“I don’t know exact timing, but I’d estimate you have about a week until the numbers increase. Whether that’s a little or a lot depends on many factors.” Routes from cities. The locations around them where folks might stop first. If I were these people, I’d sit down and calculate it all out, but we’d given them the information. The rest would be up to them, because we’d be gone by morning. Tom seemed deep in thought, and I figured it was a good bet that he was already doing some calculations. He looked at his oldest son. “Uriah and Luca, go see the Bensons, Ortizes, Perkinses, and Hillmans. Tell them to meet here at ten a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“What if they ask why?” Uriah asked.

“Tell them you don’t know, but that your dad has some information he’d rather share in person.”

Uriah and Luca left the room, and a moment later, the front door opened and closed.

“I’m gonna go guard our road from the porch again,” Kyler said enthusiastically.

“Just make sure to stay on the porch,” his mother said. “Come get your father if you spot anyone.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The boy skipped out of the room. To him, at least for now, this was an adventure, and I hoped it’d remain that way, though I was all but certain it would not.

Tom turned back to us. “The families I sent Uriah and Luca to are the neighbors I trust the most. We all have different resources. That will be important.”

I nodded, glad I was right that he was already planning.

“Okay,” Jane said, the word breathy and filled with worry, “we’ll get a plan underway in the morning. Right now, I’m going to go to the shed and start bringing in some pots to put in the back room. It’ll be our temporary greenhouse.” She stood, and I thought her legs trembled a bit. What we’d said had obviously scared her, and I was sorry for that, but I also wasn’t because if they weren’t scared, they weren’t living in reality, and they wouldn’t do what needed to be done.

“Can I help?” Emily asked.

“You can help by collecting the eggs from the henhouse,” Jane said with a wobbly smile. I sensed she needed a bit of time alone and couldn’t blame her for that. She was a mother with three children and she’d just learned that hordes of people would likely be arriving on their doorstep in the weeks ahead, not to mention that the situation was going to last several years. I still felt slightly dazed when I thought about that. Staying on the move was helping me cope, and ensuring it settled little by little.

“Sure. Of course,” Emily said with a smile.