What A Mother Does

Erica always felt inadequate, but never more so than when she became a mother. Her mother, Eleanor (Nora to her friends), had always been the definition of perfection, and by that scale, she never knew how she would measure up. From her mother's perfect hair, makeup and flawless style, to her compassion and patience, there wasn't anything you could count against her. And she didn't have it easy by any means.

Her mother worked a full time job after her father was laid off. He was too prideful to ask her to work, even though he received rejection after rejection, and her friends from university were reaching out with opportunities, so she insisted to him that she felt like he needed a break after doing so much for their family.

Unfortunately, her father was also sexist enough that he felt household duties were beneath him, so her mother took care of all that too. Not to mention Erica and her twin brother Mikey were not quiet or shy children in the least bit. Any time they could get into mischief, they did. Her mother handled it all with grace and never complained or raised her voice. She was the mother every child would want, and to be honest, a wife their father didn't deserve. Less than a year after Nora went back to work, Mike had a severe heart attack and passed away, probably from all the beer and pork rinds he started eating after he lost his job.

In all honesty, life was easier after Mike passed away. Erica and Mikey didn't have to cower in their rooms when he was in one of his moods, and Nora no longer had to clean up after what amounted to a third child, nor did she have to listen to his verbal abuse as he took out his embarrassment at not being able to support his family on her.

After that, they sold their house and moved into a smaller place so their mother could spend more money on their education and vacations and spend more time with them than at work. From that point on, there wasn't anything Erica would have thought of as anything less than a perfect childhood.

When Erica had her daughter Nellie, short for Eleanor after her mother, she felt nothing but fear and asked her mother if she ever felt that way when she became a mom. "Of course I did," was all she would ever reply but would never elaborate, so Erica figured her mother was just humoring her.

She had been glad to have her mother in her life. Nora was the lifesaver she clung to since she had found out she was pregnant, and the father, Jake, had run off. After Nellie was born, Erica learned all the basics of mothering from Nora, but would never learn how to not let her worry show all over her face. That was a virtue Erica did not inherit from her mother. Her mother always told her, "Just take a deep breath when you feel like you are going to burst or feel overwhelmed, it'll all pass eventually." And with that, she gave her a gold heart-shaped locket she had always worn. "Your grandmother gave this to me when I had you and Mikey. I had a picture of her in one side, and one of you and Mikey in the other. I want you to have it now, and whenever you feel like it's getting too hard, I want you to hold this locket to your heart, take a deep breath, and know I'll always be with you and everything will be okay. We make it okay. It’s what a mother does."

Six months later Nora passed away from breast cancer. They didn't find out she had it, until it was too late. Erica and Mikey mourned her loss, but now Erica was relieved to know her mother was in a better place and not living in the hell that was the world just 2 year later.

A year after her mother had passed, Erica had been on a vacation in Ireland with a 2 year old Nellie in tow, when the ground shook and televisions all turned to a national broadcast. The geyser Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park in the United States had erupted as the largest volcanic explosion in history, and the reverberations could were reported to be felt worldwide. Nothing more was known after that as all satellite communication stopped working followed by the power.

Soon after the sky went dark and ash rained down, presumably over the whole world, they didn't know since cell phones and computers weren't working. Erica had no time to mourn her brother who lived in Montana. If ash was raining down in Ireland, there was no doubt that most if not all of North America was gone. Overnight the temperatures dropped below freezing and Erica barely made it out of the nearest sports shop with warm clothes and supplies for her and Nellie and got back to the hotel room to figure out what to do next. When she got there, the hotel had been locked and boarded up. No matter how hard she pounded and screamed, no one would open the door. The next days were filled with Erica and Nellie squatting in the house of a kind stranger here and there, but she couldn't impose too long on other families because their resources were also limited.

At night she would grip her locket to her chest and pray. She would think of her mother, and what her mother would have done in this situation. So she took a deep breath and kept marching on. Soon pipes froze, supplies ran out and food was scarce. Keeping warm in this new ice age became the priority. That night Erica had to set up a tent and build a fire using only what she could find and what she remembered from girl scouts. She packed herself and Nellie into as many clothes and blankets as they had and laid shivering in their tent until sleep overcame them...

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When the new ice caps started to melt and expeditions in the northwest hemisphere became the predominant site for excavation, Joseph and his team had come upon a new discovery. Though the other settlements uncovered were of towns with people still in their homes with archaic pipes and power delivery systems, they found what looked to be a native woman and small child. What this meant for this areas civilization 200 years ago, they didn't know yet, but this was one of the best preserved artifacts his team had uncovered and they would spend the next 6 months studying it all.