55.

~ "I don't think we've met." Alex squinted at George. He had noticed the easy laughter that was passing between Norma and Christine's brother when he pulled up. How her quickly her expression had changed from happiness to surprise in an instant. It was as if she'd been caught in the act and was hurrying to try and make everything seem like it wasn't a big deal.

Alex had noticed the nice luxury car parked in her driveway along with the fact that they were both smiling at each other.

Dylan had raced out on to the porch just as Norma and their unexpected guest stood up.

"This is George. Um…Christine's brother." Norma clarified. "He came to check on us."

"That's nice of you." Alex nodded when George glanced nervously at Norma. He was holding what looked like a stack of papers in his hands and there was a sudden tension of unspoken things between them when they looked at each other.

Dylan tugged on Alex's shirt and forced him to look down at the child. He saw Norma's youngest pat his heart with his two fingers crossed in the secret code he had taught him. His head nodding back at George.

Alex nodded and waved for Dylan to go back inside.

"Well, I'm glad to see everyone is okay." George said in an awkwardly loud voice.

"We're fine." Alex said allowing the interloper to leave. He glanced at Norma who met his gaze unflinchingly.

"Thank you, George." she waved back at him with her radiant fake smile. She glanced back at Alex and there was defiantly at coldness passing between them as they waited out the long seconds for George's car to make it's less than graceful exit out of the dead end lane.

"It's not what it looked like." Norma said at last.

"What did it look like?" Alex shrugged.

She rolled her eyes in frustration.

"I didn't invite him here. He just showed up." she told him.

"Okay." Alex nodded.

"Alex." Norma said in a stern tone. "That's the truth."

"I know. I believe you." he said. "What were you two talking about?"

She looked uncomfortable.

"What?" he asked.

~ "Why didn't you tell me about this?" Alex asked. He leafed through the copies Norma had of all the insurance notification and bill collectors with Sam's name on it.

"Because I didn't know what to do!" Norma insisted. She felt tears welling up and hated herself for crying. Hated herself for always crying when she didn't want to. "I didn't want to worry you, Alex. This problem seemed too huge. There's ten thousand dollars in debt here and they were saying I owed them and it scared me! Then this insurance company came along and it seemed like the answer to everything and that scared me to because if I got this money I knew I could easily spend it all in just a few years just trying to get ahead. I wanted to be smart about this. This was my one chance to get a better life for the boys. If I wasted it, if I was stupid or lost it on some bad investment, then we'd have no finical back up. Christine mentioned her brother was a finical lawyer and I asked if he could recommend someone. I had no idea he would come to the house like this."

Alex shrugged off his all weather jacket and tossed it on her bedroom chair. He had forced the boys to stay inside even though Norma felt the water levels looked safe.

"So, after everything, after everything we've told each other about our lives, you couldn't tell me this? Norma, this is fixable. This is money. Money is a fixable problem." Alex sighed in irritation.

"You only say that because you have it!" Norma snapped without thinking.

She looked away from him and her vision blurred with tears.

"Norma."

She refused to look back at him.

"Norma, look at me, please." he asked.

She shook her head and looked out the window and the small valley that was still a river.

"You know, you take me to your family farm where you grew up with all this security of knowing who you are and where you come from." she said with her voice shaking. "To this beautiful house with five bedrooms and…"

"Norma?"

"I never had that growing up, Alex." she said. "We lived in a van. We lived in abandoned houses with no electricity and no running water. You always had a real house to go to when things got bad. I didn't. You accuse me of preparing for the worst, because I always had to. I always had to be ready for it. When things go bad for me, it meant I had nothing. Sometimes less than nothing. When things go bad for me now, I'll have two boys depending on me to look after them. So I have to think of them first. I have to think of them first and everyone else second."

She was shaking as she spoke but she didn't regret what she said for a second. She still didn't look at him.

She looked out the window again when Alex's weight sank on the bed next to her.

"I didn't realize it was bragging." he whispered. "Taking you to the farm house like that. I just wanted to show you that I could provide for you. That… you didn't have to be so damn independent all the time. That you could let me help you. That you could let me help you now. I want to help you now."

Norma sniffed and hated herself all over again for crying.

"I didn't feel like it was bragging. That much." she sighed. "It's just…"

"What?" Alex asked.

She finally looked back at him.

"I thought I was in love with Sam. We just clicked so fast and I was willing to leave John for him. It turned sour after I found out I was expecting Norman. I found out he lied about a lot of things. I stayed for Norman and because I didn't know how to leave. I didn't have the ability." she admitted shamefully.

"You're worried that if we rush into this, if we get married and move in together and start a family… things turn sour… you won't be able to leave." Alex concluded soberly.

Norma looked away and out the window.

"You do like to worry." Alex sighed. He laced his fingers with hers and brought her hand up to his lips. Kissing her hand gently.

"I call it preparing for the worst." Norma whispered.

"I call it planning for failure." Alex said darkly.
"It's no different from you putting sandbags around the house." Norma told him.

"That's to protect my family. There's a difference." Alex said with a slight smile. He clasped his other hand over hers protectively. "Because I knew something bad was going to happen and needed to protect them. I don't put sandbags down on the off chance the storm comes. That's no way to live."

Norma smiled a little.
"Thank you. For calling us your family." she said weakly. "That made me… um… really happy."

"Doesn't look like it did." Alex nodded at her tear stained face.

"Well, it did." she smiled softly.

"We have a year before the house is even close to being ready." Alex admitted. "With this storm, it might take even longer."

"A year is good." Norma nodded.

She let out a long breath and looked at him.

"If it all goes to hell and we split up?" she asked. Her worst fear was being homeless with another child by a third husband and no income to speak of.

"Well, you've got your pick of excellent divorce lawyers here in town." Alex mused. "Knowing the women here, you can break my heart, take half my money and make me beg you to do it again."

"Oh, I would never do that." Norma sighed contentedly. "Once would be enough."

She glanced at Alex and saw him smiling.

"You didn't honestly think I would go for someone like George did you?" she asked.

"He's rich and he drives a nice car." Alex said childishly.

"He's ugly and my kids hate him." Norma laughed. "Also Graceland almost attacked him so that should tell you something."

"She smelled lawyer on him." Alex said suspiciously. "It's her favorite food."

"I've been feeding her bacon while you were gone." Norma said dryly.

"Norma."

"She's a good girl and she attacked that awful man who tried to break into our house." Norma snapped.

~ The power came back on an hour later and Norma insisted Alex be the first one to make use of a hot shower and to shave off the three days worth of unchecked facial hair he'd grown.

She didn't want to mention how much she detested it, but she really preferred him to be clean shaven.

The boys were happy to have power back even though Alex told them it still wasn't safe to be outside alone yet. Tomorrow they would all go into town together before he had to go back to work. Not today. No arguments.

After Alex came out of the bathroom from his shower, he went, zombie like, to their bedroom and was sleep for nine hours strait. The boys having to stay quite the whole time which was a challenge for Norma in such a small house when no one could go outside.

She managed to pass the time with them by reading to Norman while Dylan worked on puzzles they had been trying to complete during their time shut in like this.

"Why cant we go outside?" Dylan whispered at last. "The rain had stopped."

"Alex thinks the water is still to high." Norma whispered back when she finished reading to Norman and her youngest was almost ready for his nap.

~ When Norman was down for his nap and Dylan was bored with puzzles and willing to watch anything as long as the TV was on, Norma finally turned on the TV. That was when she found out what Alex had really been up to those long days when it had been raining non stop over White Pine Bay.

"Dylan, go to your room and take a nap." Norma ordered when she saw this she didn't want her son to see.

"Is that here?" Dylan asked worriedly when and image of the flooded bay appeared on the screen and police SUV's were blocking traffic and moving people away from certain disaster.

"Go to your room." Norma told him.
"Is Alex on TV?" Dylan asked when she pushed him out of the living room.

"Go." Norma hissed.

She raced back to the living room and sat close to the TV with the volume as low as she could get it out of fear of waking Alex and of Dylan overhearing.

The news reporting about the terrible storm that caused the bay to overflow and to breech part of the village proper. How several people were killed just trying to evacuate that first night. Including a young family with two small children had drowned when their car had over turned in the rush of flood water. How an elderly couple, both handicapped, were found dead in the flood waters yesterday by Sheriff's deputies, after they were trapped in their home. The news showing the local supermarket had been looted that first and second night and Norma was sure she saw Alex and even Sheriff Wilson in bright yellow rain coats wadding through knee high water.

Then came the most tragic of news. How a young girl that very morning had been playing alone out in her back yard in the sunshine and, feeling safe, had stepped into the rushing water, not unlike Norma's newly formed river outside, and been carried away and drowned. The water only a few feet deep, but strong enough to pull her away.

"The family of three year old Bradly Martian could not be reached for comment and the Sheriff's department is investigating this tragic occurrence." the reporter said.

Norma gasped and shut off her TV as if the new of that little girl's death might somehow contaminate her family.

They showed a picture of Bradly and Norma recognized her immediately as the little blond girl Norman had so innocently kissed at Christine's party the other night. The little girl had been so sweet and beautiful Norma couldn't think of her as dead.

No wonder Alex demanded the boys stay inside.

~ When Alex woke up, he felt as if he could still sleep for another day or two. His feet were sore and his knees hurt and nothing could shake the chill out of his bones.

He rolled over and realized slowly Norma must have come in and put an extra blanket over him at some point while he slept. That she was cooking something nice that smelled like beef. The delicious fragrance of herbs roasting and potatoes cooking was enough to rouse Alex awake and he was suspicious as to what would make her cook so extravagantly when normally she was efficient and thrifty when it came to her cooking.

"That generator saved everything that was in my freezer. Thought we might enjoy it." Norma said when he stubbled groggily out of the bedroom to see Dylan and Norman watching a movie on the VCR. Another habit of Norma's broken. She normally hated the boys to mindless watch movies or TV, and insisted they find entrainment on their own.

"What's smells so good?" he nodded to the oven.
"Pot roast." Norma smiled and Alex picked up on her fake smile. Mainly because it was so bright and faltered so quickly.

"I take it you saw the news." he said.

She looked as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

"Bradly Martian." she whispered.

"I know." he nodded sadly.

"Were you there?" she asked in horror.

Alex refused to answer right away. Refused to tell her how he'd helped put that little girl into a body bag. Mrs. Martin so drunk she wasn't even aware Bradly was out of the house, let alone dead. How a neighbor had called it in when she noticed a strange 'doll' had washed up in her backyard and realized it was a little girl. How Jerry Martin had been so angry with his wife, it took every man there to hold him back from killing her.

Alex had thought the worst part of the storm was pulling that flooded SUV out of the road knowing there was a family still inside. All of them dead and the children still safely buckled in their car seats. Or when he'd had to help Maggie Summers to an ambulance after some looters had attacked her at the grocery store and she wouldn't stop crying and shaking. That her only crime was being at work when someone decided they were going to panic and take everything and hit the check out lady in the head with baseball bat.

Maggie couldn't stop screaming over the injustice of it all. Romero had caught the guilty party when their truck stalled in the high water and they tried to wade out in the freezing waters. One of them didn't make it, which was it's own justice. The other two were picked up by good neighbors and brought into the same hospital Alex had been taking Maggie's statement at. Romero recognizing the description as soon as they were brought in and asking the victim for a positive ID.

Then the bay overflowed that night and the real hell began. Norma and her bear sighting were the least of Alex's worries, although he was glad she was okay. The nursing home where Simon was as had lost power and was flooding. There was concern of where to take the patients and residents of the hospitals and nursing homes, but the waters never got that high and there was not call to evacuate the town.

Alex had checked on Sybil who was smart enough to stay at City Hall for the entire disaster and Simon refused to budge from his small apartment for even a second.

No, Alex had thought the worst was over when he responded alone to that odd call from a neighbor about a strange doll. The older woman was his former high school art teacher and met him on the front lawn.

"Oh, Little Bear. I… think she's dead." Mrs. Roxanne Glass said holding a hand to her chest and looking wide eyed and frightened. It was the same look she always had, even when teaching. She hand't changed much in fifteen years.

Alex walked out alone to Mrs. Glass' backyard and stopped when he saw the girl's blond hair and red rain coat and matching boots. Bradly's skin was already blue from the cold flood waters that had pushed her body into Mrs. Glass' backyard.

"I thought she was a doll at first, Alex." Mrs. Glass sobbed as if she were responsible. "I thought she was a little doll."

Tom Wilson saw the strain was getting to Alex and told him to take the day off and go home to Norma and the boys. That the worst was over.

~ Now, Alex looked at Norma and shook his head.

"No, I wasn't there." he said. Lying as easily as he could because he couldn't tell her the truth.

He nodded to the boys who were watching TV with blank expressions.

"We'll take the boys into town tomorrow. Do some grocery shopping." he said.

Norma looked back at him and nodded slowly.

"What do we tell them?" she whispered. "About Bradly?"

"Nothing." he shook his head and shrugged off the image of that little body in that water. "They didn't know Bradly. It was a tragic accident. No need to confuse their world."