Derek arrived within ten minutes and was totally surprised to see a little boy, Melody's second born and his very first. It hit him like a ton of bricks.

       "I can't believe it… I can't believe it…!”  Derek exclaimed as Melody handed his son to him to hold and view the child's features, definitely telling him it was his son without a doubt.

       "That's another thing you beat me with, Der…" I chuckled and gave him a high five with his free hand. "But I came in a close second." We all laughed.

       "I guess I'll have to start learning how to be a father rather than all this electronics stuff that Wondah is teaching me." Looking a little resigned.

       "You and me both. At least Melody is experienced with these things."

       Smiling, "I sure am, and the best thing you two can do during these early months is stay out of the way except at night when you can help with bottle feeding and diapering."

       That didn't sound too good. I knew we would have two rug rats to deal with, trying to get into everything and learn construction way before their time.

       Two days later, Melody and our sons came back to the compound where Melody decided to set up a nursery for all of the young mothers to share so that most could work.

       The next day, Wondah started having labor pains and we rushed her to the medical center from the nursery. She had a beautiful baby girl that told Derek he was a father again.

       Der gushed upon holding his first daughter that they christened Wonder. “I hope she’s as smart as you are, baby."

       Wondah laughed. ”We’ll see, we’ll see… honey.” She reached for his hand and her eyes misted over from happiness.

       The next few days were filled with making sure that the children both at the compound and at the port were entertained and gifted so that they didn't feel so lost for having lost parents and brothers and sisters in the pandemic.

       And there were new arrivals. On the 20th, Selma Lopez gave birth to a boy that she christened Hector, Jr. named after her father. Like Stephanie, she didn't reveal who the real father was. Melody took the boy in at the nursery so that Selma could continue to work with her father every day on the many sheet rock jobs there were both at the compound and the port after the massacre.

       On the 23rd, Frances Hastings gave birth after a difficult labor that lasted four days until she had a cesarean to remove the girl. She admitted that Viktor Sarnoff had eased her pain for losing her husband in the pandemic and that he was the father.

       Ironically, a day later Viktoria Sarnoff, Victor's wife, had a boy. Since Frances was 40 and Victoria was 41, both pregnancies were a surprise but welcomed with full-term and healthy babies.

       On the 27th, Sean Nguyen, an unmarried sister of Van's, surprised both Van and Quoc with a boy from a brief affair with her 15-year-old nephew, Quoc.

       Throughout the Christmas holidays leading up and through the New Year 2033, the village birthed 32 new inhabitants. Three sets of twins, three stillbirths, and two, too young, mothers died.

       The first post pandemic generation would become part of the New World within twenty years and hopefully, change it for the better.

       Remembering what happened at Thanksgiving, the compound, the Rambler, and the port held low-key Christmas celebrations with carolers for the sick and aging, and gift-giving for the children. Security was at an all-time high and no incidents were reported, except Sheriff Morgan had to put two rowdy fishermen in jail who got drunk and started fighting.

       There were fireworks at midnight from the Rambler and hotel, but once again, security was very high. What we had to celebrate was all the people that were saved from dying of thirst or starvation in a city that was filled with goods to plunder, but very soon lacked freshwater and healthy food to eat.

       Drake and I, along with all of the members of our small compound community, like Wondah, Marsha, Melody and Daphne, were very proud of our contribution to surviving to a time when the rains would come again to the Los Angeles basin.

       Unfortunately, our New Year's celebration was dampened a bit by the lack of rain.

       But on January 3, as we drove down to the Rambler to welcome Dani's first birth, the sky opened up.

       Earlier that day, Dani Steffensen had twins, a boy and a girl. The father was none other than the captain of the Rambler, Jens Jensen. While the boy looked just like Jens’s baby pictures, the girl had other features.

       Jens asked her, feeling a bit guilty with a wife and two daughters back home that he had lost touch with in Denmark, ”Was there someone else beside me?"

       Feeling pressured, Dani confessed. ”One night, I complimented our chef, Carlos Rodriguez, about his peach cobbler. He invited me into the kitchen and into a store room where we both got carried away. Afterword, he told me not to tell his wife who works in the laundry. And I promised not to.”

       “Okay, I promise to provide for them both. And if my wife and daughters are gone, I promise to marry you.”

       He bent down and kissed her in front of us. We all promised not to tell anyone. Humbled by what the pandemic had wrought.

       By the time we returned, the streets were flooded and we had great difficulty getting back to the compound for three days. More roads were washed out. I could see a huge effort with too few hands to try to rebuild the roads and to restore infrastructure like the water system that was both contaminated and broken in so many places.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

12/5/23