The disorder was unsettling. Repairs meant change, since we never had enough of anything to fix things exactly as they had been. Always a bit of make-do involved. Rubio could endlessly explain how change was inevitable and necessary, but he hadn’t convinced me to welcome it. After Abel, I’d relied on the dull predictability of den life to restore my balance. Now I felt change coming, as inevitable as the next hurricane, as sure as the warm rain on my back.

I joined a team clearing shards of broken furniture and mending tears in the hoop coverings that were small enough for plastic tape to hold the edges together. The tape itself was as precious as the heavy sheeting. We’d been allotted one roll from the materials storeroom. Each piece must be cut to the exact size needed for the repair. No waste to be tolerated. And as this was a team of lads, their idea of me helping was mostly ‘hold this’ and ‘hand me that’ while they went on with their loud replay of the sniping and what who should do about what.

Finally, I slipped away into one of the undamaged hoops on the other side, to get out of the wet and find more useful employment. The place was empty, the young vegetables stretching in green rows from end to end. The palaver of goats and muttering hens in their runs on the lower terraces softened the clang of hammers and the rhythmic rasp of hand saws from across the roof. It was almost peaceful. I decided to thin the rows of collards, gathering the thins into a small tub for soup greens.

Stretching my back at the turn of a row, I noticed a woman bent over the carrot beds at the far end. A brimmed straw hat hid her face. Each time I glanced her way, her back was to me. After a while, this weirded me out. Usually, you’d at least offer a greeting when joining someone at work. I picked up my tub of baby greens and wandered over.

“Excuse me . . .”

“Yes?” The woman spoke into the fluffy carrot tops without lifting her head.

“Can you tell me, am I pulling the right ones?” I held out my tub like a total newbie.

She straightened and peered into the tub. “Oh, yes. Very well done. The kitchen will be delighted.” She bent back to her work.

It was dotty Ellie Mae.

Now, I’d have said the kitchen was full of cranks, snarks, and grouches, but maybe she knew them better. In the Mess, with the tables crowded with the young and active, this woman seemed frail and gray. Up here, she looked at home and quietly in charge.

I searched for an opener. “Nice to be dry, huh? That third house over is a wreck, but this one made it through all right.”