Mistaken, p.11
Mistaken, page 11
“I was looking at the pots in the kitchen when Andrew came in. I suggested that maybe I could cook something sometime and he looked at me like I had threatened to poison everyone.”
“Shit. Really?”
“Yeah.” The shaking got worse.
“That does explain a few things,” he muttered.
“What?”
“It’s just that when you were sick, Bear went through a lot of trouble to get permission to have Harry in the kitchen to teach him how to make chicken soup. He said there were orcs watching to make sure he didn’t actually touch anything.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees and wished, again, that the world wasn’t like this. We were dirty humans who couldn’t be trusted around food. Nevermind that I fed myself just fine before the invasion.
Bear came over and sat next to me. “Not cook,” he rumbled softly.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Hmm.” He nodded. I could feel him watching me but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “Andrew not make you.”
“Good to know,” I muttered.
“Still scared?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
It was Martin who answered that one. “Back in the camp, shortly after we moved there, one of the prisoners said something that angered one of the guards. We couldn’t hear what he said, but everyone saw the guard punch the guy hard enough to cave in his rib cage.”
Someone snarled, I looked up across the lawn, all three of the Godfathers looked pissed. Martin hugged me closer.
“Bad,” Bear said softly.
“Yeah, well, no one else thought so,” Martin explained. “He didn’t even miss a day of work for that. He was still there watching the food line everyday when we left.”
Bear looked like he was going to say something, but he stopped himself. After a moment of thought, he said, “Safe now. No hurt.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. Martin cleared his throat and changed the subject, “Looks like we are getting neighbours.”
Bear nodded, not taking his eyes off of me. “Inari and Ansa. Son Armo. Orc Tapio.”
That was interesting. “Not local sounding names,” I pointed out.
Bear shook his head. “Family. Not many family with orc. Send them stay with us. Our family bigger.”
Our family. That gave me pause. I didn’t recall him calling us that before. It also raised the question, “All of us? Are we all family?”
Bear just looked confused, “Yes?”
“So…. Andrew is my family too?” That didn’t seem right. The five boys and Martin and Harry were my family. Bear was trying to worm his way in, but the other three? They just felt like surplus bodies most of the time.
There was no sign of understanding on Bear’s face but Andrew was nodding. I closed my eyes and fought back tears. Family was supposed to keep you safe. This didn’t feel safe. Having an orc be upset with me really didn’t feel safe. “I am sorry I made you angry, Andrew.”
Bear grumbled something not in English, Andrew looked surprised. Then he turned to me as he said, “Not hurt you, Kari.” This was quickly chorused by Carl and Tyler.
Max bounced over and climbed into my lap, “Why he say that, Mommy?”
Martin ruffled his hair saying, “They are our family now, kiddo.”
Max nodded. Then he pressed his icy cold fingers against my cheeks making me shriek as he kissed my chin before he ran off to play. “You have to come in and let your mittens dry soon! Five minute warning!” I always said that, just like my mom had done. It was pointless, there wasn’t any way to know how long five minutes was without counting to three hundred. The boys just knew it as soon.
Max went back to trying to push Patrick into the snow. It wasn’t working, Patrick was just enough bigger that he had better balance. “I’ll have to teach them how to make snow angels soon,” I mused.
Harry came over and interrupted my thought process with, “I think we should put up a tree. I found Christmas ornaments in the basement. Might as well put them to use.”
“That would be nice. Were there any lights? I mean, the tree would be nice even without them, but that was my favourite part.” I thought some more, “How are you going to explain it? They won’t have the cultural expectations.”
“It’s the Halfway Through Winter Tree!” Harry and Martin chorused like they had been practicing.
I smiled a little and shook my head, “That I can definitely get behind. Anything else good in the basement?”
“Someone’s collection of 1970’s Playboys in less than mint condition,” Harry offered. All three of us gagged a little. “There was a box of kids stuff, though. No wrapping paper, but we could still do some sort of reveal,” he suggested.
Bear was still watching, “What Playboys?”
I stood up. “All yours, Harry!” I announced before quickly calling to the boys that it was time to come in.
Chapter 16
After a few days, Bear had suggested Patrick and Max might like to try out the bunk beds in the kids’ room. They were excited. I wasn’t sure I was ready to be alone in the room with Bear. I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready.
It was after lunch. The kids were down for an afternoon nap. Harry and Martin were… something like napping. They weren’t too noisy, but we did have to implement a ‘no adult nudity in the common areas’ policy shortly after we all moved in together. I was sitting in the kitchen at the far end of the house, ignoring them. I hadn’t really missed sex. I was too busy, too tired, too hungry to notice. I missed my family. I missed my boyfriend, Ryan, who had gone out to look for food one day about six months after they arrived and not come back.
I couldn’t think about that.
Or what happened after.
I just couldn’t.
“You sad lots,” Carl observed.
He hadn’t spoken to me before. Not that I remembered. He was the one that always looked so horrified when I tried to talk to him that I had eventually given up.
This was not a great place to try to build a conversation.
“I’ve had lots of bad things happen to me.” It was as diplomatic as I could get.
“Tell me!”
“No. Then you will either be sad too or you will be entertained, in which case I won’t ever want to see you again.”
He frowned, I flinched. I stood up to leave. “Nowhere to go,” he observed.
I sat back down and tried to look anywhere in the room but at him. After a moment, I closed my eyes and tears splashed down my cheeks. I wiped them on the back of my hand and forced myself to stop.
“Tell me,” he repeated, a little more gently this time.
I turned to look resolutely out of the window.
“I was hiding in a basement with my boyfriend. We were trying to avoid the looters. And you. Eventually we ran out of food. We found a couple of big bags of dog food that kept us going for another couple of months. When that ran out, he left to go find something, anything to eat. He didn’t come back.”
“Sad,” he nodded. “Then orcs found you, took you safe.”
“Sure,” I agreed, just wanting the conversation to stop. He didn’t get the hint.
“How orcs found you?”
“Orcs found me months after that. After I had already been found by a bunch of looters. Orcs found me in an abandoned gym with a bunch of other women they had collected. I had spent… I don’t even know how long as a slave before the orcs found me.”
Now Carl just looked angry, “Humans stupid.”
“Yeah, I was. It would have been better to have just starved to death in the basement before the looters found me. Instead I eventually went looking for food too.”
He gasped.
“I love Max. He is what kept me alive for the last two years now. But having him to take care of doesn’t stop the nightmares. He doesn’t make me not afraid.”
“Orcs found you… they hurt you?”
“Yes,” not as badly or creatively as the humans had, but you send a band of soldiers into a room with a bunch of women tied to the furniture in positions for easy use, then getting the women untied isn’t the first thing that came to mind. It wasn’t even sex, they just poked at us and leered at us to see what we would do. I was pretty shut down by then. Not responsive enough to be interesting. That didn’t stop them from trying to get a reaction.
One of them spent a lot of time stroking my calf before the bolt cutters made their way to free me. It wasn’t pleasant. It was still better than the looters had been, but it had been a lesson that I still had no say over who touched me. That didn’t feel like as much of a rescue as I had been hoping for.
When they were done, they took all of us to get health care. We all spent some time in a field hospital getting IV nutrition and meds. The orcs made sure our stomachs could handle food again before they sent us to the camp. Then I had zombie-walked through my first few months at the camp. A few of the women I had been found with just disappeared.
I had actually gained some weight back when I first got there. When all you do is sleep and eat the rations from the food line, it wasn’t hard. Then Max came. Ironically, it was easier to take care of him than it was to take care of myself. I needed to get up, because he needed me. I needed to walk around because he wanted to be rocked.
“You tell Bear why you sad?”
“I don’t like to talk about it. Spending too much time reliving it isn’t healthy.”
“Talking makes it better,” Carl suggested.
“The right kind of talking makes it better. The wrong kind of talking makes it worse.”
“Hmm. Talk to Bear.”
I shook my head, “Bear has never asked. He doesn’t want to know.”
Carl made a disapproving grunt, “Bear not know how to ask without hurting.” When I didn’t reply, he gasped. “I hurt by asking?”
Yes. I was already setting it aside when you poked at me, dumbass. “When I don’t want to talk about something, just let it go. You aren’t my therapist.”
You would think most people would get the hint, right? Not Carl. “Martin and Harry having sex.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“You not afraid them because they don’t need you for sex?”
“They are my friends. It took awhile to not be afraid of them so that they could be my friends.”
It was Bear’s voice that made me turn around so fast I almost fell out of my chair. “I am friend. I wait you not afraid.”
“How long were you listening?” I whispered.
Bear just shrugged. “Martin or Harry hug you now. You let me hug or need me get them?” He thought for another moment, “I get Patrick?” Patrick gave hugs like he never wanted to let go.
“The kids are sleeping. The guys are… busy.”
Bear was seven feet tall and built like a brick shit house, he should not have been able to look shy and vulnerable, but somehow he pulled it off. “You let me hug?”
I looked at Carl, who was at least smart enough to beat a hasty retreat. When he was gone, I looked back at Bear and nodded. He held me gently but close. I sobbed into his chest. He didn’t say anything, but rubbed my back until I was done, then pulled a clean hanky out of his pocket for me to wipe my face and blow my nose.
He nodded. “Now we burn Playboys.”
I blinked at him, then laughed.
It was odd watching Bear look completely disgusted as he ripped out the stained pages and crumpled them up as kindling for the fireplace. Tyler even turned up with some out of date marshmallows. We were making s’mores when the boys got up.
The marshmallows were harder than they should have been; the graham crackers were a bit stale but the kids had no frame of reference. They were just happy to have something sweet.
“I used to make these,” I mumbled to myself.
“Made these now,” Bear commented with a smirk.
“My dad was a chef,” I explained, keeping my eyeline low. “I used to make the marshmallows and bake chocolate chip cookies to make s’mores.” They didn’t like me talking about food. I was pushing a line here and I knew it. When I peeked up, Bear was frowning. I flinched. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
Harry frowned, “I talk about my folks sometimes. I think it’s allowed.”
I just shook my head. Martin cleared his throat, “They, um, don’t like it when we talk about food. Especially Kari.”
That caused an uproar. All four orcs in the room started talking so fast, I couldn’t understand any of them. I started to shake, Patrick started to cry and from there all the kids were upset. That was the end of s’mores. I realized I should have just kept my mouth shut.
When it was time to head back to the park for dinner, Bear stopped me. “Ok you talk about food. You hungry, you say.” He hesitated uncertainly for a moment, “I feed you now.”
“OK.” It seemed the safest bet.
Bear just growled softly, “No. I feed you. I give you food. I keep you from hungry.”
“Yeah.”
He was clearly frustrated with me. I tried to shift my weight away from him. He forced himself to relax before he led me to the park.
I was juggling plates for Max and I, while Bear was looking after his and Patrick’s. Suddenly, he started speaking very quickly to the server who glanced at me before shaking his head. After much back and forth, the server looked in my direction. Then without making anything close to eye contact said, “Lieutenant Commander wants you to know he is a good mate. He will not make you hunt or prepare food. He will provide. He is pleased that you understand this since your father was a good provider.”
There was a lot going on in that little speech. Starting with, “Lieutenant Commander?”
Bear grunted, “Yes. Bear.”
I stared at him in astonishment, “You are a Lieutenant Commander?”
He nodded. The server said, “Yes, second in charge of his group.”
“What about Andrew, Tyler and Carl?”
“I don’t understand.”
Bear growled for a while. Then the server explained, “They are junior officers. Distinguished enough to be given children but not mates.”
“And the old guy who took Max?”
The server looked appalled. Bear explained. The server relaxed. “Admiral. In charge of many groups but not all.”
“Huh.” I thought some more. “Thank you for explaining.”
The guy bowed, “Pleased to be of service, Mother Kari.”
That startled me, but we were holding up the line. Bear gave me a gentle nudge and nodded for me to keep moving. The other orcs were still eating in the park, oblivious to the snow, but we brought our plates back to the new house.
The others were chatting, like usual. I wasn’t, also like usual. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. “Why did he call me Mother Kari? He made me sound like a nun or something.”
Harry chuckled. “You think it’s weird for you? I’m Mother Harry.”
“What?”
Andrew was the most loquacious of our group, so he explained, “Means human parent. We trying be respectful.”
“But the kids all call Harry and Martin ‘Daddy’!”
The orcs all shared a wary look, then suddenly started concentrating on their plates.
Martin frowned, “They don’t usually talk to you. How did that even come up?”
“Lieutenant Commander Bear had someone explain to me that it reflects badly on him if I want to cook.”
“That’s…. different,” Harry said slowly.
I just shrugged.
Bear, however, was beaming with pride. “Kari not cook. I feed.” The other orcs nodded in agreement. Us humans shared a more skeptical look.
Martin cleared his throat, “How do you feel about that, Kari?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to lose Max or go back to the camp, so…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence. “This isn’t even in the top hundred worst parts of this invasion. At least now I know not to ask.” I just sort of hunched over my plate and went back to eating the dinner that Bear had provided for me.
Chapter 17
That night after supper, I got the boys, all of the boys ready for bed. I tucked them into bed and told them the version of Noah’s Arc that I could remember. Well, a flood story anyway. I had heard a number of them over the years and they had all mashed together in my memory, so this one probably wasn’t biblically correct. The boys liked it anyway. There weren’t lights in the bedroom, so reading wouldn’t have been an option anyway. Next time, I would do my best attempt at remembering the details involved in the plot of Star Wars.
