America's Sunset: A Post Apocalyptic Fight for Survival by Norman Christof

day certainly fit into that category. The vegetable garden was doing better than she had hoped, due to the cooler summer and a couple of big rain storms. Sometimes, she figured, Mother Nature really understood her. Well, why wouldn’t she? They were both gardeners, and they both understood what it was like to raise challenging children. Maggie smiled to herself at the thought of challenging children. Were there any that didn’t fit that description? Not that Maggie ever for a day begrudged being a mother. Well, maybe there was that one day, back when the kids were first stretching their teenage muscles. That was an exception for sure. A garden back then would have been a welcome respite, if she could have spared the time. 
    “You know,” Jake mentioned as he walked by carrying another box to the cottage, “that garden could be even more amazing if you let me build a rainwater collection system as part of the cottage.”
    Maggie didn’t even look up, she just went on digging. “Why thank you for noticing, it really is an amazing garden this year now, isn’t it?” She wasn’t taking the bait about spending more money on the cottage.
    “It could be like this every year, not just the odd summer when we get the occasional Texas monsoon.” Jake set down the box he was carrying. “It wouldn’t take much money. Not really. And, if you thought about it for a bit, I bet we’d save money on our water bill.” Maggie kept on digging. “I was reading somewhere that Texas has some of the highest water bills in the entire US. I mean, with all the watering restrictions, wouldn’t it be nice if we just had our own supply of water?”
    “Have you seen the size of the weeds this year?” Maggie said, tossing some big green leaves into a plastic bucket. “These things seem to do even better than my tomatoes, and look at the size of those tomatoes, will you. They’re like small grapefruits.”
    “C’mon, Maggie, you know it makes sense. Even if it’s just for the gardening. We wouldn’t even have to do any fancy filtering, at least not right away.”
    Maggie turned to look at Jake. “Jake Banner, I’ve lived with you plenty long enough to know exactly how your mind works. There’s no way you’re going to leave a project half finished.” Jake looked down at his feet to hide the smile on his face. “I can pretty much predict the next conversation we’d be having. You’ll be half-way through working on this water collection gizmo, then you’ll come up with some brilliant idea about how it could be so much better. How it could save us money. How it could make our lives better. How we’d be so much healthier. How, how … how it could pave a path of gold from here to Oz and eventually lead us to the fountain of youth.”
    Jake looked up. “Now, c’mon, you know I don’t go for any of the fancy stuff you read in those crazy books of yours. I’m very pragmatic.” Jake crossed his arms. “My finished projects always deliver on their promise. You’ve got to admit to that now, right?”
    “Sure, they do. But, the keyword to keep in mind there is finished. You don’t always finish everything.” Maggie stood, and stared down the road to the front of the property.
    Jake’s eyes followed her stare. “Now, don’t get started on that again, Mags.” Jake pointed to the original farm house at the front of their property. “That place is pretty close to being done. Everything is insulated and running … mostly.”
    “That place has been ninety-five percent finished for the last year. You said you were going to get it finished months ago.” Jake didn’t say a word. He’d run out of excuses for this argument a long while ago. “I’ll make you a deal. You get that place habitable, and we line up some renters for it, then you can use that money for whatever cottage projects you want for the next year. I won’t spend a dime of it.”
    Jake chewed on his bottom lip as he paced back and forth, thinking of what was