To be Seen or Heard

Chapter Ten: Revelations (pt 1)

The sun was well on its way to disappearing over the horizon when a part of the group finally returned to the highway. According to Glenn and Mr. Dixon, as I'd learned was the archer's last name, a woman riding a horse came out of nowhere to take Missus Grimes to her farm... because her son had been shot.

Actually shot.

With a gun 'n everything.

Carl had been shot with a gun and he might die.

Mamí wasn't a surgeon, but she told the group that when she was a resident, she'd assisted several times before choosing her specialty. Which meant that we were now on our way to the farm. Glenn was leading the way with a still ailing T-Dog riding shotgun. The others were staying at the highway for one more night, in case Sophia managed to find her way back after dark. Because that was another thing, they still hadn't found Sophia--not even a trace of the other girl.

By the time Mamí pulled up in front of a beautiful manor-like farmhouse -that looked just like the ones from the movies- it was totally dark out. Her rule about no one leaving our RV was still in effect... even though she wasn't going to follow it this evening. Instead, she gave us one of the functioning walkie-talkies and made us promise not to message her unless it was an absolute emergency and to check in with her every ninety minutes.

My mother's frantic departure from the RV, with her bag of medical supplies, left a wake of silence in her absence... at least until Olivia broke it by asking for 'Dora.' Isabella made sure that all the blinds were closed while Alexander cued in another episode onto the TV in the living area, since Eva was still taking a nap in the bedroom.

We hadn't eaten dinner yet, we'd spent most of our time organizing all the supplies we had painstakingly scavenged. I knew how to make a couple of quick meals, since I regularly looked after Isabella and -sometimes- Camila after school while my parents were at work, or if my Abuelita was out with Tia Esther. Honestly, Abuelita had shown me how to make a lot of things... and well, we all liked tuna-pasta... so I put a pot of water to boil and opened one of the tri-colored screw-shaped pastas, pouring it out when I saw bubbles forming in the pot.

Mamí had been able to save all the onions and potatoes from our pantry. Although most of the onions were now growing little shoots and the potatoes had more eyes than not. Mamí said the first chance she'd get, we'd plant the best onions into one of those little flowerbed window box containers so we'd never run out... though we would need a black garbage bag or a deep bucket to grow the potatoes... so, for now, those were off limits until Mamí recovered the eyes for planting. We'd done it once as an experiment two summers ago, so we knew that it worked... the only problem would be where we'd store it. Either way, it was a problem for another day.

I grabbed a nice-sized onion before peeling it and started to slowly chop it as finely as I could, just like I'd been taught before dumping it into a mixing bowl. While Isabella helped me open two cans of tuna and add them to the bowl--Alexander and I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to get the pasta out without dumping the water.

After all, my cousin had a point. It could be reused to boil pasta again in the future. In the end, we'd had to do it slowly by scooping the pasta out with a slotted spoon, but it worked. I added a little bit of salt, black pepper, and actually opened one of the new jars of mayonnaise to add a spoonful before mixing it all together and declaring the meal done. I let Isabella -who has always been a bit... intense about making sure that everything is fair and equal- serve the portions into bowls for all of us, after making sure to set one plate aside for our mom, of course.

It was good.

After making sure that there weren't any onions on our plates, we let Dottie lick them clean before dumping them in the sink. We dutifully checked in with my mother, who told us it was fine if we decided to go to sleep. It wasn't easy getting Camila and Olivia ready for bed, mostly because they both wanted Mami, but we got them into their pajamas and tucked in. Truthfully, I was freaking exhausted, and my muscles were starting to truly hurt.