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“I keep forgetting how wilderness-y it is out there.” Mercury shuddered.
“I’ll go find Jenny and Karen. They can use those baskets we dragged from the convenience store and start bringing in snow,” said Imani.
“While you do that, Mercury and I will clean up the blood and then get busy using up the unfrozen perishables first.” Stella stuck her head out of the cold storage cooler. “Yeah, there’s lots of shaved meat in here and fresh veggies. That’ll go bad first, so let’s make a shitload of sandwiches. I’ll also start on the biggest pot of stew I’ve ever made, which’ll be ready tomorrow.”
Imani nodded. “And when I come back, I’ll start on a giant batch of biscuits.”
“Perfect. They’ll go great with tomorrow’s stew,” said Stella.
Imani returned to the foyer as Stella began giving Mercury orders like a drill sergeant—not that Mercury minded. She’d spent many happy evenings following Stella’s instructions as they prepared delicious meals for their tribe of girlfriends at the gorgeous, mission-style stucco house Stella maintained meticulously.
Under Stella’s confident direction, the two of them had the kitchen pretty much set to rights and the bloody floor cleaned quickly and efficiently, so they started cooking as Jenny and Karen began to haul baskets of snow to the freezer.
There was a sense of calm that settled over the three women while they worked together in the kitchen. It felt normal to make sandwiches, deep-fry thick sliced potatoes for fries, and cut up meat and veggies for a simmering stew. Stella even hummed happily while she plated the sandwiches and waited for the fries to be ready.
“It feels good,” said Imani softly. “Working together like this. Like balm to my soul.”
Mercury grabbed another potato and began peeling it. She smiled at her friend. “Yep, it does.”
“My babies could still be alive.” Imani wiped flour from her chin with the back of her wrist as she turned from kneading dough to face Mercury. “Right?”
Mercury met her friend’s gaze and answered with the truth. “Right now we know Portland and Salem and Government Camp are gone. That’s all we know for sure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with hoping,” added Stella without turning from the sandwich preparation.
“I’m going to try to hold on to hope,” said Imani. “Mercury, I’ve never asked, but did you ever want kids?”
Mercury nodded her head. “Well, yeah. I always thought I’d have kids. I mean, it seemed like I had plenty of time.”
“If dickhead Duane hadn’t been such a dickhead, you woulda had babies with him,” Stella said as she spread mustard across fat slices of bread.
“Hey, we agreed to call him by his formal name,” said Mercury.
“I stand corrected—Duane the Dickhead. Tell Imani why you didn’t have babies with him.”
Mercury sighed as she cut potatoes into wedges for fries. “It was about five years ago. I’d been dating Duane for almost a year, and we were getting pretty serious. Then he announced that he wanted a child so he could—and I quote—‘have a normal kid.’”
Stella shook her head. “Such a dick.”
Imani sprinkled more flour on her counter. “He had a disabled child?”
“No,” Mercury said. “He had a son he and his ex-wife used as a pawn to mess with each other—something it took me almost a year to figure out because I have a don’t-meet-the-kid-unless-you-know-you’re-truly-serious-about-the-man policy. Anyway, there was nothing wrong with his son that decent parenting wouldn’t have fixed.”
“But Duane the Dickhead wanted Mercury to have a kid or two for him so he could just start over instead of taking care of the son he already had,” finished Stella.
“Yep. I broke up with him the day I realized that’s what he was about. It was a damn good thing I figured out what was up before I got pregnant.” Mercury shuddered. “Can you imagine being shackled to that dickhead via kids? Ugh.”
“You and this Duane weren’t engaged?” asked Imani.
“Oh Goddess no. I don’t believe in marriage,” said Mercury. “I’m not Christian, so I don’t think it’s any kind of a sin to cohabitate without being married. And anyway, I know too many couples where the wives are really glorified housekeepers, cooks, and mommies to adult manbabies. That’s not for me—though I firmly believe each to their own.”
Imani nodded contemplatively. “I get what you’re saying, but you don’t need to be married to have babies. It’s the 21st Century.”
“Very true,” said Mercury. “And I planned on having kids, and then just—I don’t know—ran out of time. It’s like I turned twenty, blinked my eyes, and I was all of a sudden turning thirty-five.”
“Thirty-five isn’t too late to have a baby,” said Stella over her shoulder. “But ever since Duane the Dickhead, Mercury has given up on men.”
“Well, I haven’t technically given up. I just haven’t met anyone in the past five years who doesn’t seem to have major dickhead tendencies,” said Mercury.
