After the End of the World

"Not to worry," she says. "We arranged this stateroom for parents who have only infants. Everyone in here has at least one kid in diapers, and none of the rug rats are over ten months old. Gotta warn you, though, if you can't sleep when a baby is crying, you'll be in a world of hurt."

She momentarily lifts the privacy curtain and scoots onto the bunk next to ours, then sticks out her hand. "I'm Haley. Me and the lunkhead here are from Unalaska, Alaska."

The sandy-haired man sharing her bunk grins at us. "You can call me Ty."

I take Haley's proffered hand while Caiden shakes Ty's. "I'm Caiden," he says.

"And I'm Lana. We're both from Montana, up near Great Falls. How old is your child?"

"We've got four-month-old James here with us," Haley says, then pauses for a long moment before continuing. "Our seven and five-year-old daughters, Charlotte and Sofia, are with my brother and his family in Cheyenne. We haven't heard from them since, well, that day."

We can only nod. Caiden's told me that compared to Cheyenne, Great Falls still looked like a picnic ground. And I've got to believe that if Ty and Haley thought there was any chance their girls were still alive, they wouldn't be sailing to Patagonia.

"So how did you guys come to be aboard this ship?" I hope I'm not digging into uncomfortable territory. But everyone's got an April Fools War story, though I have no personal recollection of the one I'll be telling.

"We took a cruise for our tenth anniversary," Haley says. "It was our first, and it was wonderful. We had just arrived at the airport in Houston to fly home when the power went out."

"We managed to get ahold of a couple of bicycles and tried to head north to get to our girls," Ty says, "but the military was only letting people come south. Not that there were many of those."

Wow, that would have been an epic rescue attempt, easily a thousand miles each way. And surely knowing it would be in vain.

Haley nods. "We ended up staying with a ranching family near Katy for about eight months, working for room and board, then, when it got so bad that we had to evacuate, we ended up in a camp near Galveston for a few months. It was starting to get bad there too, so when this ship came along, we were only too happy to sign up."

"So what were you guys doing in Unalaska?" Caiden asks. "I'm gonna go way out on a limb and guess that ranching isn't a real big industry in the Aleutian Islands."

"Nope," Ty says. "Our three biggest industries are fishing, fishing and, uh..."

"Fishing," Haley says, bailing him out from his obvious lapse of memory.

"And that's what you did?" Caiden asks, going out on that limb again.

"Yup. I even had my own boat and crew," Ty says wistfully.

I feel for him. Losing his livelihood and probably his crew can't be anything near as bad as losing two of his kids, but it's got to hurt.

"So how did you guys meet?" I ask.

Ty fields this one as well. "Haley and I grew up on ranches near Douglas, Wyoming, but I wasn't near as interested in running cattle as my brothers. So when I graduated high school, I went up to Alaska and signed on as a hand on a fishing boat. I fell in love with the life."

"Yeah," Haley says. "We were high school sweethearts, but when he wouldn't come home, I went to visit him for a week. I never went home either. So how 'bout you guys?"

I let Caiden take this one. "Well, I was stationed at Patrick Air Force Base, but I took all thirty days of my accumulated leave to go visit my family. I was nearly home when I came across this young lady, stuck alongside the road with a flat."

"I had seven of the eight lugs of that old Dodge pickup loose," I say, "but the last one was giving me fits." I'm glad his tale has us meeting more recently, so there's less shared backstory to remember.

"So working together," Caiden says, "she was good to go pretty quickly. She was beautiful and smart as a whip, so I wanted to ask her out, but I didn't want her to say yes just because she might have felt obligated-"

"-So I asked him," I say proudly. Like Caiden, I'm making it up as we go along.

"Yeah, and I'm glad she did. We went out pretty much every night, and I introduced her to my family three days later. I popped the question a week after that."

"I knew I was going to marry him after our first date, but I made him wait a day before I said yes, just so he wouldn't feel too sure of himself."

"Yeah, Lana's evil that way, but she's the one that insisted we get married before my leave was over so that we could live together on base."

"I hated the idea of a long-distance relationship," I explain, "so we pulled our family and friends together for a simple wedding, then went for a honeymoon in Orlando before returning to his base. The war happened on the last day of his leave."

Caiden gives a brief synopsis of their escape from Orlando and the trip to MacDill, plugging me into Kara's role.

The accessway is beginning to fill as other Floridians arrive, and both kids are finally starting to get fussy, so it's time to try out our new quarters. I unwrap the kids, not wanting to do the climb for the first time with precious infants strapped to my chest.

"Here's Daddy," I say to my son as I hand him to Caiden. The words sound completely foreign to me, but if I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound. A few seconds later, he's got Amelia too.

I climb up into our bunk, noting that there's plenty of room to sit up straight, at least on the nearest two-thirds. The last third has a shelf over it about eighteen inches above the mattress and a couple of feet deep. Half of it is obviously for storage, but the other half is more interesting. There's a lip on the front about six inches high, and triple that on the other three sides. The bottom is layered with a reasonably thick piece of foam. It's not going to make the cover of Parents magazine, but it should suffice as a crib.

Caiden hands me Gregory. "How does it look up there, love?" he asks, calling me that because we're still in public I'm sure.

"I think we can make it work, babe" I reply in kind. The word still feels funny on my lips, but maybe in time I'll get used to calling him that. "It's got the window we were promised at least. Come on up."

"Here's our girl," Caiden says, handing me Amelia. I set her in my lap with Gregory and scoot until my back is against the crib. Then Caiden hands our packs up, following close behind.

Caiden and I are now sitting cross-legged, facing each other with our knees barely touching. It's tight in here. Hell, it's tight in this room. There will be sixteen adults and at least nine kids in a stateroom designed for two. Just how far away is Patagonia anyway?

I need to feed Gregory, and Amelia is going to be hungry too. I remove my wrap, then automatically start rummaging through my pack for Amelia's breast pump. Then I come to a full stop, feeling stupid for not having thought about this yet. I'm going to be breastfeeding Amelia. Thankfully, Caiden hasn't noticed.

So what else should I be considering? Well, we're going to be spending a whole lot of time packed together in a very tight space, so there's not a lot of room for modesty. I'd best dive right in and get this out of the way. I mean, he's my husband, right?

I turn my torso a bit and look at Caiden. "Unzip me?" His eyes widen slightly, but he does, and I shrug my shoulders out of the top of my dress. Then I push it down around my waist. Reaching back, I unhook my bra, freeing my swollen girls. I blush a little, having him see my bare breasts for the first time since we were in the bunker, but this is what a woman would do if it were just her and her husband in this bunk.

I pick up Amelia first, putting her to my painfully full left breast. As would be expected, she's got no clue about real nipples. She turns her head and starts to fuss, still hungry.

Not even remotely giving up, I give my breast a firm squeeze behind the nipple, expressing a droplet of milk. I guide her face back to me, touching her lips to it. Feeling the moisture, and maybe catching the scent, she opens her mouth and touches the droplet with her tongue.

She knows the smell and taste of my milk and nuzzles against my nipple, looking for more. I express another droplet, this time straight into her mouth.

Perhaps my nipple is shaped close enough to the silicone one on her bottle that she catches on to its purpose. She experimentally latches on and gives me a pull. I can almost see the realization on her beautiful little face, and then she's a convert, suckling greedily. This is like a dream come true. I have a daughter and Caiden has a son.

There's melancholy too, though. There was a lot of loss that went into my gain. Whatever my personal issues with her, Kara certainly didn't deserve to die any more than anyone else in that horrendous crash. And I can't imagine what Caiden must be going through right now. A look at his face shows moist eyes as he watches Amelia nurse at my breast. Thank God he seems to be happy to see this.

Caiden reaches in with Gregory and puts him to my right nipple. He latches on and sucks lustily. I must be the very image of Motherhood, with a child at each breast.

"We're going to be just fine," I tell him, smiling bravely. There's no way for me to know that, but after the way Caiden handled things back at the warehouse, I have some faith.

"I know we will," he says, leaning forward to kiss me. I lean a little to meet him and we kiss tenderly. This is feeling more natural all the time.

But then Caiden suddenly pulls back. "I'm sorry, Lana. I shouldn't have done that." His voice is barely above a whisper.

"Why not?" I murmur back.

"Well, when we kissed before, it was because we had other people around us and had to act like a married couple, but this time no one was watching. What must you think of me for doing that so soon after losing my wife?"

Frankly, that had been the last thing on my mind, but since he's asked... "Yeah, what gives?"

It's a good thing that the stateroom is filled with the noise of crying babies and the buzz of couples getting set up in their too-small spaces. This isn't a conversation we'd want to share.

"I guess this would also be the time to explain to you why I allowed Kara to treat you so badly. And why I did as well."

"Please do."

"It comes down to three things. First, Kara wasn't actually my wife. Second, she was married to someone else. And third, she was holding Amelia's life hostage to make me do as she said."

That just kinda hangs there for a long moment. "You're gonna have to diagram that for me, Caiden," I say at last.

"I can only imagine, so I'm gonna take it from the top. See, Kara was my high school girlfriend, and the first girl I ever slept with, but we kind of drifted apart during the months before graduation. After that, I went into the Air Force and she got married to a guy she met in Billings. I figured I'd never hear from her again, but three years later she called and said they'd gotten divorced."

"Let me guess. They hadn't?"

"Nope. He was scheduled to leave on a three-week business trip to Sydney, Australia and she hated being alone, so she thought she'd have a little fun while he was away."

"So she was screwing both of you over."

"Yeah, but I didn't find that out until later. In the meantime, we caught up on stuff over social media for a couple of weeks, then got together at Universal Studios while he was away."

"So when the war started, you told the people at MacDill that Kara, whom you still thought was divorced, was your wife so she wouldn't get booted out into the wilds."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. With the widespread destruction of records, I figured no one would ever know we weren't actually married."

"Frankly, Caiden, I think that was noble of you. And you obviously liked her well enough to have a child with her."

He shakes his head. "That wasn't my intention. She told me she was on the pill. After we got to MacDill, I took precautions because she said we'd left them behind in Orlando. Then, two months later, she told me she was pregnant.

"I got to thinking about it and realized that I had never seen her take a pill while we were at the hotel, even though we were never out of each other's sight, even while getting ready in the morning. She tried to say that I just hadn't noticed, but finally admitted that she'd forgotten to pack her pills when she left home and just decided to risk it. While she was in a confessing mood, she also told me about still being married."

"Surprise!"

"Yeah, her casual attitude about all of it pissed me off. If she hadn't been pregnant, I would have told the lieutenant I'd lied and gotten her removed from the base, even if it got me thrown out, but to protect my child, I needed to be with Kara."

He sighs, looking quite ashamed.

"I knew, even back when I first met her, that she was a bit psycho. Her stepfather had abused her in pretty much every way possible, and there was some nasty stuff going on inside her head. Lana, I was a flat-out idiot for trusting her, knowing her like I did. Hell, it was stupid of me to have ever slept with her."

"Maybe, but you were doing the honorable thing, caring so much about the child."

"Well, someone had to. Kara wanted to get an abortion. Sure, it would have made life easier, but the idea of killing my child was almost beyond comprehension to me. I begged her not to even think about it. She realized then that she had some real leverage on me, so she told me what I'd have to do to stop her.

"She said that from then on, we would have sex whenever she said, but only when she said. She decreed that I would be doing all of the housework and would take care of the baby any time I was home from work. She wasn't going to breastfeed, and we would be putting the baby on formula right away. I would move to the nursery to give her more privacy and so she wouldn't have to get up at night after the baby was born."

"And you agreed to all of that?"

He motions down to Gregory with his eyes. "Wouldn't you?"

Suddenly I want to crawl under the bunk. "Caiden, I'm sorry. I would do anything for my child."

"I know. So I did as she said and life went on. Then we got word that Air Force personnel and their families were going to be flown to Australia. Kara was excited, of course, because she was sure her husband would be faithfully waiting there for her."

"Like she faithfully waited for him?"

Caiden grins. "I guess we'll never know."

"Would she have tried to take Amelia to her husband?"

He shakes his head. "She figured he'd divorce her for having a child with another man, and there was no way he would have believed he was Amelia's father, despite the timing being within limits."

"Why not?"

"He's ethnic Chinese."

I look down at the pale blonde, blue-eyed girl at my breast. "Yeah, I don't think he would've bought that. So, with the baby no longer being a candidate for an abortion, how did Kara continue to run your life?"

"Simple. She told me that if it ever even seemed like I was being too friendly to you, she would slip away to the refugee camp with Amelia. She even implied that she would make sure I'd never see Amelia again."

"You don't mean...?"

"I do. To Kara, our daughter was just a means of getting what she wanted from me. No more, no less. She would have looked at it as merely a very late-term abortion."

I look down again at Amelia. I can't even imagine such a thing. "But then she wouldn't have gotten her flight to Australia."

"True, but did I mention that Kara was psycho? She'd heard the reports that I had delivered a woman's baby and was spending a couple of days alone with her. Despite being married to someone else and claiming to not even like me, she was incredibly jealous. When I brought you home to stay with us, I was frankly amazed she didn't go postal."

"Yeah, she didn't look too pleased."

"No, but Kara had her pride. As her imagined competition, she didn't want you to know that our marriage was a complete sham, so she had me move back into the master bedroom, started using the breast pump instead of formula, and tried to act all lovey-dovey with me when you were around."

"I never bought that act."

"Didn't think so. Lana, I'm so sorry for the way I let her treat you. And for the way I treated you. I wanted to tell you what was going on, but if I had, it might have changed the dynamic between us. And Kara would have noticed."

Part of me wants to protest that we could have kept a friendlier relationship on the down-low, but after how ready I was to ask him into my bed back at MacDill, let him cup my breast, bare my chest next to him, and now kiss him just because I wanted to, I know he's right. "Yeah, Kara would have sniffed us out in a heartbeat."

After the way he faced down the captain, I don't think Caiden lets fear run his life very often, but I can only imagine the terror he'd felt, wondering every time he left the house if he would ever see his daughter again. "Caiden, under those circumstances I don't see what else you could have done. And now I can see how her memory wouldn't stop you from kissing me."

He nods. "I'm sad for Kara because a lot of her issues were the result of what someone else did to her, but I don't mourn her as my wife."

"Well, that's good, because you've got a new wife now."

"Uh, Lana, about that. We need to make sure we're on the same page here. According to our papers, we're married, but between us, just how married are we?"

"Meaning?"

"We've been behaving like we're married when we're among other people, but how far does that extend when it's just the two of us?"

I've already decided how far I want it to extend. "How far would you like it to?"

"Lana, I don't want to act one way when we're being watched and another when we're alone. Or what passes for being alone on this ship."

"I agree, but are you saying that you'd like us to act like we're married when we're alone, or that we should acknowledge that we are married and live accordingly."

"I know what I'd like," he says, "but I want to hear what you think first."

He's put me on the spot, but that's fair. I put him on the spot first. So what the hell, I'm just going to tell it how it is. "I don't want to act like your wife, and I don't want to think about myself as your wife. Caiden, I want to be your wife."

I'm hoping, of course, that he's going to jump right in and say that it's exactly the same for him, but life is rarely that clean and simple. Instead, he just nods, acknowledging my words. "Lana, I have a confession to make, and it will probably shed some light on my feelings for you. It'll also clue you in to the fact that I can be an idiot sometimes."

I force a smile. "Wow. A confession, a declaration, and proof of something I already suspected, all rolled up into one."

He gives me the stink eye. "Well, when I told Captain Ramirez that I went looking for you because you'd been gone so long, that wasn't true."

"Okay, so that's the confession, but I didn't expect you to tell him the truth. I sure didn't. But go ahead, why did you leave the house?"

"Well, as you might have imagined, Kara laid into me as soon as you went out the door, accusing me of plotting to run away to Patagonia with you. I'd finally had enough of her, so to piss her off, I told her that she'd been exactly right."