After the End of the World

He looks at me apologetically. "I'm sorry, love. It was hidden at the back of my sock drawer. It really was pretty."

He delivers the line perfectly, and the pain in his expression is real. How can it not be? Their anniversary really was going to be today.

I think we've played a good game here, but Ramirez apparently still smells a rat. "The staff sergeant's last name is 'Michaels,' but the name on your test is 'Edwards.' Why is this?"

I pull out my driver's license and hand it to him. "My married ID was in the house," I say. "I found this old one in a pocket of my diaper bag. I didn't see the sense in using my new married name since I thought I was a widow anyway."

Ramirez frowns as he looks it over. Then he hands it back to me and looks at Caiden. "I would like to see yours as well."

Caiden whips out his wallet and is about to pull out what I would assume is his military ID. "I would like to examine your entire wallet," Ramirez says.

I do my best to be nonchalant, but if Caiden's got any photos of Kara in there, we're in trouble. His face is carefully neutral as he hands it over. Ramirez rifles through it and pulls out a piece of paper. He unfolds it, revealing several lines of handwritten text.

"That's the receipt for the ring," Caiden volunteers. Wow, the part about the new ring was actually true.

The captain examines it some more, then refolds it and slips it back where it came from. He looks through the wallet for a few more seconds, but evidently doesn't see anything that gives the game away. He hands it back.

Thank goodness people started keeping all of their brag photos on their phones instead of in their wallets. Of course, now we don't have those images. My only photos, carefully packed and brought with me from the bunker, were obliterated last night. I'll never see an image of any of my family again.

I can see that Ramirez is still suspicious. What's with this guy? He looks at me. "Prove to me that this man is your husband."

"Caiden has a tattoo," I say. Then I realize that this is dangerous because the captain might ask me to describe it, and I've only seen a portion of it.

"Where?"

"Right here, above his hip." I place my fingers familiarly on Caiden's body, indicating the location.

Ramirez looks at Caiden. "Show me." Caiden pulls up his shirt and pushes down on his belt. His hand is in my way, so I still don't get to see the whole thing, but Ramirez nods. "Patrick Henry, I believe, but anyone could see that if you were to wear a swimsuit."

I suppose that's true in Argentina, but those low-cut suits haven't been especially popular with American men in decades. Still, we need a way to prove that we've shared the intimacy that comes with being married, which is challenging, because we haven't. Except for...

"I have a large freckle," I volunteer, going nuclear.

"Lana," Caiden says, looking a bit shocked.

Ramirez looks at Caiden. "Where is this freckle?"

He looks like he's going to refuse to answer, so I jump back in. "Caiden, this is for our children. I would do anything for them."

He nods and takes a deep breath. "It's about half an inch to the left of her vagina," he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

Ramirez looks at me appraisingly. "Show me."

Well, I asked for it. I try to read Caiden's expression, but his face is stone.

I take a deep breath and tuck the front of Linda's leftover dress up under Gregory, then pull down the front of my panties. At least my back is to the crowd.

Ramirez looks at my freckle speculatively. "I'm not convinced," he finally says. Then, to my disbelief, he reaches his hand down as if he's going to make sure it's real. I stand frozen, unable to do anything but watch.

Caiden reaches out and grabs the captain by the wrist, stopping his hand just inches away. Ramirez looks up into Caiden's burning eyes.

"I allowed you to look at my wife to prove to you that she is who I claim," Caiden growls, in his voice a cold steel that I wouldn't have previously imagined. "But I swear before God if you touch her, only one of us will leave this warehouse alive."

I would not have believed that a mild-mannered man like Caiden could look so intimidating. There are low gasps from the crowd and I'm certain that Caiden's de facto death threat has just gotten us into a world of hurt, but Ramirez nods.

"That is the true reaction of a man protecting the honor of his wife," he says. "I can tell that you love and care very much for her. My apologies to both of you, but I had to be sure." He pulls his hand back fractionally and Caiden releases him. I straighten my panties and drop the front of my dress back into place.

Ramirez takes a step back and turns to the table. "They are approved without further questioning, on my authority. Get them processed and assign them a bunk with a window." Then he gives Caiden a nod and strides back to his position, monitoring the tables.

One of the crewmen escorts us through the door, telling another crewman standing there that we have been approved. Then he ushers us into a smaller room and informs the two men at the table there of our unorthodox acceptance and window bunk. Caiden is belatedly given an application form. We take a couple of chairs at a table at the far end of the room and Caiden begins to fill it out.

"Lana, I was sure you were dead," he says in a low voice.

"What, did you really see me walk up to the door?"

"No, but after the plane went down, I got as close as I could to the site and ran into Jaylen. He told me he'd seen you going back into the house ten minutes before the crash."

"Yeah, we waved at each other as he took off on his bike." Then I stop, mortified. I hadn't even thought about them. "What about Aniyah and the kids?"

Caiden shakes his head. "I haven't hugged another guy since I was a kid, but I did last night."

There's so much pain in the world. I'm going to mourn them.

While he fills out his forms, I watch as people come through the door. From their infrequency, I'm going to guess the acceptance rate must be less than five percent. It strikes me that the ones arriving appear to be the strongest looking of the men and the most attractive of the women. Strangely, despite the diversity of the people in the warehouse, everyone passing through the room is white or relatively light-skinned. And there are about twice as many women as men, which is interesting if what they need is help on the ranches.

"So how did you find out we were alive and where to find us?" I ask Caiden when he finishes.

"It's a small world. You actually stayed at my lieutenant's house last night. When I reported this morning, he looked like he'd seen a ghost."

"Well, I did tell him you were dead."

He grins. "So after we got him breathing again, he told me that not only had you and Gregory survived, but that you'd left this morning to get on the ship to Patagonia. He gave me the day off to get things squared away with the Family Housing folks, but I picked up Amelia from the day care center and came here instead."

"You were lucky to have gotten here in time, but it was also lucky that Ramirez selected us. I still have no idea what I would have done if we hadn't been picked."

"My lieutenant told me that he and his wife offered to let you stay with them for a while. I'll bet they'd still have done that. Then we'd have had time to figure out what to do next."

"Like what?"

"Well, the biggest thing would have been to get you on a plane to Australia. To do that, though, you'd have had to be married to a member of the military."

"Namely you, of course. Do you think people would have thought it was legit?"

"Oh, I'll bet that if we'd worked at it for a month or two, we could have convinced people that we'd fallen madly in love. Then we could have done a small marriage ceremony so that you two could have evacuated with us."

I nod contemplatively. "Yeah, I'll bet we could have done that."

"Lana," he says quietly, "we still could. There's nothing to stop us from walking right out of here."

"True," I say, "but there are a lot of ifs there. If I can even get back on base. If you don't get in trouble for going AWOL or lying to Captain Ramirez. If your lieutenant and his wife will really take me in. If people will believe that our supposed marriage isn't a sham. If we can really get on a plane to Australia after what happened last night."

He nods. "Yeah, I'd guess that the crash is going to have some people rethinking the wisdom of flying big groups of personnel on fifty-year-old cargo planes that aren't getting as much maintenance as they need. And even if we do fly, we'd end up in tents on a sweltering base in Australia instead of ranching with a bunch of fellow Americans in beautiful Patagonia."

I think we've both made good points in favor of sticking with the current plan. I lay it on the line. "Caiden, I want to sail on this ship. With you."

He grins and leans over to give me a public kiss. "Me too."

We're brought to the ship in groups, using the ship's two motorized lifeboats. Maybe you could squeeze the ship's normal number of passengers and crew aboard these vessels, but it's for sure that you couldn't get four hundred people into them. I hope the Héctor Cámpora is still seaworthy when overloaded. It's a measure of how much the world has changed that we're even willing to go aboard.

I've got both kids wrapped to my chest now. When we went back up to the table, we had been informed that there would be no room for the big hard-plastic carrier that Caiden had brought Amelia in. Luckily, my trusty wrap had come with instructions for twins. The brochure is long gone, but I'd memorized how to do it. Caiden was impressed at how quickly and efficiently I'd bound her in next to Gregory, and I was impressed by how quickly she took to it. The two of them had never met, and appear to be fascinated with each other.

I smile at the woman sitting across from us. She's using the same stretchy wrap as I am. She's beautiful and has bright red hair, but she's slinging an infant about the same age as ours whose hair makes hers look auburn by comparison. The child's eyes meet mine and I realize that one is bright blue, and the other a stunning green.

"What a beautiful child," I say to her. "Such striking eyes."

She smiles. "Andrew's got Benign Heterochromia," she says in a delightful Scottish accent. "It won't affect his vision, but it's definitely distinctive."

"It certainly is."

"Yours look so peaceful."

"Gregory and Amelia have their moments," I agree.

"Look up there," Caiden says from beside me, pointing upward as our lifeboat motors around the far side of the ship. He's had his arm around my waist for nearly the whole trip out from the dock, like a real husband might. It felt weird at first, but I'm quickly getting used to it. To hold up a wife's end, I've got my hand on his thigh, trying mightily to make it look casual.

"Uh, wow. How would you even launch that?" It's a smaller, bright orange lifeboat with a roof over the top and what looks like a closed cockpit sticking up from the stern. It's mounted on rails on the highest deck, pointing straight out to starboard, but with its bow down at maybe a forty-degree angle.

"It's a freefall lifeboat," Caiden says, "and it looks like it's been added recently. Maybe they wanted to increase lifeboat capacity, but I've never heard of one like that being mounted on a passenger ship."

"Freefall? Does that mean what it sounds like?"

"Yeah, you strap everyone into tall, padded, rear-facing seats, then seal the door and cut it loose. It slides down those rails for a few feet, then falls the rest of the way. Its nose is pointed enough that it actually goes underwater for a few seconds, like a submarine, then pops back to the surface."

"Sounds like an over-the-top amusement park ride," I say suspiciously.

"Well, Lana, maybe we can talk the captain into letting us try it out sometime. It might make up for us not getting to go on the Jurassic Park River Adventure."

Caiden's certainly getting into character, reminiscing about our shared experiences at a place I've never been. Yeah, and if I'm going to do my part, I'd best do the same.

Hold my beer.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask," I say, "but honestly, babe, after you tripped and dumped our entire wedding party into the hotel's pool, I've had all the dunking I'll ever need in this lifetime."

The redhead giggles and Caiden's eyes widen slightly, but he's up for the challenge. "That was clumsy of me, true, but my groomsmen sure appreciated how all your gowns went see-through. Very few wedding receptions have wet T-shirt contests, but you won that one hands down."

"And I'm sure they appreciated that my dress didn't lend itself to wearing a bra underneath?"

"Hell, the preacher liked that."

The redhead and several others around us laugh out loud.

The idea that we're on the way to Patagonia as a family, recalling our fictional wedding, is so unlikely that I'm having a hard time visualizing what might be in store for us, but I have confidence that as long as I have Caiden by my side, we'll do just fine.

The lifeboat drops us off at a gangway that leads up and into the ship. I guess I'm expecting that we'll head straight to our staterooms, but a crewman uses heavily accented English to ask us to follow him. He leads us to the dining room. Behind a serving counter, a young blonde woman is waving a ladle.

"Hi y'all," she calls out. "I'm Lilly Daniels, from El Paso, Texas. Looks like we'll all be headin' down to Patagonia together."

"Hi Lilly," comes a ragged chorus from our group of about fifty.

She grins. "You can put your bags along that wall over there for now, then I need y'all to line up right along here." She indicates a taped line on the floor. "Dinner is served. It ain't fancy, but it's hot and there's plenty of it. We've got all your dishes over here. Hold onto them, because you'll be using them for the rest of the trip."

Caiden and I are wearing everything we own, so we have no bags to set down. We walk straight up to the counter and each take a metal spoon, a heavy plastic cup, and a large ceramic bowl. Looks like prime rib isn't on the menu for this voyage.

"Well, how about that," she says, looking at our kids. "Twins." She gives us a congratulatory look.

"Yup. I'm Lana, this is my husband Caiden, and our little ones are Gregory and Amelia." Both are awake and looking around, seemingly fascinated by each other and all of the new things around them today.

I hold up my bowl and Lilly ladles out a healthy portion of what looks like red beans and rice, with unidentifiable chunks of meat in it. That appears to be all we're eating. Good thing we're country people. I can only imagine the howls of protest if the ship was taking a load of "artists" from Greenwich Village. It smells good, at least.

"So are you a volunteer?" I ask. Everyone else is still dropping off bags at the other end of the dining room, so there's no line behind us yet.

"Well, everyone has assigned duties," she says, dropping an equal portion into Caiden's bowl. "Us passengers do everything but sail and maintain the ship, but yeah, I volunteered for the kitchen. The captain tried to do the organizing, but we took that part over pretty quick too."

"So I'm guessing you didn't come aboard in Tampa?" I ask.

"Nope. Nine hundred and twenty-seven of us came aboard in Texas, and your group is supposed to get us up over eighteen hundred."

I'm sure our eyes are wide. "They said there would be four hundred of us," I say, "and that seemed like a lot for such a small ship."

"Yeah, they said that to us too, but don't sweat it. We've got it all figured out."

Caiden doesn't look any surer of that than I am. "I hope so," he says.

We move on as people start to arrive behind us. The next table has a single large urn, which we find is cold water. We fill our glasses and find a prime table by the windows. Early birds and all that.

"Well, it's not exactly Royal Caribbean," Caiden says, "but as long as it gets us there, I'm not gonna whine."

"Exactly right," I say, digging in. It is indeed hot, and it tastes as good as it smells.

A minute later, the redhead joins us. We make belated introductions. Her name is Alyssa. She and her husband had come from Inverness and were visiting her father when the war broke out. Her father and husband had been killed six months before by a marauding band of teens in northern Tampa. She had only made it into the camp a month ago.

"So do you have farming or ranching experience?" Caiden asks.

Alyssa shakes her head. "Nearest I've ever been to a cow is when I pick up steak at the market. I don't know what they're going to do with a librarian where we're going."

"Do you have any other family in the US?" I ask.

"No, and I'm going even further from home by sailing on this ship," she says. "I had a lot of family in Scotland, but I'm sure one day we'll find each other again."

I can't help but admire her plucky attitude.

When we finish, we join a line at a makeshift counter with several sinks in it. People are washing their own dishes. That makes sense if we're going to use the same ones the whole time. Caiden and I follow suit, then slip our clean dishes into each other's packs. Alyssa's stateroom is on a different deck, so we say goodbye and go looking for our own.

"Wow," I say when Caiden opens the lockless door. "When they said they had put four bunks into each stateroom, I'd assumed they meant four beds in two stacks." Looks like we'll be sharing the place with three other couples, not one.

All other furniture has been removed, out of necessity, and the bunks are all lined up side-to-side, with maybe three inches between each set, so entrance is through the ends. The bunks aren't even commercially made, instead being tacked together from plywood and 2x4's. At least there are privacy curtains hanging between the beds.

"The sheet says we have number two," Caiden says, checking the little piece of paper the guys at the couple's table had handed him. I quickly see another problem.

"There's a number on each bed, not each stack," I say, scooting down the narrow accessway. So, we're actually going to have seven other couples sharing this room with us. And I'll be sharing a very small bed with Caiden.

"Yeah," he says, "when Lilly told us how many people were going to be aboard, I figured they'd have to do something like this." He's right of course, but I honestly hadn't yet thought it through.

Our assigned space is the upper bunk of the last stack. Peering out from the end of it is a raven-haired woman who looks to be in her late twenties. "Number two?" she asks.

I nod apologetically.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I knew this was coming, so I should have been out of your way before we even anchored, but it was really nice having the extra elbow room."

I step back and look at Caiden. "The four of us are sharing a twin mattress."

"Actually, just two of you," she says. She's looking at my chest. "There's kind of a crib in here above the mattress. Twins, huh?"

I'm going to have to get used to that. People evidently find twins fascinating. Hell, I always did. "Yup," I say, adding a bit of pride into my voice. "Twice the fun."

"And twice the noise," Caiden adds ruefully.

"We apologize in advance," I say.