Easter came and went in early April, when people were isolated from one another and fighting to hang onto their lives. But this year a belated celebration falls on a Friday, the first day the restrictions on large group gatherings have been lifted. Jamestown is holding its first annual Easter egg hunt, at the recommendation of Gunther, who reported a bumper spring egg laying season, an unexpected boon in light of the temporary farm labor shortage.

In the morning, at tables in Linda's Tavern, the children dye hard boiled eggs with natural dyes made from non-poisonous wild forest berries, dipping them into colorful liquids and spooning them out to dry into brilliant reds, greens, and blues. Carol hasn't done this since Sophia was a young child, and it brings a bittersweet joy to her heart to watch Sweetheart's eyes widen as Daryl helps her fish an egg from a cup and she beholds its transformation.

While the eggs dry, the kids play horseshoes and compete in sack races outside the tavern, while parents sit at the scattered picnic tables and drink tavern-bought coffee or Bloody Marys and talk. Then Linda comes out and announces with a megaphone that it's time to wrap the newly erected Maypole.

"The what?" Daryl asks.

"You'll see," Carol tells him with a smile.

The older kids and teenagers gather around the Maypole in front of the tavern. To the tune of a fiddle and guitar and flute, they dance in a circle around the pole, holding the ends of light blue, pink, purple, and yellow ribbons, raising them up and down over the heads of other passing children as the pole is slowly wrapped. "You never did this in elementary school?" Carol asks Daryl as the kids wind the ribbons around the pole.

"Hell no. Don't even know what hell they're doin'. Or why."

"The why is because it's fun, Daryl," Shannon says from beside him. Van Daryl leans back against her legs and points a finger toward the spectacle. Sweetheart is much too little to participate, but she's toddle running in a circle outside of the circle, in imitation of the bigger kids, and for now Carol is letting her – as long as she doesn't interfere with the process. "This is all so fun. We should do this every year, baby." Shannon turns to Garland who stands on the other side of her, keeping a wary eye on Gary, who is dancing on the top of a picnic table as the musicians play. "You should make it an official Jamestown holiday. May 15. The Great Spring Festival. Or the Great Reopening!"

"Why not just call it what it was always called?" Garland asks. "Mayday?"

"Because it's not May 1st. And because Jamestown loves to call things Great. The Great Reopening, baby. Make it an annual holiday."

"I don't know that I have the authority to declare official annual holidays."

"Of course you do," Shannon teases. "Since you're such a competent man. Such a man of action."

Garland smiles and shakes his head. "I'll take it up with the council. The council declared Founding Day an annual holiday. I suppose it can declare The Great Reopening one, too. But I don't think we're going to have this many eggs next year." He looks past his wife to Daryl. "It's a fertility festival," he explains. "The maypole. Some ancient pagan nonsense so teenage boys have an excuse to bed girls."

"It's not nonsense, you prude," Shannon tells him. "It's beautiful. Look."

"Well, the youth are having fun," Garland concedes. "And so are you. And you're beautiful when you smile."

"I'm beautiful when I don't smile," Shannon insists.

Garland chuckles. "True enough."

When the pole is fully wrapped, dancing erupts to the music and couples begin to form an impromptu dancefloor on the dirt in front of the tavern. Meanwhile a few farm hands gather the mostly dried eggs and leave to go hide them on the other side of town, in the grassy fields beyond the graveyard between the old fort fence and the outer security fence.

"I don't suppose you'll dance with me?" Carol asks Daryl.

"Someone's gotta keep an eye on the kids," Daryl mutters.

"Excuses, excuses." She finds a partner in Mitch. As she dances with him, she asks, "Heading off to Alexandria soon?"

"The speedboat's supposed to arrive this afternoon. I guess they'll stay two nights as usual, and I'll be off Sunday morning. Aaron's going to meet me and Gunther at Oceanside with a horse and cart, do some trading, and then we'll ride back with him."

"I think you'll like Alexandria, but Daryl's not too thrilled about having a new hunting partner."

"It's only for two weeks," Mitch replies as they sidestep Dianne dancing with Gunther. Mitch nods toward the couple. "But they'll be apart."

Carol smiles. "Dianne thinks Gunther needs the rest and he won't take it if he doesn't get away from his fields and the Council Chambers. I'm sure she'll stay busy while he's gone."

The music comes to a stop, and the couples part and clap for the musicians, who soon start up another tune. Carol dances with Dante for the next song, and with Gunther for a third, but when a fourth song roles around, and Deputy Andrew snatches her up, Daryl breaks in. He's apparently never going to get over that big-breasted sketch the deputy made of her.

Daryl makes an awkward attempt to move with the tune, but his movements are badly off. He's okay for slow dancing, when it's just a little standing and swaying, but the music's too fast for that. Carol laughs, wraps her arms around his neck, and urges him to sway slowly, even if their pace has nothing to do with the song. He complies. "Don't want me dancing with Andrew?" she teases.

"Don't want 'em thinkin' 'bout yer tits."

"Well, he could do that from a distance."

His eyes rake down to her chest. "Can't look at 'em up close though." He bends his head and plants a kiss just above her cleavage, at the v of her white t-shirt, and she chuckles and kisses him on the lips when he raises his head again. She glances over his shoulder and sees Garland and Shannon dancing, and for a panicked moment wonders who has the kids, but then spies Rosita and Earl keeping an eye on them as Benji, who has just begun to walk, attempts to keep up with VanDaryl and Sweetheart. Gary's probably up a tree somewhere, but that's Garland and Shannon's business. She rests her head on Daryl's shoulder, laces her fingers through his, and returns to the dance, their own dance, in their own little world.

[*]

The kids are divided into two fields by an orange line spray painted across the grass. Children under six years old are assigned to the left field, and the six- to ten-year-olds to the right.

"Guess eleven's too old for huntin' eggs?" Daryl asks.

"Why, do you want to hunt, Pookie?" she teases.

"Stahp."

Sweetheart, who is riding Daryl's hip, takes her pink Easter bonnet off her head, perches it on his, and laughs gleefully. "Dadeee! Silly Dadee!"

The kids begin to line up to await Gunther's blowing of the horn to signal the start of the hunt.

"'Bout time to hunt," Daryl tells Sweetheart and sets her on her feet in the grass. He returns the bonnet to her own head and crouches down next to her. "Listen up. Huntin' eggs easy, 'cause they don't run away. Just got to look for somethin' off in the landscape. Pay 'tention now. Ya seem somethin' in the grass, and it ain't quite the right color, ya get closer. Got to be careful not to step on 'em. 'Course 's mostly the other hunters ya got to worry 'bout. They'll try to take yer prey. Gotta –"

Carol chuckles. "Daryl, she's not even two and half. She's just going to run around and have fun."

Daryl taps the rim of Sweetheart's bonnet down over her eyes and stands. Sweetheart pushes the bonnet back up and returns both hands to the handle of her woven, straw basket. Carol takes her by her hand and leads her to the starting line.

"Five," Gunther booms. "Four, three, two – " Gunther sounds the starting horn, and the kids are off, some toddling, some running. Gary flies off like a madman, zig zags through the grass, and collects egg after egg. VanDaryl toddles more steadily, but he manages to find two eggs with his deliberate approach. Sweetheart is distracted from the hunt and begins chasing a spring butterfly.

It's a bittersweet contrast, the giggles of children mere yards from the rugged crosses and tombstones, and those eggs, colorful symbols of new life, peeking from between the tall blades just beyond the graves.

Sweetheart stops chasing the butterfly. She spies an egg in the grass and gasps. She looks back at her parents at the starting line.

"Get it!" Daryl yells to her. "Hunt that egg!"

Sweetheart squats down and reaches out for it.

Another little boy, on the upper edge of the cut-off age for the group, and tall for an almost six-year-old, snatches it up before her little hand can close over it. Daryl's jaw tightens. Carol think he's about to bark at the boy when Gary comes from out of nowhere and shoves the kid backward several steps, shouting, "Hey! That's Sweetie's egg!"

The other boy careens, finds his balance, and then looks at a fuming Gary in alarm.

"Gary! No pushing!" Shannon calls from the sidelines.

"He took Sweetie's egg, the rat bastard!" Gary yell back.

"Language!" Shannon gasps. She marches over and drags Gary by the arm off the field back to the starting line. She crouches down to scold him.

Meanwhile the kid who snatched the egg from Sweetie's grasp puts it in his own basket and runs off. Sweetheart looks like she's about to cry, and Daryl takes a step forward toward the hunting field. But he stops when he sees VanDaryl toddle over to her. The two-year-old reaches into his own basket, takes out one of his two eggs, and sets it in her basket. She smiles, and the two toddle off in search of more.

"Okay, you've scolded him," Garland tells Shannon. "Now let him get back to the hunt while there's still time."

Shannon swats Gary lightly on the bottom in the direction of the hunt – more a push toward the field than a spanking – and the little boy runs off again.

Meanwhile, the father of the tall, egg pilfering boy comes over and stands next to Garland. "You think that's all right, mayor? Your boy pushing mine around and calling him a rat bastard?"

"Well, to be fair, Paul, your boy was behaving like a rat bastard," Garland replies calmly.

The man glowers but doesn't issue any further challenge. He walks away, muttering under his breath, along the sidelines.

"Where'd Gary even get that language?" Shannon asks. "That's not something you are I ever say, baby."

Garland smirks at Daryl. "Maybe he got it from his godfather."

"Hell no," Daryl says. "I ain't never said rat bastard in m'life. I'd of said little shit."

[*]

In the end, Sweetheart and VanDaryl return with four eggs a piece – six of which VanDaryl found, and two of which he generously slipped into the little girl's basket. Gary has five. They return to the Barrons' cabin for lunch, and while the men watch the kids outside, the women prepare an egg salad.

"It's a good thing the kids are outside," Carol tells Shannon as she cracks and then peels an egg. "Sweetheart would probably cry if she saw what we were doing to her pretty eggs." She tosses the unpeeled egg into the bowl and cracks another. "VanDaryl was so sweet to her today. Gary, in his own way, too."

"I need to wash Gary's mouth out with soap."

Carol laughs. "Rat bastard. Such an odd phrase."

"I think Garland's been reading him some of his hardboiled detective books at bedtime."

"Garland's right, though," Carol muses. "That kid was being a rat bastard. I'm glad Gary stepped in or Daryl might have."

"He's a little jerk, just like his daddy. Paul used to go to the whorehut even though he's married. Well, he was married. His wife divorced him last year and now she's dating a fisherman, a farmer, and a sailor. Probably to get back at him." Shannon shrugs. "Or maybe just because it's fun."

"You know, the council's assigned Paul to be Daryl's temporary hunting partner while Mitch is gone?"

"Oh dear God," Shannon says. "Poor Daryl." She throws the last egg in the bowl and picks up the masher. "Or poor Paul more like. I hope he doesn't have a hunting accident."

[*]

Everyone has eaten and the dishes are cleared. Shannon now brings the adults cups of hot tea. "Thanks," Carol says as Shannon sits down across from her at the little four-person table again. The kids are busy playing before the unlit fireplace, VanDaryl and Sweetheart with large bristle blocks and Gary with his matchbox car garage.

VanDaryl hands his bristle block creation to Sweetheart. It's a square – an actual, neat geometric shape he's managed to push together. In return, she offers her own haphazard creation, a random array of colorful bristle blocks shoved together in all directions. The two commence to taking apart each other's masterpieces.

Carol missed this during quarantine, when she was well enough to miss anything other than breathing normally. The little things in life, which they used to take for granted –simple human comradery – seem more precious now.

"Oh, I forgot the honey," Shannon mutters. "Would you get the honey, Garland, baby? Since you're such a competent man? Such a man of action?"

"Relent, woman," Garland says as he rises to bring a small mason jar of dripping honeycomb to the table.

That's the second time Shannon's said that to him today, so Carol asks, "What's that all about?"

"It's what Cyndie called him in her last letter. A competent man. A man of action." Shannon leans forward conspiratorially. "Her letter was full of flirtatious compliments."

"You exaggerate." Garland dips a thin straw in the honey and puts some in his wife's tea. Then he passes the jar to Carol.

"Do I?" Shannon asks. "Didn't she renew her offer to take you out for a drink?"

"I made it clear I wasn't drinking alone with her."

"Because you do know she's coming on to you!" Shannon exclaims in a gotchya tone.

"You may have been right about her crush on me," Garland concedes.

"Of course I was right about it. I just thought the way I hung all over you last time she was here would have shut her down. But I guess she needs to hear it from the horse's mouth?"

"Well she did," Garland assures her.

"Mhmhm. If I know you, baby – and I do know you – you were probably a bit too subtle in your reply."

"I'm a diplomat, darling."

Daryl and Carol exchange amused smiles with each other and then sip their tea.

"Well Cyndie's coming today," Shannon says. "Maybe you need to be less diplomatic and more direct this time."

"She hasn't crossed any lines."

"You like it don't you?" Shannon asks as she sets her teacup down. "Her attention. You're flattered."

Garland shrugs. "I did notice some more gray hairs yesterday."

Shannon chuckles. "All right, fine. You can let her flirt with you a little, just don't flirt back too much. As long as I get to flirt, too."

"With whom?" Garland asks.

Shannon shrugs. "I don't know. There are so many good-looking men in Jamestown. Captain McBride. Dante. Gunther. Santiago. Daryl."

Daryl chokes on his tea and Carol laughs.

"I'd like to see you try to flirt with Daryl," Carol says. "Maybe you could teach him a thing or two."

Daryl's face flushes a light red.

"Yes, flirt with Daryl," Garland agrees. "If you must flirt with someone."

"I could flirt with you," Shannon says and bats her eyelashes at her husband.

He smiles. "I like it when you flirt with me."

"Better than when Cyndie does?"

"Cyndie couldn't hold a candle to you, my love."

VanDaryl toddles over and comes to a stop by Daryl's chair, putting one hand on one of the back rails of the chair and the other on Daryl's knee.

"Hey, little man," says Daryl, forgetting his embarrassment. "'S up, little buddy?"

VanDaryl stares intently at Daryl's black, muscle t-shirt. For a rare change, this one doesn't contain jagged threads at the shoulders. Daryl didn't rip the arms off. He found it already sleeveless in storage, in a box of neatly folded, plastic wrapped t-shirts looted from a record store, and bought it for a round of ammo. Carol teased him about "going shopping" when he came back with it.

VanDaryl stabs a finger at Daryl's chest. "Aaay," he says loudly, still unable to regulate his volume when he can only half hear himself. Then he moves his finger and stabs again. "Ceee." He slides his finger to his right. "Deee." He slides right again. "Ceee."

"Yeah!" Daryl exclaims. "AC/DC. 'S an old world band." He looks across the table at Garland. "They ain't supposed to know letters yet, are they?" He glances at Sweetheart as though he's afraid he's fallen down on the job somewhere.

"No," Shannon says. "They usually start that around three or later. But he's my little quiet observer, aren't you?" She ruffles her son's reddish-brown hair. VanDaryl smiles up at her sweetly and then toddles back to play with Sweetheart.

That night, Carol finds Daryl cuddled with Sweetheart in bed, the Chick A Chick A Boom Boom book open between them. He points out the letters, says them loudly, and urges her to repeat him.

"It's not a competition, Pookie," she tells him with an affectionate smile before kissing Sweetheart goodnight on her forehead and returning to the living room to do some council paperwork she's put off far too long.