Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (90 page)

That was the end of that. Mick shrugged his shoulders and headed out the door to clean fish they'd brought home. I sat on the bed and cried. I can't imagine my baby considering this, much less seeing it through. Lord, help me get through. One minute I'm thinking about the handle on a tunnel door and the next minute I'm thinking about my youngest daughter getting' hitched. I think it's time for a
shot of whiskey... maybe two.

See ya later.

10:30...

I'm no good. I fell on the hill and rolled into the corner of the outhouse, hitting it with my lower back. My back is screaming. Mick and Jason had to carry me to the bed and I have the computer on my lap. I'm a little woozy from some variation of concoction, but it's not the happy kind. It's the “O M G I'll throw up if I move” kind.

Velma
has ordered me to bed for three days. She gave Mick a bunch of those Thermacare heat pads from my coupon queen totes to place on my back and alternate with icepacks. The heat pads feel wonderful, but I despise the ice.

I can't do this. Mick's leaving in three days and, I swear, I'll be on my feet to hold him and watch him go. I'll walk all over Velma if I hav
e to. She's not the boss of me!

Jeremy and Rebecca were married tonight. I couldn't walk t
o the living room and attend.

Note to self: loot for some of tho
se rolling hospital beds.

I cried every time I heard laughter. Jeremy's like a son to me. I can't believe I missed my
adopted son's wedding. I won't be able to see video’s or pictures. This sucks.

I did get to see him in his tux and he looked like a beautiful angel with a huge grin on his face that extended to his kind, caring eyes. He looked truly happy. He laid his well-groomed head on my stomach, talked to me, and called me Mom.

I cried. It hurt to cry, but I couldn't hold it back. He left the room with happy tears and I reached out to hold his hand one more time before he belonged to another woman.

Several minutes later
, Rebecca came in to show me her dress.

One of the dresses Ian and Rick brought home fit her perfectly. Emma had to let out a little in the bodice
, but she placed a sheer piece of fabric over Rebecca's cleavage so the dress would be elegant and decent.

The dress was strapless, and Rebecca had taken apart sev
eral pieces of diamond jewelry from her mother. She glued the diamonds to a thick sash around her waist. The skirt was solid white satin. There was no lace, sequins or pearls dotting the fabric. She wore a choker of her mother's pearls around her neck and a pair of pearl studs in her ears.

Marisa used satin ribbon and wove it through her hair. Teeny, tiny flowers in many colors were glued to the ribbon so they would show off their colors while riding the white satin waves around her head. The flowers were the only color
s, other than white, she was wearing.

She didn't want a veil, and she didn't need one. She looked like a photo from a bridal magazine. Marisa styled her hair in an "
up do," and ringlets fell over one shoulder to meet the top of the dress. I was in awe. I still have a picture of her in my head even though I'm a little loopy from the shot Velma gave me.

God, please bless Jeremy and Rebecca. They're young and
need you now more than ever.

Mick brought in a piece
of cake and a few cookies after everyone left. I was able to take a few bites before my stomach began churning and I pushed the rest to the side. I felt horribly guilty about wasting food and told Mick to gobble the rest of it down. That actually made me laugh a little, and it hurt to laugh. I had to force myself to stop.

Mick's rubbing my feet with lotion and hitting all the r
ight spots. It feels heavenly.

Tomorrow morning
, Emma will be here to fit Mick for his uniform. I told him to ask her to work here so I could be with him and watch as he's measured and fitted. Besides, Emma flirts with every young soldier she sees. It'll tickle me to watch her flirt with Mick and see his face turn red with embarrassment.

When I wake up in the morning, it'll be two days until he leaves. I want every spare minute of his remaining time to be spent with me, Marisa, Carisa, Jason, Ambe
r, and Michael.

I've asked that someone report to me
, in detail, everything that happens while I'm flat on my back. I need to know. I mentally NEED to know it all, down to the last detail.

Everyone agreed to do as I asked. They're probably out there now, writing up a schedule with time assigned to certain folks
to come in and report to me.

Carisa's an organizing maniac and she'll eat your lunch if you don't follow her schedule. She remains brave and strong about Mick leaving. That may change once he's walking down the hill
, but for now, it's her way of coping. I'm proud of her.

I'll ask Mick to move the computer back to the desk and try to lie down and sleep. He offered to sleep in the other roo
m so he wouldn't hurt my back.

I told him absolutely not. I'd rather have a s
ore back than a lonely heart.

Bye for now.

Wednesday, April 30

The calico cat woke me this morning by jumping on the bed and startling me. The fire in my back quickly demanded attention
and I remembered everything.

I woke Mick and sent him out for a bucket because there's no way I could make it to an outhouse. He jumped up, ran out of the room, and was back within two or three minutes with a nice, clean, potty bucket. He helped me
on top and I did my business.

He left the room to empty the bucket
, and several minutes later he returned with "Emma the seamstress" who was bright eyed, bushy tailed, and covered in sewing gear. She had a uniform over her arm. Mick held the bucket in one hand and a portable sewing machine in the other. He plugged the machine into the generator cord and sat it on my desk.

We were interrupted twice when Josie and Rona came in to m
ake the reports I'd demanded.

Mick got sick of jumping and covering himself, so he and Emma went in the master bathroom to work. I could still see them, and they could simply close the door when my reporters knocked. I heard him yelp several times w
hen Emma stuck him with a pin.

She brought all the right patches and took special care to sew them in place His designation
is “Civilian Rank Five” or C5.

Anyone who has experience fighting HDI's and/or fake military will automatically rise to C3 or above. Wouldn't it be funny if you
r initials were PO? You could be “C3PO” from the “Star Wars” movies. Yep, I'm a little loopy.

I guess the army has a new set of rank codes for civilians who volunteer. It'll sound funny to call someone “C4.” Actually, that's ridiculous and I wonder
ed what idiot came up with it.

Anyway, Mick wore pieces and parts of the uniform while Emma ran out of the bathroom and made adjustm
ents using the sewing machine.

When he finally emerged in full uniform
, drool ran out of both corners of my mouth. He looked absolutely stunning. I wanted Emma to leave the room while he did a strip tease for me. That didn't happen, and even if it had, I couldn't have done a thing about it because of my stupid, worthless back.

I received several reports today.
My first visit was from Josie.

Chris agreed to send solar panels, batteries, and parts to the compound with each quarterly allotment and when he's home on leave.

It may take a year to get the compound up and running on full solar power. We'll need to use the cook stove and fireplace for heat this winter, and the other homes will use propane if we can find enough.

We won't abandon
cook stoves and propane heat. Some days, the sun won't be enough to charge batteries. Josie says we should have emergency batteries charged up to see us through those days. Since I have no experience with solar power or making it work, I can only tell you what I know. Mick will return to Lowe's where we found the Hobbs/Halston family to see if the boxes of solar panels are still there.

We'll also send looting crews to remove every solar panel we can find from neighborhoods and businesses in town. Hopefully, we can speed the process of getting the compound "solarized." Josie says we need a crew to head out for every vehicle battery they can get. Okay
, if she says so, we'll do it

My
second report came from Rona.

Tomorrow's Luke and Larson's birthday and she has no idea wh
at to do or what to give them.

I told her to go to Nana immediately after we talked and tell her she'll need a birthday cake and some kind of special supper. Rona says their favorite meal is spaghetti with meatballs full of garlic and chopped onion along with
Worcestershire sauce in the mix. We have ground beef in the freezer from our allotment, so I told her to head out there and grab enough to feed the compound. It'll thaw before tomorrow night.

As far as gifts go, I told her to head to the basement and find M16's or whatever she wants for each of them. I bought a few sets of throwing knives several years ago and I remembered exactly where they're stored. I told her to take two sets for the boys. There's a new dart board and darts that Rick, Ian, and Josie brou
ght home when they went to Walmart, and I told her to grab that as well. She thought those were great ideas and headed out to take care of it.

My
third report came from Jason.

Five of eight guard towers are up and the floors are finished in three of them. The top floor will have mounted, good old M2 “Ma Deuce” .50 BMG caliber belt fed machine guns, also known as a Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun. It's been around since WW1. It was being manufactured in America
before the world collapsed. I'm just gonna nick name them “badazz guns.”

The second floor will be manned by guards u
sing their weapon of choice.

Jason headed out the door with a hop in his step. I'm pretty darn sure he wants to be the fir
st to test those machine guns.

No one's here to give me more reports, so I'm go
nna lie down and rest my back.

See ya later.

2:00
PM...

Mick came in to eat lunch with me and I
got a report on the tunnels.

The first tunnel, along with the big room, is open for business and the soldiers suggest we begin moving food and supplies there as soon as they leave. You betcher bottom dollar
we're gonna do it.

The second tunnel is 20 feet in
, and crews are working on the supports as well as the “doors.” They believe they'll have the tunnel dug as well as the big room before they leave. They also believe they'll have the tunnel supports up. but not the room supports. We'll need to do that ourselves.

The third tunnel will not be started before the unit leaves
, and they suggest that we wait for their next visit instead of attempting it ourselves. We plan to do as they say.

Mick says it's nice and cool inside the big room. The days are getting longer and hotter every time I wake up. I might have to move into the big tunnel room during summer because of the heat and the fact that I despise summer. It'll probably bother me a little having a gazillion tons of dirt over my head but, if it's cool in there,
I'll be able to live with it.

He also said that the entire wooden fence should be covered wi
th flame retardant by tonight.

Several little wooden buildings have been unloaded and put in place includi
ng the ones for Clinic Diane.

Velma has already begun preparing her quarters and the clinic. She recruited three old soldiers to build in cabinets. They'l
l be rustic, but they'll work.

When Velma discovered how few bunks would fit inside the building she demanded that a third building be brought in to hold four additional bunks. I don't know if she'll get her way. I guess we can take car
e of it after the unit leaves.

A device that makes a loud siren sound every 10 minutes has been threaded through a wire cable and inst
alled across the rock quarry.

Mick says the quarry is about 25% full of HDI's trying to smoosh themselves into the rock wall. I wish I could read an HDI mind. I
can't imagine what I'd learn.

Anyway, Pop has potatoes planted in the lower garden. I have no idea when
we'll be able to harvest them.

Chris says we have a case of herb seeds ready to begin planting as soon as we get the ground prepared inside the finished chain-link fence. He said the onion starts will arrive in the
fall.

Emma still has a line of soldiers at her sewing room door. She's been pinning the solders name to each piece of clothing. S
he tells them to check back in eight hours to see if their order is complete. Elaine's helping her and they've been working like crazy women.