CHAPTER FOUR

Francine was relieved to find out they'd made it to a safe place. She had extended her stay in California to visit Muffy in Los Angeles, but her soon-to-be-ex had flown east a day early, stopping in Austin to stay with his family to see the disaster through. He was unhappy, and Brain thought of calling him, but no one had called him after his divorce trip to see if he was okay.

Life at the fort was structured. Even though they, along with several hundred other people, were guests, they were expected to do things as the fort did. Meals were at set times, things were to be kept clean, and so on. Everything was laid out in a spiral-bound book with about seventy pages inside to accommodate English and Spanish. Brain wondered why they had both languages until a small plane landed on an airstrip close to them. Refugees from Central America landed and poured out, chattering in Spanish as they were led to their brick homes just a block over. They were being put in two or three families at a time, and Brain knew then he was only with Catherine, John, and the kids because they would've been together anyway. He wondered what would've happened if they hadn't caravanned together, or if someone had gotten between them, or if the traffic flow had been different, but he had to force the thoughts away. They were here now. That was all that mattered.

After eating dinner in a large mess hall, the group came back into the home and cleaned it carefully, not that there was much to clean up. Buster and John went upstairs with the kids to set up their cots. The adults were going to sleep downstairs and the kids upstairs, so the guys decided to help them make a pillow fort with what few things they had. Catherine didn't mind, but she and Brain decided to put their strengths into fixing up the tiny kitchen and dining area.

"I wonder if the Canadian Armed Forces are anything like the American ones. I've never been to any bases back home. Have you?" Catherine asked.

"Sometimes, but always as a guest. They teach classes on bases just like anywhere else. I've taught several, but it's different when you're a guest, and it depends on the size and how they run things. I was treated to lunch off-base, so I never saw their mess hall," Brain said, looking over the small house, "And the houses were newer too."

"In most places, I'd assume," Catherine said in a low voice. Brain nodded in agreement but said nothing. Catherine sighed and sank into a chair, "John thought of joining up after Max was born. I talked him out of it by insisting I get a job. I got hired on at a daycare so he could come with me, and we never discussed it again. I wonder sometimes what would've happened if that woman wasn't so flexible. I mean, she paid me under the table and kept me a secret. If she wasn't a bit Black Market-y, I think I'd be an Army wife by now. I probably wouldn't have the girls either."

"I think Max would like that," Brain smirked, pointing upstairs, "Do you really think he'll stay up there with the girls tonight?"

"We won't give him the choice. He loves his sisters, and the girls. That's why I wanted her to bring them to me for her trip. They needed to spend time together, and besides, I wanted them to stay for a while when she got back too. You're both too busy to keep kids indefinitely," Catherine said, standing and moving to the window, "She said she almost had a baby with him but she lost it. I tried joking with her about it, three kids, three ex's, but she didn't think it was funny. I just can't figure out why my sister was always so unhappy with everything."

"I've wondered the same thing. When Buster told me about their relationship, I understood. Most of our classmates divorced if they got married that young. It didn't bother me. She was older with me, and she seemed happy until that trip. Now she's done the same with him, and I just…I agree with you. Something has probably been bothering her all these years, but she must not want to tell anyone."

Catherine smiled, "No, she's told Bubby, I'm sure of it."

Brain gave her a look. Bubby passed away suddenly while they were still at Lakewood. She went in for a procedure and just didn't come out of it well. The doctors tried everything for days, but soon she was gone, and Francine took the death hard. He wondered if she still had doubts about her death until Catherine explained:

"Look, she knows Bubby is gone, but she had regrets. So did I. We both should've spent more time with her, but Mom and Dad lived and worked in Elwood City, and there was nothing we could do about that. We didn't mind then, or at least I didn't. I just accepted it, found solace in the necklace she left me.

"When she was twelve, I caught her. She would say she was going to Muffy's, which she would. But then Bailey would take them up to Bubby's hometown where she was buried. They'd spend the night in a hotel there with him, and my parents were furious. They were so mad that she didn't tell them how she felt, that she went to her best friend and her damn butler on a secret trip to see her. So they took her whenever she wanted, but she went on her own when she was old enough.

"I came home from college once and she made me go with her. She wanted me to tell Bubby what I was up to, and that's when it hit me. She knew that's where Bubby was. And while she did believe the stories about spirits being free from their bodies, she only felt Bubby was really hearing her when she spoke directly to her, her body that is. So yeah, she's told Bubby, but I don't know what she's said," Catherine whispered, peering out the window again. "My guess, if you're interested, is that she loved someone but something happened."

"The only person she was ever with before Buster was Arthur," Brain said, trying to remember those high school days. Francine got with Arthur halfway through sophomore year but dumped him towards the beginning of senior year, but he couldn't remember anything beyond that.

Catherine heard cries from upstairs and began to leave, but she turned and whispered, "I'd try to remember what you can, not that it matters. She's going to do what she wants when she wants. I just wanted you to know she's more fragile now. She'll probably be crazier for a while, especially over the girls. But we'll make sure she and the girls are okay. We always do."

Brain agreed as his eyes drifted outside. He wondered how things would look when the asteroid hit. He checked his phone and read the latest reports. The calculations were holding that the impact would be just off the coast of the Carolina's possibly as far south as the Georgia coast and as far north as Virginia's coast. But it wouldn't hit land, just the water and whatever islands it hit.

The timing was getting more accurate too. At first it was a general thirty-six hours, but now the number had been shifted. In eleven hours and a countdown of minutes and seconds, the asteroid would hit with an impact never before witnessed during recorded history. Finally science fiction would come to life, though Brain hoped he was just the protagonist in a fictional story that would have at least a semi-happy ending.