Dear Diary, It’s Me, Jessica: Chapter 5 (Book 2)

By the Author of Dear Diary: It’s Me, Jessica

Dear Diary,

It’s me, Jessica.

Good news!  Colleen gave birth to a pink and crying but healthy baby girl!  

Just after we had left for the market, Colleen lost her mucus plug.  By the time we returned, she had her first contractions.  The contractions slowly grew closer and closer.  Very slowly.  Her water broke later.  Savannah did what she could to make Colleen comfortable, and Rae and I helped when we could, which was not much.  After nearly twelve hours of labor, just after three AM, little Isabel was born.  We did not have a scale, but Jack held her in her tightly wrapped blanket, looking up at the ceiling, and said,

“Not quite eight pounds.”

“How do you know that?” Rae asked.

“My rifle, unloaded, weighs eight pounds.  She’s just shy of it.”

“Chicken and biscuits, Jack,” Rae took the baby back from him.  “Comparing a beautiful baby to your rifle,” she said with a rueful glance at Jack.

Jack looked at me.

“What did I say?”

I could not help but laugh at him.  

Savannah called the shots.  We would stay there the next day and the one after for her to keep Colleen and Isabel under observation.  She would instruct Colleen about nursing, while watching for signs and symptoms of lactation mastitis.  Savannah looked at City HAM Guy and gave him what Jack would call a ‘down and dirty’ discourse on how not only how to change a diaper but how to keep them clean.  With wide eyes, City HAM Guy nodded a lot.  

It was later the first afternoon, while Colleen and the baby slept. I told Savannah how great she did, delivering the baby and the care she was giving them.

“At first, I was scared out of my mind,” Savannah quietly admitted to me.  “I was terrified.  I didn’t think I had any idea of what to do.”  She paused and looked at the floor.  Then back at me.

“But Colleen had no one else.  Sure, people have been giving birth to babies for thousands of years, even longer.  But there has always been someone there to help.  That is when I decided that I would be there.  I would be there for Colleen and her baby.  I would do this.  I would help her deliver her baby.”

There was a look in her eyes and a tone of her voice.  I told her at the house in the sub-burbs where we took shelter before coming into City HAM Guy’s apartment she had changed and that I did not recognize her as the bully from school.  Now, she has changed again.  There was more confidence in her.  

Entry two

By the time we left, Colleen was a proud and comfortable mother.  Isabel was doing fine with nursing.  And city HAM guy was now changing diapers like a champ.  He still had a look of disgust cleaning them, though.  

Jack got us up early to return to Four Corners.  The weather had cleared the day before, still cool but sunny.  We had been on the road long enough to clear the city and suburbs, returning to the hills and woodlands.  There were still about two hours left of daylight when Jack stopped and looked to his left.  The dogs were looking in the same direction.  

“Jack, why have we stopped,” Rae asked.

“The temperature.  It is dropping.  The wind has shifted,” he nodded in the direction he was looking.  “It is coming out of the North.”  

Now I noticed it.  It was a gentle breeze, but it definitely had a coldness to it.  

Jack pulled back the sleeve of his coat and pushed a button on his watch.  

“Barometer is dropping.  Fast.”

“Should we head back for the city?  The suburbs, at least?” Savannah asked, concern in her voice.  

Jack continued to look to the North.  I followed his gaze to see a line of dark clouds moving toward us.  

“Yes,” he finally said and turned back for the city.  “We will have to push it if we are to beat the storm.  It smells like snow.  I don’t want to be caught outside when it hits.  Not in tents.”

It was a fast pace.  Almost a jog.  Despite the change in temperature, I was sweating.  We did not take our usual ten-minute breaks after humping for fifty minutes.  We barely made it to the first suburbs before the storm.  Jack and the dogs checked the first house we came to when it began to sleet.  Once the house was cleared, we got in, and the sleet changed to blowing snow.  It was coming down almost sideways.  Jack told us all to drink water and rest while he looked around for things that could be useful.  

The house was not as big as the one we stayed in on our way to the city.  But it had a much more ‘home’ feel to it.  One wall had dozens of pictures of people I am guessing were family.  A few were in black and white of older couples.  Some where of babies or very young children.  I recognized two in other pictures when they were older, sitting behind the wheel of a car, graduation, on a beach somewhere.  There were other pictures of a couple in frames on a side table.  One of them standing on a sea wall with sailing boats behind them.  Another was the Eiffel Tower.  Big Ben.  Atop of what looked like a pyramid.  Them on a cruise ship.  Looked like they traveled a lot.

Jack came back with a piece of paper in hand.  

“They left a letter for someone named Brian.  They went to someone’s house named Holli.  Guessing their children.”

“Find any food,” Rae asked.

“They had the good sense to clean out the freezer and refrigerator of any spoiled food.  But they have a walk in pantry that is stocked.  Canned goods, cans of soup, tuna, dried goods like rice, pasta.  Might be a bit stale but it could still eat.”

“Let me see what we have,” Rae made her way to the kitchen.  

The sound of the wind outside made Savannah turn and walk to the large bay window.

“I cannot see the road anymore.  It is covered in snow.”

Jack and I joined her at the window.

“Visibility is down to less than thirty feet,” Jack commented.  “Can’t even see the house across the street.”

“Glad we’re not out in that,” I said.  

“I did winter SERE school and survival school in the Marines.  Windchill like that can kill in short order.  Yes.  Be glad.”

“Jack,” Rae called from the kitchen.  We left the window, and all went into the kitchen.  “How much fuel do you have for your camp stove?”

“Enough to get us home as long as we are not making six-course meals.”  He stopped, his eyes thinking.  “Let me recheck the garage.  Come on, boys,” he said to the dogs.  When he came back,

“I like this guy.  He brought his gas grill inside and has an extra propane tank, full.  What do you want to make?”

Rae looked thoughtful for a moment.  Went back to the pantry to look.  Then came back into the kitchen and opened various cabinets.  

“Okay, we have cans of tuna that are good for another two years, cream of mushroom soup that is good for another three months, an unopened bag of egg noodles, a box of vacuum sealed crackers, a unopened can of Parmesan cheese, dried onions and garlic power, dried parsley, pepper and bacon grease.  It is still good.  I could make tuna casserole!”

“What is tuna casserole?” Savannah asked.

“What?” Rae, Jack, and I said at the same time, looking at her like she had a turnip for a head.

“You have never had tuna casserole,” I stated, astonished.

“No,” she responded meekly.  “My mom did not cook a lot.  Actually, she did not cook at all.  We ordered out a lot or had microwave meals.  I would grab what I wanted and go to my room, texting with my friends.”  

Rae sighed and explained, “Tuna casserole is egg noodles, tuna, cream of mushroom soup, cheese and a crunchy topping, all baked.  My mama made it with Ritz crackers as the topping.”

“My Mom made it with Panko bread crumbs lightly sauteed in butter,” I said.

“Mine,” Jack added, “Made it with roughly crushed tortilla chips, using Queso cheese, grilled jalapenos, onions, peppers, frozen sweet peas, and fresh cilantro.”

We all stared at him.  

“What?  Tuna casserole can’t be Mexican!”

The grill had a side burner for Rae to melt snow for water and par-cook the noodles.  She found a cast iron Dutch Oven, greased it with the bacon grease, mixed everything together and used one side of the grill burners to act as a oven and finished cooking the casserole.  It was so good, she made a second batch.  We ate it all.  

In a large stock pot, Jack melted more snow on the side burner so we could take a hot sponge bath.   We needed it after the rapid pace hump back to the house.  

Jack put his watch outside for five minutes and checked the temperature sensor on it.  Fifteen degrees.  I asked if it was a Polar Vortex.  He shrugged it could be.  With no means of heat in the house, we moved furniture into one of the two bedrooms and set up our tents in the main room to keep our body heat in them.  Between the tent and our sleeping bags it was actually pleasant.  Emerging from our tents to a cold house was a different story.  Jack put his watch on the kitchen counter for twenty minutes and then checked the temperature.  Thirty-eight degrees.  

Rae found packets of hot cocoa mix for us to warm up in the cold house while Jack melted bacon grease and then slow-cooked some of our dried and smoked rabbit in it.  Rae found a bag of flour, mixed it with some of the bacon grease into a dough, rolled out tortillas and grilled them.  The rabbit was now soft from the slow-cooked bacon grease. Rae tore it into shreds, seasoned it with dried onions, garlic powder, and pepper, and we had rabbit fajitas for breakfast.  

The weather was still bad outside; there was more blowing snow, but Jack’s watch read higher temperatures.  At first I thought that was good.  He said,

“Not so much.  Snow as it warms up goes from powdery to heavy and wet.  Makes for hard humping.  We might be here for another day or two.”  

Actually, we did not mind too much.  We sat around the coffee table in our sleeping bags, coats, and hats and played cards.  Read some books we found on the shelves and talked with each other.  At night, in our sleeping bags we would tell ghost stories that were so lame we usually laughed at them.  Jack would tell us about the firefights he had been in, in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Of some of his fellow Marines who got injured or worse.  

Diary, I thought they were more scary. 

Entry three

The weather finally broke on the third day.  It was sunny and had warmed up to the lower to mid-forties.  

Jack said the trip home would not be easy, but we needed to get going.  I must admit, while it was some fun at the house and the food we made was good, I was getting cabin fever and missed home and Four Corners.  The first day was a slog, as Jack had said it would be.  He lead the way to blaze a trail to make it easier for us and the dogs following behind him.  Still it took us two hours longer to make it back to the point where we turned around.  That night Jack said the low was in the mid thirties so sleeping was not as bad as I thought it would be.  The next day was even warmer and more of the snow had melted.  We could even see bare spots of road again.  By late afternoon on the third day we finally crossed the bridge leading to Four Corners, nearly all the snow was gone.  As we emerged from the vehicle barricade across the bridge, a shout went up of our return.  

“Aye, good to see you all.  Was a bit concerned when the weather took a turn for the worse,” Sean said to us, shaking each of our hands.

“It was a slog but we managed.  We holed up at a house for the worst of it.  Might want to consider your security for the bridge as we just came across unchallenged,” Jack responded.  

“After that storm, I did not expect anyone but you.  How’s mother and child fairing?”

“They are both doing well, thanks to Savannah,” Rae gave Savannah a beaming smile.

“I didn’t do anything special,” Savannah said sheepishly.

“Chicken and biscuits, Savannah!  You delivered that baby like a pro!  Granted, Colleen did most of the work, but you are just as much a hero as she is!”

“Aye, Rae is right.  You are a hero,” Sean nodded with a smile.

Diary, I look straight at Savannah and deadpanned, “Hear that, hero . . . get used to it.”