One Second After

She came back out a minute later with two, struck a lighter and puffed one to life, hesitated for a second, then handed it to John, putting the second one on the table.

“Ex-smoker?” John asked.

“Yup. Surprising how many nurses smoke. But I looked at one too many cancerous lungs, though.”

“Don’t need to hear it.” She smiled.

“Well, you’re going to run out in about two weeks anyhow. Stretch it and you might make it to four weeks or six, but sooner or later you will quit. Maybe one of the few blessings to come out of this. An entire nation going cold turkey on tobacco, alcohol, drugs. No cars, so we have to walk or ride bikes. Might do us some good.”

“Back to Jennifer,” he said, after taking several puffs. The meal was sitting well on his stomach, but the tobacco hit him after so many days away. He felt shaky and suddenly weak.

“Tyler’s death, the funeral,” she said. “If I had been around and knew, I’d of kept Jennifer home during the burial. It really traumatized her.

“It’s tough enough on any kid of that age to lose their grandpa. But we, all of us, have really isolated death away, kept it hidden. Tyler died in her bedroom. In fact, she is terrified to even go back in there. When she’d come to see you when you were sick, she’d just stand by the doorway. It’s just that she saw it all, and it registered.

“John, she’s a diabetic, and even at twelve that makes anyone very conscious of their mortality. They know their life is dependent on that needle and the vial, but for seventy years now those vials just came across the pharmacy counter, no questions asked. She knows that’s finished.”

“How?”

“Damn it, John, she isn’t deaf or blind. Every day since this started people have been dying and she knows she’s on the short list once the insulin in the basement runs out.”

He shook his head angrily.

“No, God, please no. That’s four months off. By then we’ll have something back in place. At least communications, some emergency medicines.”

“John, you’ve been the very person going around saying that this is bad, real bad, that it might take years, if ever, to come back from it.”

“I never said a word around her.”

“Oh, John, you’re such a father, but you don’t understand kids. I’ve worked in hospitals with kids like Jennifer. Kids that were terminal. They had it figured long before their parents would ever admit it to themselves.”

“She is not terminal,” he snarled, glaring at Makala angrily.

She said nothing.

“Damn you, no,” and he was humiliated by the tears that suddenly clouded his vision.

He struggled to choke back the sobs that now overwhelmed him.

She put her hand out, touching him, and he jerked back, looking at her, filled with impotent rage.

“My girl will live through this,” he gasped. “Jennifer will live through this.”

She leaned over, gently touching his face, paused, and then half stood up, kissing him on the forehead, and drew her chair closer to his side.

“John, with luck, if things straighten out, we’ll get hooked back up to hospitals that work before the insulin runs out.”

He noticed how she said “we.”

“I’ve gotten close to her, John. Very close these last few days. She’s a sweet child. Not a twelve-year-old dressing, talking, and sometimes acting like she’s twenty-one. She still sleeps with Rabs in her arms, plays with Beanie Babies, reads a lot. The way perhaps twelve-year-olds were long ago. Rather nerdy actually.”

He struggled for control as Makala described his little girl. He let the burned-out cigarette fall and without comment she lit the second one and handed it over, taking a puff on it first before doing so.

She smiled, and he realized that tears were in her eyes as well.

“It’s just the poor child has really been obsessive about dying since she saw her grandfather go and the way he was buried, the way we’re burying people now by the hundreds.”

“I’ll talk with her.”

“I already have,” Makala said quietly.

“About what?”

She hesitated.

“Go on; about what?”

“About death,” she whispered. “She asked me for the truth. About how long she had if the insulin ran out.”

“And what did you tell her?” he snapped, and she grimaced as he grasped her arm with his hand. “What did you tell her?”

“John, I told you, I’ve worked with kids like her. I know when to lie; I know when it is time to tell the truth. I reassured her that she’d be OK. That you and others were working to get things reestablished and soon medical supplies would start coming in.”

He released his grip.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“But you’ve got to talk with her, too, John.”

He nodded, head lowered, again struggling for control. He felt so damn weak. Not just physically but emotionally. Tyler’s time had played out and though John had come to love that old man as if he were John’s own father, he took solace knowing Tyler had lived a good life. But Jennifer?

“You better keep reassuring her if you want her to be happy.” Makala paused.

“In the time she has left?” he asked, staring at her.

“Let’s just pray for the best.”

He finished his cigarette and sat back.

“You said hundreds have been buried?”