James “Jimmy” Barnett was much like any other toddler: He liked puff cereal and chocolate, melting spoons, and clinging to his brother’s leg when his brother least wanted him to. He boasted a full head of floppy black curls that drooped into his big brown eyes, and a face full of smudges from where his hands had moved to sweep the hair away. His mouth was constantly full, though whether it was stuffed to the brim with found pebbles and insects or incoherent child-speak was anyone’s guess, and wholly dependent upon what particular mood he was in.
He was born onto Liberty soil, but the past few weeks had raised the four-year-old into a true child of the Ash: He tottered about the Bunker, unperturbed by the sirens and war diagrams etched into the walls, and ate what was placed upon his plate with little complaint. His tiny hands bore callouses from helping his adopted sisters haul in their foraging, and his legs were bruised from bumps and falls across unforgiving terrain. He could identify plants that were good to eat about as well as the letters of the alphabet (still a less than perfect feat, given that “F” was oft forgotten,) and had come to stop crying when Lyda captured a rabbit to eat.
Most of all, like any Ashlander who managed to survive, he was a watcher. His gaze tracked over anything that was interesting; anything he could learn for future use.
His mother’s work in the kitchen was no exception.
As Mariana began making dinner, Jimmy screetch-dragged a chair across the bunker’s metal floor to prop against the counter, pausing twice to catch his breath. Once it was in place, he crawled in, placed his favorite truck on the ledge in front of him, and proceeded to simply stare, tracking her every move.
Mariana, for her part, was just doing the best she could with the cards she had chosen.
On the counter before her sat what was left of the past few days’ forage: Eight cattail plants, roots attached, a bushel of wild asparagus, and a handful of juniper berries. There was also the small coffee mug of collective, solidified grease drippings from whatever meat was previously cooked, and a drawn barrel of rainwater siphoned from the roof of the bunker.
Fortunately, feeding a family of five off of Liberty rations for several years had not made her a snob.
With her own black curls tied back from her face, she rolled her sleeves and set to work: Slicing the cattail roots from the stalks, and dicing the stalks and asparagus to be set aside. Her tanned hands worked with quick, sharp movements that caught Jimmy’s ever-flitting gaze as they bounced between stovetop and cutting board and rain-barrel.
The water was set to boil, and Mariana moved on to the work of slicing the roots into small pieces. Jimmy ran his toy truck over the back of his own hand as his mother tossed the bits into a wooden bowl and took hold of a pestle. As she began working to mash the thick roots, her brow sported two parallel lines so deep that several stray hairs on either side (for she was a woman of far greater purpose than plucking hairs from her brow) knitted together like two fuzzy caterpillars exchanging a kiss.
It was not until Jimmy saw her scoop a spoonful of grease into the mash that he recognized the start of “biscuits.” Or, at least, the closest a woman could make when handed rabbit grease and cattail root.
“Catcakes!” he said, clapping a hand over his cheek to hide his rose-washed blush. “Mommy, I’m hungry. Are you done?”
Mariana sighed, and took her hands away from her work. The pestle continued in its mashing, and her eyebrows did not cease their war with one another as she turned to face her child. “Do they look done, Mijo?” she inquired scooping the boy up and settling him onto her hip so that he could better see inside the bowl. “You can eat them like this if you want to,” she added playfully, and Jimmy covered his mouth.
“Mommy, when do you cook them up?”
With her free hand, she reached out and dumped the set-aside greens into the boiling water. “When they’re ready to be cooked, Mijo. Mi pollito..” She poked at his soft tummy, tickling him through his dinosaur pajamas.
“No, no!” he laughed, and slid down to the ground to escape his mother’s playful gesture. “I’m not a pollito!”
“You don’t go, pio, pio. when you’re hungry?” she laughed, turning back to her cooking. She reached across the counter to grasp a berry, and held it out to him. “Cuando tienes hambre?”
Jimmy giggled some more, launching forward to snatch the berry from her hand and shove it into his mouth “That’s the silly song from yous mommy that she singed,” he replied, “that’s not real words.” In a flash, he had bounced back to the center of the room, and was spinning about himself in circles.
“Yes, Mijo, the one with the not-real words. Now, James. Can you do me a big-boy favor?”
Jmmy nodded. “I can trys them all for you for dinner.”
Mariana’s voice in response was patient, practiced. Like someone who had already raised three other sons at this point, and had no intentions of losing her temper over small things anymore. “No, Mijo. I need you to go tell Miss Crystal that she is,” Mariana paused and raised her voice, not crossly, “not to be sneaking out of this home without a full belly and a proper goodbye to everyone present.”
Jimmy frowned, nodded, and then proceeded to run down the hall to see that Miss Crystal was, in fact, about halfway gone by the time he made it to her. “Mommy says that. Um. She saided that you gotta have a full up and say bye first so come back.”
