by Laura Drake
Sawyer—Momma—Mrs. Wheelwright—hurry.
I’m cranking the engine before I have the car door closed. I throw it in reverse, and my soggy shoe squelches when I press the gas. Einstein shoots into the flow. I can feel the water slapping the undercarriage as hail drums on the roof. When I turn onto the deserted square, there’s a huge branch from one of the old maples blocking most of the street. I squeeze by and pray this is the last one I see.
As I roll out of town, the wind calms and the rain stops. Instead of being relieved, the trickle of ice becomes a flood of slush in my veins. There is a green tint to the light; the sky ahead is black. In the hush, an electric current lifts the hair on my arms, then shoots through my body, making me twitchy in my own skin. I’ve felt this before.
Twister’s coming.
Alone on the road, I splash on, pushing Einstein to the edge of control, scanning the horizon for funnels. “Come on. Come on.” I come to a low spot, where water gushes across the road in a brown, raging river. I brake at the top, trying to remember how low this dip is.
Sawyer! The voice in my head is Patsy’s.
I floor it and hit the water like it’s a solid wall. Only my seat belt keeps me from flying forward. The tires lose traction, then lose purchase altogether. The water pulls and pushes the car off the road.
It stays perpendicular to the flow, and within a hundred feet it jams against the sides of the arroyo, stuck like a fishbone in the stream’s throat. I sit a moment, my brain bathed in panic. Think!
The rain begins again, and the wind buffets the car. I’ve got to get out. I look upstream to the road. Waves splash against the window. Not that way. But I’ve got to move fast. If more water comes and pulls me off my perch, I’m in deep trouble.
I eye my purse, but it’s so heavy, it would pull me under. I grab my phone and stick it in my bra, thankful I paid extra for the waterproof case. When I crack the door, the water rips it from me, pulling it wide. Hang on, Momma. I’m coming. I push myself into the flow.
Cold takes my breath, though the rain cascading down my face is warm. I touch bottom; the water is only waist deep. My feet are pulled from under me, and my head goes under. The current is a living thing, tugging at me, pushing, pulling me along. I kick furiously and am almost to the bank when a submerged claw catches my foot, dragging me back. In a surge of adrenaline I kick again, and I’m free of what I hope was a branch. I finally make the edge and pull myself up the muddy bank, backsliding and grabbing roots for handholds. I flop in the dirt at the top and suck in lungfuls of rain-infused air. I’m a football field downstream from Einstein, twice that to the road. I’m exhausted, I’ve lost a shoe, and my ankle is scored with deep furrows.
Hurry!
I shoot a look around. No funnel clouds. I pick myself up and run/hobble toward the road, grateful that by some miracle I’ve ended up on the “home” side of that river.
When I make the road, I turn and head down, jog as fast as I can. Water drips off my hair, and I’m shivering, from cold or shock, or both.
Hurry!
A jagged streak of searing white cuts the sky, and I count, like Momma taught me and Patsy when we were kids. Two seconds until the thunder rolls inside my chest. Thank God the storm is moving away.
I’m limping worse, my sock is soaked in blood, but I’m getting closer—just a quarter mile to go…
Finally, I’m to our yard, but I can’t see the house for the whipping branches of the white firs out front.
Hurry!
I splash through the water-filled ditch, duck through the trees, and stop in shock. The barn is flattened, but the house—
The yard is littered with the debris, a branch through a window on the porch, and fully half the roof is gone. My feet are rooted as I try to absorb the damage.
A baby’s cry comes to me on the wind.
Chapter 15
Reese
Hey, Reese.” Manuel jogs from the barn. “Did you hear? The area around Albuquerque was hit with, like, three tornadoes this morning.”
“What?” Alarm jangling down my nerves, I pull Brandy up and dismount.
“Yeah, they say it’s a mess over there.”
I’ve already pulled my phone and hit speed dial. Albuquerque area covers hundreds of miles. The odds of—
I’m sorry, but all circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.
I hit the number for the café.
I’m sorry, but—
“Shit.” I toss the reins to Manuel and head for the house at a dead run, my heart thudding in time with my boots. I fling open the door and take the grand staircase two steps at a time. In my room, I grab my iPad, pull up my flight software, and check the radar. Socked in. No way I can fly there. I pull up the Albuquerque weather and discover four separate tornadoes went through the area. One touched down in Unforgiven.
I try again even though…
I’m sorry, but all circuits—
Ice cubes of dread clatter in my stomach. My foot drums a cadence, trying to burn off pressure. I’ve got to get there. To see for myself they’re okay. I stand and grab my overnight bag, throw in a week’s worth of clothes, and head for the bathroom to pack essentials. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. It depends on what I find.
God, don’t let me find…
The part of my heart I left in Unforgiven tugs like a warmblood horse, urging me to hurry. I zip the bag and head out to let Manuel know he’s in charge while I’m gone.
* * *
Lorelei
Sawyer’s wail jerks me from immobility. I sprint on rubbery legs for the back door, dodging nail-filled boards and the worst of the glass. My lungs work like bellows.
Hurry!
The screen door is gone and the glass in the wooden back door is broken out, shards scattered across the back step. I hop over the debris as best I can and push open the door. “Momma?” I step inside, realizing when I put my stocking foot down that there’s glass here, too.
“Wahhhhhhh!” Sawyer’s cry spirals to a hysterical screech.
I run through the wind-tossed kitchen, ignoring the slicing pain in my foot. I splash across the living room carpet to Sawyer’s nursery.
She’s pulled herself up and stands clutching the bars of the crib, face crimson, wailing. I snatch her with shaking hands and hug her to me. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. Are you hurt?” My voice cracks, and I’m crying almost as hard as she is as I check her head, her legs, her arms, for bumps or breaks. “It’ll be okay, Momma’s here.” Her diaper is soaked, her face covered in snot.
Which means…I glance at the ceiling. Cold sweat washes over me. Except for Sawyer’s crying, the house is silent. Upstairs will be dangerous. I can’t take Sawyer with me, but putting her down is going to be the hardest thing I’ve done today.
No, second hardest. The first will be walking up those stairs.
I lay her in the crib. “I’ll be right back, baby. I promise.”
Tears roll down the sides of her face, and she reaches for me, but I step back. Her wail starts up again.
I glance around the room, pull the thin crib blanket from the back of the rocker and tie it around my red, shoeless foot. Then I limp to the stairs and look up—into blue sky. It shocks me, not because I didn’t know the roof was gone, but because of the wrongness of it.
“Momma?” I step around shingles and broken boards, shifting them when my way is blocked. A small stream of water runs down the middle, where the steps are worn. “Mrs. Wheelwright?”
I finally make the landing My heart stutters and I close my eyes against a rush of vertigo. Not only is the roof gone, but a good part of the back wall of the house is, too. “Momma, I’m here.” The floor is a tumble of boards, sodden clothes, and broken furniture. I carefully make my way to where Momma’s bedroom used to be. Heavy roof-support beams are broken and scattered like a giant’s pick-up sticks.
A rattle behind me makes me jump.
“Hello! Is someone out there? Help us!”
“Sarah? It’s Lorelei. Is Momma with you? Are you two okay?” I scrabble at the wood, trying to miss the exposed nails, but still hitting some.
“Oh, thank God. We’re okay, but I can’t get the door open.”
“Hang on.” I dial 911, and they promise to get here as soon as they can. I keep digging, flinging chunks of plasterboard and God knows what all behind me.
Sarah’s voice is muffled by the heavy oak door. “We were downstairs, and I knew it was getting bad. I went to change Sawyer, and Mary…she ran upstairs looking for your daddy.”
“Ow, dammit.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just found some glass. Tell me what happened.”
“I ran after her, but there wasn’t time to get her back downstairs before the twister hit. We got in the bathtub.”
“Patsy?” Momma’s thready voice tells me the toll today has taken on her.
“Hang on, Momma. I’m almost there.”
There’s a crash from downstairs, then a hysterical squeal.
“Oh, crap. Hang on, Sarah, Momma. I’ll be right back.” I scrabble back, and heart skittering, vault down the stairs, ignoring obstacles, water, and pain. In the nursery, Sawyer has rocked the crib enough to knock it over, and she’s on her back in a puddle of water, screaming.
I lift her, and she clings to my neck like a limpet. I rock back and forth, murmuring nonsensical words to calm both of us.
My brain is like the carpet: soft, spongy, and waterlogged. I know I have to do something, but just what is beyond me. I can’t leave Sawyer. I can’t take her upstairs to that mess. I can’t leave Momma and Sarah…I glance up. Water spots have bloomed several places, and the plaster in the corner is sagging. Oh my God, what if the ceiling gives way?
Momma. Sarah, Sawyer. What do I do?
I rush to the bottom of the stairs. “Sarah? Can you hear me?”
“Yes!”
“Do not move. I don’t think the floor is stable. Get back in the tub, and stay there. Okay?”
The sweetest sound I’ve ever heard floats through broken windows. The wail of a siren, getting closer.
Two minutes later a fire truck turns in, an ambulance right behind. They make me wait outside with Sawyer while they go in. An EMT checks us out and tells me Sawyer is just cold and shocky. I have a nasty cut on the bottom of my foot and several shallower ones on my hands. He wraps my foot, tucks Sawyer and me in a blanket, and I sit at the edge of the stretcher where I can see the back door until they bring Momma and Sarah out and I can breathe again.
They are wild-eyed and bedraggled but able to walk to the ambulance. Momma is cradling her left arm and insisting she’s not leaving without Daddy. When she fights off the EMT and tries to run back inside, they give her a shot to calm her.
When they are helped into the ambulance, it’s a tearful reunion, and I hug them too long.
“All set. Let’s go,” the EMT tells the driver.
“Wait, I can drive.” Then I remember that Einstein is yet one more casualty of this day. I glance to the side of the drive, where Sarah always parks, but her car is buried under a huge oak limb. “Never mind.”
I couldn’t care less about my car. Today I came so close to losing these irreplaceable people that make my life worth living. I spend the whole ride to the clinic hugging Sawyer, my gaze flicking from Momma to Mrs. Wheelwright and back. The tornado can have the rest. I have everything I need right here.
Thank you, Lord.
* * *
They stitch up my foot, and then I sit with Sawyer sleeping in my lap, my foot up, in the crowded clinic lobby. Momma is sleeping off the shot in a curtained cubicle in the back. She has a few scrapes and a sprained wrist. There wasn’t room for us all back there, so Mrs. Wheelwright is with her.
This is where I hear the big picture, from the walking wounded waiting like me.
Tornadoes are fickle, capricious creatures, touching a filthy finger here, then there, destroying one house, leaving ten others standing around it. Downtown was spared except for felled trees, broken windows, and water damage, but many outlying houses were hit, a few reduced to matchsticks. They’ve opened the high school gym for evacuees, but the thought of cramming in with a bunch of people sours my stomach. I just want to take Momma home, hold Sawyer, sort this all out in my mind, and grieve.
My chest vibrates, and I jump. I forgot all about the phone. Seeing Reese’s name on the screen sends a blast of welcome heat. “H-hello?”
“Oh, thank you, Lord. Lorelei, are y’all okay? I heard about the tornado, and—what is it?”
A choked sob made it around my hand over my mouth. “Reese.”
A gray-haired lady I don’t know stands over me, arms reaching for Sawyer. “Here, hon, give me the baby.”
I grip Sawyer tighter.
“I’m Pat Stark’s mother—remember me? It looks like you need to talk to that caller. You can trust me. I’ll stay within your line of sight, promise.”
“Lorelei? Talk to me!” Reese yells in my ear.
“That’s so kind. Thank you.” I let her take Sawyer, and she lays her over her shoulder so gently, the baby doesn’t wake.
“What’s going on? Lorelei?”
“I’m here.” I stand and hobble to the window, for some vestige of privacy. “I got washed away in an arroyo, then ran home, and oh, Reese, the roof was gone, and Sawyer—”
“Is Sawyer safe?” The terror in his voice echoes in me.
“Sawyer is okay. She was in her crib. But”—I bite my lips, hoping the pain will help me get control—“Momma. Mrs. Wheelwright. They were upstairs when it hit, and they were stuck in the bathroom.” I’m pushing the words with all the breath I have, but they come out a whisper.
“Are they okay?”
“Yes. A bit battered and freaked out, but yes, thank God.”
“Where are you? I hear people.”
“I just cut my foot, and they made me come to the clinic. But, Reese, it’s all such a mess…”
“Look. I’m already on my way, okay? I’m eight hours out. I’ll come get you. Where will you be?”
“I d-don’t know.” My voice is wavery and watery. Knowing he’s on his way is a massive relief. I didn’t realize how adrift I was until I heard his voice. “I tried calling Carly from the ambulance. She didn’t answer, and neither did Nevada. I’m not sure—” My throat locks on a wad of loss.
Sawyer wakes on the older lady’s shoulder, and seeing it’s not me, let’s out a heart-wrenching wail.
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry, but—”
“Lorelei, listen to me. Hang on for just a few more hours. I’m on my way, and then I’ll take care of you. And Sawyer. And everything else.”
Silence, for the span of a breath.
“But only if you want me to.”
“O-okay.” For some stupid reason, his surrender of control breaks the dam inside me, and I’m crying again.
“Lorelei? It’s okay, babe. I’m coming. That’s all you need to think about right now. I’m coming.”
* * *
A touch on my shoulder wakes me. I tighten my arms around Sawyer and open my eyes. Reese is squatting next to me, face inches from mine. There’s a mix of emotion in his eyes: sympathy, worry, and a bucketload of tired.
“Hey,” he whispers, to not wake any of the sleepers in the chairs around me.
“Hey.” I try to sit up, but I’m tangled in the scratchy army blanket, and Sawyer is a deadweight. But she cries if she’s not touching me. Even in her sleep, it seems, she’s insecure. And who could blame the poor thing? “What time is it?”
“Around four.” Reese reaches for her. “Here, I’ll take her.”
I hand her to him, and he cradles her like she’s still a baby, though she clearly isn’t. Her legs dangling over his arm makes me realize ho
w much she’s grown. He looks into her sleeping angel face and runs the backs of his fingers down her cheek.
He must have been frantic, thinking something happened to the last of his line.
“How’s your mom?”
“They’re keeping her overnight for observation. Mrs. Wheelwright is with her.”
He sits next to me and touches my arm. “Oh my gosh, your foot. You said you cut it, but you didn’t say it was bad.”
The thick bandage extends from my toes to midcalf. “Looks worse than it is.” Just one more obstacle to deal with.
“How many stitches?” He peers down his nose at me; then his eyes soften. “How many?”
“Twenty.”
He swallows. “Can you talk about it?”
I shrug. The cotton in my brain seems to blunt the emotion. Or maybe the tears have washed it out. I tell him the story in a flat voice, starting from when I woke yesterday, though it seems a month ago.
By the end, his arms come around me and he presses my head to his chest. His lips brush the top of my head and he whispers, of everything and nothing. Sweet words, full of support and caring, that weave together like a warm blanket, covering my battered heart.
I stay there, inhaling his cologne, and below that, his scent. My mind is blank. I’m empty. Tomorrow, or more like today, there will be everything to face. But for now it’s just so damned good to have someone watch my back so I can relax and rest safe. Emotion and sounds fade before a rushing tide of exhaustion.
I’m jostled, and I spring awake. “Momma.”
“It’s okay. You sleep.” I’m leaning against him, his arm around me.
I straighten, wiping my mouth to be sure I didn’t drool on him. “Oh God, I’m sorry. How long have you been sitting like that?”
His arms slide away and he sits up. “Not long. You need to rest.”
I pull my phone from my bra. Five. “Not as much as you. You had to have driven straight through to be here by now.”