Chapter 10

During that month, we talked about what we had done. It wasn't going after the bad guys but the leaving afterwards. I told Wendy that I understood though didn't like people not listening but that I never planned to push good sense on anyone. I told her that I would rather not have friends than have friends who don't think before jumping into a situation.

She responded that we sort of jumped into our relationship. I agreed but it was only us and we didn't jump so much as move quickly toward what we realized we both wanted.

She agreed.

We concentrated upon preparing to be parents and farming our little truck garden. I guess little is a questionable term since we had about five acres planted. We found that we could spend as much time as we wanted working on that area. We tried to hold it to two or three days a week.

We still wanted to develop some friendships but, for right now, we had no ideas about how to go about doing that. We maintained a good relationship with the Williams but hadn't seen anyone else even after we started going into town again. There was little that we needed that was available.

The pregnancy was coming along easily. Wendy's normally flat tummy had a rounded look to it. Heather was farther along and was having some issues with her pregnancy. We offered our books but neither Heather nor David were interested. Sheila and Mark were helping but admittedly didn't know much. I worried but there wasn't anything we could do.

Wendy and I talked about it and made Thursday our town day. Some times, we went east to town. Other times, we would go west to our older town. A few times we went into Knoxville. It was deserted in its burned area. Some of the suburban areas were in good shape and we had added to our supply of shoes.

Wendy picked up some clothing for later in her pregnancy. She picked up some other clothing. One outfit was a mini-dress. With heels, she looked devastating! If she hadn't already been pregnant, she would have been after I saw her in that dress! She told me that she wasn't sure she would ever wear it when anyone else could see her. It was very short. She couldn't quite sit on it!

We enjoyed each other and didn't make a big effort to find people. It was like a hangnail. You noticed it when it bothered you. I noticed when Wendy looked particularly good and I wished we had more friends to who I could show her off. With the world being so empty, it was hard to find any people and, when you did, you worried about what kind of people they would be. In our towns, we saw little sign of people. There were more signs of people in the Knoxville area but we were reluctant to try to make contact.

We enjoyed our pond where we would swim and sun together. Heather and David came over but not as much. Heather had gained, in our opinion, too much weight. We kept our mouths shut except between ourselves. Our tans were pretty even though we wore suits often enough that our public parts were a little darker.

Wendy and I talked about our current state of affairs. We agreed that we were happy but acknowledged a need for people. It would be nice to be part of a community of good people but we understood there would be a risk in meeting people and that slowed us down.

The summer was good for us. Wendy's tummy slowly grew with our child. We followed the instructions in the books and monitored her weight and other factors. We hadn't seen Heather or David in a week or so. We walked over to see them. She was feeling poorly and had gained even more weight. We didn't stay long but told them we cared about them. We went to the pond to swim naked. Wendy said, "I hope she is going to be okay. She doesn't look good though."

We had gotten out of the water and were laying on the blanket we kept in our changing hut. "I know. It worries me but they don't even seem to be interested in any proper procedures." I shrugged. "We can't do anything unless they want us to."

"Tim, it may be tragically too late when they want help."

"I know, babe. We don't want them to control us so we can't control them. I never liked people who did things for my own good. The nicotine nazis would have kept me from my pipe if they had their way. It's a dangerous road when you force people to do what you know is best for them."

"I've never had a problem with you, dear."

"You won't because we talk." I grinned. "If you want, roll over and I'll oil your tummy." She smiled and rolled to her back.

Summer passed peacefully into fall. We enjoyed the cooler weather. Our child was growing in Wendy's body and we were careful to obey the strictures from our books. It appeared that her pregnancy was progressing in an ideal manner.

We had a small argument over names. Wendy wanted a boy to be named with my name while I had never liked my first name and argued against that. I suggested that we use our fathers' first names. She didn't agree but moved to a girl's name. I suggested a little girl have her name. She grinned. "Touché. Okay, dear, we'll use our parents' first names."

We pulled the final harvest from our garden. We had learned to can as well as freeze. We had plenty of food put away. We talked about trying to find a milk cow but decided that finding one would be difficult and keeping it might be worse and require a lot of time. We had plenty of canned and dry milk products. We decided that those products would do along with natural feeding. Wendy worried about that because her breasts weren't expanding much. We also stocked up on baby food and diapers.

We celebrated Christmas with the Williams again enjoying our time. Heather was very close to her time and Wendy was at seven months. Heather hadn't gained any more weight and was feeling better. That was a relief. We had been worried.