It not what you need, its what you knead (Cumberland Saga)

Sleep was elusive for Amira.

The floor was hard and the threadbare blanket beneath her did little to soften it. She worried about her two boys sleeping in the car. She didn’t even have the solace of sharing a bed with Walter, denied the comfort of his cuddling “spoons” and draping his arm over her. "Spoons" and hard floors don't go together.
 

She replayed the mad dash from St Louis to Copperhead Cove over in her head. The National Guard at the bridge in Cape Girardeau and Paducah. Checkpoints where ID was demanded. Crazy, crazy, crazy prices for gasoline.

She stuck to secondary roads and avoided Nashville and other, large cities. The trip took longer than expected.

The boys were oblivious to everything except for their stomachs and their hand-held devices, the strength of the signal and the games they were playing.

The trip took ten hours instead of the predicted six.

Doubts troubled her, but only briefly.

The riots had become more violent and more frenzied. Police were no longer attempting to apprehend looters, arsonists or thugs who were assaulting others based on their race.

Something had broken inside of her that morning. She had stepped out the door of their condominium in University City, a genteel and artsy enclave in St Louis and and smelled water-on-ashes, the distinctive smell of a fire that had burned long-and-hot and then had been subdued with water. She also smelled burned flesh.

That was it. All of her buttons were pushed simultaneously. It went from academic “maybe” to “Load the car, I am pulling out of the parking space in 30 minutes.”

The boys thought they were going on a vacation. They were so OBLIVIOUS.

Walter had been shocked. But he remembered her vivid nightmares from when they were first together.

They had talked when the riots started...again. Walter agreed that Copperhead Cove might be a safer place “in principle”. He never expected Amira to pull the trigger.

Pull the trigger? Hell, Amira had dropped the anvil.

***

The dogs started baying at dawn. Roger and Sig were taking no chances. They saw the two boys emerge into the frosty clearing. They were wearing shorts, tee-shirts and shower-slides and were arguing ferociously with each other.

Sig grinned. Mostly they were muttering threats of what they were going to do to their mother for bringing them to the wilderness.

Roger stepped out of the shadows. “What can I do for you young men?” he asked. He was still holding his Remington 1100.

“OMG” the taller boy said through chattering teeth. “Can you tell us where our mom went?”

“I’ll walk you there” Roger said as Sig slipped back into his house through the back door.

Breakfast was a tense affair.

Amira offered to help with the breakfast but Sarah declined. “You can wash the dishes.”

Sarah was afraid that Amira would burn the food and burnt-on food is a fair devil to scrub off.

Blain noticed the boys had pulled out their smart-phones and started playing their games again. “We don’t allow phones at the ‘Cove. You need to give your phones to me.”

Horrified, the boys looked over at Amira. They expected her to tear Blain a new asshole. To their surprise, their mother pulled out her phone, turned it off and handed it to Blain.

“Turn them off, boys. It might be a while before you get them back and the batteries will be dead if you don't power them down” she told them.

Walter pulled out his phone and wordlessly turned it off and handed it to Blain.

The boys were much more resistant to the request. Amira had to resort to her death-glare, but in the end they complied. Little did they know that it would be months before the phones were returned.

The boys complained about the cornmeal mush and butter. Blain had advised Sarah to hide their meager supply of sugar.

The boys complained that there were no little packets of flavor to dump into the water. The boys complained about the water “It tastes funny.” They complained about washing in a basin with cold water. They complained about everything. Amira was mortified. Sarah’s graciousness was severely strained.

Sarah, Blain, Lliam and Mary fled the small house. Any place would be better than being cooped up with Amira’s whining, sniveling brats. That, and it was springtime. There was SO MUCH work to do.

Amira got water on the wood-stove. She had been watching Sarah like a hawk. Sarah’s stove had draft controls that screwed in-and-out to adjust the heat. Amira added four sticks of kindling from the bucket beside the stove. Looking at Walter, she asked “Can you and the boys handle this?”

Walter nodded that he thought he could manage. He had grown up here. He knew how to wash dishes by hand.

Then Amira looked at her boys. “After you help your father, I need to have you carry our bags up here. They need to be here by noon. Don't drop them outside. Put them somewhere in the house. Your father will tell you where.”

She didn’t ask them if they could do that. It was an order. It was a trivial task. There is only so much you can fit into a Subaru, even with a roof-rack pod.

Amira needed information.

Her sons’ behaviors had torched the possibility of getting useful information from Sarah.

Ellie was Sig’s wife and Amira was no fool. She was not welcome in that house.

That left Alice.

Knocking on the back door of Alice and Roger’s house, she was bid “Come in”

Stepping into the house, Amira could see that it was baking day. The sounds and smells and warm womb of feminine camaraderie instantly transported her back to her aunt’s house in Kamensko where she and her mother had fled after escaping Sarajevo.

They, too, had baked bread as a family group. Because of their sojourn in Kamensko, Amira knew her way around a wood-stove. Amira also knew that kneading the bread was the most arduous and least desirable job in the kitchen on baking day until the clean-up at the end of the day.

Finding Alice, Amira said “I will knead. Where can I wash?”

 

Alice pointed to a basin by the sink.

 

Amira took her time washing and used the brush to meticulously scrub the cuticles and beneath her short fingernails. One thing about having worked in a medical lab was that she really knew how to wash her hands!

Alice had an apron ready for her when she was done.

Walking over to the counter which was already covered with flour, Amira started kneading bread-dough.

There is no therapy better for dealing with anger and fear, tension and uncertainty than kneading bread-dough. Amira kneaded bread well into the afternoon. She knew she was going to sleep well that night.