Pressed against the wall in the hopes that the shadows would aid him well, Dakota held the two rolls and the plastic cup full of cold, mashed potatoes against his abdomen, silently praying that no one would come out of their room and catch him. So far, he hadn’t found any indication as to where Jamie would be sleeping. The only thing he knew was that he was somewhere on the first floor, alone and hungry in a dark room.
Press your ear to the door, his inner voice whispered, you’ve always had good hearing.
“That’s not going to help me.”
The creak of a cot stopped him in place.
Hairs on end, Dakota prepared to run for the stairway and duck under the small spot beneath it.
A short moment later, a sigh escaped someone’s lips, followed by a low murmur under their breath.
Should I?
“Jamie?” Dakota whispered. “Is that you?”
The door opened. Dakota pushed his way inside before Jamie could say a word.
“What’re you doing here?” Jamie asked, closing and locking the door.
“I brought you food.”
“What?”
Dakota lifted his hands, revealing the rolls and mashed potatoes. “I didn’t want you to go hungry.”
“You shouldn’t have done this.”
“I did it for you.”
The sparkle that overwhelmed Jamie’s eyes lifted Dakota’s heart. The knife in his gut loosened and the tight pain in his stomach ceased to exist, now replaced by butterflies dancing about his chest like fanatic clowns at a carnival.
He’s straight, he thought. You know it.
The tension gone from the air, Jamie stepped forward and took both rolls and the cup of mashed potatoes from his hands. He ate ravenously, like a dog chained in a courtyard who’d just been given a bloody bone, then made his way into a small bathroom and ducked his head to drink from the faucet. The whole while, Dakota simply watched, mystified by Jamie’s behavior and unnerved at the sight of potato in his beard.
“Thanks,” Jamie said, lifting his head to look at Dakota in the mirror. “I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Dakota said. “I was happy to do it.”
“I haven’t had someone do something this nice for me since my mom threw me my twenty-fifth birthday party.”
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-six.”
Dakota couldn’t help when a tear slid down his face.
Please don’t let him have seen that.
“You ok, kid?”
“Don’t call me kid.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s…not you. Only Steve calls me kid.”
“I didn’t say anything wrong, did I?”
“No. You didn’t.”
“It was my mom, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“That made you cry.”
“Yeah,” Dakota said. “It was.”
Jamie returned to the bedroom. He seated himself on his cot and patted the spot next to him, but Dakota shook his head, reaching up to brush away the stain on his face with his thumb. He couldn’t imagine the idea of not knowing what had happened to his family, especially the person who seemed to care about him so much. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.
“I have faith that she’s still alive. She was on base by the time the shit went down.”
“That’s good.”
“Are your parents ok?”
“No.” Dakota shook his head. “Mom…she died when I was eleven. Dad ran off on me.”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You couldn’t have known. You shouldn’t feel guilty for the way I’m feeling.”
“I know. It just hurts to see someone cry.”
Dakota nodded. “I should go,” he said.
“Thank you for the food, Dakota.”
“You’re welcome.”
Dakota slid the chain off the door and left without saying goodbye.
The following morning, Dakota stood in the lobby looking over an array of plastic bottles, fertilizers and vegetable seeds. His heart still hurt from yesterday afternoon, he busied himself with his work in the hopes that giving life to something new would help relieve the ache in his chest. First he set the fertilizer inside a plastic bottle, the soil from which life would grow, then sowed the seed with a press of his thumb and a brush of his hand. Once the world was made, he made its Heaven and its Earth, the head of a bottle taped to the top. Then he gave it a sun by placing it in the bay window, and thus the universe was made by the hands of a creator.
Am I really though? he thought. Am I really?
He was not a practical God. Given the task of making life in such a bleak situation, he could easily fail. With so few seeds and so many people to feed, the odds seemed stacked against him. There was no Atlas to carry the world, no Iris to offer the rain, no Gaia to protect the innocent. There was nothing, he knew. He was all alone.
“Dakota?”
He turned his eyes up. Steve stood nearby, hands in his pockets and bare arms glorious in the white undershirt he wore. “Steve?”
“Everything ok?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said.
“You were gone a long time last night,” Steve said, stepping forward. “Did something happen?”
No, Dakota thought, but simply shook his head. “Like I said, everything’s fine.”
“Something happened last night, Koda. Don’t lie to me.”
“Not now, please.”
“No one’s going to hear us,” Steve said, stepping up to the window to examine the terrarium Dakota had just set up. “Neat.”
“You wanna help me?”
“What do I do?”
“Cut a plastic bottle in half, fill it with fertilizer, put seven or eight seeds in a few holes an inch apart, then tape the top half of the bottle to the bottom half.”
“Got it.”
Steve took place beside him. A box-cutter in hand, he excised a milk jug’s upper half and began to fill its guts, eyes complacent and hands steady. “So,” he said, poking the holes in the dirt. “Dish.”
“He told me no one’s ever done anything that nice for him since his mom threw him a surprise birthday last year.”
“Is his mom gone?”
“She was staying on a base. He thinks she’s still alive.”
“He asked about your parents, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
“And?”
“I told him the truth.”
“Nothing more than you can do than that.” Steve wrapped an arm around Dakota’s side. “It’s tough, bud.”
“I know.”
“I miss my mom and dad all the time. Then again, I had it a little differently than you. Late baby and all.”
“Are you glad that they didn’t have to go through this?”
“You have no idea.”
“When he first said it,” Dakota began, “I started thinking about how it might feel to not know if your mom was safe or if she’d been killed. I didn’t cry, but I did blink a tear out.”
“You’re a good man, Dakota. There’s not many people who have such a kind heart.”
“Thanks, Steve.”
“No problem. Try to cheer up. You can’t worry about what you don’t know.”
“I guess,” Dakota said.
He didn’t bother to mention how hard that actually was.
The day came and went as though it had never happened. One moment it was light, then it was dark. By the time dinner rolled around, Dakota’s nerves were on fire and the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end.
“What’s your problem?” Steve whispered, seating himself at the table.