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A small fire burned in the centre of their makeshift camp that was mostly just the cars backed up to form a circular barrier around them in the centre of a field. The logs spat and sizzled as tiny rain drops made contact with them, threatening to put the tiny flame out all together. From her crouched position, Lori turned the back of her hand over to inspect the icy droplet that glinted against her skin. Glancing up, the absence of any stars or the moon told her that the dark sky above them was heavily overcast.
"Carl," standing, her hand found the small of her back and a quiet hmph fell from her lips as her muscles pulled. She wondered how a baby that is about the size of a plum could feel so heavy. She located her son on the top of the suburban, crouched down next to Glenn who was trying to untangle a fishing line that was invisible in the dark.
The teenager lifted his chin, the only indication that he had heard her at all.
"Why don't you hop into bed? It's going to rain," her words fell on a sigh; he hadn't spoken to her for days. She knew that he was still reeling from the loss of the farm and the steady tension that buzzed between herself and Rick, but there seemed to be something else in his anger. A spark that was more than disappointment or frustration.
Carl shrugged and reached out to take the fishing line from Glenn, "Let me try again," he muttered, turning to show her the back of his shoulder. Glenn's eyes softened as he offered her a look that seemed torn between sympathy and discomfort. Stung, Lori turned back to the fire and crouched down to help Carol with preparing their meal.
"He'll come around," the short-haired woman chimed softly, her eyes glued to the cast-iron skillet where greasy canned chicken simmered in its own fat.
Nodding, Lori lifted one shoulder in an attempt to shrug off the other woman's words, as though that would erase the heaviness that weighed her heart down until it felt as though each beat was a struggle. "That water is boiling," she reached for the pot that sat on a slight tilt, balanced on two crumbling logs. "I'll switch it over."
"Holler if it's too heavy," her friend urged, stirring the chicken that had begun to gel at the edges of the pan.
"Yeah, yeah," Lori mumbled, testing the temperature of the pot handle with her finger tips.
Carol clucked, "I mean it," she said sternly, though her voice was laced with the same worry that she often expressed when it came to the baby growing in Lori's womb.
Pursing her lips, Lori took a deep breath and tried to ignore the sting of tears in her eyes. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate Carol wanting to look out for her, or anyone else in the group for that matter, but she was frustrated with all of the undue – and unnecessary – coddling. Especially when its warm contrast felt like a cold slap in the face compared to the icy silence directed at her by Rick and Carl. Silently cursing her hormones she blinked back the tears that blurred her vision and hoisted the pot upwards to empty it into the travel jug that they'd been using to store their sanitized water. Pushing herself to her feet she suddenly found herself faltering as her center of gravity shifted, trying to save the water that had become a precious resource, she scrambled to wrap her hand around the pot, only to find it too hot to hold. With a final slosh she lost her grip and watched wide-eyed as the entire thing fell to the ground at her feet.
"Damnit," she cursed, aware of the silence that fell over the camp around her. Carol shifted in her periphery and Lori held up one hand to still her, taking even breaths to calm her frazzled nerves. "I've got it," she snapped, more harshly than she'd intended. Slipping to the ground, her knees sank into the ground, moist from the spilled water.
Scooping up the pot, she used her sleeve to wipe away the mud that coated inside, then froze as her eyes settled on something glinting in the light cast by the fire. It had been nearly completely concealed in the mud, pushed into the ground by the pots side. Settling the pot on the ground next to her, one hand fell to her chest while the other reached for the object: a silver heart locket. "No," she lamented, inspecting the fine chain still threaded through the top of the locket, her fingers finding the broken ends. She must have caught it and snapped it in her haste of trying to save the water.
As though sensing her mood the sky chose that moment to let loose, the fine drops of rain morphing into larger ones that splattered against her cheeks and onto the crown of her head.
The camp came back to life as everyone scrambled for cover, diving into the cars. T-dog stopped to help Carol collect their cooking supplies and Lori pushed her necklace into her pocket. Getting to her feet she joined in their efforts to save their meal. Gathering up the canned kidney beans that they'd been warming alongside the chicken she rounded the side of the car and slipped into the backseat of the Cherokee, panting for breath and soaked through to her skin.
Later that night, curled up wearing a pair of Rick's boxers and T-Dog's sweater in the back of the Suburban she sighed, inspecting the snapped necklace chain, her eyes squinting in the dark, her head bowed to avoid hitting the ceiling. Beside her, Carl has fallen asleep, his back to her. Rick had taken the spot behind the wheel, his chair reclined as he slept, one hand tossed over his face.
Carol, who'd taken to sharing the back with her and Carl to escape T-Dog's snoring in the pick up, shifted in her sleep on the other side of Carl. "I can feel you thinking," the other woman whispered as she turned over.
After glancing over at Rick, Carl, and Beth in the backseat, to make sure they were still asleep, Lori lifted a shoulder, unsure if Carol could even see the gesture in the dark.
"You'll sleep better if you lay down," Carol tried again, lifting her head to prop it up on her hand. "It was just some water, Lori. Nothing to worry about, we'll find more."
At her friend's assurance, Lori felt a swell of emotion that swept through her like a tidal-wave, knocking her senseless as tears slid down her cheek and her breath hiccupped. Horrified, she clamped her hand over her mouth to hold it all in.
The car rocked slightly as Carol got up and crawled over Carl to her side, her arms sliding around Lori's shoulders. Leaning into the other woman's embrace, Lori let herself cry.
"Is it the baby?" Carol asked, her grip on Lori a little bit stiff, but still conveying its intended comfort.
Sniffling, Lori shook her head and pulled back, swiping her hands over her cheeks to dry her eyes. Holding out the locket, she let the other woman take it before she went back to scrubbing the tears from her eyes.
Carol held the necklace up close to her face to inspect it in the dark. "Oh," she croaked.
"It's not that big of a deal," Lori sighed, finally feeling like she had a hold on her turbulent emotions. She wasn't sure who exactly she was trying to convince, but hearing them out loud made the fib feel slightly more bearable. "Rick gave it to me when Carl was born," she swallowed, lowering her chin, her hair sliding over her shoulders to form a curtain around her face. "I've worn it every day since."
"It must mean a lot to you," Carol's hand touched her shoulder gently. "I'm sorry that it got broken."
Lori accepted her words with a nod and the best smile she could muster. "Thanks," she sniffed, pushing her hair behind her ears. "I'm not usually this teary," she chuckled softly, her hand falling to the swell of her abdomen.
"I know," Carol assured her. "When Sophia was born Ed bought himself a six-pack and a new truck," the short-haired woman snorted, her mouth twisting into a smile that looked more like a grimace. "She was born at home," she continued, pulling her bag free from the pile that they'd stacked up against the door. "Not planned of course, but our phone had been cut off and by the time the neighbour called an ambulance she was already crowning."
Lori listened to the story with a mixture of amusement and sadness for her friend's former life. "Ed delivered her?" she asked, playing with the hem of her shirt.
Neck to her, Carol had pulled their sewing kit from her bag and had begun digging through it. "Are you kidding me?" Carol scoffed, unwinding a spool of thread. "He almost fainted when my water broke," she shook her head at the memory. "By the time it was time to push he was taking on the floor in the hallway with a cool rag on his forehead."
Smirking, Lori smoothed her hand over her belly and looked to her sleeping son. As touch and go as Carl's birth had been at least Rick has been there with her every step of the way.
"But, after everything, Sophia and me… we made it through just fine. And she was the sweetest baby I had ever seen," Carol avowed, then made a noise to draw Lori's attention back to her. "And it didn't matter what we'd been through, how hard it had been – how ugly," she declared as Lori tore her eyes away to meet her grey-eyes. "Because things can be fixed… even if they're hanging on by a thread."
Lori's eyes dropped from hers to the locket, now dangling from several pieces of thick thread that had been braided together and tied into a loop. Reaching out, she caught the pendant with her fingers before it was swept away into motion as Carol slipped the cord over her head.
Closing her hand around the heart, Lori was surprised to find that the make-shift chain was actually quite strong. "Thank you," she said. "I don't even know how to…"
"You don't have to," Carol had already tossed the sewing kit back into her bag and was climbing over Carl's feet to crawl back under her covers. "Just get into bed and try to get some sleep before you freeze to death."
Nodding, Lori submitted to the woman's instructions and lied down, gently reaching out to touch Carl hair that had grown out past the tops of his ears. "I love you, baby," she confessed, pressing a kiss to her finger-tips then resting them against her cheek. "Goodnight."