goats are all out in their pen since we let them out after we fed them. We go to the barn to get my little stool to sit on and a couple of buckets.

“So how do we do this?” Eddie asks when we get in the pen.

“Well, we would usually milk them before we fed them and let them out. I guess the best way to do it now is to let all the other goats into the pasture except for the one we want to milk. Then you can feed her some apple pieces while I milk her.”

I grab the biggest mama goat we have while Eddie leads all the others out to the pasture. Luckily they follow him, even her nursing kid goes with Eddie since he has apples.

“Hi Betty,” I say to her and scratch her head.

She nibbles on my glove.

I squat down by her and pet her for a few minutes until Eddie comes back.

“What should I do?” he asks.

“Just pet her, and talk to her, feed her an apple piece if she gets restless. And try to watch if you can, but it’s really easy to do once you figure it out. Just have to get the right grip and the right motion and then it’s second nature.”

He takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “She won’t bite me will she?”

“Probably not. Betty’s a good girl. Just pet her, talk to her, she won’t bite you…I mean probably not…”

“Never thought I would die by being eaten by a goat…” he mumbles.

I bring the stool closer and sit on it. “Hey Betty, remember when I used to milk you,” I say while petting her.

We really need to clean her off first, but this time I’m going to skip it. Hopefully, we all don’t get sick and die. That would really suck to survive the damn sickness that killed almost everyone, and then to die from dirty cream.

I set the bucket under her, take a deep breath, and start milking her.

It takes me just a couple tries before I see milk and then just a few more times and then I get in a rhythm.

“See…it’s really easy,” I tell Eddie.

“I’ll feel so weird grabbing their uh…nipples…and doing that.”

I laugh at him. “They’re not nipples. I mean I guess they are, but you don’t call them that. You say udders or teat…”

“Oh god no…I can’t ever say that. How about you do that,” he says gesturing towards my hands, “And I’ll keep them distracted.”

“That’s fine unless something happens to me. If for some reason I couldn’t do it someone else will have to,” I explain.

“Luckily nothing is ever going to happen to you…I mean if something did…I’d probably die…but let’s not talk about morbid shit like that…because it won’t happen…”

“I think you like me,” I say teasing him.

“You think? How about when we’re finished here I take you up to that cheerleader bedroom and show you how much I like you.”

“If we didn’t need to get more wood, or try to do something with this milk, I’d say that sounds like a great idea,” I tell him.

“Spencer can cut some wood and you’ve told me enough times that we need to let the milk sit and the cream will rise to the top so I know there’s nothing we can do with this milk until later, so…” he says.

“So…you’re a dirty boy I think. And I think I remember my mom warning me about boys like you.”

I pull the bucket out from under Betty. “I also think I’m finished with her. Should we do another one today?”

“Maybe later when they come back. I don’t feel like chasing a goat to play with her…udders…” he says.

Eddie leads Betty out to the pasture where the other goats are, while I take the bucket of milk inside and look for the strainer.

I get a couple of mason jars and lids and work on straining the milk. It’s probably safe to leave it on the counter, it’s cold enough in here that it won’t go bad any time soon.

We can let it sit for a few hours until the cream rises to the top and then try to make some butter.

At least I think that’s how to do it. My brain doesn’t seem to work very well anymore.

It seems like it takes forever for the cream to rise, but once it does I show Eddie how to skim it off the top. Then we pour cream into little jars, put the lids on tightly, and start shaking them…and shaking them…

After about ten minutes, or what I think is ten minutes, I open the jars and add a pinch of salt, and then we go back to shaking.

And all I’ll say about shaking them for so long is that at least it helps keep us warm.

When it’s finally finished I pour off the liquid into an empty jar to save for cooking or something and dump both lumps of butter into my hand to form some sort of stick or something that will be easier to use. Then I put my ‘stick’ of butter in our butter dish.

Eddie opens the butter dish and looks at it. “It’s beautiful. Shall we try some?”

I nod my head.

I slice two slices of the bread I made earlier and spread a thin layer of butter on each of them. I hand him a piece.

I watch him as he takes a bite.

“So why didn’t we do this sooner?” he asks after he’s finished chewing.

“Well, as you can see it’s a lot of work for the tiny amount of butter we got. I guess if we milk all three goats every day we would get more, faster. And if we could milk the cow then we’d get a lot more faster. Is it good?”

“I don’t remember butter tasting so good,” he replies.

I take a bite of mine. He’s right, I don’t remember butter tasting this good either.

Our morning routine gets longer every few days it seems. Now we add in milking the goats and then I strain the milk in a big pitcher while Eddie gets the water.

We milk all three goats, or I should say I milk them while Eddie keeps them distracted. He can milk them, but we found out it goes faster if I milk and he entertains, so we do it that way.

Preparing the few extra things for our Thanksgiving at least keeps the house a lot warmer. We’re lucky we haven’t gotten snow yet, but I’m afraid any day now it’s going to start.

We’re almost finished with breakfast, just sitting and discussing what we need to get done today for our feast tomorrow when we hear noise outside. It’s always so quiet now that we can hear the smallest sound, and probably because we’re always on alert to people coming here.

Both Eddie and Spencer get up quickly and grab their guns off the counter.

Eddie looks out the window over the sink while Spencer runs into the living room.

I sit there frozen. I don’t know what to do. Amanda comes over and stands by me. I wonder if we should go downstairs to our safe room?

Spencer comes back into the kitchen, goes over by Eddie.