The Pandemic Epilogue

THE PANDEMIC EPILOGUE

" T he tour is canceled. This is a fucking nightmare," Corissa grunts as she fires off emails on her phone.

"I heard that, Mommy," Zoey, Corissa's daughter, says.

"That's too bad. I was looking forward to this tour." I sigh dramatically.

"Liar," Lori calls over her shoulder from the living room where she's sitting with the baby.

"Should we head back to New York?" Collin asks, looking to Corissa.

"It's safer if we all stay put. We have more than enough room for everyone here. You guys can stay in the cabins until this all blows over," Joe says to Collin.

"Lori and I will take the other cabin," Carl says.

"You guys live thirty minutes away," I say with a laugh.

"But we would be so lonely, and I know I'll be endlessly entertained here with all of you fine folks," Carl says.

I smile as I look around our living room, my eyes bounce between every person who means everything to me, and I wonder if I'll still like them if we're all trapped in a house together for the foreseeable future.

It was the first time we had been in the same place simultaneously in almost a year. I was ecstatic to have everyone here until I realized this thing we thought wasn't a big deal was a huge fucking deal. Within a matter of a week, the world had turned upside down.

Collin, Corissa, and her daughter arrived in Montana two weeks ago to prep for my book tour. Lori and Carl had just come back from traveling all around the world to promote her Netflix series.

If they had stayed a week longer than planned, they would've been stuck in whichever country they were in.

"Carl and I will go to the store to stock up on essentials, and then we'll all hunker down," Joe says.

"I'm coming. I know what my girls like," Collin says as he winks at Corissa.

Corissa rolls her eyes, and I can't explain the sheer joy it brings me that Collin found a woman who loves him dearly and is also immune to his bullshit.

"I'll make a list!" Lori shouts as she removes her ass from the floor with Elizabeth in tow.

"Make sure you add chips and salsa," I say as I walk behind her and try to steal the baby.

"Try to take my goddaughter and I will end your life," she says with a smile as she bats me away.

"Don't add toilet paper. Lucky for us, Joe is obsessive about wiping his ass raw. He's been hoarding toilet paper since before it was trending. We have enough for ten years in isolation."

"G, could you not tell everyone about my bathroom habits?" Joe's shaking his head, but he's smirking.

Everyone gathers around Lori, trying to add things to the list all at once.

I look at Joe and nod to the hallway.

"Finish that list. We'll be back," Joe says to Lori, then follows me down to our bedroom, where I close the door.

"What's up, my quarantine queen?" he asks as I sit on the bed.

"Joe, I swear to all the gods, if you ever call me that again, I will leak one of your dick pics."

He laughs as he joins me on the bed. "Are you spiraling?"

I nod and chew on my lip. "Joe, I love all of those people, but this is a lot. All of us are here. For who knows how long? Tell me everything is going to be okay and we won't all hate each other when this is over."

He grabs my hand. "Have I told you the story about when I got stuck on my tour bus in a snowstorm with half my band?"

I shake my head.

"Well, we all got stuck for three days. The weather was so bad we had to park on the highway. The bus ran out of gas because we were running it for the heat. Anyway, by the time we were rescued and we got back on the road, half my band quit. They said I was too neurotic and yada yada…"

"Wait." I hold up my hand. "This story is supposed to make me feel better?"

He smiles. "G, they quit because they never spent that much time with me alone. You know I'm neurotic. You know your brother isn't funny but will tell jokes anyway. We all know our limits. Everything will be okay. We won't all hate each other by the end of this."

"But what if…"

"It will be fine. Everyone will have their own space and we can all gather here in our house too. Let's try not to freak out and enjoy our time together. Okay?"

I blow out a breath. "Okay."

He kisses my forehead. "I'm going to the store. Please don't kick everyone out by the time I get back."

I laugh at him as he walks out the door.

The front door swings open, and in walks Collin followed by Carl and Joe. They have their masks on still, but I can see it in their eyes. The rage one apparently experiences after a trip to the store during a pandemic.

"Not one fucking jar of jiffy puff. Not one," Joe shouts through his mask and slams the door.

"Those hoarding monsters won't utilize that delicious treat appropriately with peanut butter. This is horseshit, G."

"Joe, calm down. You're old, and you're going to give yourself a heart attack."

He drops three grocery bags on the counter and sighs as he removes his mask.

"We're so fucked. Not only was the jiffy puff cleaned out, but the shelves were empty. What will we eat? How will we survive? We will not be okay!" he wails and throws his hands in the air.

"Are you done?" I ask with a smirk.

He takes a deep breath and nods.

"We'll survive on whatever you found," I say as I reach into one of the bags, but I immediately regret those words as I pull things out.

"I found a twelve-pound watermelon, a pack of black licorice, five pounds of leeks, a bottle of Sobe water, which by the way, I didn't know they still made. Some celery, a bag of frozen organic lima beans and frozen pastry dough," Joe huffs as I empty the other bag.

"Okay. You're right. We're fucked."

"I fought an old lady for the last gallon of milk. It wasn't my best moment, but I'd do it again for my family," Collin says as he puffs up his chest with pride.

"I feel it's necessary we call you Collin, the dairy defender. The hero who fights geriatric villains," Lori says.

"Luckily, G is still producing milk. You know, if we get really desperate," Joe says, and I smack the back of his head.

"At least we have toilet paper," Carl offers. "I watched two grown men throw fists over the last pack."

I lean into Joe and whisper, "What was it you were saying earlier about everything was going to be okay?"

He looks down at me and smirks. "We'll just add that to the other lies we've told ourselves."

"Everything will be okay. Joe, you literally own a ranch with a greenhouse full of produce and a paltry supply of livestock because you're a shit Montanan, but still," Lori reminds us.

"And G has an ass load of pigs that would make for some fine bacon," Collin adds.

"No pork for me," I say. "But, if we take stock of everything we have, we could do a sort of community trade thing? We can all support each other, you know?"

"And we always have fishing," Joe says.

And in that moment, I believed we might be okay.

Everyone heads to bed early, exhausted from the stress of the day.

Lori takes Elizabeth with her so Joe and I can get a full night's sleep, but Joe has other ideas.

He joins me in the shower and wraps his arms around me from behind.

"You impress me every day, but today, the way you came up with that idea to build a community trade, that impressed me so much, I couldn't think of anything else but rewarding your idea by having you sit on my face," he whispers against my shoulder as he kisses his way across to the other.

He still makes me blush, even after experiencing his type of love for the last couple of years. It sneaks up on me, the flushed cheeks, the butterflies. I hope it never goes away.

"That sounds more like a reward for you," I tease as he moves his hands down my back, over my ass, then spreads my thighs with his hand. "Oh, it is, but it's mostly for you."

Joe and I seemed to have lost the art of foreplay and seduction since Elizabeth came along. It's been a lot of frantic, quiet sex before the baby wakes up, and I have zero complaints about it. Frantic sex Joe is my favorite Joe I've discovered so far. It's brought out a depraved version of him who seems to have an affinity for doing and saying the filthiest things to me, which has inadvertently done wonders for my confidence, that tanked after seeing just how much pregnancy ravages your body.

He bends me forward and I instinctively place my hands on the wall.

"We've had to be quiet for way too long. I want to hear you tonight, G," he says just before pushing inside me.

My moan echoes around the shower and Joe grabs my hips, his nails biting into my skin.

He leans over my back, his mouth presses to my ear. "I love you," he whispers as he reaches around and presses his finger to my clit.

"Fuck," I pant, pushing my ass hard onto him. "I love you."

We become frantic, Joe grabbing my shoulders and slamming into me, and me screaming his name as I meet his thrusts. And right as my toes curl and my legs start to shake, he pulls out, lifts me up, and takes me to the bed, soaking wet.

"You asshole," I groan as he kisses me and laughs.

"As much as I want to come inside you right now, I'd prefer it if you came on my face." He's grinning as he slides up the bed, leaving me frazzled and hornier than I've been in ages. Maybe it's all the stress, or maybe it's the fact that it feels like when we first met because we're without the baby tonight. But I wanted him to fuck me into the mattress until that ache in my back flared up.

He props himself up on the pillows, his gaze heady with a hint of mischief. I begin my slow ascent up the bed, but decide to make a quick stop to suck him into my mouth and roll my tongue over him until he's yanking on my arm. "Georgia, I'm one suck away from being done. You know it's harder for me to hold out at my age."

I laugh while he's still in my mouth, and that does it. I feel his dick twitch against my tongue, and since I'm already here, I suck him in deeper.

"Fuck," he moans, his hands tangling in my wet hair as his hips rise to meet my mouth.

When he goes lax, his eyes are dark with the promise of the best kind of revenge.

His voice is a menacing whisper when he says, "Get up here. Now."

Without argument, I crawl up his body and settle on his face. I attempt to hold up my weight by grabbing the headboard, determined to not kill him.

"Georgia, if you don't let go of that headboard and suffocate me with your pussy, I will start spouting off facts about infectious diseases that I have learned in the past week."

Joe cuts my laugh off by yanking me down to his mouth and flicking his tongue against my clit.

"Joe," I gasp as I grab his hair and grind against his tongue.

"That's it, G. Fuck my face."

My back bows as I ride him shamelessly, wildly, until I feel my orgasm racing toward me.

Joe and I walk into the living room to find everyone piled up on the couch with the TV blaring.

"You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I'm not sure anybody even knows what it is," the president says.

"This dumb motherfucker is going to be the downfall of humanity. How can he say nobody knows what it is? The scientists are telling us what it is!" Lori says as she throws her hands in the air.

"Fucker." All eyes shoot to Elizabeth, who is sitting in Lori's lap. "Fucker," she babbles again.

I burst into laughter as Joe pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm rethinking your position as godmother," Joe says to Lori.

"I dare you to strip me of my title, Josephine. I'll give the tabloids some fodder about you that would surely lift spirits across this doomed nation."

"We could raise money for people in need by selling stories about Joe," Collin offers. "I have a list I've been accumulating since they got married to hold over Joe's head if he ever fucks with G."

"Oh! We have to share lists! Mine is a mile long," Lori says excitedly.

"You assholes have been keeping a list? Have you that little faith in me?"

"Fuck," Elizabeth says with the biggest toothless smile as she looks at Joe.

"Should we rethink your position as father?" Lori questions.

Joe sighs in defeat. "No."

Joe, Collin, Corissa, and I go out to fish, but we're just shy of the start of fishing season here, and well, we've caught nothing in hours.

"The fish have migrated, Joe," I sigh as I pull my empty line out.

He grins and trudges through the water toward me and Corissa, with Collin behind him.

"Of course, they have migrated. Wouldn't you if someone invaded your home?" Corissa asks.

"I suppose I wouldn't want to stick around either."

She smiles. "Did you know there's a subtype of fish called diadromous? Their species migrates from the river to the sea. They live out their adolescence in fresh water and go on to the sea to reproduce."

Joe looks at Corissa with his mouth agape. "All these years I've known you and you've been withholding useless facts?"

Collin laughs as he snakes his arm around Corissa's waist. "Don't worry, Joe, you'll stay king of useless facts. Corissa knows shit that people want to hear."

Joe holds a hand over his heart. "You wound me, brother."

"That's sad," I say. "The fish leave home to go have babies, then what? They raise them in the ocean by themselves?"

"It's our fault," Joe says. "Many animals have had to adapt their migration patterns because of humans. We have made their homes our homes, built walls around them, create dams, pollute their water. We make it hard for them to live freely."

"I think that would make us a bunch of assholes, no?"

"That it would," Joe agrees.

Over the next few weeks, we managed to organize a community support system that included food, medical supplies, and even items like books and board games. Once we got the word out on social, we had ranchers and farmers and local builders, offering whatever they had, including help to build a makeshift storefront for all the food and supplies. It brought us joy to see what our collective efforts were doing, but witnessing what felt very much like the collapse of humanity was overwhelming. The loss of life, and the glaring loss of decency for one another, was taking its toll on us all.

I've never been of the belief everything happens for a reason, for the good, for a lesson. Things happen, horrific things, and we only gain heartache from them. But amid that heartache, our unyielding pursuit to find comfort and meaning under all the layers of heartache surges forward, and we laugh, feel joy, take care of each other, and do all the things that make the surrounding heaviness, feel a little lighter.

Joe made it his mission during the pandemic to combat that heaviness. I fell in love with him more through all this, watching him do everything within his power to make people smile. And that's why we're all standing on the front porch, watching cars pull up to the ranch.

"Music heals people in a way nothing else can," he said to me a week ago when he told me of his plan to put on a concert.

We did it drive-in theater style, and watching everyone pull up and roll down their windows, made me smile more than I had in weeks.

Joe approaches his makeshift stage a few yards out from the house, and within minutes, we get lost in the music, pulled away from the grief that none of us could've ever imagined we'd experience.

I look around at my family and friends as they sway to the music. These people who helped me and our community through the worst of what many of us have ever seen, and I can't say I'm happy. I was sad, angry, exhausted, but I clung to that idea of happiness, because as I've learned before, happiness always comes back around to find you.