“It’s not like anything in it would have been useful to us anyway,” I reasoned, shrugging.
People put valuables in safes.
Cash and gold and gems.
But the things that had been valuable before the apocalypse were useless during it.
You couldn’t eat cash or gold or gems.
It wasn’t more than five minutes later that the house’s owner came striding back into the room, clicking closed a dark blue ring box.
“Are congratulations in order?” Caleb asked.
To that, the man gave him a smile that was both happy and surprised and a little fearful, all wrapped up in one.
Oh, yeah.
That was the look of a man who was so in love that he wanted to get on a knee. And was a little worried he wouldn’t be as loved back.
“Hopefully soon,” he said, nodding. “Thanks for not taking my grandma’s ring.”
“Don’t thank me. If I’d known about it, I might have taken it and given it to her,” he said, nodding his head toward me.
“I like my ring better,” I assured him.
He’d found it in the middle of the sidewalk when we’d been taking a walk to the abandoned food store to see if we could snag some herbs to hold us over until our garden really got going.
He’d gone down on a knee right there.
And gave me a speech from a movie proposal.
Which was too like him not to say yes.
“You don’t know that. You haven’t seen that one yet,” Caleb said, smirking.
The man gave us both a smile as he tucked the ring into his pocket.
“So what now?” Caleb asked him.
“Now, we rebuild,” the man said. “We’re working on the grid. After that, communications will get easier. People can get in touch with each other. Which will open up trade and industry. Doctors and dentists and farmers. Everyone willing to trade their know-how for what they need and don’t know how to do. It won’t be like before. But it will be better than it’s been. And we won’t be alone anymore.”
I didn’t so much mind being alone.
If I was alone with Caleb.
But I also had to recognize how important it was to connect, to share skills, to trade goods.
“How will we know when those things start to happen?” I asked.
To that, he gave us a smirk. “I have your number,” he reminded us.
Right.
Phones.
Phones could work again.
It almost sounded like something out of science fiction after so long.