It had been a week since that meeting. So much had taken place since. Just so they could sleep at night, he and the kids vacated the condo building and moved into a house nearby so that Paige and Cheryl could take over the condo, but Paige refused to stay there as well. And that’s when he found himself in a sudden custody battle over Sheriff.
Paige wouldn’t leave the dog’s side. But then again, Sheriff wouldn’t leave her side, either.
So despite the fact that Rick raised a hairy eyebrow each time he saw Graham, he let Paige and Cheryl move in with them. It seemed the only solution.
She and Cheryl stayed in their own room in the back of the tiny two-bedroom house, while he and Bang shared the master. Tehya seemed content to sleep on the couch. They’d ignored one another for the most part for nearly a week, keeping to opposite ends of the home but he had to admit, he preferred having both Paige and Cheryl there with them at night just so he didn’t have to worry about them on their own. But then, in that time, as news trickled in the majority of the townspeople prepared to leave.
It made little sense to Graham. But the decisions were not his to make. That’s how he looked at it anyway. Not his circus. People loaded into vehicles, filled with whatever fuel Sam had made; he gave them an extra can for the road and sent them on their way. The town mostly emptied of what Dalton called the lighter folks, those not willing or able to help fight. They were considered the first wave.
Clarisse had reminded them they were families. You couldn’t blame them.
“I still say we send the rest of ours onto the ferry to the far side of the lake,” Rick suggested.
“No. I’m not doing that,” Graham had replied and would hear nothing more of it. Neither would Clarisse. He could understand sending them there if the threat were a day or two away, but it looked like weeks at this point from the intel they received daily via the few stragglers equipped with a radio still transmitting. The urge to go west and push them back into the sea was strong amongst them.
“It’s better to let them use their own resources based on the numbers we’re receiving. Let them dwindle on their own account. It buys us time,” Dalton urged, and they all agreed.
Graham took that to mean it bought Clarisse time. And whatever they could do to buy Clarisse time, he was willing to do. They needed all the time they could get.
That’s where Graham found himself the next day and the next, as he watched people flee to the east, temporarily out of danger. It bought them time too, until they could figure out what to do, because no one had a solid plan at the moment.
In the meantime, Graham surveyed that dewy morning on the porch and saw a few of the last remaining people wave their goodbyes. Taking a sip of his coffee, he had to admit, he’d thought about it too. He thought about taking Tehya, Bang and Sheriff and going. But then he couldn’t leave McCann. Could he really leave Macy and Marcy in harm’s way? Could he leave Dalton and Clarisse? Rick and the rest of them? No. They’d started this fight together and they were going to end it together.
Then there was what happened with Paige. She was a hot mess. Fuming at all of them at times for their lack of security, and then he’d catch sight of her with Cheryl on her lap in the park and Sheriff lying by her side in the overgrown grass. She stroked his coat with long gentle caresses and scratched him just under the back of his ear, that spot only a few knew—the one that made him close one eye and lean in. She’d told them stories about Enzo as a pup and about her brother Lincoln. The name never stuck though. Enzo was who he used to be and Sheriff was who he’d become. Paige had accepted that.
Graham took in a deep breath. They’d all come a long way in the past week and yet he groaned under his breath and took another sip of the steaming warm liquid masquerading as coffee as he watched another truck with one taillight head out of town. The other taillight broke long ago. Some things didn’t matter anymore.