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“I really don’t feel like cooking now,” she said with a wry smile.
He chuckled. “They’re for your back. Lie on your stomach.”
She realized at that moment she wasn’t wearing a shirt. Her sports bra was more concealing than a bikini, and she’d worn it several times in the gym with nothing over it. But she was acutely aware of the amount of skin she was showing. Justin didn’t appear to be. He laid a towel over her back and then put the frozen vegetables on top of it. “I’ll get you something for the pain and swelling.”
“No,” Carly said. “Save it. We may need it later.”
“Just over-the-counter stuff, honey. We can find more. In fact, I bet if I look in the medicine cabinet, I’ll find a bottle of it.”
He went upstairs instead of out to the wagon and returned with a bottle of naproxen, and he dumped out a number of tablets. “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”
She didn’t get it.
“Sorry, old joke. Here.” He dropped the tablets in her hand and got her a bottle of water with which to take them. She tossed them back into her mouth and swallowed them before stretching out on the sofa with her head resting on her arms. She watched as he pried open Sam’s mouth and expertly shoved a pill into the back of his throat before Sam even realized what had happened. Sam gave Justin an offended look and huffed as he lay back down.
“I’ll be right back,” Justin said. “You all right for a few minutes?”
Carly nodded. It was a lie; she didn’t want to be alone. But she didn’t want Justin to think she was a coward, either. She heard the front door open and gazed around the room to take her mind off being alone.
The house was sternly utilitarian, with no attempt at decoration on the white walls. The carpet was plain beige, as was the cloth sofa upon which she lay. Two matching recliners shared the other wall, and all of the seating pointed at a television.
Television! They had electricity! The remote control lay on the end table between the sofa and the recliners. Carly grabbed it and turned the television on. A place this remote would have satellite, and sure enough, the remote bore the logo of one of the satellite companies. She turned it on and began to flip through the channels.
No signal.
No signal.
No signal.
Carly tried every channel, and none of them showed anything but a black screen with those two words. She turned off the television and dropped the remote back on the end table. Sort of silly of her to hope for anything different, she thought, but tears still stung her eyes. Modern America was truly gone if there was no television.
No more American Idol. No more evening news. No more daytime soap operas. At that moment, The Young and the Restless should have been on. It had been her daytime guilty pleasure when she wasn’t working. No more commercials, even. She would have given anything just to see an infomercial, something that would tell her there was someone out there, and that somewhere there was a pocket of normalcy. Justin had told her there was no normal anymore, but she still couldn’t force herself into believing it.
He came back inside with the bag in which they’d been storing their dirty clothes. “I’m going to toss these in the washer.” His eyes sharpened as he took in her glum expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just being dumb again. I tried the TV.”
He came over, crouched down beside the sofa, and gently tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. Can... Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I can’t wrap my head around the fact everything is dead and gone.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s an enormous thing to digest; I’m not sure I’ve fully accepted it, myself.” He patted her shoulder, rose, and went into the little laundry room off the kitchen. He sang Come Sail Away as he loaded the washer, and Carly stifled a giggle. Being that off-key had to be intentional; another of Justin’s efforts to cheer her up using humor.
Justin came back into the living room and checked her back under his makeshift ice packs. “You’re going to have some bruising, and you’ll be sore for a few days. So, what do you say we stay right where we are until your back is better?”
Carly shook her head. As nice as it was to be inside a house, and one with electric power at that, she wanted to leave as soon as possible. “I want to go in the morning.”
“We’ll see how you and Sam are feeling.”
She glanced down at the wolf, who was deeply asleep, his paws twitching as he dreamed.
“How did you know what he could take?”
“I had a dog myself at one time.” Justin said this in a nonchalant tone, but she could detect hurt under his words, the pain of losing a pet. Carly smiled at him with sympathy.
“Would you like to watch a movie? There’s a DVD player. We could watch The Lord of the Rings, if you like.”
He knew she was carrying the DVD. Carly wondered when he had snooped in her pack and why he hadn’t said anything before. She shook her head. That movie belonged to the memory of her and her father. “Not that one.”
