Vows Box Set

Chapter 5: Routine-2

Devon approached with a handful of freshly minted cutting tools. I’d heard him banging rocks together much of the morning. “I think some of these are sharper than the ones I gave you the other day,” he said.

I took his offering and looked over the implements. “Thank you.” I pointed out a curved piece. “This one will make scooping out the coconut meat much easier, I think.”

“Yeah, I’m working out some good techniques. I guess if Neanderthals could figure it out, I should be able to, too.”

I laughed. “Yep. As the old proverb goes, ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’”

“Yeah, no kidding. So what’s for lunch? Is it almost time to eat?”

“Dadadadadadadada,” added Buddy. I think he actually understood Devon’s question and was seconding the motion.

I nodded toward the piles on the prep stone. “Sea grapes and green sea feathers salad, dressed with chopped mango and kumquat, topped with kumquat juice and toasted breadnut seeds. And yes, we can eat any time you’re ready.”

The salad would be served in bowls made from coconut halves. Buddy’s salad was more of a mash. His seaweed was torn into teeny tiny bits and pulped together with mushed up mango and kumquat. I’d already become familiar with his appetite and had enough of the concoction made to fill him up.

“I’ll get Garrett, then.”

He ran off with a smile. The promise of food was often all it took to cheer up that man. I figured he’d probably do just about anything for a big juicy steak, but for myself I was more desperate for a box of diapers.

“Are you hungry, Buddy?”

Buddy got onto his hands and knees and crawled around in a small circle chanting “Dadadadadadadada,” some more. He also had “Bababababa” in his repertoire, but he usually used that one when he wanted me to peel him a mango snack.

A week was all it had taken for us to settle into a routine as if we’d been doing this our entire lives. We continued to take turns on beach patrol, setting a leisurely pace so as not to burn more calories than necessary. Alternatively, we’d set ourselves up to our chosen tasks separated by thirds around the island so we could stay in the shade as much as possible. Sunburn was a serious danger this close to the equator.

We had no idea how long it would take for us to be rescued, but however short or long it ended up being, we wanted to be well fed and as comfortable as possible for the duration. So we’d each come up with ways to contribute.

Devon had slipped seamlessly into the role of toolmaker and fisherman. The tools were crude but functional, and would probably continue to improve over time, if it came to that. So far he’d had intermittent luck catching fish using a spear and it took up much of his time trying. He had to take frequent breaks from the ocean’s edge so he wouldn’t get burned, and also for frequent water breaks to prevent dehydration. Fortunately, a net would soon be at his disposal.

The net was Garrett’s doing. Tall grasses and tree fronds were plentiful and a renewable resource on the island. Finding ways to use that to our advantage was what Garrett had taken on for himself. Apparently his wife was a bit of a crafter, and although he’d certainly never had her give him a lesson in basket weaving, he’d noticed a few things in passing.

He’d started out weaving the grasses together to make narrow sturdy strings or ropes. Then he’d played around with figuring out how to intertwine them into a net.

I was the non-fish food gatherer and preparer of all the meals. I also collected deadwood and driftwood for a small nightly fire to cook our catch of the day, although Garrett was the man of patience who had worked out how to start that nightly fire. I also, by default due to Buddy’s informal adoption of me, was the primary caregiver to our resident baby.

All of that was actually more time-consuming than what it might seem it ought to be at first glance. We were all working on a steep learning curve, and preparing food from tree to “table” was significantly more complex than what a trip to the grocery store and the pimped-out kitchen in my life just a week ago had involved. I’d had no idea what challenging was until I’d taken a coconut, freshly fallen from a tree, and processed it to the ready-to-eat stage using only crude stone tools, while minding a freshly crawling baby without any Baby Einstein jumpers handy to stash him in to prevent him from finding one of the myriad number of ways to hurt himself on a tropical island.

Devon returned with Garrett, and I passed out the bowls and reached for Buddy. “Come here, big guy, let’s take off that shirt before I feed you.” I didn’t bother with Buddy’s shorts except at night since he still mostly peed at will throughout the day.

“How’s the net coming along?” I asked Garrett as I scooped up some food for Buddy. I had to give the kid credit; he ate the unappealing mixture with gusto. We were still trying to figure out what might work for utensils for the adults and just used our fingers for the time being regardless of the food. But for Buddy I had a small curved flat rock with a spoon-like depression and dulled edges that I could use as a scoop.

“Should be ready in a couple hours. I’m working on attaching some weights at the corners, then it’ll be ready for a trial run.”

“Fantastic. Once we start catching enough with the net we’ll be able to dry some of it. We can use that to supplement breakfast.”

We restricted ourselves to one cooking fire per day since firewood was not unlimited, so we were only having fish at our final meal of the day.

“Fish jerky,” chortled Devon. “Cool.”

“You could put some of it on the prep stone, with the excess fruit and nuts,” added Garrett.

Extra mango, since they were plentiful during the current season, were kept in the food prep area for anyone to grab for a between-meal snack. There was also a pile of extra toasted breadnut seeds on my large food prep stone for the same purpose.

Devon could always be counted on to partake of a good share of each of those. I didn’t begrudge him that. At his age he needed plenty of calories. Buddy was also a growing boy and I didn’t want anyone to have an excuse to resent the special allowances that would need to be made for him if we remained on the island for any length of time. As long as we had an adequate supply of food, there was no need for anyone going hungry. We could each decide for ourselves when we’d had enough.

“Good idea,” replied Devon. “I’d love to be able to get some extra protein throughout the day. Those cinnamon bark sticks you placed around the toasted seeds will keep the ants and s**t away from dried fish, too, won’t they?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Once they’re dry enough for me to pulverize, I think it’ll work even better. The ants won’t cross it. We’ll still need to keep it covered to protect it from fliers, though.”

“That little mat I wove seems to be doing okay as a cover, isn’t it?” asked Garrett.

“Yeah, it’s great, and if you could weave up some little baskets or bowls to store the seeds and stuff in, I think it would be even better. Maybe we could even rub pulverized cinnamon into the weave.” Buddy’s bowl was empty so I started handing him toasted breadnut seeds, one at a time, while I started on my own salad.

“I can do that, I think. I’ll work on it after the net’s done.”

I nodded. Maybe we could come up with some kind of covered, hollowed out rock to put into the cooler water of our spring, too. It could be a little makeshift refrigerator. It would be nice to have leftover fish for our lunch salads.

Devon refilled his bowl with seconds and said, “I’m gonna try to catch one of these birds. You think the net’ll be useful for that when they’re on the beach?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I think it might be a better idea for us to just steal the occasional egg from their nests, so we don’t lose them as a resource altogether.”

Devon frowned. “Do you really think that’s an issue?”

Garrett replied, thankfully, because I sure didn’t want to be the one to spell this out for Devon. “Since it’s been a week, it appears that they don’t have any solid clues as to our whereabouts. Honestly, I’m a little discouraged that apparently none of the debris or people floating in the water got picked up down-current. It doesn’t bode well for anything we might send out ourselves. We could end up being here for several months while we wait for the search zone to expand out to us.”

“How long will stuff float?” asked Devon.

“I don’t know about the stuff in general,” I replied. “Depends on the properties of the materials in question. I don’t know how much actually came up from the plane anyway. As for bodies in these temperatures, they’ll sink initially—assuming they give up and take off the life vests—but come back up in a few days. From there, they’ll maybe float for a week or two before scavengers break them up.”

Devon made a pained-looking face. “Gross. At least they should still be floating, though. They get found, it’ll lead rescuers back to us.”

Garrett, our island diplomat, changed the subject for us. “Hopefully they’ll find us sooner, rather than later, but Henry makes a good point about managing our environment for potential long-term survival.”

“Speaking of which,” I added, “we need to talk about managing the reef ecosystem. The population of deeper water predator fish entering a reef system increases somewhat exponentially compared to the population of its prey in that reef. For longer-term sustainability, we want to target those larger, predator fish, like snapper for example, rather than the various species that actually dwell in the reef. I’ll factor that into my seaweed-harvesting decisions, too.”

“Christ. Whatever, man.”

Whatever my ass. Facts were facts, whether Devon understood or liked them or not. I bit my tongue and Garrett defused the mood.

“I still don’t want either of you wading out on any shore but the eastern one until I’ve come up with some reliable safety ropes to tie around you.”

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” replied Devon. “So what about all these frogs, then? I’ve heard of eating frogs’ legs, but is that the only thing edible on them?”

“Why do we have so many frogs, anyway?” asked Garrett. “We don’t have a pond.”

“They’re tree frogs, not bullfrogs,” I replied. “We have a fresh water source, that’s all they need. But we need to consider them a protected species, here. We don’t want to do anything to hurt the frog population.”

“Why the heck not?” said Devon. “It would be a nice switch from only fish for our protein. I get that you’re Mister Environmental Tree-Hugger and all, but shouldn’t we be able to survive, too?”

I bristled at his tone. “We are surviving. And the whole point of managing our environment is so we can continue to survive if we end up stuck here for any length of time. Like Garrett said, we could be here for several months before they get to us, so I actually am thinking of us more than the birds or the damned frogs. Think about it, Devon. What do frogs eat?”

“I don’t know, flies?”

“Exactly. We don’t have a big fruit fly issue, and those frogs are probably the reason why. We don’t want to create a problem with fruit flies, so we don’t mess with the frogs.”

“Good point,” agreed Garrett.

I wasn’t an entomologist, but I thought our island’s isolation and lack of a food source for mammal-biting insects was another reason we didn’t have problems with bugs that could have made our lives here miserable.

“I really like these fresh mangoes, but it’s too bad we don’t have a banana tree here,” said Devon. “I love bananas.”

“I wish we had one, too,” I replied. “But for the leaves, not the fruit.”

“You don’t like bananas?” Devon asked.

“Love them. But that’s domesticated bananas. If we had a banana tree here it could only be a wild banana tree, and those are pretty much inedible. Chock full of really hard seeds.”

“Damn,” said Devon. “So what’re you planning for dinner tonight, besides not frogs?”

I laughed, relieved at Devon’s grin and mood-lightening tone. “Whatever you catch, plus I’ll flake the coconut meat out of these bowls and toast it up. Also, the jackfruits I picked a few days ago are ripe now. I’ll slice up some and figure out some kind of a fruit mash to spread on it.”

“You gonna toast up some more of those breadnut seeds?” asked Devon. “I liked having those with our mangoes at breakfast.”

It was laborious, extracting the seeds, but worth the effort. “Yeah, I’ll do that. I can mix in some smaller coconut flakes. Maybe I can dry some fruit bits, too. We can have our own special island trail mix for breakfast and snacks, eh?”

“Awesome.”

“I saw that a couple more coconuts dropped when I was up getting a drink earlier,” said Garrett.

Devon smirked. I knew he thought one of the rules Garrett and I had come up with regarding the coconut trees was comical.

Getting hit by a falling coconut was potentially fatal, so we’d made some rules: nobody walked under one of the coconut trees for any reason other than to gather up a fallen one (or fronds for Garrett’s use); that person would not be holding Buddy; that person would place a crude helmet of sorts made from the outer exocarp and mesocarp layers of a previously collected coconut on his head; and last, but not least, no one would make fun of that person for wearing the silly-looking helmet.

“I’ll fetch them tomorrow,” I said.

“Why are there so many coconut trees all over the place in populated areas if they’re so dangerous?”

“People climb them and remove the coconuts before they’re mature enough to drop naturally. I don’t want to risk climbing a tree that tall, without branches along the way. Even if Garrett makes some good climbing rope, I think those will be too risky to climb, not without medical facilities nearby.” I shrugged. “I’d need a machete to cut the coconuts down once I was up there anyway.”

Garrett nodded. “Agreed. I’m sure islanders do it all the time, but we shouldn’t take unnecessary risks. So I figure once that fishing net and the storage containers you requested are done, I can try to make us sun hats, then maybe some sleep mats. Devon, especially needs a hat out there at the water’s edge fishing so much.”

Devon nodded. “That’d be cool, thanks. Then I can give Henry his shirt back.”

I usually went shirtless for the same reason I didn’t bother with Buddy’s shorts except overnight. It was bound to get hit by a stray stream. Devon spent more time in the sun and needed my shirt for a head covering during the day, anyway.

“I don’t mind,” I assured them. “You don’t want to underestimate the danger of this sun.”

“Yeah, yeah. I take frequent breaks in the shade.”

Devon sounded annoyed, but dammit, some things needed to be emphasized. Walking that line with older teens between protecting them from themselves and giving them enough freedom to grow was a major pain in the ass.

“Okay,” agreed Garrett. “I can probably make some kind of thick little mats to strap onto feet to protect you guys when you’re wading into the ocean, and for Devon when he’s walking around that rocky section, especially with all the stone flakes that are lying around now.”

After a lull in the conversation, Devon took us aback, saying, “I imagine everyone is sure we’re dead by now, huh?”

“They’re still searching,” I assured him. “They’ll search for months.”

“Not for live people anymore. They’re searching for answers to be found in floating debris. Or bodies, maybe, but our families all think we’re dead now.” He shook his head dejectedly.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Garrett. “When they widen the search zone to cover our location, they’ll find us whether they’re looking for live people or not.”

“I just hope they find us before they give all my s**t away to Goodwill or something.”

We were silent for a few moments after that. Hell, it was likely a legitimate concern that I hadn’t yet considered.

Buddy broke the silence with, “Mamamamamama?”

Poor kid. He really did understand a lot of what we said. Enough to get the gist of the conversation anyway. His eyes were sad, and his lip quivered.

I scooped up his sticky body and swayed, rocking him. I whispered, “I love you, Buddy.” His arms wrapped around me, and he snuffled into my neck.

I thought of Sam. I had no doubt he was having a worse time of it than I. Poor guy thought I was dead. Our conditions here were less than ideal, but we were surviving, and it was getting better every day as we worked to make things more comfortable.

Poor Sam. I didn’t think he’d rush to get rid of my stuff. On the other hand, who the hell knew what he would or wouldn’t do? Everybody grieves differently, and getting rid of my stuff might be necessary to the process. I imagined if I was wandering around our home and thought Sam was dead, I’d probably start crying every time I saw something like his silly dancing monkey speaker that he used to play music on his iPod.

I remembered thinking that six weeks wouldn’t be so long for us to be apart. Most likely it would end up being less than that now, but emotionally even two or three weeks was far worse with Sam thinking I was gone forever, and me tortured thinking about his misery.

I thought about him every day. Every time I prepared food I’d harvested from the trees here for our meals, I sent out telepathic thanks to him for rattling on so much about the produce trees in the Solomons. Every night I looked up at the stars, or the moon if it was visible, and wondered if he was looking at them, too. I’d always thought that was a tired old cliché from sappy movies. I’d never thought it was something I’d actually do myself.

I sighed and turned to Garrett, looking for a subject change. “You’ve mentioned your wife before in reference to your weaving knowledge. Do you have kids, too?”

Somehow we’d not covered that kind of thing in our conversations. We’d been preoccupied with talk of rescue and survival and plans to make our time on the island more comfortable while we waited for rescue. Perhaps we’d just wanted to avoid talking about our families and what they were going through as if it wouldn’t be true if it wasn’t said aloud. But getting to know each other on a deeper level was overdue.

He seemed a bit thrown by the unexpected questioning, but rose to the occasion. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Sarah and I have three kids. Two boys and a girl. Grant, Evan, and Michaela. Fifteen, thirteen, and nine.”

“Cool,” said Devon. Then his eyes widened at a sudden thought. “s**t, they weren’t on the plane, were they?”

“No,” Garrett was quick to reassure us. “Just me.” He squirmed in place for a moment, then continued his explanation. “The kids were at my wife’s parents’ house. Sarah was already in Fiji. I flew separately because I’d been traveling on business and was going direct from my last meeting rather than going home first.”

“I’m relieved to hear you didn’t lose anyone on the flight,” I told him.

“Yeah,” added Devon. “I didn’t lose any family, but a couple friends were on the plane with me. We didn’t have seats together. I don’t know what happened to them.”

Garrett and I murmured, “Sorry.” We all knew what had happened to them. Devon wasn’t shy; if he wanted to talk about it, he would. I didn’t want to push him.

Devon sighed and moved on. “I’ve got my parents and four younger brothers at home. We f**k around with each other like siblings do, but I love them, and I know they’re pretty broken up over this. Maybe they’re splitting up my stuff instead of giving it away. So what’s your story, Henry? You’re wearing a wedding ring, but you said it was a research trip, right? So family wasn’t with you?”

“Right, no colleagues, either. Just me.”

“You don’t have any kids, do you?” asked Garrett.

“No.” Apparently all the questions I’d rained upon him in the first couple days had made that obvious. I grinned, remembering Sam’s and my discussions. “We’d been talking about it. I’d been resisting.” I glanced at Buddy—his little face and chest were a sticky mess of drool and slobbered food—and shook my head with a fond smile. “Fate’s been working on my opinion along those lines.”

Devon snorted. “I’m glad you’re the one he latched onto. I don’t think I’ve got the temperament for it.”

“I didn’t think I did either. Apparently I was wrong.”

Garrett chuckled. “Kids have a way of working their way into our hearts, don’t they?”

“A week ago I’d have denied it was possible. Passionately.” I sighed, and added, “I’m going to miss him.”

Then Devon opened the door to the reveal I’d been worried about, but figured was due. Whatever their preconceived notions, I doubted it would still be an issue after all we’d been through together this week. “So,” he declared. “I guess your wife will be happy with your change of heart once we get rescued.”

I straightened my back before replying. “Husband, actually. His name is Sam. He’s the reason I know as much as I do about the trees here.”

Garrett’s eyes widened slightly and Devon went slack-jawed for a few moments before speaking. “Well, I didn’t see that one coming.” He smirked before adding, “Guess that’s why you’re into the domestic stuff here, huh?”

It was an immature reaction but not hostile so I chose not to give an adversarial reaction and just shrugged.

Garrett was more diplomatic. “I certainly appreciate the secondhand knowledge he’s given you. I wouldn’t have known what most of these fruits are, or which parts are edible or nutritious. Not to mention how to tell when they are mature or if they need to sit and ripen after picking.”

“Yeah, it’s all cool,” said Devon. “The food’s pretty good, really. I’d never have thought I’d enjoy a seaweed salad before coming here. I know I’m losing weight, but I don’t feel like I’m starving, and I’ve still got good energy and all.”

“Thanks,” I replied. The tension that had built up in my shoulders as I’d agonized over their potential reactions melted away. One never knew for sure. My own family had disowned me over it. “We’re getting a nutritiously balanced diet and enough food to feel full, but our caloric intake is a little lacking. That’ll improve some with the fishing net.”

Devon chortled. “I guess if I had to be stranded on a freaking island I’m glad it’s with ‘Bill Nye, The Science Guy’ and an Etsy wannabe.”

Garrett just shook his head. “We appreciate you, too, young man.”