Chapter 5 #2
When Wallace woke up the next morning with a sudden start, it took a minute to realize where he was and how he’d gotten here. Right on the heels of that thought was a worry as to how Amy’s night had been. He got up, walked through the living room to the other bedroom door, and opened it quietly.
He was hoping she was still sound asleep. As he peered in and didn’t see her on the bed, he scanned the room and saw her curled up on the couch, instead of in bed, which is where he’d last seen her. He walked over to check on her.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. She shrugged. “I’m fine, but I woke up way too early and then couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Have to love all those thoughts in your head, right?” he murmured.
“No, I really don’t,” she stated, followed by a yawn. “You look better rested.”
He nodded. “I slept pretty well, though I’m quite surprised that I didn’t hear you get up.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she muttered. “It’s all quiet here, and nobody wanted us, needed us, or attacked us. So maybe it’s a good thing that you got some sleep. You’ll be more alert than I will.”
“Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Sure,” she noted, with a wry smile, “until 5:00 a.m. Then I was wide awake and knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep again, so I just got up.”
He nodded, walked over to the couch, and sat down beside her. “Do you need food?”
“I’m feeling very much like an unwelcome guest,” she murmured.
“Maybe not unwelcome , but it’s an odd feeling being here, since I didn’t really talk to anybody last night.
I just allowed you and Terk to bundle me up and to take me away, so I could recover a little bit.
… And believe me that I’m very grateful, but now it feels very much as if I need to go down and meet everyone. ”
“Agreed. Give me a few minutes to shower, then I’ll go down with you,” he offered, realizing she probably would have just walked down without even thinking about it. If they were a little more comfortable here, it probably would have been totally fine.
He imagined that everybody treated this as their home, where you could walk around wearing whatever you wanted.
However, when you’re in somebody else’s place, and not feeling terribly comfortable, that was a whole different story.
He showered and dressed quickly. By the time he walked back out, she stood in the living room, waiting for him.
“I don’t have any clothes,” she reminded him.
“You do, just not very many.”
“Sure,” she conceded. “I have my travel bag. Thanks to Riff for picking it up. Still, my clothes are more suited for the office and interviews.”
“Right.” He nodded in understanding. “Not exactly jeans, huh ?”
“No,” she murmured, “but thankfully, here they stock the closets and bathrooms with essentials. Thus, this very fashionable jogging suit you see me in this morning.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gave her a gentle hug, and stated, “I suspect they get a lot of unexpected visitors, who may come in with only the clothes on their backs. I will say that you look much better this morning than compared to last night.”
She burst out laughing, as they stepped out of the room. “I would take that as a compliment, except I was such a freaking mess when I arrived here that it would have been really challenging to have looked worse.”
He was still grinning as they headed downstairs. She hesitated at the base of the stairs, and he nudged her toward the noise. “In this place, you can always follow the sound of people gathering to a kitchen.”
“How do you know it’s the kitchen?”
“Because that’s where the heart of every home is,” he said, with a smile. “And, in this case, an awful lot of people live here, so the kitchen, dining room, or whatever you want to call it, will be where everybody is.”
Sure enough, as they came around the corner, at least a dozen people sat at the huge dining table. Immediately silence filled the room.
She winced and stood in front so everybody could see her, then nodded in a formal way and greeted everyone. “Good morning. I’m Amy, and I want to thank you all for the hospitality.”
Several women hopped up and walked over to her, smiling. “You’re more than welcome,” said one of them. “We would introduce ourselves, but you’ll forget all our names in five minutes.”
Amy burst out laughing. “I doubt I would even make it that long.”
Wallace spied the coffee service over on the side, and he headed over toward it.
One of the women laughed. “Clearly you know what’s important in the morning.”
“At this hour of the day? Definitely,” he agreed, with a smile, that turned into a yawn.
Terk spoke from behind him. “Did you guys get any sleep?”
Wallace nodded, then turned to him and smiled. “I did pretty well. Amy didn’t though. She woke up early.”
“To be expected,” Terk noted, studying her carefully.
She didn’t appear to have any problems staring right back at him though.
Wallace watched the interchange with amusement.
Amy was unique, and an awful lot was going on in her system that not everybody understood.
Yet she’d always been amiable and easy to get along with, and he knew she would fit in very quickly here.
As he brought over two cups of coffee and placed one in front of her, she looked at it and smiled.
“Thank you,” she murmured, sending him a grateful look. “You don’t realize just how much coffee matters until you do without it.”
“Some of us are coffeeholics,” Riff interjected, walking through the adjoining kitchen door, carrying a big cup and a plate laden with something that smelled suspiciously like cinnamon buns.
Everybody else seemed to feel the same way, and, as the aroma hit the table, several people bolted to their feet and raced into the kitchen.
Wallace sat down beside him. “I presume those are hard to come by.”
“Hard to come by and even harder to keep,” he shared, chuckling. “Don’t worry. I knew what I was starting when I came out with this one.”
Amy sat beside Riff. “Of course you did. Anything to cause trouble,” she teased.
“Hey, I’m not into causing trouble,” he replied, with a wry chuckle. “Besides, you should be nice to me. I helped get you out of there, remember?”
“You did, indeed,” she agreed, with a smile. “And, for that, you can have my cinnamon bun.”
He looked at her and brightened. “You would have to go get it though,” he noted. “I already took two, so that’s all I’m allowed. However, if you got yours, then gave it to me…”
She rolled her eyes at the hungry expression on his face and asked, “Do you really need three?”
“Of course I need three,” he declared, rubbing his tummy. “We all do, and anybody who could pull that off? They would absolutely do it in a heartbeat.” He chuckled, nudging her gently.
Just then Terk came out with a large plateful of them. She stared at the tower of buns on his plate and gaped. He glared at her. “No, my excuse is valid, and no one can deny it. I use it for energy.”
“ Uh-huh ,” she muttered, frowning, looking around the table at the others who all seemed to be working on their own large plates of sugar. “Did you at least start with steak and eggs or something before you go into this level of sugar?”
“No, that’ll come afterward,” he said. “I’ve already done a ton of work this morning.”
He didn’t look tired, and, the more she saw of him, she realized that he did look more energized. “It was energy work, from the looks of you.”
“Exactly, hence, I’m burning low.”
“So, that’s your story, and you’re sticking to it?”
He burst out laughing and nodded. “Absolutely, so don’t try to take my cinnamon buns away from me,” he stated in alarm.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t dare. I already got the message loud and clear that apparently cinnamon buns are a major commodity around here.”
At that, Wallace leaned over and asked, “Do you want one?”
She grimaced. “I wouldn’t dare. I didn’t do anything to deserve it, and these guys are all plowing through them at a pretty high rate.” She just shook her head. “I sure hope you have a full-time cook.”
“We just hired a full-time chef,” Terk confirmed, with a nod. “Up until then, Mariana’s been doing a ton of it, with just a couple assistants. So I know she’s more than ready to hand some of it off as well.”
“Yeah, I would think so,” Amy muttered. “Feeding all you guys would have to be a full-time job.”
“It is,” declared a smiling woman, coming in with a small cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee. “I’m Mariana. I can confirm that it’s a very full-time job.” She looked over at Terk and suggested, “I think we need to make some changes to some of the apartments.”
“What changes?” Terk asked warily.
“I think we need more playrooms for the kids,” she suggested. “A little more of a homeschool setup and potentially… what about that outdoor playground?”
He nodded. “An awful lot of outdoor stuff still needs to be done, but we’re hitting that budget line pretty hard.”
She laughed. “You say that every time, no matter what I ask for or what I say we need.” She chuckled. “You’ve got that part down pat.”
“I might have it down pat, but it sure doesn’t seem as if anybody listens.”
She nudged his plate closer. “Funny, you don’t complain about the food budget.”
“He does,” countered another woman, coming in with a smile. She had a small dainty cup in her hand as she sat down beside Terk. She looked over at their newest occupant and nodded. “Good morning, Amy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Amy flushed. “Thank you for having me. It’s been a difficult few days.”
“Yeah, that crap has a way of hurting, doesn’t it?”
And such a wealth of empathy filled her tone that Amy knew without a doubt that this woman had also been through something horrifically traumatic.
“I think the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that these people seem to think they have every right to do whatever they want to people, and it doesn’t matter whether you agree or not. ”
“Hear, hear,” she muttered.
Mariana smiled and added, “I won’t argue that one.
It seems that we’ve all been through something horrific and traumatizing, so you’re in good company here.
We all empathize with what you’ve been through.
We know what it feels like, to some degree at least, and, most important, we’ve all come out on the other side, much stronger and more resilient. ”
“I think Terk mentioned something about some of you having been ill or injured, and came out different?” Amy asked.
At that, Wallace wondered if he should turn the conversation to something else because of the instant silence in the room.
Amy winced. “Apparently that’s not a question I should have asked.” Wallace squeezed her hand gently. She looked over at Wallace and smiled. “Always looking after me, aren’t you?”
“Hey, you know what they say about save a life … and all.”
She winced at that, picked up her coffee, and nodded. “Not exactly the way I wanted life to happen though.”
“None of us would, but you have a life, so you get to make whatever changes you choose.”
She chuckled at that. “That sounds great, if it didn’t sound very much as if I wouldn’t have a whole lot of choice.”
“Choice is what you make of it,” Terk declared, with that same cheerful voice he’d been using all morning. Terk then frowned over at Wallace.
Wallace shrugged. “Earlier Amy and I were discussing the fact that we don’t think we’re out of danger.”
Terk stared at him for a moment and then slowly nodded. “I would have to agree.”
Amy sucked in a breath and turned to him, Wallace still squeezing her fingers.
Wallace tilted his head. “Terk’s just confirming what we already know.”
She winced and nodded. “I know that, and in theory that should be great. In theory, but in reality, I would much rather have somebody say, Hell no, you’re perfectly safe , or something of that nature.”
“But that wouldn’t be the truth, so you really wouldn’t want that, right?” The comment came from one of the other women across the table.
Wallace thought it was Clary. She looked tired, as if she’d had a rough night. He frowned at her. “Looks as if you didn’t get much sleep either.”
She smiled. “Between the work we do and the babies we have, the family life,” she noted, “a good night’s sleep is hard to come by around here.” She looked over at Amy. “Any experience with kids?”
Amy shook her head. “No, not so much, but I like them just fine.”
“Hey, we’ll take it,” she muttered.
Wallace started to chuckle as Amy stared at her in surprise. “Sorry?” she asked cautiously.
Clary just waved a hand. “You’ll get used to us. However, if you’re around and if you have a few minutes to give one of the new mothers—or any of the mothers—a moment’s rest, babysitters are always welcome.”
Amy stared cautiously at the others. “How many children?”
At that Clary gave a laugh, but it was almost hysterical in nature.
“Oh, I think thirteen so far,” she shared, smiling.
“They’re all very young. Yet we also have Calum Jr., who is being an absolute sweetheart of a big brother to everybody.
” She laughed. “He might be a little confused when it comes to keeping all their names straight and who belongs to whom, but he really does care for all of them.”
At that Mariana smiled and nodded. “I don’t think he knows the names or relations either, but some days he wonders if it’ll ever stop. Larry is also a great babysitter.”
“Larry?” Wallace repeated.
Terk smiled. “Legend’s half brother. You’ll meet those two soon, if you haven’t already.”
Wallace just nodded.
“We needed more help with all the babies coming at basically the same time and seemingly all births are twins. So that should stop soon now,” Terk explained. “We just had to get the proper mechanisms in place, like Angela.”
“It took a while, as does everything it seems,” said one of the guys from the far side of the room. “I’m Damon,” he added, for Amy’s benefit.
Wallace had heard rumors about Angela and Riff and knew a bit about what was going on with them. Wallace turned to Riff. “So, are you next?”
At that, silence fell again at the table.