CHAPTER 14
IT HAD BEEN A long day. Ursula got home from work and greeted the kids, putting down her purse and briefcase.
“Where’s Dad?” she questioned, bending down and kissing Juneau on the cheek.
“He’s outside,” said Juneau curtly. Ursula looked at her questioningly, then looked out the window.
“What is he doing?” she said.
None of the kids answered. Ursula went to the porch doors and looked out over the back yard. Abe had a shovel, and was busy digging some sort of ditch across the back lawn.
“Abe,” Ursula called down to him.
He stopped and looked up, wiping sweat from his face with the back of his wrist.
“Ursula. You’re home.”
“Yes. What are you doing?”
He set the blade of the shovel in the dirt for a moment, to stand on its own, and looked back up at her again.
“Well,” he said slowly, carefully, and Ursula had a sick sense of foreboding that something bad was coming. “I was trying to think last night about how to keep the family safe, when they are being threatened by these guys. The house really isn’t safe. Even with the burglar alarm, it’s very vulnerable. So many doors and windows-”
“Abe,” she tried to quell his rambling.
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?” she questioned pointedly.
“I’m digging.”
“Digging what?”
“I’m digging… a bunker.”
“A bunker,” Ursula repeated.
There it was. The reason for the knot in her stomach. She went back to the kitchen and checked his pill bottles and boxes. It looked like he’d been taking his meds, but had he? Was he just cheeking them now, and spitting them into the toilet or something? Or were things so bad now that this was the most they could control his symptoms? Ursula went through the garage out to where Abe was working, busily lifting shovel after shovel of dirt out of the trench.
“You’re building a bunker,” Ursula said.
“Yep,” Abe agreed. “First I’ll dig it all out, then we’ll pour the concrete, build up the walls, put on a ceiling. It will be nice and secure, only one way in or out, with a strong door and good lock, so that nobody can get in here after us, once we’re inside.”
“Abe, you can’t build a bunker.”
He shrugged, and continued to dig.
“It’s against building codes,” Ursula tried.
“It’s below ground. Don’t need a permit for that.”
“What if you hit a gas line or something?”
“I know where the gas line is,” he dismissed with a flap of his hand.
“Abe, this is ridiculous. We don’t need a bunker. No one is in any danger. There’s no point in it…”
“We need one,” Abe said. "Everyone should have one. Some people do, you know, have a bunker or a hidden safe room. We can’t really build a safe room, we’re already using all of the space in the house, except some of the basement, I guess. We could put something down there. But Meggie doesn’t like the basement. And I already started out here. This is the best way to do it, Urs. I spent all night thinking about it.”
“You can’t just build a bunker!” Ursula tried to keep her voice from screeching and to remain calm and reasonable. "Abe, don’t you see how crazy this is?”
He stopped and looked at her, hurt. Ursula bit her tongue, realizing that she had used the tabooed word ‘crazy’.
“I’m sorry, Abe. But what you’re doing… it doesn’t make any sense. It’s your paranoia. Can’t you trust me, when I tell you that we’re safe? That it’s just your brain telling you that you’re unsafe when you’re not? Please!”
Abe shrugged and went back to work.
“What’s the harm in building a bunker anyway?” he said philosophically, and continued to dig.
“Will you come in and have supper with us?”
He looked at the position of the sun in the sky.
“I want to get as much done as I can while there’s still daylight,” he said. “I’m going to stay out here and work for as long as I can.”
Ursula stood there looking at him for a moment, trying to think of some other argument. Trying to figure out how to explain to him just how crazy this new idea was. But she was at a loss. She stood watching him work for a minute, putting aside her feelings and only observing him, noticing how his muscles bulged as he worked, the sweat pouring off his brow, the determination in his eye. He might be wrong, but he was fully committed. And she had forgotten how attractive he was physically. She’d worried so much the past weeks and months about his mental health, that she’d paid no attention to his physical condition. And despite the mental deterioration, he was still an incredible specimen physically.
Abe looked at her questioningly and saw the gleam in her eye. He laughed.
“I’ll take care of you later,” he promised, pointing at her, "Mrs. VanRam.”
Ursula shook her head, smiling, and retreated to the house.
Saying that he worked late would have been an understatement. In spite of Abe’s promise to be in once it started to get dark out, he kept on working, throwing shovelful after shovelful of dirt. Ursula couldn’t see how deep the trench was in the dark, but she knew he had moved a significant amount of dirt. She tried calling him in a couple of times, but he wouldn’t listen. Eventually, she gave up and went to bed. In her bed, she imagined that she could still hear his steady shoveling, though she was on the other side of the house and must clearly have been imagining it. She dropped off into a restless sleep.
In the early hours of the morning, Ursula awoke again with a start. She got up and went to the bathroom, and decided to check in on Abe and make sure that he was all right. He hadn’t gotten into bed beside her. She went downstairs and found him asleep on the couch. He had obviously fallen asleep in exhaustion, he hadn’t even taken off his boots or his hat. His mouth hung open and he snored. His hands - oh, his poor hands. They were raw and bloody from the unaccustomed work. As quietly as she could, hoping not to awaken him, Ursula washed his palms gently, and wrapped clean bandages around them. Abe didn’t stir. The work had taken everything out of him, and he hadn’t slept the previous night. Ursula took off his hat and shoes, wrapped a blanket around him, and left him to sleep.
In the morning she took a look at the back yard before going to work. It was completely unrecognizable. Gardens gone, most of the lawn gone, a great gaping hole right in the middle of the yard. And it was deep. It was incredible that one person could move so much dirt in such a short period of time. Ursula wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she had to talk him out of the bunker. A bunker was not a selling feature. She was not going to have one in her back yard.