(OOC: We forgot about having to bury Jennifer. I'm going to pretend Allison made it a morning priority. Okay?)

Outside in his new [i]duds[/i], Frank followed Allison to the garage where Jennifer's body had been stored overnight. He found her neatly wrapped in the sheet his hostess had taken down to the highway with her the night before. After a moment of recollection of the life they had together -- short as it had been -- he asked, "Okay, where's this plot you talked about ... and a shovel."

Allison took Frank out back of the house and another 50 yards or so north, just past a small grove of nut trees. There, on a slight rise in the ground, was a private cemetery with headstones that Frank would see dated back over a hundred years. They selected a place for Jennifer and Frank got to work with a garden pick and shovel.

"I've got this," he told Allison before she even had a chance to ask if he wanted help moving the dirt. "You've got your canning. And someone needs to watch Robert. I mean, if you don't mind?"

Frank worked on the hole the rest of the morning, taking a rest occasionally. Allison brought him water and food, and they sat together mostly in silence, with the exception of Robert's baby babbling. When he thought the hole was sufficient, Frank enlisted Allison and her cart to deliver Jennifer to her final resting place. He'd never been a religious man, so his parting words to her were simple and to the point.

"I'll see to Robert as if he was my own son," he spoke softly. "I promise you that much. And ... I'll miss you. I miss you already."

He didn't know if Allison would have words of her own, but if she did, he would honor them. With that done, he began shoveling the loose dirt back into the hole. Once done, Frank smoothed the surface neatly. He would see to a headstone later, today or tomorrow but soon.

What he wanted to do was chores. He'd told Allison he was going to earn his keep. She led him through the barns and to the other outbuildings and ran through a dozen chores. He wasn't familiar with farming/ranching work, so he had plenty of questions. She answered them, and when she headed back to the house with Robert in her arms, Frank got to work once again. 

Every once in a while, the dogs would come whipping past him, traveling from one pasture to another or simply playing. Each time, Frank's heart would leap in his chest, followed by him laughing. The animals intrigued him in a way. A pandemic had killed -- was still killing -- the human race, with the estimates of the final fatality number being 98%, and yet the dogs still ran around doing their jobs and playing. They didn't care. It didn't affect them. They didn't know. Frank sometimes wished he didn't either.

When he finished his last assigned chore, he went to the house and collapsed back onto the wooden porch, exhausted. Allison came out a few minutes later, and without lifting his head he made eye contact with her, chuckled, and confessed, "I haven't worked this hard in a long time."