The Journal: Cracked Earth (28 page)

I’m disappointed. The tub that I marked as
“vitamins/medical” was half-filled with the overflow of band aids
& bandages. This is all we have:

3- Nasal spray

7- Bottles of allergy pills

2- Bottles of Ibuprofen- nighttime

1000 tablets of aspirin

1000 tablets of Ibuprofen

1-child liquid cold medicine

1-adult liquid cold medicine

1 bottle of eye drops

4 bottles of multi-vitamins, 890 tablets

2-D3, 200 tablets

½ bottle of garlic tablets

* * *

We also have single bottles of lysine,
calcium, magnesium, zinc, fish oil, B complex, plus various odd
stuff. I really fell short on this. Calculating it out, the three
of us have less than a year of vitamins if taken once a day. I
should have done more. I’m saddened by my failure in this area.

I don’t remember a snowier winter. The weather is
relentless. Another foot of snow fell yesterday, and it’s still
coming down.

Jason trudged his way to the barn to feed and
water the chickens, and collect the few eggs. While in the barn, he
found the tub I had marked “office supplies”, which are really
school supplies with blank notebooks, ruled paper, pencils,
crayons, rulers, protractors and odd stuff I found. Most were on
sale from the beginning of the school year. He was interested in
the notebooks so Jacob could practice his writing and spelling with
a few lines to do math. I forgot about the flash cards that I had
put in there. Jacob is a bit beyond them, but it’s still good
practice.

* * *

JOURNAL ENTRY: January 26

We may have to run the generator even though
it’s still snowing hard. The water supply is getting low and we all
need showers. I’m going to do a load or two of laundry too, and get
it drying on the wooden racks. I’ve been doing dishes by heating
water on the stove like I used to, tedious and functional. I
suppose we could take showers the same way with the bucket system
I’ve got stashed in the barn, though we still need water to do
that.

There’s been so much going on in our lives
with day to day living and surviving, we’ve forgotten to have some
fun occasionally, so John and I spent an hour playing cribbage this
afternoon. I’ve always enjoyed playing cards and board games, but
it’s been so long since I’ve had a partner. When looking for the
cribbage board, I also found the dominoes, and the Obilqo block
game. Now
that
game is going to be interesting, with Jason
so meticulous and John an engineer. There are a few jigsaw puzzles
in the back room, and somewhere in the barn is a box full!

* * *

Jason sat down at the table with me while I
was sorting jigsaw pieces.

“Mom, before Amanda left again, she said
something that I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

“What’s that?”

“She said ‘tell your mother not to come after
me again’. What did she mean?”

I looked away for a moment. How do I tell my
son I interfered? With the truth, I guess.

“I know you had told me not to, but I made
some inquiries the last time she left.” I briefly closed my eyes,
sighed and dropped the puzzle piece. “I only wanted to know she was
okay, Jason. I have no idea what happened, then suddenly she was
back. When all of you were here for Christmas, I asked her what
happened, but she wouldn’t tell me. Do you know?”

He leaned back in his chair and ran his hands
over his face. “Yeah, I know.” He was quiet a long time. “She was
staying with Lori, obeying the curfews. One day when she went to
see her daughter, she was pulled over. They put her in the
detention center for three days. They gave her car back and told
her to go
home
. The detention center is not a nice place,
Mom.” He looked down and frowned at the thought.

“Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry. I didn’t ask for
her to be sent back. I just wanted to know that she was okay. The
request obviously got misunderstood. I won’t ask again, I
promise.”

* * *

JOURNAL ENTRY: January 26

It’s 10:00pm as I write, and it looks like
the snow is finally easing up.

* * *

I was surprised when John said that he wanted
to go to church today. I agreed to go only if we sat in back.
Considering this was the first Sunday after the food bank opened,
it didn’t surprise me that the sermon was the feeding of the masses
on a few fish and a loaf of bread. We even stayed for the long
social hour afterward.

In the last couple of days, the ladies of the
now non-denominational church have been baking rolls or bread daily
to go with the meal. A few loaves were baked and sliced to give to
those who asked for some to take home. The meals have expanded too.
Now there are canned beef or chicken stews over rice or noodles,
chili and meatless spaghetti instead of the thin soups they had
before. I asked Carolyn about the meat shortage. With all the snow
we’ve had, the deer have disappeared back into the swamps, and
hunting has come to a halt.

The congregation is down by about half. Some
people are still sick with the flu, other members are afraid to
come into contact with others, while a few have died. We probably
won’t have a true count until spring.

I was surprised to hear the generator running
when we got home.

“I promised Jacob that if he did all of his
math problems, he could watch his cartoons for an hour,” Jason
explained when I asked him why it was on.

“
Cartoons
? Are you doing anything
else? Laundry or dishes or showers?”

“I did the dishes, nothing else. Why?”

“Shut the damn thing off!” I lost it. “Look,
I stored two drums of gas, that’s
only
110 gallons. The
generator uses one gallon every two hours.
Two hours
! If we
run the generator only two hours every day, that’s not even four
months of use. Every other day, it’s six months. The gas also goes
for the snow blower, and come spring the chainsaw and log splitter!
We do not have enough gas to just be watching
cartoons
.” I
turned back into the kitchen, angry. I was mostly angry at myself
for being angry, but also angry at the world for putting us in this
situation. I sat down at the table, my head in my hands. I could
hear Jacob crying, and I felt even worse.

“Mom, we’ll get more gas,” Jason said.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know if we’ll
ever
get more gas! What is out in the barn may be all we
ever
have! And that will have to be rationed for our very
survival!”

John placed his hand on my back and made a
small, soft circle, rubbing between my shoulder blades. Then I
heard him set something down. He’d gotten some ice from outside,
and poured me two fingers of spiced rum. It didn’t seem to matter
that it was only 3:00 P.M. I took a sip and felt it burn all the
way down. The second sip was better. I looked up to see him smiling
while the tears rolled silently down my face.

“I should apologize,” I mumbled.

“No, Allex, you are right. Jason was wrong.
Do not apologize for being right.”

He sat down next to me and took a sip from my
glass. “Eeew! You really like that stuff?” He made a face, which
made me laugh.

“I could have handled it better,” I sniffed.
He handed me a tissue.

“Maybe, but there’s no question in Jason’s
mind now how you feel about this. I think you made a big impact,
one that he’s not likely to forget.”

Jacob came into the room then and ran into my
arms.

“I’m sorry, Nahna. I love you,” he whimpered,
hugging me tightly.

Jason was up early to clear the driveway from the
latest snowfall, which seems to be a nightly occurrence. While he
was doing that, he also made a trail for Jacob to run for exercise.
It’s like a maze, with lots of turns and twists, all built into the
massive snow banks in the side yard. In two spots, he created short
tunnels for his son to crawl through. Jacob loved it and was
running through the maze, having lots of fun while Jason was doing
hand work with the shovel.

John was watching them from the window while
I was making bread when suddenly he tore open the door and ran
outside screaming for Jason. Jacob had just gone into the longer of
the two tunnels near the center of the maze when it collapsed! The
guys jumped the walls where they could and busted through where
they couldn’t, digging with their bare hands. When they finally got
close enough, John grabbed Jacob’s feet and pulled him out from
under the snow. He wasn’t breathing. I knew that John had been in
several underground mine cave-ins, and that his crews were all
trained in CPR. John immediately gave Jacob a couple of breaths,
and Jacob started coughing.

* * *

I was so scared and so helpless. Jason sat
for the longest time in the rocker with Jacob on his lap, just
rocking him, holding him and crying. He almost lost his only child.
Jacob was unsure why his daddy was so upset, but understood that he
was, so quietly held on. It looked like he was the one trying to do
the comforting.

John went back outside and broke down both
tunnels, then cleaned up the paths. Later he said that there was no
reason why Jacob couldn’t still run the maze, but the tunnels were
a bad idea.

* * *

“John! Wake up! What’s wrong?” I gently shook
John, then more forcefully when he didn’t respond. Suddenly he sat
up and gasped for breath. His clear blue eyes were clouded with a
distant memory and he was trembling.

“John?” I prodded, kneeling on the bed beside
him, afraid to touch him. Nightmares can have violent consequences.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“I was back in the mine,” he said with his
eyes still closed. “The rocks overhead started crumbling down on
us. Some of the men were running for the portal. Others were
already buried under white rock. All of them were screaming, and I
was stuck in the whiteness up to my knees, unable to move and
unable to help.” He took another deep breath, shuddered again, and
the trembling stopped. I tentatively put my hands on his shoulders
and started to massage the tension out.

“I haven’t had a dream like that in a long
time,” John confessed. “It must have been the incident with Jacob
yesterday that triggered it.” He turned to me and gave me a sad
smile. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

The pre-dawn air chilled our skin and we slid
back under the covers. We held each other for a long time. When
John finally fell back asleep, I slipped out of the bed to light a
fire in the woodstove.

* * *

“Allexa, do you have any baking soda?” Dawn
asked when she stopped over this morning. “I need some for a
rehydration and electrolyte formula for the flu victims.”

“I thought you might be making biscuits,” I
teased, knowing Dawn’s lack of baking skills. I got a thirty-six
ounce container and gave it to her.

“I understand now why Kathleen always came
here first if she needed something and couldn’t get to town,” she
mused.

I couldn’t help but laugh. That was
different. Kathy always wanted herbs or something gourmet like a
vanilla bean or saffron.

“What formula are you using, Dawn?” I asked.
I had one from a nurse friend and wanted to see if they were the
same.

“Well, for electrolytes: three-fourths
teaspoon salt, one teaspoon baking soda, four tablespoons sugar,
three-fourths quarts of water, and one cup of juice, or all water.
And for rehydration: one pint water, one teaspoon salt, and one
quarter teaspoon baking soda,” she replied. “So, is there something
you want to barter for this?” Dawn asked, holding the container of
baking soda.

“Just use it wisely,” I said, slightly
offended by her question.

* * *

“Jacob is fine, Jason. The cave-in was an
accident and it was caught immediately. You’re making everybody
nervous with your hovering so, please, back off.”

“Mom, he almost
died
because of me,”
Jason said with distress.

“But he didn’t! Take this as a learning
experience,” I said taking his hands in mine, “
for you.
You’re such a good father, but you need to see the different shades
of the picture. All of the what-ifs that seem to go more with a
mother’s view. I know I use to drive myself crazy removing all the
potential what-ifs dangers from yours and Eric’s life. I learned to
temper that, by focusing on the most potentially disastrous and
removing that. Instead of being fearful, be grateful, Jason.”

“Grateful? That he almost died?” he asked,
like he hadn’t heard a word I said.

“No, grateful that he
lived
. You have
the opportunity to learn firsthand the consequences of certain
actions. Learn it! Don’t let this accident go to waste! Be watchful
but don’t smother him.”

* * *

Anna managed to collate a census from the
food pantry activity. Going by these numbers, we have fifty-two
people still in Moose Creek, and maybe that many more out in the
woods. So there are barely over one hundred people left in the
township, out of nearly eight hundred. We’ve had almost twenty-five
deaths, so that leaves over six hundred residents that have left.
At least I will now have a more accurate number when I have to go
back and beg for more food, knowing I will have to do that soon. I
looked at the tables of the dwindling food supplies and wondered
how long this will last those fifty-two people. Two weeks? Maybe
three? Then it will be back to Marquette, and back to pleading for
my town.