Quinn turned around and started busying herself with the food. Davis nervously waved to Ana, who was still looking at her, and she made her way out the door Quinn had indicated. Davis walked into a large room, painted a pale yellow. Taking a deep breath, she tentatively crossed the threshold into the unknown.
A group of people sat at a long dark brown wooden table. They all looked at her as if she had antlers growing from her head. Finally, Ringo seemed to remember his manners. “Welcome!” he said in a booming voice that didn’t match his stick-thin frame. “Sit down; please come join us.”
Davis found an empty spot at the long table; there were white plates and glasses at each, along with a sunny bright yellow napkin and silver utensils.
Nobody said anything for a minute. There was a lot of staring. A lot of questions were asked with eyes as uncertainty and tension hung in the air. There was a bowl of nuts in the middle of the table; Davis absentmindedly took one from the bowl and tentatively chewed it as she chewed over thoughts in her brain. “So, I’m Davis,” she ventured.
“You met me, Ringo, this is my wife Audrey, and our twins Oliver and Olivia,” he said, gesturing to a lady and two children sitting right of him. “You’re eating almonds, you know? They might be difficult to digest since you’ve never had them. They are great nutrition for you. I like to call nuts ‘nature’s vitamins’”—Ringo inserted a pause and slight smile, seemingly amused by his wit—“but you might want to take it easy since you’re not used to eating them.”
Davis looked down at the nuts and then at Ringo’s family. Audrey was striking, with clear, ivory skin and large brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a shapely chin. Davis immediately coveted that chin. Her own had a narrowness to it and was a cleft chin. When Audrey spoke, Davis was even more surprised. She had an accent. “We are glad to have you here with us, Davis. I know it has been a difficult few days, but please count us as friends. We’re here to help you with anything you might want or need.”
“Thank you, but really, can someone please tell me why I am here? What is this all about?”
Ringo answered, slowly and calmly, as if he was explaining to a child. “I know you must be very confused, and a lot is going on for you. But, please, believe me, it will be better for you if we start slow. We’ll have a real sit-down after dinner tonight, and…” Ringo trailed off, and Davis seemed to know that she wouldn’t find any answers in the immediate future. She decided to try something else, try to at least open conversation and get to know these people who were her captors yet seemed to mean her no harm.
“You know, I might be digressing a bit, but thoughts have been floating in and out of my mind, and I want to ask before I forget. But how do you get all this food?”
“We grow some of it,” Audrey answered. “Some items were vacuum-sealed and stored in our deep freezers when we realized we would have to come down here. Like the almonds, actually. We have hidden solar panels up top for electricity, and the fans Ringo made create some additional electricity. They keep us running: freezer, fridge, lights, oven, we even have heating for winter, but we do keep it cold in here, at sixty-three, to conserve. But it takes the edge of winter off. And—” Audrey was nervously rambling; Davis decided to cut in and changed the topic.
“Oh, thank you. That’s interesting. Can I digress again and ask about your accent? I’ve never met anyone with an accent.”
“Yes, I’m from Annecy, France. It’s a small town, a little less than an hour out of Geneva, Switzerland.”
“How did you get here? I mean, we haven’t had legal immigration for so long.”
“I moved here for work and then was married to Ringo about a year before the borders were closed. Then I went to France to visit my family. I knew things were getting touchy here once they cured the Lombardi Plague, and policies were changing.” She looked at Davis to make sure she was following without discrimination and not getting upset by what she said. She saw Davis was just listening intently, so she continued. “As I was saying, I knew things were uneasy, but I didn’t expect them to close the borders. Especially for dual citizens! But, when they closed the borders overnight, I had to fight my way back in. Thankfully, being married to an American helped. It was still a lot of hoops to jump through and not at all easy. But I made it back, we made our way down here, and we had these two great kiddos.”
Davis was shocked. She knew the borders had been closed, but she had no idea they had locked out those even with dual citizenship. She wondered how many people this could have affected, people stuck in another country when their homes and families were here. Just because they possibly didn’t have a spouse. It made her realize that this would also affect Audrey’s ability to see her family in France. She then looked over at the kids. The kids that had never met their maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Previously, she knew the borders being closed meant families kept apart, but she never really thought about it. Suddenly, it seemed as if a fog had lifted from her brain to show her just how devastating this must have been to people. She mindlessly took another almond and
