Chapter 20 Cora #3
"You stay with Elena. Elena's recovery is the long game also. The camp needs Elena. Elena needs you. The next phase of Elena's recovery is the next year."
"Yes."
"Loren."
He looked at me.
He said: "Yes, Cora."
"You are exhausted."
"I am."
"You are not going to take a year off."
"No."
"Then I am going to ask Drew, Brecca, Sylvia, Veron, and Rael to make sure you are alive in a year. Loren. You have to be alive. The camp cannot lose you. We have a year of Patrick and whatever the network-touch is ahead. You are the council. The council needs to be alive. Are you hearing me."
He nodded.
"I am hearing you."
The council ended.
The camp went to its morning.
I walked Drew to the medical tent. He started his work. I went to the schoolhouse. I taught.
Crystal walked Deedee to the schoolhouse.
Rael walked to the watchtower.
The day began.
* * *
That evening, at dusk, I went to the supply tent.
It was the same supply tent. The same shelf. The same lone shelf. The same wooden floor. The same canvas walls. The same small clipboard hanging from the same nail. The same radio in the corner. The same crate stacked under the shelf.
I went in.
I picked up the clipboard.
The supply count was the morning supply count Sylvia had done at oh-five-hundred. The count was twelve grain-bags, six dried-meat-rolls, four salt-tins, eleven water cans, fifteen fuel cans, three first-aid kits, the bandage stock, the antibiotic stock.
I read the count.
Twelve. Six. Four. Eleven. Fifteen. Three. Six.
I read the six.
The six was a normal number. The six was an inventory number. The six was the count of dried-meat-rolls. The six was the six.
I wrote it on the clipboard.
I wrote 6 on the line where Sylvia had left a blank for the verification check.
The 6 was a number. The 6 was a count. The 6 was the count any supply tent in any camp anywhere in the world had on its inventory clipboard at any moment of any day.
The 6 was the count of dried-meat-rolls.
The 6 was Talia.
The 6 was the bathroom.
The 6 was the verdict that had been the verdict for eleven years.
The 6 was the grief that was now the grief.
The 6 was the count.
I wrote the 6.
I did not flinch.
I looked at the shelf.
There was a single empty bottle on the shelf. One.
Not seven. Not six. One.
The one bottle was the bottle I had left when I had walked out of the supply tent twenty-five days ago. The bottle had been the bottle. The stack of seven had been burned for the perimeter fire that night. The single bottle had stayed.
I picked up the bottle.
I held it.
It was empty.
It had been empty for twenty-five days.
It was just a bottle.
I set it back on the shelf.
I did not arrange it.
It sat where it was.
One bottle. Alone. Not in a stack.
I left the supply tent.
I walked across the camp.
The kitchen tent was open. The dinner was on.
Tess was at the stove. Crystal was at the long table with Deedee.
Mark beside her. Drew was at the medical tent door.
He was just leaving for the day, the field kit in his hand, the half-Vampyren-tired-but-okay posture that meant he had done the work for the full nine hours and the work had been good.
He saw me. He nodded. He came toward me.
I met him at the path between the medical tent and the family tents.
He said: "Cora."
I said: "Drew."
I took his hand.
We walked to our tent.
The clay shape was on the doorframe.
We went in.
The lantern was already lit. Tess had come by during the day and had lit it for us, the way camps did when families came home, the lantern-was-lit-and-meant-the-family-was-expected ritual.
We sat on the cot.
He said: "The count."
I said: "The count is holding."
He said: "Cora."
"Yes."
He pulled out the carving from his pocket.
The carving from Tess. The half-finished wolf-or-bear with the 7 burned into the bottom.
He set it on the shelf next to the two Steinbecks and the stone and the chipped diner mug and the Polaroid of Deedee.
He said: "Welcome home."
I said: "Welcome home."
We slept.
Outside, in the watchtower, Rael was at his post. He had brought a blanket and a thermos of the rosemary tea Crystal had been making since dawn. He sat on the platform. He listened.
The network was silent.
The network had been touched.
The thing that had touched it was somewhere beyond the sky.
The thing was not here yet.
The thing would not be here tonight, or tomorrow, or next month.
The thing would be here someday.
We had a year.
We had Drew at the medical tent. We had Veron on the watch.
We had Renn teaching the cohort. We had Brecca teaching the medicine.
We had Sylvia teaching the redundancy. We had Crystal building the salvage corridors.
We had Cassi with Elena. We had Loren, Loren who was exhausted but alive, running the council.
We had Patrick to bring home. We had Mara in the rosemary.
We had Talia in the name we now said out loud.
We had each other.
We had the count.
The count was holding.
Above the camp, the sky was clear. The first stars were on.
The sky was, for the first time since the network had been touched, gold.
Not red. Gold.
It was open.