to see you when you were sick, she’d just stand by the doorway. It’s just that she saw it all, and it registered.
“John, she’s a diabetic, and even at twelve that makes anyone very conscious of their mortality. They know their life is dependent on that needle and the vial, but for seventy years now those vials just came across the pharmacy counter, no questions asked. She knows that’s finished.”
“How?”
“Damn it, John, she isn’t deaf or blind. Every day since this started people have been dying and she knows she’s on the short list once the insulin in the basement runs out.”
He shook his head angrily.
“No, God, please no. That’s four months off. By then we’ll have something back in place. At least communications, some emergency medicines.”
“John, you’ve been the very person going around saying that this is bad, real bad, that it might take years, if ever, to come back from it.”
“I never said a word around her.”
“Oh, John, you’re such a father, but you don’t understand kids. I’ve worked in hospitals with kids like Jennifer. Kids that were terminal. They had it figured long before their parents would ever admit it to themselves.”
“She is not terminal,” he snarled, glaring at Makala angrily.
She said nothing.
“Damn you, no,” and he was humiliated by the tears that suddenly clouded his vision.
He struggled to choke back the sobs that now overwhelmed him.
She put her hand out, touching him, and he jerked back, looking at her, filled with impotent rage.
“My girl will live through this,” he gasped. “Jennifer will live through this.”
She leaned over, gently touching his face, paused, and then half stood up, kissing him on the forehead, and drew her chair closer to his side.
“John, with luck, if things straighten out, we’ll get hooked back up to hospitals that work before the insulin runs out.”
He noticed how she said “we.”
“I’ve gotten close to her, John. Very close these last few days. She’s a sweet child. Not a twelve-year-old dressing, talking, and sometimes acting like she’s twenty-one. She still sleeps with Rabs in her arms, plays with Beanie Babies, reads a lot. The way perhaps twelve-year-olds were long ago. Rather nerdy actually.”
He struggled for control as Makala described his little girl. He let the burned-out cigarette fall and without comment she lit the second one and handed it over, taking a puff on it first before doing so.
She smiled, and he realized that tears were in her eyes as well.
“It’s just the poor child has really been obsessive about dying since she saw her grandfather go and the way he was buried, the way we’re burying people now by the hundreds.”
“I’ll talk with her.”
“I already have,” Makala said quietly.
“About what?”
She hesitated.
“Go on; about what?”
“About death,” she whispered. “She asked me for the truth. About how long she had if the insulin ran out.”
“And what did you tell her?” he snapped, and she grimaced as he grasped her arm with his hand. “What did you tell her?”
“John, I told you, I’ve worked with kids like her. I know when to lie; I know when it is time to tell the truth. I reassured her that she’d be OK. That you and others were working to get things reestablished and soon medical supplies would start coming in.”
He released his grip.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“But you’ve got to talk with her, too, John.”
He nodded, head lowered, again struggling for control. He felt so damn weak. Not just physically but emotionally. Tyler’s time had played out and though John had come to love that old man as if he were John’s own father, he took solace knowing Tyler had lived a good life. But Jennifer?
“You better keep reassuring her if you want her to be happy.” Makala paused.
“In the time she has left?” he asked, staring at her.
“Let’s just pray for the best.”
He finished his cigarette and sat back.
“You said hundreds have been buried?”
She nodded and then looked away.
He heard barking and then laughter. From out of the field above the house his family was coming. The dogs, seeing him up and about again, made a beeline straight to him. He could not help but laugh, both dogs grinning at him and dancing around his chair. And then with noses raised they were sniffing at the soup pot, Ginger standing up on her hind legs to peer in, nearly burning her feet as she lost balance and almost fell against the stove.
Jennifer came running down and jumped into his arms.
“You’re better, Daddy!”
“Well, not exactly, but almost, pumpkin.”
She buried her head against his shoulder and he wondered for a moment if she was crying. And then she pulled back slightly. “Daddy, you really stink.”
He laughed, tempted to play the old “armpit” game of grabbing her and forcing her up against his armpit. She loved it when she was eight, even as she shrieked in protest. But not now; he knew he really did stink.
“I promise I’ll take a bath later today; I could use it.”
“Outdoors now, Daddy,” she said, pointing to a small kiddie wading pool and a rough-built shower made out of a six-foot ladder with a one-gallon plastic bucket suspended from the top rung by a two-by-four, the bottom of the bucket perforated with a couple of dozen small holes.
“Ben built it. One person showers; the other pours the water into the bucket while standing on the ladder.”
Ben made that and John nodded and then suddenly wondered…
Makala laughed. “I do the pouring for Elizabeth, John.”
“Well, Ben can pour for me and you ladies can go somewhere else.”
Jennifer hugged him tight, let go, and looked into the pot.
“What is it?”
“Hot dogs and potatoes,” Makala announced.
“Yuk, sounds gross.”
“Really, it’s quite good,” John said.
“Can Zach and Ginger have some?”
The two dogs were by his side, tongues hanging out, panting, both with eyes fixed on his empty bowl. Across the years it had become an unconscious act: leave a little extra on the plate, set it down. When Ginger joined the family John would make sure two plates would go down at the same time, because no matter how much the dogs cared for each other, if there was only one plate there’d be a lunge and a yelp, usually from Ginger losing out to Zach, but now, as Zach was starting to show his age, he was becoming the loser in those squabbles.
“We ran out of dog food yesterday,” Makala said quietly.
Damn, he had never even thought of that. “Even the canned stuff?”
Makala didn’t say anything and he realized with a shock that the reason she said nothing was because she or Jen had stashed the canned dog food for emergency use if need be. He suddenly wondered if they made a canned dog food of hot dogs but knew it was best not to ask.
“Come on, Dad; they’re starving.”
He looked down at his two buddies. His companions on many a late night of writing or research, they’d always be curled up in his office. Once it was time for sleep, Ginger would usually paddle off to Jennifer’s room, Zach always to his.
He looked at Jennifer, then back to the dogs.
