5: Millie

She crossed her arms and moved away as she watched her husband drive off, through the woods and off the bridge into the distance. She huffed and was back to work. Yesterday her and Grey got good progress done but not enough, it wouldn't ever be enough until they got what they needed to build a floor, she refused to live in a house long term without a floor after last night, she did not like walking through a house with wet muddy feet, it was still a mud pile, and she assumed it'd be a lot worse if it wasn't for Grey's dad who's been stomping on that floor. 'I wonder why that old goose never build a floor himself over the years.' Millie thought. Since the virus they'd been making less and less money and had gotten what they had in random places. Wood for a floor would be very very hard to buy at the price it was now. She had no big cleaning plans and wanted to go with Grey but did not feel like it that day because her period started, which sense her and Grey trying for kids started was always at least a little disappointing, she prayed for the day her period was off date and she just hoped it wasn't at the age of 50. But since there bathroom was a outhouse she had to walk all the way to the yard every time she had a issue. Millie's eyes always catch the swamp nearby, she suddenly got the funny idea too go skinny dipping in it but decided against it because Lord knows what little bitty creatures live in there. And that turned out to be a good idea.

At around 2:20 PM Millie sat in the living room, after leaving the door open earlier the floor was now more like dry dirt then mud. She was half asleep and really wishing she had something to occupy her mind, going without clear entertainment was real hard, and she could even read a book at this point. Then a knock came to her door and her head lifted up real fast. "Ohhh, okay, coming?" She said wearily and soft, she walked over to the door and as soon as she opened it a hot thick wall of muddy air hit her like a bag of bricks, even though the windows in the room where open the whole time. She saw a moleish middle ages man with a face both much older and also babyish. He was balding in the middle of his head and curly haired on the sides. His clothes where raggedy and long but also thin, like a middle eastern traveler. "AH! Your a Kingsley right?" He yell out in a disturbed babe's voice turned old sort of tone. "Yes. Do you need something?" She said curtly. Her old last name was Dov but turned Kingsley. "Oh no no no!" Then he pushed her into the room and made himself comfortable, he pushed her so hard Millie made a light huff sound and she grabbed her tummy while the man looked around, she now felt very out of place. "Shame he's dead." The man said, turning to her with a green grin. "Is Gregory here?" "I don't know a Gregory." She said firmly, she known who he was talking about but refused to call him that. 'push me, then you misname my husband?!' Millie thought bitterly to herself. "Grey..." The man mumbled in a deep humorous voice, she thought he sounded intoxicated but doubted it. "Where is he? I want to talk to him." Millie stepped back and held onto the door keeping it open eyes stuck onto him. "About what?" "Huh?" The man said. "Talk about what?" "Ah! Could you just tell me where he is? It's our business miss." "You could tell me your name maybe..." She leaned closer next to the door officially stepping onto the outdoor steps. "I'm Moore." "Millie." Moore walked farther away from her looking around the house, he starred at spots the pair cleaned together but did not speak on it only smiled at it. "I just wanted to tell him how his dad died. They didn't report on what happened." Moore said dryly. "Who's they?" Millie stopped moving away and actually kept her mind onto him. "Eh! Just the people around town, probably that Dwayne bloke." Millie walked in closer back into the house. "How did he die then?" Moore turned to her and smiled a little wider. "What do you think?" Outside a loud bird cried out in a mating call, and something fell off a large water tree and into the swamp, Millie thought on her answer a few more seconds then told honestly. "Died of a broken heart." For just a second Moorse grimaced a real ugly look but then turned back to a untrue gayness. "No one dies like that, 'broken heart' is just a another way of saying 'losing the will to live." Moore then two big steps, Millie gasped to move but Moore shoved her away again on the other side of her gut and walked outside into the heat. "I got places to be, tell your boyfriend I'll come about tomorrow." He gave her one last grin then started walking off. Millie watched him holding her gut, and when he got near the bridge she wished the wood would suddenly give out. Sometimes she had thoughts like that, 'oh, when I'm like that I'm really being mom huh,' she thought, and then the man was out of sight. After all of that she needed to go to the bathroom even more so after the punches to the gut, but felt uncertain going to the outhouse with him still near.

After a good few minutes of waiting she did her business, then walked back inside and up the stairs. When she got near the closet she decided that'd be her next project, and when she opened it she remembered that was the busy messy closet from before. Inside was blankets she pulled out and ran her hands across it, they where pretty, probably warm too, but she couldn't stop thinking how they may still smell like him, Grey's dead father. So she made up her mind to wash them before using them, Lord was there even a laundry shop nearby? How would she clean any clothes or cloth around here? Not with that swamp water clearly. Then she noticed the books, the dead man owned or used to own many books, she held them into her hands, they where fiction educational and otherwise. A giant sized novel about dark ages wars armor weapons and life. A collection of short stories made by H,P Lovecraft, the cover was of a old painting of a green imp like demon lying on a bed next to a fainted woman waiting to ruin her. A notebook full small writings and maps taped inside of the geography of Florida. Normally Millie would have no entreat in these kinds of things, history bored her horror made her uncomfortable and geography confused her, but without her normal sorts of passive brain food she'd have to made do with this. What if Grey and Millie where the horror characters she thought, what if Grey's father was still here, would it be a kind of haunting that would horrify or was he watching over them kindly wishing he'd got to really know both of them, what if he became a real father figure to Grey and maybe even to her. Millie never had a father in fact her mom though seemingly knowing refused to tell Millie even when she begged as a teen. But maybe these old books of Doug Kingsley could be a sort of outlook to her on what a man her father's age whoever he was would think. Suddenly she deeply regretted never meeting the real man.