Hope had heard her father tell stories from his youth, from times before the invasion, when the world was full of people. Back then, her father would say, you didn’t have to hunt or forage for food. Everybody had a job to do, and when you did it, you got money for it. All you had to do to make a living was do your job and get your money. With the money, you could trade it for food, shelter, tools, or whatever you needed.
These are foreign concepts in today’s times, with people scarce and far between. You have to learn to take care of yourself fast, or you won’t live long. Money is a concept you read about in books these days. You can’t eat it and it has no practical use. If you want something someone else has, you have to have something useful to trade.
Back in the old days, there were “restaurants,” which Hope’s father explained were buildings where nobody lived, but were like big kitchens and dining rooms where people could go to buy food and eat. She had seen one of them a couple of months ago when her father took her down the mountain to scavenge for the first time. The restaurant, now ravaged by weeds and with a tree growing through the floor of the dining room, was once a “burger joint” that served her dad’s favorite foods that no longer exist, like “hamburgers.” Those were like sandwiches with ground up cow meat and cheese and lettuce and tomatoes inside. Now the cows are all gone and you can’t make hamburgers anymore, but Hope’s dad still spoke of them fondly sometimes when he reminisced about the old days.
The family clung to the old traditions as much as possible. The holidays from the world before the invasion were precious, because they broke up the monotony of daily survival. The seasons changed slowly. Each day, you have to find food, eat, sleep, and try not to get killed. But the holidays make days special. They create a reason to continue trudging through life, even if only because you look forward to celebrating the next holiday.
Hope remembered this as she was thinking about what to do for her dad for Father’s Day. She and her sisters had made a dress for their mom for Mother’s Day using some colorful fabric she had found while scavenging. But she didn’t think her father would appreciate a dress, or even vibrantly colorful trousers, so she spent several nights thinking about the perfect gift.
It was one night around the bonfire when her father mentioned the old days when his parents would take him to a restaurant called McDonald’s, that Hope got an idea. A perfect idea. She would let her dad experience McDonald’s again, only this time it would be pretend. Hope and her sisters will treat their dad to a “McDonald’s” feast for Father’s Day!
The idea came easier than the execution. How could they make hamburgers in a world without cows to make beef and wheat to make bread? Deer were plentiful in their forest, and they had corn that they used to make crude tortillas. They might have to get creative when making their hamburgers.
Hope and her sisters Luck and Wish began preparations days before the holiday. She asked her older brother Connor to shoot some meat for the feast. Not the wild turkeys that were so plentiful around the bunker, but maybe something bigger. With no cows around, they would have to substitute a different meat. They did, however, have plenty of lettuce and tomatoes in the garden. Fortune was on their side because Connor came home with an elk a couple of days before Father’s Day.
Father knew there was some type of Father’s Day feast planned, as the inhabitants of the bunker sat outside around the fire for an elk dinner the day before the holiday, but Hope and her sisters kept the exact nature of the feast secret. They squirreled away the portion of the elk meat that they needed.
On Father’s Day, Hope sat in the kitchen amid the lantern light gingerly chopping a red mound of elk meat into tiny chunks. Luck and Wish stood at another table with mortar and pestle grinding dried corn kernels down into cornmeal for making their crude tortilla buns.
As the afternoon grew late and some of the other inhabitants of the bunker began to come outside, or return from the wilderness, the sisters began the final step of cooking the meal on the grill tops and ovens. Father, Connor, and a few of the other men had gone scavenging and should return soon.
It grew later. The hamburgers were done and waiting—they had come out better than Hope had expected. Mother had just returned from the river and was hanging some of the clothes up to dry. Hope sat down anxiously attempting to read a book, Huckleberry Finn, but privately worrying that Father had not returned yet. Her sisters had run off to shoot arrows with some of the older kids from the bunker.
As the sun began to dip below the treetops, Hope’s mother joined her in sitting, waiting, and worrying. It was getting late and the food was cold. Still no sign of the men. Two deer grazed at the edge of the clearing. A groundhog trudged across the tall grasses. Hope shook her foot nervously as she watched and ran prayers silently through her head. Where are they? The deer looked up, and ran off. Her mother scanned the area with her binoculars, then put them down and sighed. She took Hope’s hand in hers. But then Hope saw them. A group of men finally emerged from the forest. First Emil and Jackson, then Liam, and finally Connor and Noah with Father between them, limping back toward camp.
Hope and Mother ran out across the field to them. Off to the side, Luck, Wish, and some of the other kids came running from where they had been playing.
“Mason!” Mother called out. “Are you okay? We were so worried!”
“I’m alright, just twisted my ankle. But I’ll be alright. You all eat yet?” Father said.
“Daddy, let’s eat McDonald’s!” Luck and Wish shrieked in unison as they hugged their father.
Father gave Mother a questioning look, and she smiled in return.
Hope hugged her father hard and her eyes teared. “Happy Father’s Day.”
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