Chapter 67

The moon was high when Jorick and Loren returned to the house. They deposited several plastic shopping bags on the couch and unpacked them without fanfare. Jorick presented her with a large stack of what appeared to be jeans and sweat shirts and a pair of white tennis shoes. Meanwhile, Loren took the food to the kitchen and Katelina tried not to look disappointed by the small cartons of microwave macaroni and cheese.

"They didn't have most of the food on your list," Jorick commented when he noticed her forlorn expression. "So I had to improvise." He handed her another bag that held socks, underwear and a bottle of shiny pink nail polish. He waited until she'd rifled through it to ask, "It meets with your approval?"

"Yes," she agreed enthusiastically, the frozen food forgotten in the face of the small pink bottle. It was something so tiny, that she'd had plenty of at home, and yet now it seemed like a precious commodity. It was something sane amidst the chaos of irrationality.