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My excitement grows with the news. “Okay, that’s great, but only if Mary and Alex are okay with it.”
Sam frowns. “You don’t think she’s a little young to start learning to be a midwife?”
“No,” I shake my head. “She’s really passionate about it, and you can’t keep her under BeLew or Tank’s eyes forever.”
Sam thins his lips, knowing he’s been caught. He’s protective, understandably so, but we have to trust the people in this community. We can’t shelter her forever. There’s a big world out there still, and I’ve grown to believe a lot of it has good. The people that found our community know it’s a good thing and will do anything to stay.
We have doctors and farmers, plenty of food, and lots of love. Violence isn’t tolerated, and neither is theft. There’s no point. If someone needs something, they simply ask, and it’s provided. Those that didn’t agree to this type of commune simply left to make their own way. We gave them all the supplies we could spare and wished them luck.
“If it’s too much, she needs to leave,” Sam says.
“And she has a voice,” I remind him. “She’ll tell Gemma if she needs to step away.” I’m firm when I say this to Sam, driving home the point. I raised Morgan to be independent and strong, able to stand her ground and make her own decisions.
“Oh, I know she has a voice.” Sam widens his eyes.
“I heard that,” Morgan calls from her room.
“I could use some help with these fish,” Lori yells down the hall. There’s silence in response, and I chuckle.
“Selective hearing,” Lori tilts her head. “So odd.”
I hear Beau holler from the back room and the boys’ laughter echoes down the hall.
“I want to know what’s in the bottle?” Luke says.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” I promise. “I’ll find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A Gift
“Igottheboyssomething,” Sam says. He feeds the fire, a boiling pot of vegetable soup roaring atop the flames.
I pour a cup of chopped carrots into the water. “Well, it is their birthday. You want to show me?”
“It’s just that…” he trails off. “I did it and then, after, thought you might be upset.”
“Is it a weapon? Or did you let Milo get them a weapon? I swear I’m scared to walk around that man’s property sometimes.” I shudder, remembering the last time I went up there for eggs and he was hammering up signs to stay on the path because there were animal traps. I’ll never forget what they can do to a person when necessary.
“No,” Sam shakes his head. “It’s nothing like that.”
He pulls something from a cupboard, fiddling with it in his hands.
“Their stuff on the Thalassa. You know how we told them it was gone?” he reminds me.
“Yeah.” I crease my brow, still uncertain if we made the right decision. When most of the passengers from the Galene and the Thalassa joined us on this harbor, making their way inland with us, it took months to scavenge the boats and collect what we needed to start over. People still live onboard the ships, ones that feel more comfortable being at the ready to leave, but most of the ship remains empty. At some point, Sam went to our old cabin, still full of the boy’s things, but we never brought it up to them.
We started over, keeping those memories buried along with Adam and Dean. I told him to burn the things with the poppy plants and all the AOE paraphernalia we could find. At the time, it felt good to let it all go.
I touch my arm, running my fingers over the scar so many of us carry. Thanks to a local artist, almost everyone covers them with beautiful tattoos. That’s what I choose to see when I look down at the burn.
“I um, never…” Sam hesitates.
“You kept a bunch of old clothes and rotten food?” I ask. Part of me always knew he didn’t get rid of everything, but there was nothing I wanted, so I never brought it up. “That’s all we had.”
“Not all,” Sam says. “There were a pair of stuffed ducks.”
I cackle a laugh.
