Still, she persisted. Even after Owle started murmuring doubts, suggesting that it might be time to give up and resume the inoculation, she persisted, and finally she was rewarded with the familiar aches, tenderness, the sight of blood on a washcloth. Owle celebrated with a slug of whiskey. “This is good news,” he said, his hand shaking. “This is reason to hope. You did good, girl.”
Getting pregnant took another year, over which her menstrual cycle started, halted, sputtered, started again: 36 days, 21, 62, 23. Timing her fertile days became its own job. She grew intimately familiar with Owle’s house, the tick of his windup clock, the smell of his pipe smoke, his curtained-off “exam room,” his attempts at professional courtesy and efficiency: like the clean sheet he made a show of removing from a drawer and laying out on the exam table, even if he was only taking her temperature. People probably either thought they were lovers or that Violet was dying of some terrible cancer.
She persisted through another five tick bites, too, though she did finally allow Owle to feed some story to June about Violet having a nutritional deficiency that was affecting her energy levels and compromising her immune system. Best if she stayed near camp for the foreseeable future, he said. Another sacrifice, because the work Violet did for June, for Ruby City—it gave her days shape, purpose. She didn’t like milking plants alongside her bunkmates, or helping Errol with the bread baking, or any other job that forced her to spend her day with people, their yearning need and barely masked disgust.
Then finally, three months ago: two lines.
Owle had wanted to go right to June with the good news. “Absolutely not,” Violet said, and she only shook her head when he demanded to know why, what could possibly happen, what was she afraid of. When Violet came to him three weeks ago and told him of her intention to accompany Andy back to the OLE camp to help with the hostage taking, he was livid. “This has gone on long enough,” he said. “It doesn’t just affect you. The whole village has a stake in this. I can list four women for you off the top of my head who’d want to stop the Salt this second if they knew what we know. You can’t risk going out there and getting yourself killed.”
“I’ve risked everything,” Violet said. “Me. Not you, not June, not anybody else. People aren’t as stupid as you think they are. I live in the bunkhouse. They know what’s what. They chug that tea like it’s beer, trade partners once a month. If the rest haven’t put two and two together, it’s only because they don’t want to face it.”
“That may be true,” Doc Owle said. “But there’s still no good reason for you to go join that group. I thought you wanted this baby. I’m starting to wonder now.”
“You have no fucking idea what’s going on inside of me,” Violet said. “Not in my body and not in my head. I have my reasons, and I swear to God, Owle, you tell June before I decide to and I’ll slit your throat. You don’t want to test me on this.”
He blanched and backed away a step. “Fine,” he said. He grabbed his pipe and chomped down hard enough on the stem that he couldn’t hide a wince of pain. “Do what you want. I’m officially out of it.”
That wasn’t what Violet wanted. She’d come to almost like Harold Owle—it certainly didn’t hurt to almost like the father of your unborn child—and though she knew to not expect partnership from him, didn’t really want a parenting partner, it had been nice to have someone to go to, confide in, consult for advice. Almost like having a friend.
But she didn’t know how to smooth things over and still have her way. So she nodded, stood. Left.
—
She was out of the bunkhouse at 10:45, in time to collect the hostages’ lunches and bring them over to the warehouse. She was supposed to have put in a couple of hours this morning at the flower beds, but she was content, on occasion, to exploit her status as June’s adoptive daughter. No one seemed to miss her company much, anyway.
From Vic’s cabin she retrieved a crate loaded with a steaming crock of green beans and potatoes. “Errol has the biscuits this time,” Vic told her. “How’re they doing on water?”
“Don’t know,” Violet said. “I haven’t been over there yet.”
“You might want to check on that. They’re probably running low.” Vic shook her head with frustration, or maybe despair. “Lord God, I’ll be glad when this is over. Those two poor kids. Dead and gone. They didn’t have no business with guns, and I’m not afraid to say so.” She seemed afraid, though. She kept wringing a dishtowel. “Your mama said to you what the plan is?”
“June does what June wants,” Violet said. “She sure don’t answer to me.”
Vic grunted and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Nor to me. Well, she ain’t steered us wrong yet. But I’ll be glad when this is over. That’s for sure.”
At Errol’s, Violet was greeted by a cloud of flour dust and the perfume of rising yeast. Errol, his back to the door, lifted a hand from a mound of dough and pointed it at one of his work tables. “Bread’s in that basket. Tell them it’s all they’re getting today, so save some back if they want any with dinner.”
Violet’s stomach rumbled audibly. Her appetite over the last eighteen weeks had been fickle; her one consistent desire was for bread and sweets.
“Want a roll?” Errol asked.
“Sure,” Violet said.
“They’re by the stove.”
She set the crate on the table by the basket of biscuits, walked over to the cooling pan of rolls, and plucked a golden one from the edge row. A runner of steam spiraled into the air when she tore it open. She sunk in her teeth, transported for a few seconds by its buttery richness.
“You been looking better,” Errol said. He was using a broad handle of wood, sanded to a fine edge, to fold the dough over on itself. He flashed a quick glance at her. “Not so scrawny.”
Violet nearly dropped what was left of her roll in surprise.
“No offense. I just meant you should eat what you want. You got room to grow.”
“OK,” Violet said, too startled to be annoyed. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Errol said.
She set the basket of biscuits on top of the crock and lifted the crate again, letting some of the weight press against her stomach. So it was starting to happen, then. Her secret would come out. How shocked they’d all be if they knew, she thought with a kind of pleasure. What she had said to Harold Owle was the truth: no one understood what was inside her.
The baby moved again, as if in agreement.
It was a cloudy day. The warm snap held—it had to be close to seventy out—but rain spit in a fine mist. Violet hunkered under her hood, head dipped over the crate, and hurried toward the warehouse, where Cedric sat with his back against the door, taking what shelter the roof’s overhang offered. He looked up from the book he was reading. “Hey, there. Got lunch?”
“Got my hands full.”
“Oh, right,” he said, jumping up. He slid the paperback into his back pocket and picked up the gun from where he’d laid it on the ground beside him. The door was stopped from opening out with a heavy wood bar, which Cedric lifted. Then he fitted a key into the padlock.
“I need to check the water supply,” Violet said. “So keep an eye out.”