The Lockdown

26

Cam's weary mind could hardly process the doctor's words, he seized on the fact that Andy was alive and that was the only thing that mattered. Maggie took him up to Andy's old room where he fell asleep immediately as she removed his shoes and tucked him in.

He woke up early the next morning, still bone-tired and emotionally spent. Any other time he would have loved to explore Andy's childhood memories, now he barely managed to drag himself to the kitchen where Maggie was already puttering around, up for hours, getting very little sleep herself. She made pancakes for him and he ate one only after Maggie told her that they were Andy's favorite. She showed him the bathroom where he could clean up and told him to just choose something from Andy's old clothes to wear that were still in his closet even though they would be a bit large on him.

Shortly after nine a car pulled up, Maggie rushed out the door and hugged her daughter emerging from the vehicle.

"I could hardly sleep all night, and I had no idea what to do, and Charlie said that I should come to you, at least I will be closer to him. I brought BB, we took off the minute she woke up, we have been self-quarantining for over two weeks and we took a rapid test before we left and I just couldn't stay away." BB was her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Emma, but ever since she started talking she called herself BB and refused to listen to anything else. Most likely, it was the bastardization of 'baby', everybody was calling her that and she probably thought that was her name. It stuck. When she was born, they named her Emma as a compromise between Jennie and her husband, so they agreed to let her choose a name for herself. At least, for a while. Jennie was 'mama', Maggie was 'mom' because why would she call her anything else if her mama calls her mom and she already had a gran, Charlie's mother. Made perfect sense. Maggie extricated her from the car seat and BB was excited to see her for a full ten seconds before she wriggled herself free and took off running around the house.

"She is going for the swing, she couldn't stop talking about it for the last half hour. We'd better go and make sure she doesn't fall off too often."

Maggie smiled "I think she and Cam will get along just fine."

Half an hour later Cam was sitting in the kitchen staring at the clock that refused to move when a tiny little girl rushed in and stopped to stare at the young boy eyes wide open.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Cam. And who are you?"

"BB."

"Are you Andy's niece?"

"You know Andy? He is very sick, but my mama says he will get better. I was very sick last week because I ate all the Halloween candy I hid in my closet but I got better."

Maggie and Jennie walked in just in time. "And you learned your lesson."

"Yes, I should eat the candy when I get it."

"That's not the lesson, BB."

"Why is he here?"

"He is Andy's boyfriend."

"I have a boyfriend, too. And two girlfriends." She walked over to the youngster, looked at him for a minute and reached up with both hands. Cam lifted her up into his lap. She put her little arms around the youngster's neck and hugged him. "When I'm sad, mama comes and asks if I want a hug and I always do and then I'm not sad anymore."

"Thank you," Cam whispered. BB stayed on his lap chatting about the car ride and everything she spied on the road and the swing in the garden which is the bestest swing in the world even bester than the one Jamie has who was her boyfriend but not anymore because he didn't give her his truck and now he can't come to her house because of garanteen and...