Chapter 10

After the two men left I closed and locked the door like Roman had said.  I gotta tell you, it was the strangest feeling to hold the key to a lock.  You’d think it would have made me feel powerful but it made me a little freaked out.  I thought I would sit up to make sure no one tried to get in but I fell asleep.  I woke up only because a big wind banged on the outside of the box and startled me.   

It was definitely colder.  The fire had gone out in the stove.  I looked around and realized that there wasn’t any wood inside with me.  I decided to take my first act of our self-preservation and unlocked the door and went outside and started bringing in wood.  When I was out there the first snowflakes started to fall and I started getting concerned.  I really got worried when I felt the muscles start pulling and my down there started cramping.  I kept going for a few more minutes and then just knew I couldn’t do any more. 

I came back inside and then locked the door after making sure that there was water in a water barrel near the stove.  I’d seen Roman put something in it and realized from the smell that it must have been bleach or something that smelled just like it.  I knew how to take care of that as we’d had to do it at Mother Mary’s and I also got a ration of bleach from Emerald once a week to put in the water barrel that I used.  I poured the water back and forth and the smell wasn’t quite as strong and then after the stove heated back up I put what looked like a coffee pot on it to heat the water. 

Then I looked in the bag that Roman had kicked under the cot.  I bypassed the stuff that looked like coffee.  For one it didn’t smell like I remembered coffee smelling and for another I would have been slapped silly had I ever dared to drink something so costly.  Next I pulled out these little bags that looked at first like they had dirt and dried twigs in them until I recognize the “twigs” were actually dried up vegetables.  I thought back to the few times that Mother Mary had assigned me to kitchen duty and those memories sent me back to my childhood. 

“Daisy, why do the veggie tables look so funny?” 

“Don’t talk like a baby Cissa, you are getting too old for that.  And the vegetables don’t look funny, they’re just dried.  We’re running out of jars and lids and new ones are too expensive.  Gramps made this thing called a dehydrator and says that drying them will work just as well and we’ll be able to hide them better from the revenuers.  It also takes a lot less space to store dried food than in those glass jars.” 

“They aren’t as pretty.” 

“So?  We don’t eat food because it is pretty.  You eat to fill your belly when you are hungry and to stay healthy.” 

The memory faded out but I know what I was looking at.  It was the stuff that Roman had made that soup the night we camped in the rain.  I poured the dry stuff into a pot like I remember him doing and then when the water came to a boil - and I let it boil long enough to make sure it didn’t make us sick - I poured and stirred until I had a pot of soup for us to eat. 

It didn’t taste like I remember from my childhood but it was fancy eating for sure compared to what I’d gotten to eat for a long, long time.  It was so rich it almost made me sick.  I’ve thinned it out since then and that’s helped some.  I also found little crackers that I could have eaten with the soup but I decided to be careful and save the crackers.  Bread is expensive and people are funny.  Roman said that I was to use the food but that doesn’t mean he wants me to use all of the food. 

In the box with the food were these books with no printing in them.  And some pencils.  I carefully took one book and two pencils.  I had just decided that I needed to do something for you and writing your story seemed like the right thing.  I remember my real mother, and my big sister Daisy who was my second real mother, would always put down special things to remember in what they called my baby book.  Well I don’t have a fancy baby book for you and I haven’t a clue where mine went so this is going to have to do.  It is the best I can do for you right now.  

I know about how much these books cost as I helped Mother Mary with her bookkeeping and she used something very similar to keep track of customer information, licensure payments, house expenses, and nightly receipts; she also kept track of who she paid bribes to, how much, and what she could use against them if need be.  I don’t want to do that but maybe having some information on people will be useful to you so I’ll record what I can.  I’ve counted out the right amount from my stash and I will pay for the book and pencils.  I’ll pay for the food too if someone makes an issue of it.  That’s what I saved up for, so that we can live without having to have a man – or another Mother Mary – give us everything we need in exchange for something we don’t want to give. 

I’ve been sitting here off and on ever since except for when I sleep.  I seem to want to sleep a lot which does worry me a little as I don’t know if it is normal or not.  Then again I always learned to sleep when I could.  You never know when your number is going to come up. 

I still don’t know if Roman or anyone he sends will actually come for me.  Alex can be slick when he wants something and it sounds like he’s been giving me a real line about Roman from the start and I fell for it.  Roman is no pushover but he sure isn’t the ogre Alex made him out to be.  And he also made him seem older somehow only it turns out that Alex is the older one.  And he sure as heck never said anything about them being twins.  If I had Alex for a brother he’d irritate me too, I can’t imagine having him as a twin. 

Maybe I shouldn’t talk about him like that.  Alex put you in me.  But whoever you come out to be, I promised you the truth and that’s the way things stand.  Alex took part in making you but he’ll never be your father; at least not if I have anything to say about it.  There’s something twisted inside him.  Maybe it will untwist.  Maybe his family can make it untwist.  But I just don’t want you growing up with that hanging over you.  I want you to know what safe is and I don’t think that Alex is strong enough to give it to you even if he was willing to try.