Kath's Special Day

Kath leaned against the table, fascinated by her “almost six” daughter playing on the floor. Kath smiled. Minda, an inventive child, could spend hours entertaining herself with the simplest of items. Today some worn-out sneakers served as hand puppets.

Floor…a grand name for what was under foot. The walls of this shelter above the gulch were stone covered by thick wood panels hauled up from the abandoned depot. The floor was layers of poly tarp lying on cobblestones and packed earth.

Minda was waggling one shoe at the other shoe, taking both sides of a heated conversation. Minda’s left puppet was trying to convince the right puppet that all baby dogs came with four legs. Alf, their rescue, and the only dog in the Neighborhood, got by with only three because of an accident. An odd conversation Kath thought absently. Almost as odd as Minda’s puppets arguing about whether water came from the sky or the ground.

Next week was Minda’s sixth birthday, and her partner Ethan, before he departed, said they should celebrate. Kath was not sentimental. A birthday was just another day that must be survived. But Ethan thought it important…in fact obligatory…to observe the traditions. A form of remembering and honoring those who came before.

Kath did accept that turning six was kind of special. Emergence from babyhood, into childhood when formal schooling for life began. The occasion called for a party. Kath ran her fingers through her short blond hair, wracking her brains. Usually Ethan planned their social events, but he was away. Ethan was the only healer in the Neighborhood. She didn’t know when he would return.

Kath could always consult Judith, a woman raising two boys, who lived not many streets away. But Kath was always conscious of Judith’s reserve. In fact conscious of the reserve of most of the people in the Neighborhood. Not that Kath was a pariah…just the opposite. She was their Chief Constable.

Parties had been rare in Kath’s family. Kath’s father and mother were both Military, so Kath had been carted from fort to fort, camp to camp. Her parents had loved her, but cakes and balloons and gifts with bows were just not a priority, not with the burning world facing the abyss of chaos.

In her supplies, Kath found more than enough to make several large sweet nut cakes. And the current crop of blueberries should be ready for the eating come the day. 

That night, as she made her rounds, Kath invited the families to the spacious community room for a potluck lunch. She didn’t mention Minda’s birthday to keep it a surprise, plus she didn’t want anyone to feel obligated to bring a present.

Kath’s exploration of her trunks and boxes for a suitable gift ended in failure. Much of her history had been scrapped when she and Ethan and the others abandoned the decaying city. She had taken only the small…her dog-tags, her parents’ rings, the onyx scarab Ethan unearthed in the museum’s ruins. Gifts to hand down when Minda was old enough to understand.

On the day of the party, Kath rose very early and put the first of the cakes into the oven then rushed to pick the blueberries. The plump juicy berries were, as expected, at peak flavor. She bustled around, baking the cakes and hauling the cakes and berries to the community room.

As families trooped in, Kath was surprised to see clothes and toys among the salads and casseroles. Some folks had noted the date, noted the anniversary of the day when Minda was born. Kath remembered too. Ethan using every skill in his arsenal to save the newborn. Kath kneeling at Ethan’s side and comforting the mother. Both of them watching helplessly as the mother died smiling, cuddling her baby. Tiny lids fluttering open revealing sable eyes. Tiny fingers clutching at Ethan’s thumb. Unsentimental Kath falling in love.

Minda’s eyes widened when Josh and Ari, Judith’s two boys, handed her a brown teddy bear and a blue shirt and wished her Happy Birthday. Minda hugged the boys then hugged the bear. Kath saw Judith’s careful mend of the bear’s torn ear, the replaced lost eye, the red rose embroidered on the shirt pocket. Kath and Judith nodded at each other, acknowledging a secret connection only mothers can know.

Standing by the table laden with food, Kath took pleasure in watching the families as they laughed and chatted and drank. They were drinking purified water pumped through a pipe connected to the Cistern. Another of her jobs as Chief Constable. Protecting the water supply.

The Cistern. The center of the Neighborhood. The source of life. Water from the Cistern fed the kitchens, the showers, the irrigation hoses, the chillers. Kath frowned, remembering last night’s discovery. Water level in the Cistern shockingly low. Was the aquifer beneath the Cistern running dry? She decided to keep this worry to herself, until she could investigate.

Kath was still secretly fretting about the Cistern and the lack of a gift for Minda when her thoughts were interrupted by Minda tugging on her coveralls. Minda asking about the noise. Kath refocused, listened, grew amazed at sounds not heard since she left the Marines.

She ran to stairs laboriously hand-chiseled into rock. Climbed up and up and up to the thick metal door. Minda tried to follow, but grew tired, so Kath carried her daughter up the last few steps to the broad flagstone landing.

The door’s hinges were crusted with grime accumulated over years of disuse. After a few fierce shoves which made the hinges groan, Kath managed to open the door. She stepped out onto the broad observation platform and stared in awe. The barren plains, hardened and cracked by decades of drought, were being pummeled by torrents sheeting from black roiling clouds. Below, muddy streams rampaged down the gulch.

As rivulets drenched their hair, soaked their clothes, Minda danced and Kath laughed. The little girl whirled, arms spread wide, hands curled into miniature cups.

The climatologists regularly predicted that eventually the world’s oceans and atmosphere would find a new equilibrium and rain-bringing currents would once again flow over the plains. At this moment, Kath didn’t care if this storm signaled a beginning or had formed through some one-off stroke of luck. She only felt gratitude. The Cistern would fill.

Like the pop-up summer storms of her youth, this storm passed quickly. But the passing left another gift for Minda and them all. Minda and Kath gazed at the splendor until the double rainbow faded, and the sky returned to brilliant baking cloudless blue.