All Chapters of This Time I Keep the Keys : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Disaster day eleven June 13The chalk mark on the wall was above the road surface.Nessa stopped the van before the water began. From the last bend, the flooded stretch had looked shallow enough to reveal the center line. Up close, she couldn't see where the edge had gone.Gideon looked from the passenger seat, then toward the upper turning behind them.“Here.”“I know.”She secured the van and sat long enough for the desire to continue to pass through her without becoming an action. The depot was beyond this road. She had driven it in her first life long after the first surge.Water knocked a loose object against the wall. The chalk mark wasn't the present level; it was somebody's record from earlier.The road was failing before the map in her head expected it to.She took out the current route sheet instead.Their first alternative used an upper service approach. A road worker at the turning told them it had closed after debris shifted during the night. He had sent the update when t

Disaster day eleven June 13Nessa knew where the dressing cartons should have been.Third bay, inner wall, away from the cleaning supplies. In her first life, she'd stood in the collection queue long enough to memorize the shape of that doorway.Now there were rectangles in the dust where the stacks had been.She stayed at the checked dry threshold while Gideon watched the approach and Rory remained responsible for the boat. The building smelled of wet cardboard. No one answered when she called Farah's name.An empty wrapping spool rolled a few centimeters across the floor.For a moment she hated the building for being empty.Then she saw the current notice beside the service desk.Stock transferred. Upper packing unit. Ask at blue stair. Do not enter lower store.The time beneath it was less than three hours old.She read it twice. The broad black letters were Farah's present decision, not an apology for failing to preserve Nessa's memory.“We've got a direction,” she said.Gideon lo

Disaster day eleven June 13Rory made them look at the boat before looking at the list.The water at the platform had risen while they worked. A wider return passage remained possible, but its turns would demand clear working space. The load they could have arranged earlier would now interfere with the crew's access if they tried to fit every offered item aboard.“A hundred and eleven kilograms doesn't sound enormous,” Nessa said.“It isn't only kilograms.”He showed her the actual occupied space without moving anything unsecured. The dressing cartons were light for their size. The fuel cans were compact and heavy. Together, stacked where she first imagined them, they would leave the wrong places full.She put the pencil behind her ear and helped lay out the proposed cargo ashore.Five dressing cartons. One matched assembly. Three fuel cans.Gideon and Rory compared the arrangement with their remaining return margin. Nessa supplied the package dimensions and stopped trying to solve a

Disaster day eleven June 13Iona's message reached them before the old landing came into view.The lower access had flooded. Nessa's van remained dry above it, but the route between boat and vehicle no longer worked. Iona had checked from shore and wanted them to stop assuming they could unload there.Rory held at a suitable waiting position while Gideon asked for current observations.The boat could approach the outer edge. People and cargo could not safely cross the damaged ramp beyond it.Nessa felt the old urge to make one more part of the original plan survive.She looked at Tomas, wrapped in the dry covering the crew had available, and opened the delivery map instead.“Merrow Laundry,” she said.Gideon waited.“The upper loading court. They used the side bay when the main forecourt was being resurfaced. There's a higher service landing and steps to the road.”“You know they still work?”“No. Iona can look from the dry road before we go there.”He passed on the location and the d

Disaster day twelve June 14The receipt listed three dressing cartons, one control assembly, and no promises about the next delivery.Nessa read it over breakfast at Highwater. Twenty-four kilograms of sealed dressings had reached the clinic. The boxed assembly was fourteen. Gideon's crew had received one twenty-liter fuel can, nineteen kilograms including its container.Fifty-seven kilograms of cargo.Tomas had reached the crew's safe point, been assessed through the arranged service, and made contact with his sister. He was with people who knew him. Nessa didn't add his future to her household list because she had written his name beneath the cargo yesterday.Across the table, Gideon's left hand rested in a clean dressing.The clinic had assessed the injury, restricted the work he could do with that hand, and arranged reassessment. He had listened when they told him what changes needed attention. Now he was attempting to spread something on bread with the patience of a man who badly