“How did you sleep?” she asked.
“It was hot,” I said. “I, I mean the temperature.”
“Oh. Yes, me too. I’m all sweaty. God, I wish I could shower.”
“Me too,” I said. “I just wish I had some water.”
“Me too. Daddy, I have to pee so badly.”
“So do I, but I was thinking of what we talked about, about the pee drinking.”
She made a face. “Yuck. Tell me it’s not that desperate.”
“Well, we could go search for water.”
“What if a rescue team comes while we’re away?” she asked. “Or what if we get lost in the woods again?”
“I could go alone,” I said.
“And I’d be left stranded by myself if you got lost again?”
“Okay, what do you think we should do?” I said.
“I don’t know. I don’t have a plan. I just don’t like yours.”
“I wish we had our water bottle.”
“Why?” she asked. “There’s no water to refill it.”
“We could have, you know, peed in it.”
“Oh god, it really is that desperate, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter, because unless we piss in our hand, we have no way to drink it.”
“Let’s just look outside, around the cabin, maybe we’ll see something in the light.”
We opened the two windows and then the door, letting in some light. The fire had gone out, but now that the sun was up, the morning was starting to warm us as we stepped outside. We made a quick search of the outside of the cabin, but we only managed to turn up an old axe for cutting firewood, and a pair of filthy overalls, which neither us wanted to touch.
A view from the top of the cabin didn’t tell us much more in the light than it did in the night, except that in the far distance, we could see a building, but it felt like a hundred miles away.
“Where is the rescue team?” Abby asked.
“I’m sure they’ll find us today.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then they’ll find us tomorrow. You have to keep faith, babygirl.”
She nodded. We went back into the cabin and sat down, splitting another granola bar for breakfast, which made us both thirstier than ever.
“Daddy,” Abby said.
“Yeah?”
“I think we should drink our pee.”
I took a breath. “Yes, maybe we should risk it. But we don’t have a container.”
“We’ll do the hand thing, like you said. Will you go outside and do it first, and tell me if it’s okay?”
“You want me to go first?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. It’s gross. If you can’t stomach it, there’s no way I can.”
“Baby, 90% of it is just going to be wasted. I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.” I swallowed. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“You know, never mind. Let’s just pee and we’ll figure out something else for water.”
“Wait, no, what were you thinking?”
“It’s a bad thought. Never mind.”
“Daddy, just say it, because I was thinking it too.”
I took a deep breath. “Really?”
“Oh, god,” she said. “Please just say it.”
“Well, you could… drink my piss, and I’ll drink yours.”
She hung her head and put her face in her hands. “This is so gross and wrong.”
“I know. We don’t have to.”
She looked up at me. “Daddy, we have to. If rescue doesn’t find us, we’ll die in a couple days without water.”
“You really want to do this?”
“Of course I don’t want to,” she said. “But I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a breath. “So, how do we do it?”
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