“She’s resting – this pregnancy is really taking it out of her.” He said around the toothpick in his mouth, Grandpa quietly rocking my cousin. “Her mother is coming over with some...special tea.” He said with a little shake of his head and confused look, “Say’s it’ll help the baby.”

I grunted.

We were all pretty excited there was going to be a new baby – with the three girls in the one room, and me and the two younger girls in my room, my parents had been saving up and they were just getting started now on adding another two rooms and full bathroom on the first floor to accommodate hopefully more babies.

I was….always anxious when mom got pregnant, because losing Joy had nearly broke mom. She would fight to be better, come home to the clinic, and then something would set her off and she’d unravel, getting hysterical and having to go back to the clinic again for a couple nights.

When she got pregnant with Holly a year later, she had a lot of ups and down, but once Mimi was born perfect, right on time, the next pregnancy with Janey was pretty easy outside of a few bad nights.

And then Mom didn’t get pregnant again for the past couple years. I mean, Dad told me – and Big Blue and Hester when he came asking – that they weren’t trying and just leaving it up to the lord, but Dad also said to me and Grandpa Earnest in private that he and mom decided to wait a few years so everyone could settle and they could focus on the kids they had right now before they starting bringing in more to raise.

Which was fine with me, because Mom being pregnant stressed me the fuck out.

I never wanted to see her like she was after Joy had died again.

But keeping busy with work helped keep me distracted.

“I learn a real neat little thing about the colony today,” I said, telling Dad about what Marybeth had said. “So I guess we’re going to be here longer than they thought.”

“Well that’s good,” Dad said vaguely, blinking hard. “Big Blue used to say some real awful shit about the outside…” his voice drifted at that, and I knew right away hew as thinking about his brother. Dad had said once on Uncle Laurie’s birthday – one of few times a year my Dad ever got shitfaced - a few years ago he wished the colony would end so the family could all be together again, though his Dad disagreed and said that it was better we were all here and safe, and that Uncle Laurie was smart enough to take care of himself.

But I didn’t know Big Blue said anything to anyone about the outside world, none that I got wind off.

“What kind of awful stuff did he say?”

“Mm, just...stuff.” Dad said with a shrug. “I remember when we went to visit him for his son’s funeral, our ancestor’s funeral, and he said a couple things...mostly that our family is full of men that had tragic brothers.” He said with dark chuckle, reaching up to pull down the brim of his hat a little.

“Hey, I always meant to ask – what the fuck happened to Grandpa’s brother?” I popped another cherry in my mouth to suck the sour dust off of it.

“Uncle Laurie?” Dad said with a sigh, looking tired.

“Yeah…”

“Uncle Laurie….my father’s older brother...was killed while being removed from the colony, that’s all I know.” He said. “They came for him, he fought back. Dad was...uh, he was younger than you are now. He had held their father back from fighting the nightwalkers as well, I think, but yeah, he died being taken.” He said with a nod, swallowing thickly. “Um, yeah. But Grandpa doesn’t talk to Dad, and when Dad got hurt when they...when they took my brother, I called Grandpa, and he said that...it’s fitting that happened to my father, because he had a big mouth and go this brother killed. So.” Dad shrugged. “So I cussed him out, and we don’t have anything to do with him.”

“Why would he say that, though?” I mumbled.

Dad chuckled. “Not all things are big ol’ mysteries, Renny.” Dad said with a grin. “Sometimes...people are just pricks.”

Which I agreed with.

The next day I went to work and there were two other men, each higher up the ladder than Mr. Yellowbrooke, who was there with Marybeth and I. We waited for the white boxes to be delivered, and then they watched as Marybeth ran the tests.

Every single one of the tests came back with J-N Positive errors.

All twenty.

Marybeth burst into tears and quickly became hysterical while one of the other men, the one I had been told was the supervisor from The City, went and vomited in the bin we threw away used blood samples.

Mr. Yellowbrooke and the second man went back to Marybeth’s office and locked the door, and I didn’t see them again.

I took Marybeth to the break room and she just paced around for an hour sobbing, and I began to panic because it reminded me of my mom after Joy had died. I could just see Marybeth crumbling. When I came close to tears, I used the phone in the office to call The Mayor and he got me to get her on the phone.

She just sobbed and sobbed that he needed to come pick her up, and she wanted to come home, like she was a little kid – it was nuts.

And it reminded me so much of Mom.

I promised The Mayor that I would stay with her until he came to get her with her sister in law. The Mayor went and spoke with the supervisor from The City because Mr. Yellowbrooke had locked himself in the bathroom and sounded like he had food poisoning.

I went home with the mayor and tried my best to explain what happened to him and Marybeth’s sister in law, but I couldn’t explain to then why the J-N Positive error code was bad enough to break the easy going Marybeth down.

I found out a few months later.