Page 27 of Homestead

“You okay?” he asks, frowning and ducking his head slightly to see my expression since I’ve looked away from him in an attempt to hide my reaction.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just in the middle of laundry.”

“Oh, okay. I won’t get in your way then. I’m gonna do some fishin’.”

“That sounds good.”

“You mind if I open the windows? It’s such a nice day, figure we can air the house out. It always gets real cooped up in here durin’ the winter.”

“Oh yeah. That’s a good idea.”

I should have thought of that myself. Maybe he’s wondering why I didn’t.

The kitchen is a mess because I didn’t have time to put everything up after making the bread. And I’ve got a huge basket of wet clothes sitting out on the deck, waiting for me to hang them up.

I force a smile at Jimmy before I head outside to finish the laundry.

I clearly made a tactical error. There are too many clothes in the basket, and they’re exponentially heavier because they’re wet. I can barely lift it, so I have to drag the darn thing off the deck and toward the line.

The container of pins I set on top, but they fall off from the bump off the deck. I bite back a groan of frustration and just leave them there as I keep hauling the basket.

When I finally get it to the line, I’m hot and sweating and out of breath. I straighten up, stretching my back and breathing deeply to get myself back together because I feel like I might start crying.

It’s just my first week here. And it’s been only five weeks that I’ve done any of these chores at all. I couldn’t possibly be an expert yet on all this.

Hopefully Jimmy won’t be too disappointed.

He’d have been better off with Laura. She’s been doing all these things since they lost power and water and infrastructure after Impact. She’d be doing a lot better job than me.

When I’ve controlled myself, I turn back around toward the house since I need to collect the clothespins I dropped.

Jimmy is already there, bending over as he picks up pins and drops them back in the pail.

I hurry over and take them from him. “Thank you. Sorry about that.”

“What are you sorry for?” He’s frowning and peering at me again.

“I dropped them. I’ll get the rest.”

I really want him to go away since I’m embarrassed by both my clumsiness and my near breakdown.

For some reason, his presence is making it worse.

He doesn’t turn away or pick up the fishing pole he laid on the deck. His eyes have narrowed as he keeps trying to see my face. Half my hair slipped out of my ponytail hours ago, so I’m able to use the loose strands to hide behind. “You need help with the laundry?”

“Oh no. I’m good.” Shoot. He must know I’m not doing a good job. Maybe he’s feeling sorry for me. “I don’t have much left to do. You go ahead and fish so we’ll have something for the weekend.”

“Okay.” He sounds dubious, and he won’t stop staring at me.

It’s really getting on my nerves.

Stifling a frustrated sound, I turn away and walk back to the clothesline. It takes longer than I expect to hang up all the wet clothes and towels, and my shoulders are aching when I’m finally done.

I didn’t plan this day well at all. The sun is still out, but there’s probably only a few hours left of daylight. These will never be dry by then. It doesn’t look like rain anytime soon, but with my luck it will freeze tonight and the wet fabric will get frozen stiff.

I should have done the laundry first and gotten it hung up by midmorning so it would have most of the day to dry and then baked the bread in the afternoon.

Why the heck didn’t I think of any of this sooner?

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