Jessica and Morgan
Duane was crotched on the ground, his back hunched and his faced wrinkled up with intense concentration. The fishing hook was pinned between his knees and he had a firm grasp on the worm with the thumb and index finger of both hands. He had never fished before but he didn't want these girls to know that, especially when they seemed so confident in what they were doing. Cassie was watching the boy out of the corner of her eye. She had never seen someone take so long to bait a hook in her whole life. Handing her pole to her sister, she took a few steps closer to Duane and knelt beside him to see what was taking him so long. Then she started laughing. Not just a little giggle or a smile, but fall on your ass and grip your sides belly laughing.
Jessica tipped her hat back and looked over at her daughter. She had not seen either of the girls laugh in such a long time that at first the noise had startled her. And Cassie had always had the exact same laugh as RickyJo. From the look on Duane's face, Jessica guessed he was the reason her daughter was laughing. The boy looked embarassed and ashamed. Jessica guessed he would be red in the face from blushing if he wasn't so dark complected. She handed her pole to Desiree who was now juggling all three fishing poles and trying not to get the lines tangled. Morgan reached over and took one of them off her hands. He noticed the girls had stopped flinching away from him when he came close to them, and that made him happy. Unless he needed to hand or take something from one of them, he made sure to give them their space just in case. None of them had said what happened to them, but clearly it was something that made them scared and nervous around men.
"What is so funny?," Jessica asked Cassie. Cassie looked up to see her mother with her hands on her hips, looking angry. She guessed it was a little rude to laugh at Duane like that but what he had been doing had just been so funny, she had not been able to help herself. Choking off the end of her laughter and wiping at her eyes, Cassie tried to explain.
"He was trying to tie the worm on the hook like it was a piece of string," she said. Even Morgan grinned at this, but he tried to turn his head so his son wouldn't see. He didn't know much about fishing himself, but at least he had been able to figure out that the hook went through the worm. Jessica bent down and took the worm from Duane, threading it on the the hook with a practiced hand. Then she gave Cassie what she hoped was a very dirty look and headed back to take her pole from Morgan.
"Sorry I laughed at you," Cassie told Duane. He finally recovered enough to laugh a little at himself.
"I guess it was kind of funny," he admitted.
"Haven't ya ever been fishing before?," she asked him. He shook his head. "Really?" Cassie had never met anyone that didn't know how to go fishing. She felt bad for the boy. Fishing was fun. "I kin show you what to do," she offered, "if ya want." He smiled at her. He thought maybe he might like that. It was better than getting laughed at, that was for sure. And he liked the way these girls talked. He had never met a black cowgirl before but that's what he had decided this girl must be. She even had a cowboy hat she wore to keep the sun out of her eyes. Cassie took her pole back from her sister and headed a little further upstream with Duane where the water was a little deeper and it would be easier for him not to snag on the bottom of the creek.
"That's far enough," Morgan warned them. He didn't like the kids getting out of sight. He watched his son with the young girl. Duane wasn't really old enough to really take interest in girls yet, but Morgan guessed he would be soon enough. And even he could admit that the young girl with his son was going to be a beauty. She looked just like her mother, except for her coloring, which gave her almost an exotic look. They even had the same wild curly hair, though the girl's was a shiny jet black. Her eyes were bright like her mother's though they were amber colored instead of blue. She had a patch of freckles across her nose and that long leggy baby deer look that young girls got right before they started to mature. His son could do a lot worse, that was certain.
"Have you really never been fishing with him before," Jessica asked Morgan, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"No," he said with a smal chuckle, "we are genuine city boys." Jessica laughed. She was pretty, but when she smiled or laughed, her face really lit up. Morgan was becoming quite fond of her, but he had been married so long it still felt a little like cheating. And he didn't want to make her feel forced into anything, just because they were sticking together to help each other out. But it wasn't hurting anyone for him to simply look at her. She had that old ratty cowboy hat on again, the white one she wore to keep the sun off. He had seen cowboy hats before, but never one that looked worn and well loved like the one she wore. It was even unravelling a little on one side where it had been stepped on by a horse. Morgan had never met a woman who rode horses. His wife had been so scared of animals she had ran out of the house half dressed and into the street screaming once because there was a bat in the house. He had not been home so she had called 911 and told them they better come and get it.
Morgan found Jessica to be a very mysterious and almost alien creature. She looked like something that walked out of a country music video. He had known hillbilly women existed, but before he met Jessica he had guessed they were all dirty and missing most of their teeth. And the fact that she had two obviously biracial children made him curious. He wondered what her family had thought about that. He also wondered what the father was like. All he could picture was the black cowboy from Blazing Saddles.
"I got one," Duane shouted, "I got a fish!" He was holding up the line on the end of his pole where a sizable fish was dangling. Cassie took the pole from him and handed him hers, then she grabbed a rag and used it to hold the fish while she got the hook back out of it's mouth. Then she plunked it into the cooler they had filled half up with water. Duane came over to admire his catch.
"Just a few more like this'un and we will be eatin' good tonight," Cassie told him. Duane swelled with pride. His father smiled at him. Mogan was glad Duane had caught the first fish. It more than made up for his embarrassment with the worm earlier.
The fishing went quickly after that. Everyone caught a fish except Cassie. She didn't really mind, since she had been helping Duane, she figured she could claim half credit on the ones he caught. On the way back, Morgan noticed Jessica stop and start pulling up plants out of the ground. She explained to him that they were garlic chives. Then he saw the girls picking all the leaves off some dandelions. Cassie stood up from the plants, her posture suddenly alert. Morgan looked around, thinking there might be some danger, but then he saw she had the bow she carried pointed at the ground. He couldn't see anything there, but when she loosed the arrow, it hit a rabbit and sent another one leaping away.
"Whoa,' Duane exclaimed, "good shot." Cassie smiled. She knew she was a good shot, but she liked to hear people say it anyway.
"Since ya never been fishin' I expect ya don't know how to skin a rabbit either," she said to Duane. He shook his head. The only rabbit he had ever been close to was a pet one that his friend Bobby had kept in a cage in his room. Cassie yanked the arrow out of the rabbit and then got her knife out. As she went, she explained to Duane what she was doing. "First ya gotta make sure its dead." She grabbed it by the back legs and held it up, then braced it against a tree and cut its head off in a fluid motion. Now there was no doubt the rabbit was dead. Duane was a little grossed out but he tried not to show it. "Then you cut the feet off." She bent each one a little at an angle and sliced them off with her knife. "Then you skin it. Got to make a cut in the fur but ya got to be careful not to cut down into the meat." She sliced into the fur on the back, then gripped it firmly and pulled, ripping all the fur off in two sections that she tossed away into the bushes. "Then you take the guts out." She cut a shallow line along the belly and then held the rabbit up by the back and squeezed gently, letting the organs and the intestines out and letting them plop in the ground. "Thats it," she announced. Jessica opened the cooler so she could toss it in with the fish they had already gutted out down by the creek.
Cassie washed her hands off with some water from a bottle and then went back to helping her sister pick the dandelion greens. Duane stared after her, and then looked down at the rabbit guts and feet. He had been impressed with how much Cassie knew about fishing, but now he was slightly in awe of her. And a little scared. She had guttted that rabbit without any guilt or care for the animal. He felt his dad's hand on his back, lending a comforting touch.
"When you grow up on a farm," Morgan explained to the boy, "butchering animals is part of daily life." Morgan had been impressed with the girl's display and had tried to watch her carefully, despite how fast she moved. He wouldn't mind knowing how to do that himself. Though he wasn't sure if he was a good enough shot to get a rabbit in the first place. The more he knew about these girls, the more he felt like he wanted to know. Even if they ended up parting ways, he felt he should take the opportunity to learn what he could from them. As he watched the girls carefully relieve each plant of its leaves, something near the edge of the grass caught his eye.
Jessica was keeping watch over her girls and Duane, who had knelt down to start helping them. She felt Morgan's hand, touching her gently on the shoulder to get her attention. He held out a small bunch of flowers. At first she wasn't sure what he was doing. She thought maybe he wanted to know if they were edible. But the soft way he was looking at her. He was giving her flowers. No man had ever given her flowers before. The only ones she had ever gotten were from her cousin. RickyJo used to send her a big bouquet every year on her birthday. She reached over and took them, holding them up and smelling them. They were periwinkle blue. Morgan watched the look of surprise cross Jessica's face as he handed her the flowers. Surely a woman this beautiful had gotten flowers many times before. Maybe she didn't think of him in a romantic way and thats why she looked so shocked. Then she seemed to recover and she looked up at him with a softness in her face that he had only seen when she was looking at her daughters.
"I have never gotten flowers before," she admitted. Morgan raised his eyebrows at her. Was she being coy, or was she serious. He had a hard time believing that she had never gotten any. Not even a prom corsage. He used to get his wife flowers every week. Then she touched his arm and leaned in slowly, giving him time to move back if he didn't want her that close. She lifted up on her tiptoes and planted a soft kiss on his cheek.
"Thank you," she said softly into his ear. Then she backed away quickly. "Come on girls," she said, "you got enough salad greens to choke a dang gone horse. Lets go home and fry up these fish." Cassie and Desiree smiled up at her, then looked down at the large bunch of greens that were now filling Cassie's hat. They definitely had enough for diner, and probably enough for breakfast too. And Cassie liked the way she said home instead of back to the building or back to camp. With Duane and his father there it was starting to feel more like home and less like just another hiding place.
Jessica tucked the blankets in around the sleeping children and fished out the flashlight so she could turn it off and save the batteries. The three of them had been on the bed reading comics together and had fallen asleep with the girls on either side and Duane in the middle sandwiched between them. For a moment it made her uncomfortable to have her girls sleeping in bed with a friend of the opposite sex, but she knew she had a while longer before sex would rear its ugly head and she would really need to start worrying. At Cassie's age she had been obsessed with boys, but she knew her daughter was much more innocent and she was grateful every day for that. Looking at her daughter, she found it hard to believe that she had only been about a year older than her when she had gotten pregnant the first time. She looked so young. Too young. Jessica wondered now why she had been in such a big hurry. She wanted to keep her girls innocent as long as she could.
Seeing that the children were tucked safely away, Jessica headed back up to the roof. The dark windowless stairwell always scared her just a little. Closing the door made her think of the door on a coffin closing with her inside, and she rubbed at her arms a little despite the stale warmth of the air. She should have brought the damn flashlight with her. But even without the light, she knew the way well enough by now, letting the handrail lead her up and to the door that led to the roof. The light cover of gravel crunched under her boots and she ducked the laundry they had hanging on a line to dry. Hanging the laundry had scared Jessica. She had been worried it would wave like a flag and someone would see it and come for them. So Morgan had booby trapped the place. Anyone busting in here is going to get a real nice surprise. She had laughed at the traps, but she had to admit, they made her feel so much safer. Now they could all sleep at night, without anyone having to stay up and keep watch.
Morgan was sitting in a chair with his feet propped up on a small plastic table, sipping something out of a mug. She took the seat next to him, and he handed her a mug he had waiting for her. She expected alcohol, but when she took a sip, she found it was no more than instant hot cocoa. The nights were getting colder and colder, and the warm liquid was welcome to ward off the chill in the air. She pulled her knees up into her chair, wishing she grabbed her sweater or a blanket when she had been down checking on the kids. Without a word, Morgan pulled his jacket off and handed it over to her. Jessica took it gratefully and set her cocoa down so she could put it on. She wrapped it around her, not bothering to zip it, and found that it had a pleasant lingering manly smell. She pulled the collar up and pressed it gently to her face, breathing in the smell. She had always loved the way men smelled. She guessed everyone had something weird they liked to do that they didn't like anyone to know about, and hers was waiting until the guy she fucked was in the bathroom and then grabbing his pillow and getting a good sniff. It was a little bizarre, she knew, but she guessed there were people with much more disgusting habits than that.
"Don't smell that too hard," Morgan warned her with a grin, "I wasn't wearing deodorant today." Jessica smiled and picked her cocoa back up.
"I think you smell good," she told him. It was true. She had noticed that he smelled good even when he was sweaty, though she had been trying not to think too much about it. For someone as sexually active as she had been before the outbreak, she felt like it had been ages since she had been laid. She was to the point where she tried not to even think about sex. And since Morgan showed up that had been getting harder and harder. He was much more quiet and sedate than the kind of men she would usually go for. But as she got to know him better, Jessica found she enjoyed being around a man that wasn't constantly shooting his mouth off just to hear himself talk. And he was good with her girls. He never stared at them too long or in the wrong way and he watched out for them. And for her. She had been scared at first to leave him alone with them, even just to go to the bathroom. But now she had no hesitations about it at all.
Morgan reached over and took one of her hands of the mug of cocoa so he could hold it. Then he just sat there holding it. Jessica waited for him to grab her or try to kiss her, but he didn't. He just held her hand, rubbing it gently with his thumb. She wasn't worried, if she had to she would make the first move. But for now she thought she might wait him out and see what he did. After all, there was nothing wrong with taking it slow.