Chapter Eight
Choosing the Moment

Elizabeth Cutler

The sun is half-hidden behind the mountains to our west as Grandmother's little shack comes into view when we reach the crest of the last hill before home. Even with the terrible and heartbreaking news I am bringing home to Malcolm, I can't help but notice its beauty, but when I comment on the gorgeous colors – soft mauve fading into neon pink and then to a brilliant orange with the sun a semicircle of white-hot molten glass at the center – she frowns, spits in the dust and says something about wildfires.

Honestly, her response could not have mirrored the situation more perfectly if she had tried. A lovely, companionable day of riding and shopping ruined for me by the news from the palace, and the pleasure of seeing a glorious sunset shattered by the knowledge of its cause.

She must interpret my scoff as a gasp and my frowning expression as concern because she adds kindly, "No need to worry, child. They're hundreds of miles away, and if they can find enough fuel to burn their way clear out to us, it'll only take a few minutes to move the stock into the storage cave and then we can wait it out in there with them."

Her words are not as comforting as I'm sure she meant them to be. We'll be safe enough in the cave, but what of the house and stable? What will the animals do for food once the fire has passed? I know we're hauling hundreds of kilos of food right now, but it can't be enough to sustain them for very long. And if a wildfire sweeps through the desert, everybody's going to need to feed their animals, so there's no knowing if or when she'll be able to get more or afford it when it's available. Still Grandmother doesn't seem terribly concerned, so I do my best to match her placid disposition.

Today's purchases include a lot of odds-and-ends type stuff that just gets used up in the normal, day-to-day routine of any household. There are several spools of thread in different weights and colors, first aid supplies, boxes of nails and screws in several different sizes, a roll of tape, some chocolate, a bag of penny candy (I know Malcolm will enjoy the lemon drops), and all of the other general household stuff you tend to need now and then and run out of randomly. When she asked if there was anything Malcolm and I might need, the only thing I could think of was a jar of peanut butter for Malcolm, and when I said we could do without it if it was too expensive, she just scoffed and added a half-kilo jar of it to the pile along with a big box of sugar cubes for Cora and a dozen tins of sardines and tuna for Beans. Then she ordered a slice of pecan pie to go from the lunch counter and told me to pick out a dessert for myself and something for 'Grandson.' I have to admit, I was a bit envious of her giant slab of chocolate cake earlier, so I ordered that for myself, and they had a pineapple upside down cake on display, a large slice of which I ordered for Malcolm.

Our groceries take up about a third of the space in the cart. The rest of it is heaped with bags of feed and supplements for the animals and corn and grit for the chickens. When I expressed my dismay at the heavily laden cart, Grandmother told me not to fret.

"Burro can haul twice its body weight in a balanced cart on level ground," she said. "Pious an' Patience weigh 'bout 175 kilos each. Our load's about 600 kilos, so lessin' you're a lot heavier'n you look, it should be alright."

For some reason, hearing her talk about her little donkeys and calculating how much they can haul reminded me of Trip sitting around a table in the mess hall discussing things like material strength and shear force as he worked through a problem with his engineers, and for a moment all I could do was smile sadly and nod in acknowledgement.

Now, Grandmother must sense my contemplative mood for she has (finally) fallen silent. As much as I enjoy her company and pleasant conversation, she's telling me so many new things that I need to know if I'm going to get by here in the desert that I once again reach a state of information overload and can't absorb anymore. I don't even know enough about some of the things she's telling me to ask an intelligent question. So, this little respite from her constant stream of cheerful chatter is most welcome.

It's not until we're pulling off the track and into the little yard in front of the house that I realized something is different about the place. Before I can even identify any of the changes, Grandmother is cackling gleefully.

"Looks like your man is a hard worker, child, and he's been busy today!" she says.

The first thing I notice is the chicken coop behind the stable. When we left this morning, the henhouse was missing some boards and the run was full of tumbleweeds and other detritus. The door to the run was off its hinges and coming apart and some of the vertical posts supporting the chicken wire had snapped off and fallen down, caving in the chicken wire. Now it's all tidied up. The henhouse is whole again, while the tumbleweeds have been removed along with the broken posts and caved-in chicken wire. The door has been repaired and is leaning against the stable wall, and the rolled-up chicken wire sits beside it.

From the moment he lays eyes on me, I'm sure Malcolm knows I have something to tell him, but I can't bring myself to do it just yet. Not knowing how he's going to react, I really feel like I need to wait until I have him settled and contained somewhere so it's not so easy for him to just take off and do something rash if it goes badly. Maybe after dinner. Or in bed.

So, I try to fill the silence by commenting on all the things he's done while we were gone and asking about his day. One of the first things I notice as I carry an armful of groceries into the house, is the cat flap. He's trimmed it out nicely with some bits he says he cut from a broken board from the dilapidated chicken coop. The weathered wood blends with the door so well that no one would ever know it was a new addition.

"And I cannibalized the hinges from the door to install the shutter on the west window," he adds. "The old ones on the east window were still in place, so I just had to clean them up and oil them."

But he's talking to Grandmother, not me, and when he's finished, he simply walks out of the house. I don't think he's actually angry with me, but now that he knows bad news is coming, he's unhappy and probably annoyed and frustrated that I won't just tell him right away.

Grandmother gives me a reproachful look when the door slams behind him, but I pretend to be oblivious. She's never seen him go 'out', and I'm not going to explain his episodes to her without his permission. So, we're all just going to have to get through this evening, and I'll tell him when I tell him. If he has an episode, well, I guess it'll be like Grandmother says. 'First she'll learn, then she'll know.' She'll learn what it is to watch him fall back into painful memories, lose his grip on his humanity, snap and snarl at things that aren't really there, and glare at you like a hungry wolf scenting blood. Then, she'll know why I felt I had to pick my moment. If he doesn't react badly, well, then I guess she can just go on wondering why I waited. I'm grateful for all of her help, but every detail we share about ourselves just puts her in more danger.

Once the groceries are put away, Grandmother and I head out to the stable. Malcolm has made a good start on unloading the sacks of feed, and she orders me in no uncertain terms to help him.

"Don't need your help, girl! I been takin' care of my animals by myself since before you were born, an' I reckon I'll still be doin' it 'til the day I drop dead. Go on an' help your man."

Well, if she thinks making us work together is all it will take to get us talking, then she has another think coming. Clearly, she hasn't accounted for how stubborn Malcolm can be when he's pissed off or the lengths to which I'll go to make sure he's in the safest possible space before I tell him news that's likely to upset him.

Surprisingly, Malcolm does talk, but not to me. To my surprise, the list of DIY repair and improvement projects he says he'd like to tackle for Grandmother sounds like it will take weeks, if not months, to complete. When we first arrived, the plan was just to get our feet under us and make a plan. I've honestly been waking every morning with the expectation that Malcolm would tell me we'd be leaving that night.

I hate the thought of leaving. I adore Grandmother, but as much as we appreciate her hospitality, we don't want to be responsible for drawing danger down on her. I don't know what might have changed Malcolm's mind, but I trust his judgment. I'll happily stay here as long as he thinks it is safe for her and for us, even if he is pissed off and not speaking to me – at least for now.

At first, by pulling them off the cart and dragging them across the floor to the threshold of an empty stall where I leave them for Malcolm to stack, I'm able to move one 25-kilo bag of feed for every two he carries. It's hard work, and I can't begin to imagine how Grandmother does it. As we get deeper into the pile, though, we both have to climb onto the cart to get the bags. He can just lift one onto his shoulder, hop off the cart, and carry it over to the stall, but I have to drag mine over to the tailgate, climb down, and drag it to the stall; and when we're both at the cart at the same time, one of us has to wait for the other. I've only managed to move two bags since we had to start climbing into the cart, and I've just got the third over to the tailgate when he comes back for another. He stands aside to let me climb down, and I'm just so irritated at myself for slowing him down and at him for giving me the silent treatment even though I don't know what I'd say if we were talking, that I finally snap.

"Quit being a jerk and just take that one!" I say, kicking the bag I've just moved to the edge of the cart. "I'll keep moving them to where you can reach them, and you can carry them over and stack them, that way we'll both be done quicker."

For a moment, I think he's going to take my head off. Instead, he just glares at me, takes a few slow, deep breaths, grabs the bag and walks away. Then Grandmother comes over to fill a bucket with oats for the horse and cuts me a look that says, 'You're not making things any easier on yourself,' and asks Malcolm if he'd mind unloading a second cart full of feed and supplies for the animals.

"It's just a little extra for 'em, like the food I put down for the cat," she explains. "Most of what they need comes from foragin' in the desert, but feedin' five big critters, a goat, a goose, an' a couple dozen chickens, is still a lot of work for one old woman doin' it alone. I have to jack the front end of the cart up so's they slide onto a tarp on the ground an' then use a pulley an' one of the burros to haul a few sacks at a time into the stall, but I don't have the strength to stack them very high, so I can only get a dozen or so at a time. I got more this time 'cause I knowed you'd be able to carry an' stack them, an' with your help, I could probably put up a whole year's supply, if'n you don't mind."

As pissed as he is at me, he still manages his most charming smile for her and says it would be his pleasure. I'm irked at him for being mad at me, and I'm annoyed with Grandmother for trying to force a conversation that I'm not ready to have just yet; but I'm happy that he's agreed to help her.

We finish up in short order, and I go into the house with Grandmother (who shoots me another meaningful look) to help her prepare dinner while he loads the cart again, ready for a second trip to town. It's something she does twice a year. In addition to her regular trips for news and grocery staples, every six months, she loads up all her surplus goods and trades them for credits and supplies to make more stuff to trade. She says the help Malcolm and I have given her has saved her a week of work this time.

I'm sick with dread and really don't know what to do. The longer I wait the angrier he might get, or he could calm down. There's just no way to know. Angry or not though, I'll have to tell him what we saw on the news.

Grandmother isn't best pleased with me either. She agreed to let me be the one to tell Malcolm about the Empress's engagement, but she didn't appreciate it when I refused to tell her why. I'm sure she has some inkling of who we are. If she could recognize us the night we arrived despite never having seen more of us than our eyes peering out from behind our Bedouin robes at the distribution center with Amanda Cole, then she must know Malcolm from having seen him on the television when he was General Reed, Commander-in-Chief of Imperial Security Forces. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she recognized Cole today, and seeing her up there with Hoshi and Austin, knowing they have people hunting us like animals, she must know the danger she is in just having us in her home. She's more than clever enough to know that there are some questions nobody really wants answered, but she can't be expected to understand just how seriously that adage should be taken when it comes to answering personal questions about Malcolm.

So, we prepare dinner in silence. When Malcolm comes in to wash up before eating, Grandmother gives me another look and tips her head slightly in his direction. I roll my eyes and shake my head the tiniest bit. She rolls her eyes back and turns away. If my news wasn't so serious and I wasn't so anxious about how it might be received, it would be almost comical.

Malcolm certainly hasn't missed our silent argument. I see him using some of the breathing techniques Ginny taught him to calm himself down. I'm sure it's partly that he's annoyed with me for keeping something from him, but I think mostly, it's because he knows bad news is coming.

Grandmother and I put the dinner on. We all three sit and eat in silence. Grandmother looks down at her plate, now steadfastly refusing to look at me as I nibble at my dinner. I'm sure she's hoping that by refusing to engage in polite conversation, she can force me to tell Malcolm about the news of the Empress's engagement. Malcolm mostly pushes his food around on his plate and looks at me expectantly once in a while or closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Only Beans seems undisturbed, meowing in delight as she scarfs up the tuna Grandmother put out for her.

When I sense a slight vibration in the table, I look down to see Malcolm's left leg bouncing rapidly. For someone who's usually so completely under control, it's the one tell that he has that he never seems to notice in time to control it. Judging by the cat flap, shutters and tidied-up chicken coop, he's had a good day. He's been deliberately using his coping skills to keep himself in check, even if he can't help being pissed at me. He's as present and as calm as he's going to be until he finds out what I have to tell him.

Deciding it's now or never, I lay down my knife and fork and meet his eyes. If he loses his shit, we'll just have to deal with it as it comes.

"They had the News on when we were in the store," I blurt out.

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