“I’ll be okay. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up in a couple hours, then you can take over.” He gives me a light peck on the cheek, then slips into his sleeping bag.
No one from the Keys comes by, and when Andrew wakes up a few hours later I’m able to get a bit of sleep myself before the kids get up and we’re back on the road again.
“Where are they?” Andrew asks Rocky Horror.
But it’s Amy who answers. “They’re probably getting things together. Making a plan and also turning it into a supply run.”
That sounds like about what I’d expect from the Committee.
“Maybe they’ll never come looking for you,” Kelly adds. “They could have too much to deal with right now.”
I nod, but I don’t believe it. If they need supplies and Fort Caroline’s help is contingent on turning me over, they’ll be looking for me.
I turn to Amy, who seems exhausted with Henri-Two sleeping in a sling across her chest. “Do you want me to hold her?”
She lets out a low groan. “I do, but I’m worried she’ll wake up if I jostle her. My back is killing me.” She rubs at her lower back while keeping a hand under the one-year-old. “I need us to stop somewhere we can find a store that still has strollers.”
I walk up to Andrew and nudge him playfully. “Gotta say, I preferred this part of Florida when I was dying of sepsis in a cart.”
“Ah, the good ol’ days.” He turns his attention to the Kid, who he swings by his hands in front of him as a stuffed hippo balances precariously on Andrew’s shoulder. “Hey, Kid, think Bobo wants a sidecar?”
“Uh-huh,” the Kid says as he jumps up and lets Andrew swing him.
“And what is a sidecar?”
“I unno.”
“Cool.”
I laugh and hold out my hands. “Want me to take over?”
“Yes. Thank you. Kid, I need a break, Jamie’s gonna throw your ass around a bit, ’kay?”
“Uh-huh.”
Without skipping a beat, the Kid lets go of Andrew’s hands and takes mine. I count him to three and he jumps as I swing him up and forward. Andrew takes the Kid’s hippo and puts him on my shoulder.
He looks tired, too. We’ve been on the road for three days now. I forgot how hard it is to travel for so long every day. Even taking breaks every three hours, it’s hard for the kids. They have to be carried if they get too tired. And if more than four can’t walk at once, we have to stop for the night.
Andrew says Daphne is struggling, too, but every time I look over at her she seems in good spirits. And she never seems to tire of corralling the kids. I glance back at her as I swing the Kid in my arms. She smiles at me as she listens intently to the boy next to her tell a story about one of the kids he used to play with in the Keys.
“Did Cara tell you where we’re hoping to stop tonight?” I ask Andrew.
“She said there’s an airfield up ahead.”
“I don’t suppose Rocky Horror knows how to fly a plane?”
“You don’t suppose correctly—I asked.”
“Maybe Daphne does.”
Andrew snorts. “Hey, Kid, you know how to fly a plane?”
“Uh-huh,” the Kid says as he jumps into a swing.
“Knew it. We’re saved.” Andrew doesn’t sound like himself. Maybe he’s just tired, but it sounds like more than that.
“You okay?”
