The Journal: Crimson Skies: (The Journal Book 3) (16 page)

“What about the wiring?” I asked.

“Impossible to tell without ripping walls
down, though I found a circuit panel instead of a fuse box, which
is a good sign. Perhaps it was upgraded when the previous business
came in,” he ventured.

“So what’s our next step here? I’m sure Mark
wants to get this operational as quickly as possible,” I
commented.

“If there’s one thing I learned in the ER
down in Saginaw, it’s to expect the unexpected and to never depend
on having time ‘tomorrow’ to get ready for something today. So yes,
what can we do to get started?” Mark said.

“Fortunately the place is absolutely empty.
We can start cleaning while you guys hunt down furniture. I’m sure
there is an abundance of beds in this empty town. In fact, ” I
hesitated only a moment before continuing, “The house on Eagle
Beach has all
new
beds, most of them singles, and there
should be at least a dozen of them.

“Amanda, you and I can start sweeping and
mopping, and then washing walls and windows while they’re gone.
Once we get everything washed down, including the bathrooms and
kitchen, we can go through some of the houses nearby for sheets and
blankets.” I instantly had a vision of collecting floral sheets as
funeral shrouds for all those people that had died in the ash fall
a couple of months ago, and gave an involuntary shudder.

“You okay, Mom?” Amanda asked.

“I’m fine, dear, just a distant memory,
that’s all.”

~~~

Four hours later, the guys returned with six
twin bed frames and three box springs.

“Once we get the frames reassembled and set
in place, we’ll go back for the rest.” Mark was beaming. “That
place is a treasure trove, Allex. There are sheets and blankets
still in the closets, and towels in the bathrooms. Do you want us
to take those too?”

“That would be great and would save us some
time. All of it will have to be washed anyway, so no need to box it
carefully. On second thought, Mark, leave the linens. Amanda and I
will go back for those. You four will have a full truck as it
is.”

~~~

I took a moment to watch the wave action on
Lake Superior. The water lapped gently at the shoreline, leaving a
gray film of wet ash mixed with seaweed and sand. Still, it was
peaceful and reminded me of better times, but something was
missing. Then it dawned on me: there were no seagulls; no birds of
any kind, and it saddened me.

I crossed the threshold into the Eagle Beach
house; the house where John and his co-workers had lived. The house
where I had spent many hours giving John a weekly massage; the
house where I fell in love with him. I felt my heart twist into a
tight knot, and I acknowledged to myself that I still loved him,
different than what I feel for Mark, but the feelings were still
there. I let out an involuntary sob, and felt Amanda’s hand on my
shoulder.

“Dr. Mark is a good man, Mom. You did the
right thing, you know.” How did she know the turmoil I was
feeling?

“Yes, I know,” I whispered. I took a deep
breath, and I swear I could smell John’s presence. “Let’s get this
over with.”

We piled twelve sets of sheets on the large
wooden dining room table, and then all the pillowcases that were in
the closets. Next were as many blankets as we could find. We
emptied the other closets of bath towels, washcloths and kitchen
towels, plus laundry soap, dish soap and even hand soap.

“It’s going to take forever to wash all
this!” Amanda exclaimed.

“We’ll take it to the Laundromat at Fram’s
and be done in no time,” I replied as we stuffed all of it into the
back of my car.

~~~

“So who is up for a little B & E?” I
asked, and all four men stopped what they were doing to stare at
me. “We have to get into the Laundromat.”

Ken let out a chuckle and said, “I can help
with that.”

“Now don’t tell the guys how easy this was,”
Ken said, producing a ring of keys and letting us in the front
door. “As the Moose Creek law, I have keys to all the
businesses.”

“Your secret is safe with us, Ken. Can you
jimmy the coin boxes on the machines? We can keep feeding the coins
back in that way without much damage. We’ll need to have all the
machines going and I don’t have that much change.”

“No problem, and I’m sure Joe would
understand.” He popped the front cover off all the washers and
dryers, revealing a multitude of quarters for our use. Then he
slipped the key off his ring and handed it to me. “Lock up when
you’re done.”

Amanda and I loaded half of the blankets into
the triple washers and the sheets and pillowcases into the regular
washers. The rest of the blankets and the towels would have to wait
until tomorrow. It was getting late and everyone was tired.

~~~

“This looks great, Mark.” Four of the beds
were lined up in two rows, box springs and mattresses in place.
“Where did you get the desk and chairs for the foyer?”

“We thought it appropriate to use furniture
from the township offices, Mom,” Jason answered. “There’s one in
the smaller back room, too. We also took one of the file cabinets.
Don’t worry though, we placed all of the files in a couple of
boxes.”

I wandered from the front to the back and
between the beds. “Didn’t you bring back six beds? Where are the
other two?”

“We took them upstairs for when we need to
stay overnight. These four fit perfectly,” Mark said.

“This is shaping up faster than I thought it
would,” I said.

“Yes,” Mark replied. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Now all we need now are curtains between the beds.”

“We have an idea for that.” Jason and Eric
both grinned.

September 23

Amanda and I went back into town to the
Laundromat to finish drying and folding the first load of sheets
while the last load was washing.

“Where are we going to store all of this?”
Amanda asked as we brought in stacks of neatly folded sheets,
blankets, and towels.

“I’m not sure. For now we will leave them
sitting on the bed here. It will be a reminder that we need to have
Jason or Eric build some shelves.”

“What about a couple of dressers? There’s got
to be some around somewhere.”

“Great idea; that would solve the problem
without additional work on their part,” I concluded. “I think you
and I are capable of finding the dressers, even if we can’t move
them without a truck. Speaking of which, I saw the guys leave this
morning in the truck, do you know where they went?”

“Um, y-yeah, I thought you knew they were
going into M-Marquette,” she stammered.

“What? No, I didn’t know! What are they
doing? They know we’ve been restricted from drawing attention by
spending more money.” I was now concerned for my son’s safety.

“I think they had permission from the
colonel. Rayn and Ansell came out together, and Jason, Eric, and
Rayn went back into town for some supplies to build the privacy
curtains for Dr. Mark.” She looked downcast. “I hope I haven’t
gotten them into trouble.”

“No, I can’t expect them to check with me for
every move they make. Between the three of them I’m sure they’ll be
fine,” I said, thinking of Rayn’s military clearance.

“I wanted to tell you that Jason has been so
much happier these past couple of days having something challenging
to do. It gets boring, just sitting around,” she confessed. “I
could tell he’s really excited about the plan they’ve come up with.
He said you’re going to love it.”

~~~

When I got back home I asked Mark if he knew
what my sons were up to.

“Not exactly, but Eric stopped in while you
were in the shower this morning, and asked for some money. I
figured it was fine since it was for construction of the hospital
and I took it out of the pouch. Was that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay, that money is for all
of us to use. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me, that’s all.”

Mark hugged me close, and all my doubts
melted away. “I think those boys of yours love to surprise you and
hope you’ll be pleased. I’m happy that they’ve taken such an active
interest in fixing the hospital.”

September 25

“Mark, while you guys hunt up a couple of
dressers for the hospital, Amanda, Emi, Jacob, and I need to finish
harvesting what little is left in the garden.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s much there,
Allex.”

“That’s because what has survived is in the
ground. There are still potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips,
rutabagas, and onions. Those are the few things that weren’t
affected by the ash. Although I’m not expecting a really good
harvest because of the colder temperatures, there will be some. I
highly doubt it’s going to get any warmer for them to grow more, so
we might as well get them out.”

“You’re the gardener,” Mark said amiably. “So
how many dressers do you think we will need?”

“I would say one for each bed. That way we
can store extra sheets right there, and the patients will have a
drawer for their stuff. That is,
if
you have patients.” I
took his hands in mine. “I hope your expectations aren’t too high,
Mark. In fact, wouldn’t it be great to
not
have
patients?”

“Yes, it would, but I still can’t get those
pregnant women out of my head. I want to be in the position to help
them if they ask,” he responded.

~~~

“This is going to be fun, Nahna!”

“I sure think so too, Emi. Finding the food
we planted months ago is thrilling to me.” I smiled at her. She’d
grown another inch at least.

Jacob had the job of retrieving the various
vegetables we dug up and putting them into the plastic wagon. I
started with the potatoes, showing Emi how to spot where they might
be and how to dig with the claw tool so as not to bruise them.

“Why is that important, Nahna?” she asked,
wiping the dirt off a big spud and handing it to Jacob.

“The more bruised or damaged they are, the
harder they are to store,” I answered. “However, any badly bruised
ones we’ll eat right away by making French fries and potato chips!”
That got Jacob’s attention, as I knew it would.

“Can we have French fries for dinner
tonight?” he asked.

“I think that’s a great idea, Jacob.” Amanda
was working quietly by herself digging carrots. She put the orange
tubers in a basket after cutting the tops off and made a neat pile
of the greens. At the end of each row, regardless of how few or how
many greens there were, she tossed them over the fence into the
chicken yard for them to eat. I was pleased how everyone had
learned that we don’t waste anything.

“You might want to put on some gloves,
Amanda,” I mentioned to her when she got ready to work on the row
of beets. “Once you cut the greens they bleed red and will stain
your hands.”

“It’s too bad we can’t use the stain
somehow.”

I felt like slapping my hand to my head!

“We can! Oh, Amanda, I’m so glad you thought
of that. I had completely forgotten,” I said. “Instead of giving
those to the chickens, put them in a bucket. We’ll cut them up and
cover them with hot water. In two days we will have deep red water
that we can use to stain branches for making baskets!”

“Is there anything else that will give us a
stain?” she asked with enthusiasm.

“Yes,” I answered, “the skins off the onions
will produce a pale yellow or tan coloring, but those have to be
done as we use the onions, not now.”

Everyone seemed to work with a new zest and
we were finished by early afternoon. We lined up our harvest in
front of the barn. All the soil had been carefully brushed from
each vegetable and then laid out on a tarp to dry, which was part
of the curing process for all except the carrots. A gentle warm
wind dried them quickly and we turned everything over to
finish.

Once done, we carefully piled the potatoes
into three-bushel baskets for storage in the cold pantry. The
rutabagas and turnips filled another. I sighed inwardly with relief
and satisfaction that we were able to harvest so much. It would
make the coming winter much easier.

“What do we do with the onions?” Emi asked as
she eyed the full basket.

“This is going to seem kind of silly, and
it’s a trick I learned a long time ago, back when your dad and
Uncle Jason were quite young. I’ll be right back.” I went into the
house to find my stash of pantyhose.

“You’re right, that looks pretty silly,”
Amanda agreed when I dropped a handful of onions down into one of
the legs, and then attached a twist-tie. I added another handful of
onions, and another twist-tie.

“Okay, Emi, Jacob, it’s your job to fill this
with onions! When you’re done, we will hang this in the pantry.
Whenever we need onions, we cut the bottom segment off.
But
,” I added, “we don’t throw away the nylon, we will put
it in a bag or maybe another stocking. Then we can use all those
pieces to stuff toys with, soft toys that will then be completely
washable.”

Amanda looked perplexed. “What are we going
to do with soft toys, Mom?”

“Give them to babies.” I smiled.

October 1

“I’m sorry, Mom, there wasn’t any message in
the guard shack again,” Eric told me. He and Jason had gone
together. Much to Eric’s disappointment, Rayn hadn’t come out this
afternoon to go with him. I insisted that there were always two of
them, and that they were always heavily armed whenever they went
near Mathers Lake.

Last week Eric and Rayn had gone out on
Monday, only to discover our first note had been picked up, and
nothing left in its place.

“Maybe he didn’t have anything to say,” Mark
suggested.