Page 11

Chapter eleven

Simon

A fter Simon finished washing, he walked around the house. The front area was full of activity with laundry already being cleaned and hung on a line. No washing machines, I take it?

Nora’s hands were deep in the washtub. “Everything alright after you got a chance to look at yourself?”

“Mostly. There are some areas that still need help, but . . .”

She sat back and tucked her hair behind her ear, looking him over from head to toe, as if she could see the fixes herself. “That’s good; I did the best I could. Everything I couldn’t shine up I tried to replace with something similar.”

“You did well.” He was not exaggerating, Nora really had. The care she had put into all of his fixes was evident.

Nora resumed swirling the fabric in the tub. “I think the storm blew itself out last night. Probably be good to go to the mall tomorrow with how it’s heating up and drying.”

“Yes. I feel like I’m ready to see that.” Simon took the piece of clothing Nora had in her hands, wringing it out. One of the pieces of laundry Nora had hung was falling off the line. Simon reattached it while hanging some more. Even doing the wash is more difficult.

Tilly trotted over, limp evident as she ran fast, her blond hair already dried and wispy. “Can I get the scooter?”

“Done helping already?” Nora wiped a water-soaked hand on her shirt.

“I did a lot!” Tilly’s jaw jutted out as she stamped her foot. “You got Simon helping you too!”

A tense pause filled the air, and Simon’s hands stilled on the wet clothing. Helping, just like I did before. How easily that role came to him. Even with everything else so different.

Nora glanced up at him, clearing her throat. “We all gotta help, Tilly. Goes faster with more hands. Go do one more look inside for anything we missed and then fine. It’s too nice out here to not play a little.”

After a brief shake of his head, Simon continued to put the shirts on the clothesline, inspecting them as he went. Some were obviously hand sewn, but there were others that bore the mark of machine precision, different from the careful hand stitches Nora did. Why is it like this?

Beside him, Nora’s hair was drying and turning wild again as it frizzed back up. Frizzy hair. He thought of all the lotions and conditioners his old mistress had him put in her hair. I like Nora’s wild curls more.

He shook a manufactured sock in front of him. “Why do some of these clothes look machine-made? Are there factories in town?”

Nora took a clothespin out of a bucket, hanging up a pair of underwear. “No. Mars gives us clothes too sometimes. Not often. They don’t fit perfectly; I gotta modify them some. Seemed like they did it more when Tilly was a baby.”

“How do they know what to give you?”

“At the drop there’s a scanner you do, takes pictures and fingerprints so no one cheats. But I don’t know, maybe they get information from that drone that flies around too.” Nora finished hanging the last bit of clothing and waved her hand around in the air.

Simon looked upward. “Drone?”

“Yeah, you’ll probably see one tomorrow when we travel.”

After the laundry was all hung, wet and dripping, Nora set the empty basket aside. She sat a moment on the ground in front of the house, large cup of water in hand, as Tilly scootered in the front, raising her bad leg in the air as she balanced.

The road she was riding on was old asphalt peppered with potholes, but Tilly clearly had a practiced path she did in a loop, avoiding the largest dips in the ground.

Simon hesitated before sitting on the ground next to Nora, as an equal, with his eyes still adjusting to the lowered lighting from all the haze. She bumped his elbow with hers, drawing his eyes back down from the sky.

“Want some?” Nora offered him the cup of water by the handle, a thin sheen of sweat on her face already. The dimple on her cheek was more prominent with the way the shadows reflected off her face.

Simon pushed the water back gently. “No thank you, I’ll go get my own inside.”