The smell woke me up—an incredible, delicious smell.
It almost levitated me out of my bed. It was chilly, so I went to the dresser to see what there was to wear. I found rows of folded clothes, and I pulled out a sweater. It hung like a tent on my thin frame. I saw that our room was swept and tidy. The crumple of sheets on the bed was the only mess—that, and me.
What’s that smell? Bacon?
Outside I heard the thwack of someone chopping wood, and I went to the window and pulled back the curtains. I could see my pregnant wife, her shirtsleeves rolled up and hair tied back with a kerchief, picking up a log and balancing it upright on a larger log beneath. The sun was shining in a blue sky. With the back of one hand, she wiped sweat from her forehead. In her other hand she was holding an ax. Planting her feet wide, she swung the ax around, and then—thwack!—the ax landed squarely in the log, splitting it apart.
My head felt clear for the first time in longer than I could remember, and I was so hungry. Through the open door to our bedroom I could hear something sizzle and pop. Am I still dreaming? It even sounded like bacon.
Slipping on my sneakers, I walked down the dim hallway. Without thinking, I flipped the switch on the wall and then laughed at myself. The instinct to turn on lights and check my phone was still there.
At the bottom of the stairs was an open, wood-paneled space, with area rugs strewn on the floors and faded oil paintings of landscapes and old snowshoes on the walls. There was a stone fireplace against one wall, and Chuck was sitting cross-legged in front of it as coals glowed in the hearth. Hearing me, he turned around, holding a large iron skillet that had been sitting on the coals. He held it with his good hand, with the skillet’s handle wrapped in a tea towel. His injured hand was still bundled in a sling.
“I thought that might wake you up,” he said, smiling. “Come help me turn these over. I think I’m burning them.”
“What is that?”
“Bacon.”
I practically floated across the room. Chuck set the skillet down on the bare wood floor and held a fork up to me. “Well, not really bacon—it’s not smoked and cured—but it’s pig fat and skin. Try a piece?”
I squatted next to him, feeling the heat of the coals on my face. I hesitated. I should keep this for Lauren, for the baby.
“Go ahead,” encouraged Chuck. “You need to eat, buddy.”
I stabbed a strip of sizzling meat. I was dehydrated and winced in pain as I began salivating, but the taste exploded across my tongue.
“No need to cry,” laughed Chuck.
Tears rolled down my face with the intensity of the experience.
“You can have some more. Have the whole pan. I was just frying this up to get some grease to fry the rest of the meat. And have some bread with it.”
Reaching on top of the counter next to him, he produced a crust of burnt flatbread. I picked up another piece of bacon and stuffed it into my mouth with the bread.
“Where did you get bacon? The bread?”
“The bread is from cattail flour—I can show you how—and one of our traps by the river got a small pig. I heard there were feral hogs in these woods—the newspapers in Gainesville were complaining about them the last few years—but I sure ain’t complaining today.”
“A whole pig?”
He nodded. “A baby pig, anyway. Susie’s in the cellar butchering it right now. I fried up these hunks of skin to get things going.”
“Susie’s butchering it?” She’d always struck me as squeamish.
Chuck laughed. “Who do you think has been taking care of things around here? I’m a cripple, and you,” he said, pausing, “well, you’ve been taking a time-out. Our women have been out hunting and fishing, cutting up wood, keeping the place shipshape and warm. Keeping us fed.”
I hadn’t thought about it.
“Grab some fiddleheads from over there,” said Chuck, nodding toward a pile of greens on the couch. “We’ll fry them in the bacon grease, soak it up, get some good stuff into you.”
I took two handfuls and dropped them into the pan. They sizzled as he swung the skillet back onto the coals. Releasing the handle, he dropped the tea towel and looked down at the floor, scratching his head. “We know you go out at night sometimes,” he said.
I’d almost forgotten.
“To be honest, I’m getting tired of sending my wife out to follow you. You have to stop, Mike.”
“No need to apologize,” Chuck said. “I’m glad to see you’re back, though. You’ve been dead to the world for two weeks.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Why didn’t you come and get me up out of bed, tell me off?”
He stirred the fiddleheads. “We’re all going through our own thing. We just figured you were going through yours. We couldn’t fix you. You had to fix yourself.”
“Did you see anything happen? Did you talk to anyone?” I asked.
Maybe things had changed since I’d been out of it.
“We’ve been watching Washington at night. No signs of fighting, no mass evacuations. I don’t think anything has changed. And we haven’t spoken to anyone.”
“What’s the plan, then?”
He stirred the greens, picking one out for me to taste. “We wait. There’s got to be a Resistance or Underground or something. Maybe it’s only the East Coast that’s occupied.”
“So we wait?”
Chuck looked at me. “We can do this, Mike. We’re surviving. And Lauren is amazing.” He nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you go and say hello?”
Taking a deep breath, I stretched, feeling air fill my lungs.
“This isn’t your fault, Mike. You can’t fix it. Go and see your family. Go on out.”
I looked toward the door, motes of dust spinning in the light streaming in from it. This was life, and it was time to get on with it.
“Yeah,” I replied, getting up.
Through the window, Lauren saw me and smiled. The bulge of the baby was clearly visible. I waved, and she dropped the ax, running toward the door.
She was so beautiful.