Page 57 of Trade
Yes, yes, yes.I’ll take the blame if Bennett takes issue with it. I’m his wife, after all. He loves me. You’re safe. I’m safe. We’re all safe.
What would Dalton think of it here?
He’d think it’s small and sad and stupid, and he’d be right.
We’re moles in a burrow. Snakes in a hole. How am I going to live in here for the rest of my life? For another month? Week? Day? Minute?
I force myself to breathe through the panic and wander over to the kitchen garden exhibit, inhaling the delicate scents like I always do as I walk past the aluminum beds raised on sawhorse tables. Sage. Thyme. Basil. Mint.
“Hi, Gloria. Good to see you back,” a tech calls over from where she’s snipping some dill, probably for a dish Food Services is preparing for one of the Head Administrator’s dinners, food she’ll never taste.
“Good to be back,” I say automatically, letting my fingers trail over the herbs. Touching the plants outside of the scope of duties is explicitly forbidden. Without exception. It’s a primary tenant of Agricultural Preservation. The tech pretends not to see me do it. I’m a lottery winner now. I have a free pass.
I pass the cilantro. Oregano. Rosemary.
Rosemary.
Where is the lavender?
There. Lavender.
An entire bed of it. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Woolly varieties. Someone in the first gen loved it.
And there is sage. Sage burns.
The germ of an idea takes root, and for the first time since the bunker doors slammed behind me again, I feel something other than pain and despair. My heart pounds.
I take a second look at the tech clipping the dill and rack my brain for a name. Debbie. That’s it.
I stroll over and flash her my first real smile in days. “So, Debbie. I am going to be transplanting some of these herbs for a new study in the general botany lab.”
She pauses a beat. Then another. My heart races quicker. The smile is plastered on my face.
“Which plants?” she finally says.
“Rosemary. The Portuguese lavender. Sage.”
Her gaze lingers on her babies, and her mouth draws into a frown. I know exactly how she feels. I brace myself for her to ask to see the paperwork.
Instead, after another long moment, she sighs. “How many of each?”
“As many as you can spare,” I say, knowing her heart can’t spare a single one.
She sighs again. “I’ll pot them for you and start bringing them over tomorrow. Will that work?”
“Of course. Thank you.” I can’t believe she’s doing it without question. Is she going to go straight to Bennett as soon as I walk away?
I give her one last smile, but before I can leave, she stops me with a gloved hand on my forearm. “Your dad was a great man.”
“He was. Thank you.”
“My sister won the lottery. Back when he was still alive. He helped her. I’m helping you. So don’t say thank you.” She lowers her voice. “Just don’t get caught.”
When I walk away, the smile I’m hiding is real.
* * *
True to her word, Debbie brings me the herbs over the next week, two at a time, staggering her visits and avoiding the customary morning and afternoon breaks when folks tend to mill around. I wait until everyone is at lunch and haul them up to my flower boxes hidden on the second-tier ledge behind the flex duct. I steel myself and tug them loose, shake the dirt from their roots, and spread them flat to dry.
