by Karen White
I picked up the receiver and dialed the phone at River Song. I let it ring ten times before hanging up and trying again. This time Wes answered on the second ring.
“Wes. Thank God. Lacy and I have been eaten up with worry. Why didn’t you tell anybody where you were going?”
“Because I didn’t want anybody to stop me. Somebody had to come down here and get River Song ready for the storm. I have to run to the store still to get some supplies and food in case I can’t leave for a while. It’s going to be bad.”
I closed my eyes, listening to the staccato beats of rain against the window. “You shouldn’t be there. They’re evacuating.”
“I know. But there are things I need to take care of here. Things that nobody else knows to do.”
His voice sounded odd to my ears, and I wondered if it were because of the bad connection. “Are you all right, Wes? You sound . . . different.”
“Did you talk with Lacy?”
“About what?” I almost screamed into the phone. I wanted him to tell me that he was headed back to New Orleans, not ask me about his wife.
“I can’t talk any more, Aimee. I’ve got to take care of things.” He paused for a moment. “All truths rise to the surface eventually.”
I gripped the receiver tighter. “What are you talking about? There’s a hurricane heading toward Biloxi. You need to leave now.”
“I can’t. Go stay with Lacy and Johnny and keep them safe.”
For the second time in as many days, I heard the line click and then the sound of the dial tone. I hung up and dialed the number again, each number on the rotary dial seeming to take longer and longer than the last. I got a busy signal the first few times I called, and then nothing but empty air. If the phone lines were down, it was only a matter of time before the power went out, too.
One last time, I picked up the phone. “Lacy, it’s Aimee. I found Wes. He’s at River Song getting it ready for the hurricane.” I paused. “Did you argue before he left?”
Fresh sobs erupted into the phone, but when she spoke her voice was harsh. “You could say that.”
“He didn’t sound like himself on the phone, and I’m worried.”
Her laugh was soft and unexpected. “You have no idea how worried you should be. You’re so naive, Aimee.” She sniffed. “You have no idea.”
“You’re not making any sense, Lacy.” The rain slapped against the side of the house. I looked around at the nearly empty rooms, devoid of paintings and furniture I’d moved upstairs. My aloneness resonated within the walls, echoing with each drop of rain.
“Aimee?” Lacy’s voice sounded hoarse. “Are you there? Are you coming over?”
I hope the time will come when you two will be able to put what you want first. Gary’s words came to me with so much clarity that I imagined the world around me became brighter. There was nothing for me here, in this house, in this city. Everything I loved was at River Song, with Wes.
I cleared my throat. “He shouldn’t be alone,” I said, my voice trying to sound convincing for both of us. “I’m going to drive to Biloxi, see if I can get him to go to a shelter.”
“No,” she hissed. “I’m still his wife. I should be the one with him.”
“You’ve got a son, Lacy, and you need to stay with him. Stay here with Johnny. Hopefully Mr. Guidry will be back home soon. If not, you’re safe where you are.”
“Please don’t go.” Her voice pleaded now, but I wasn’t sure whether she didn’t want me to go because she didn’t want me with Wes or because she was afraid to be alone.
“I promise we’ll be in touch as soon as we can find a working phone. Stay with Johnny. He needs you.”
Without waiting to say good-bye, I hung up the phone. Grabbing a raincoat and umbrella, I ran out to my car in the teeming rain and headed toward the highway. Despite the open road in the direction I was heading, I didn’t go as fast as I wanted to. The roads were slick, the wind strong, and I had no intention of being blown off the side of the road.
The traffic flowing in the opposite direction was heavy but moving. I imagined that most of the full-time residents of the coast would remain in their homes as a point of pride. Since Biloxi was about twelve feet above sea level, most people considered themselves safe once they’d taped up their windows. I hoped that many of them were watching the news and the predictions for the ferocity of this storm and heeding the evacuation advice. But even I, who had grown to love the area as if I were a native daughter, would have to be convinced of impending danger before I would leave.
They’d closed Beach Boulevard and I had to drive through back roads to avoid the barriers and come up to River Song from behind. I parked on the street that lined the side of the house and opened the car door. The wind snatched it out of my hand, and for a moment I thought it would blow off its hinges as I wrestled with the wind to get it closed again. I’d left the raincoat and umbrella in the car. Neither would be any match for the sheets of rain that soaked the world around me.
I crossed the yard to the front walk, my feet sinking in sand and grass, my shoes saturated. I saw Wes’s car in the drive as I ran to the front porch, now bare of rocking chairs and hammocks. A brand-new shovel with a sticker tag still attached to the light wood handle lay faceup near the door.
Rain battered my back, and I didn’t stop to knock but pulled open the screen and opened the front door. Stepping in quickly, I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. The wind howled outside, almost blocking out the sound of the blood rushing in my head.
Something hit the side of the house with a loud wooden slap, making me jump. The shutters rattled like a band of drunks, hitting against the window frames in a haphazard pattern. The lights flickered, and I dreaded the inevitable moment when the lights would go out for good.
“Wes! It’s Aimee.”
Footsteps pounded on the stairs. When he appeared at the bottom, his eyes widened. “What in the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay in New Orleans.”
“I was worried about you. You didn’t sound like yourself when we spoke, and then you weren’t answering the phone.”
“The phones are out.”
“I told Lacy I would get you to a shelter. You shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here.” For more reasons than a simple hurricane.
The front door groaned, its hinges straining with the pressure. “There’s no time.” He took my hand, but there was no warmth. “We need to finish securing the shutters. With the wind and rain it’s taking me five times as long to do each one.”
He dragged me up the stairs after him. The bedroom where Gary and I had stayed was dark from the closed shutters, and I was grateful I wouldn’t have to go in there.
“In here,” Wes called from the sleeping porch, and I quickly followed. I wanted to talk to him, to ask him what he’d meant when he talked about the truth rising to the surface. I wanted to know whether it had anything to do with what he’d wanted to talk to me about when we’d spoken on the phone earlier, but darkness came like a door shutting as the wind and rain increased their fury, erasing all thoughts but survival from my head.
We struggled with each window, the rain pouring in as we opened each one to access the shutters, the wind fighting, and sometimes winning, against our efforts to pull them shut and bolt them from the inside over the windows. We’d managed to close the four on the porch and had moved to the front bedroom when I saw headlights moving across the lawn.
We both stared at the window as the ceiling light flickered twice.
The driver’s door opened and a woman stepped out.
“Lacy,” Wes said through clenched teeth.
And then the passenger door opened and Johnny leaped out of the car and struggled to close it. Giving up, he ran to the porch, his mother close behind him.
“Dear God,” Wes said, as he headed toward the stairs and the lights went out, throwing us all into a black abyss.
I struggled to find the flashlight Wes had given me earlier that I’d
stuck inside the waistband of my blue jeans. My fingers were slippery and cold, and I fumbled for the “on” switch, managing to turn it on and head for the stairs behind Wes, my shaking hand creating a dancing orb of light.
We both aimed our flashlight beams at the two sodden figures inside the front door. Johnny ran to me when he saw me, and I put my arm around his trembling shoulders.
Wes stood, shaking his head at Lacy. “Why are you here? And why did you bring Johnny? Why did you bring our son?”
His anger rolled down his skin in the rivulets of water. Johnny clung tightly to me as Lacy looked up at Wes and swiped her wet hair off of her face. “Because I didn’t want you here, alone with her. And I didn’t know what you would do with . . .” She stopped and glanced at me.
All truths rise to the surface eventually. I stared at Lacy and her limp hair, no longer feeling sorry for her. She knows, I thought. Whatever it was that had drawn Wes to River Song, Lacy knew.
The walls and windows of the house shuddered and moaned, the wind screaming. Wes shouted, “The hurricane’s hitting at high tide. Go! Upstairs, go! We don’t have much time.”
Pushing Johnny in front of me, I headed for the stairs with Lacy close behind me. When I reached the top I looked down the stairs and saw Wes waiting on the bottom step.
“Wes, you’ve got to come, too.”
He shook his head. “Go to the interior upstairs bathroom and get in the bathtub. I’ve got something I’ve got to do first.”
“No!” Lacy screamed. “It’s not worth it.” She started down the stairs, but I grabbed her blouse, pulling her back.
“You can’t, Lacy,” I shouted over the sound of the storm. “Don’t do that to Johnny.”
Her jaw stiffened as she made up her mind. She looked at her son and her face softened. Glancing back at Wes one more time, she took Johnny’s arm and ran the rest of the way up the stairs.
I stood near the top, torn between safety and Wes. “Where are you going?”
“It’s just something I need to do. So I can sleep at night. So . . .” He stopped. “Be safe, Aimee.” He took a step backward. “I love you. I never stopped.”
I was too angry to respond, too scared of the cloying darkness with only the thin beam from my flashlight to illuminate what lurked in the corners. I stayed where I was long enough to watch him disappear from my sight and listen as he wrestled with the front door to open and then close it again. I watched from the window at the bottom of the stairs as he crossed in front of it on the porch, bent over at the waist, then leaned down to pick something up before disappearing from my view.
I took the stairs two at a time, losing a shoe but not wanting to take the time to retrieve it. The bathroom door was shut, and when I turned the handle it was locked. Banging on it hard, I shouted, “Lacy, let me in!” I banged on it again, my mind searching for the possibility of finding a room without a window in a beach house built to enjoy views of the sound.
It took only a moment for the door to open inward, and I stumbled inside the small room.
Lacy, with her hair flat against her head and her makeup washed away, looked like a child who’d just lost her favorite doll. “I’m sorry, Aimee. I thought you’d go with Wes.”
I closed the door and locked it again, although I wasn’t sure what I really thought I could keep out. Johnny, who, at eleven years old, was almost as tall as I was, sat in the empty bathtub, his arms wrapped around his knees, his face turned to me as if I had all the answers. The tub was small and couldn’t accommodate all three of us.
“Lacy, get in with Johnny. I’ll sit here on the floor next to you and wait.”
“To get rescued?”
I looked at Lacy, resisting my impulse to shake her. Everything she’d been raised to be had no bearing here, in this island of a bathroom in the middle of a hurricane. I touched my forehead to the cold porcelain of the tub, feeling unprepared to be anybody’s last line of defense.
“What do we do now?”
I looked up at Johnny and put my hand on his arm. “We wait. And pray. There’s nothing else we can do. And if the water rises to the second floor, we go up to the roof. Hopefully your dad will be back soon, and he can help.”
A soft sob came from Lacy, and I wanted to shout at her to stop, that she was scaring Johnny and not helping. Instead I placed a hand on her shoulder and left it there for a moment. “This house has survived bad storms before. There’s no reason to think it won’t again.”
They looked at me with identical expressions of hope tinged with realization, and I had to look away. The beam of light from my flashlight dimmed. I knew spare batteries were kept in the kitchen, but I wasn’t leaving the bathroom. “I have to save the batteries, so I’m going to turn off the flashlight until we really need it.”
I held my thumb over the switch and turned it off, throwing us into inky blackness. Things continued to bang and slap against the house, the sound of the straining walls muted in our makeshift shelter. A booming crack rent the night outside, cutting through the sounds of the raging wind. It was followed by an almost deafening crash that shook the floor beneath us. I stood, frozen with fear, listening to the walls wail and for Wes’s voice, and waiting for the virulent thing that crouched in the darkness to find me.
Nobody spoke, and I thought for a moment that Lacy and Johnny might have fallen asleep. But then a hand reached for mine, and I felt the wedding ring on the third finger. “Thank you,” Lacy said, and nothing more before she let go of my hand and she melted into the darkness. I wasn’t sure if she were thanking me for being there or for not following her husband outside.
A shout cut through the night, and I strained my ears, wondering if it had been my imagination. I stood, feeling Lacy and Johnny turning their heads toward me. I heard it again, closer this time, and flicked on my flashlight. “Did you hear that?”
They both shook their heads.
“I heard somebody shout. It might be Wes. He might need help.”
Johnny stood but I waved him back. “No. You two stay here. I’ll go see.”
I didn’t wait long enough to hear any protests. Unlatching the door, I stepped into the upstairs hallway. A shutter had come loose on the sleeping porch, and wind and rain streaked inside through the broken glass. I glanced down the stairs just in time to get out of the way as Xavier ran toward me, half carrying, half dragging Wes. The flashlight beam caught a jagged tear of red cutting through Wes’s scalp and forehead, diluted blood dripping down the side of his face.
There was no time to think or be surprised. I took a step back and opened the door. “Put him on the floor. I’ll wrap his head with towels.”
Lacy threw her hands over her mouth and stared in shock. Johnny reached over and grabbed a beach towel from the rack and folded it up like a pillow to place under his father’s head as Xavier laid Wes on the floor beneath the pedestal sink.
I took a hand towel from the ring beside the sink, then sat down and pressed it against the gaping wound on Wes’s head. He seemed to be unconscious, which was probably a good thing. Any aspirin that was kept in that bathroom wouldn’t be enough.
“What happened?” I asked Xavier. The knees of his blue jeans, as well as the front of his shirt, were covered in mud. Aiming the dim beam of light at Wes, I saw that he was, too, and that his hands and nails were embedded with thick, dark mud. “What are you doing here?”
He jerked his chin toward Wes. “My mama told me he was coming down here, and I knew that was bad news. So I came, too, and found him outside. One of those limbs on the oak out front broke off and hit him in the head. Good thing I found him.”
He stood and backed away to the door. His hand was fisted, holding something inside. “It’s going to be all right now. I don’t have to run anymore.” He put his hand on the doorknob and began to turn it.
“Xavier, no. You can’t go. It would be suicide.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Miss Aimee. I’ve got a place to go.”
“Let him go,
Aimee. Let him go. He knows what he’s doing.”
I turned to look at Lacy, who stood in the bathtub, her back pressed against the wall. A look passed between them that I couldn’t decipher. All truths rise to the surface eventually.
“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on here?”
But Xavier had already slipped through the doorway, closing the door behind him, and Lacy resumed her hunched position in the bathtub with her son.
Terror took root in my belly as the deafening roar of the wind and debris pummeling the house tore at my ears. I did what I could for Wes, changing towels when the one on his head became soaked with blood. He regained semiconsciousness and asked for water. But nothing came from the taps. I could have laughed: all the rain and water outside but not a drop to drink.
Lacy kept asking about Wes, but stayed in the tub. There was no room for her to move anyway, and I wanted to keep my hand on his chest to make sure his heart still beat. I had never seen such darkness—no streetlights, no moonlight, nothing but seamless black in the windowless room. We began to pray out loud when we heard a sound like that of an approaching train, a loud booming whistle followed by the crack of torn wood and shattering glass. Wes flinched under my hand and Lacy cried out, but Johnny and I remained silent, realizing that our shouts wouldn’t be heard.
The wind grew stronger and louder, slicing now through the cracks under and around the door, and I wondered if another window had broken. The deceptive calm of the eye passed over us, and I had to press Lacy back into the tub so she wouldn’t leave the room.
Eventually the rain stopped its unremitting pounding, the wind its brutal pulse. Lacy and Johnny fell asleep, but I forced myself to remain alert, to press my hand on Wes’s chest, to listen for anything that would tell me that this was all over.
I knew dawn had arrived by the gray light that crept through the cracks around the door. Wes still slept fitfully, but he’d survived the night. I stood, my neck and shoulders stiff from sitting on the floor for so many hours, leaning against the sink.