Finding Connections

It sat there on the kitchen counter. A simple brown paper-wrapped package, nothing threatening per se. But it’s ominous presence had weighed heavily on her since it had been delivered by the drone at 0900.

It hadn’t been expected, but she wasn’t that surprised at its arrival either. They had both known that it would only be a matter of time before the war called him away. She couldn’t know for sure since the package was addressed to Nathan and not her. But he would be home soon enough.

As Nathan came through the kitchen door that day, he knew before he even saw the package that something wasn’t right. His beautiful wife greeted him with a smile but it faltered and faded long before it reached her eyes. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached for the takeout that Nathan had picked up for their lunch.

The package caught his attention from the corner of his eye and the prominent military emblem told him just about everything he needed to know. The rest of the details he could wait to discover.

Barely missing a beat in their conversation, Nathan and his wife Maria chose to ignore the elephant in the room. They shared a meal from their favorite restaurant and they each talked about their day. The mundane. The ordinary. He talked about the latest restoration project that he was working on and she discussed an argument she’d had with a colleague.

As the meal finished, the conversation stalled. Their eyes met across the table and each knew what the other was thinking. Nathan reached out and moved the dishes aside, taking Maria’s hands in his own.

“I know you have to go,” she said. “I just thought we’d have more time, it’s never enough time.”

He loved that about her. She never asked him not to go.

He walked around the table and drew her up and into a warm embrace. As he gently stroked her long hair, he heard her speaking softly - a long string of words quickly and animatedly spoken in Spanish as she pressed her face into the Weezer logo on his sweatshirt.

He laughed softly and pulled back from her, “You know I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”

She glared up at him but tears glistened in her eyes and a smile played on her lips, “of course I know! I’m not going to stand here and cuss you out in English so you’d understand, idiota! I’m trying to not say something I’ll regret.”

In the years that followed, Nathan often thought of that day. He had left his wife and daughter to report for duty only two short weeks later.

They hadn’t known that day that the world was on the brink of being changed forever. They hadn’t known that those two weeks were the last they’d ever have as a family.

But they did know that they couldn’t know what would happen, so they made the best of what they had in that moment.

They had spent those remaining days holding each other tight, leaving nothing unsaid, laughing together every chance they had, sharing their dreams and their fears, making love with an intensity like it was the first time - like it was the last time.

They had spent their days with Hannah making memories as a family that would hold each of them through the dark days that followed.

Nathan had treasured those days with his young daughter. Listening to her and her mother giggling as they shared secrets between them speaking in Spanish because they knew he was hopelessly mono-lingual. Having her accompany him to the shop where he had worked with his own father, showing her how to use tools and trying to be patient with her endless questions.

He had known those moments were fleeting and he had made every effort to hold on to them and preserve them so that he could revisit them often and draw strength from the love he could find there.

All those memories flooded over him once again as he was returning to his bunk in the old barn in the Community of Esperanza where he had been living and working for the past month. There on his bed was a brown envelope. It was a package that he knew held potentially life-changing news about his family.

It had been a few weeks since Nathan had been able to send a message to the last known address of his family in Missouri.

Communication had become somewhat primitive after electronic systems had been shut down around the world. No more satellites, no cellphones, no internet. The mail system had lasted the longest, but it didn’t survive the collapse of the National government, though there was still a loosely held together system that functioned more like the Pony Express than any modern version of the USPS.

But there was a system of information gathering and dispersal that had developed out of necessity and was fairly dependable, if not speedy. It had picked up the name, Tin Can Network, and consisted largely of volunteers and those who bartered their time for services. These people used a combination of ham radios and the few landline telephones which had still existed prior to the EMP and had managed to survive the after-effects to connect with others in the network and exchange information.

Stations had been set up in most of the larger communities where local governments had been maintained or newly established. In this way, messages could be sent in the hopes of reaching a particular person or for the purpose of receiving information back.

Nathan had sent the following message:

My name is Nathan Withers, I’m seeking information on my wife and daughter - occupants of 912 Holly St, Willow Springs, Missouri. Maria Withers: age 45, 5’ 2”, dark hair, Cuban descent. Hannah Withers: age 19, dark hair, height unknown.

If found, please advise them that I am alive and currently in the newly founded community of Esperanza, Virginia closest Station is VA412. Send word, and I will come home!

If not found, please respond with any possible information on status and whereabouts.

Hope was warring with dread as Nathan held the envelope. With a lump in his throat and trembling hands, he carefully opened the envelope and read the contents:

House at 912 Holly St appears abandoned for years. Whereabouts of occupants unknown. Local intel indicates people from this town were conscripted to military service cir. 2032.

Individuals from local encampment nearby said that a young woman possibly fitting description of Hannah had spent several days in the area two months ago. She was alone. No one knew her name, but she had said that the abandoned house on the corner had once been her home. One woman traded goods with her and said the girl was headed East in search of her father.

Hope this information helps.

Hope. Was that something he dared to do? His hopes of finding them safe at home were dashed to a thousand tiny pieces. Could he recover enough of them to stitch together hope that his Hannah was alive? What of Maria?

Nathan had been a man on a mission to get back home. But now he learned he had no home to return to. He was left only with questions. Was Hannah actually out there on her own? Was Maria still alive? Would they ever be together again?

Nathan fingered the key around his neck and he struggled to come to terms with the latest information and the new questions that he now needed answered. But true to his pragmatic nature, Nathan set aside his fears, his questions and doubts. He made a plan.

Nathan would stay put. He decided that going out in search of his family would be an act of futility. He could pass within 100 yards of his wife and daughter and not even know it. If Hannah was indeed on the move and heading in his very general direction, the best thing he could do was provide a trail for her to follow and give her every chance to find him.

He would join the Tin Can Network and do what he could to help others and to help keep the flow of informaiton moving. And he would use that network to send out word in the hopes of connecting with Hannah.

And he would fight back despair and hold tightly to hope. It was the lifeline keeping him afloat. It was the light holding darkness at bay. If Hannah was out there searching for him, he’d light up the sky and show her the way.