Hurricane Season

by Lauren K. Denton

  Ty smiled. “I appreciate that.” He didn’t need the help, but Roger and Ty’s grandfather had been close, and if the man wanted to take care of him, it was best to just let him.

  Down in the yard, most of the kids were horsing around on the grass under the big tree, but Addie stood a few yards away, near the house. Hide-and-go-seek, maybe.

  Betsy and Linda stood next to what used to be Betsy’s garden. Now it was barely more than a briar patch. The soil was hard and untilled, and any vegetables still buried in the earth must have been hard rocks by now. It was a shame, really. Betsy had enjoyed that garden when they first moved to the farm. She worked it every day, coaxing everything from potatoes and carrots to marigolds and roses to grow just a little bit higher, a little bit fuller.

  It had been a long time since he’d seen her out in the garden. A year, maybe two? She stood next to it now, one hand shading her eyes, her other hand on her hip. Linda tugged on a limp stalk that leaned sideways against a fence post. Betsy shrugged and Linda shook her head. When Linda pointed at something else in the garden, Betsy patted her on the arm and motioned for her to follow. Away from the garden, away from her forgotten mission.

  Linda waved to Ty and followed her husband out to the barn. Together, they walked around its perimeter, pointing at who-knows-what and nodding like they knew exactly what Ty was doing wrong on his grandfather’s farm, making a list of what he needed to do to fix it.

  Betsy crossed the yard, dodging running children, and climbed up on the fence rail next to where Ty stood, hooking her toes under the board below her. She tilted her face up and closed her eyes. Late-afternoon sunshine filtered through the big oak and cast long shadows on the grass.

  Ty reached up and propped his elbow on her knees. “What insightful wisdom did Linda share with you?”

  “That I’m a miserable gardener.”

  Ty laughed. “Really?”

  “Mm-hmm. No gardener worth her salt would start something like that and then just let it all go. She offered to come over and help me whip it back into shape.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  Betsy sighed and stretched her arms out in front of her. “I told her I’d let her know if I needed help.”

  Ty nodded. “Think you’ll ever get back out there? It seemed like something you enjoyed.”

  “Oh, I did enjoy it. I just . . . It got out of hand, and the longer I stayed away, the worse it got. Maybe one day.”

  Down in the yard, Roger’s grandkids—ages seven, nine, and eleven—had circled around Walsh, who was happy to be the center of attention. While the older kids watched, she performed trick after trick—sloppy headstands, rolls on the grass, jumps, leaps. The kids cheered and hugged her. Walsh beamed.

  “Where’s Addie?” Ty looked to the corner of the house where he’d last seen her.

  Just then, the screen door to the back porch opened and Addie tiptoed down the steps. As Walsh’s laughter rang out and her antics became even more animated, Addie took careful steps toward the group in the grass. At the last minute she darted off toward the henhouse, where she paused in the shade along one side of it, her eyes still on the other kids.

  “What is she doing?” Ty asked.

  “I think she’s nervous around the bigger kids. She wants to play, but she’s scared to join in.”

  “Why? Look at Walsh out there. No fear.”

  “Come get me,” Walsh called to the kids, and she darted off to the side of the yard. Addie took a few steps out of the shadows, but not enough to join in the game.

  “Jenna was like that when we were little,” Betsy said. “I was more like Addie. I used to be jealous of how Jenna was so brave and daring.”

  “Daring. Yep, I’d say that’s a good description of Jenna.”

  “But it was more than just that. She’d jump in the middle of a group of kids and start playing with them like it was no big thing. I was always too scared. I’d wait until someone asked me to play. I was Addie, tiptoeing around the edge, wanting to be a part of things. Jenna never tiptoed.”

  Betsy shifted on the fence, straightened out her legs, then tucked them back under the rung. “I remember I had a slumber party once. I think it was for a birthday. My twelfth or thirteenth, I don’t remember. It was the same thing. They were my friends, but Jenna was the center of attention. She had bought some nail polish with her allowance money. It must have been the one time she actually did enough chores to get her money for the week. She showed the polish to my friends and they were goners.” She laughed. “I still remember what it looked like. Purple with glitter in it. Very Jenna.”

  “You didn’t tell her to leave? Kick her out of your room or something?”

  “I couldn’t. Even though she made me mad, borrowed things without asking—and usually returned them broken or stained—she was . . . magnetic. I remember watching all my friends watch her, their eyes glued to her. I wanted to be mad, but really, I just wanted to be more like her.”

  Ty shook his head. “And now? Do you still wish you were like her?”

  Betsy was quiet, studying her feet on the wooden board. She shrugged. “Parts of her, I guess. I’m not sure I’d want to spend two weeks in the Florida wilderness, but there’s something appealing about having the courage to jump at opportunities as they come. To not think twice.”

  “I don’t know, Bets. Maybe she should have thought twice about it. She has two good reasons to have thought long and hard before she booked this retreat on barely a moment’s notice.” He gestured toward the girls out on the grass.

  “That’s not exactly what happened. You know that. We had barely a moment’s notice, but that’s just because she didn’t find out she got in until a few days before she was supposed to be there. She didn’t just drop the kids off on a whim.”

  “Well—”

  “She didn’t. Or that’s not what she meant to do. Anyway, she’s my sister. We’re family. We help each other out.”

  Ty clenched his lips together to keep from saying more. No sense arguing over what had already happened. Out in the yard Walsh hung off the swing while Addie picked dandelions in a shaft of sunlight. He squeezed Betsy’s knee. “They are kind of fun to have around though, aren’t they?” As the kids’ laughter bounced around the yard, he leaned his shoulder against her hip. “But we get our house back soon.”

  Betsy smiled and nodded.

  “Think you’ll miss ’em?”

  She shrugged. “A little.”

  Ty watched her carefully, trying to catch a chink in her armor, but she gave nothing away. She rested her arm on his shoulder, but her eyes remained steady on the girls. Addie had left her plucked dandelions in a pile and now approached Walsh on the swing. She whispered something to Walsh, and they both laughed.

  “We keep talking about getting away, but I’m going to call tomorrow. Maybe check into that little place in Perdido Key with the wooden boardwalks and the sunsets over the river.”

  Betsy looked at him. Raised her eyebrows. “My field trips can’t pay for that kind of place.”

  Ty wrapped his arm around her waist. “Don’t worry about that. I have a little money put away for something like this. Something for us.”

  “You do?”

  She seemed so surprised that he wanted to kick himself for waiting so long before taking her away somewhere. He should have done it months ago.

  “Okay then,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  Betsy nodded. “I could use a vacation.”

  nineteen

  Jenna

  On her last night of the retreat, Jenna walked toward the barn to meet Gregory, her mind somersaulting with mixed emotions—hope and dread, nerves and confidence. She readjusted the camera strap that hung across her shoulder, as if the camera were heavier with all the photos it held. She’d taken hundreds during her stay at Halcyon. Not even half of them were worth showing anyone, but some—a few dozen—gave her hope. Maybe she was even a little proud of them.

  That morni
ng he’d caught her on her way out of the dining hall and asked her to meet him in the barn after dinner. “We both know you won’t show up at workshop, but it’s part of my job to make sure you get the most out of your time here. Why don’t you meet me in the barn? We can go over your work there.”

  The lights in the barn were dim, except for the gallery spotlights shining on the photos on the wall. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw it—her own photo on the far wall. It was a shot of a tall, thick cypress tree on the bank of a bayou in The Bottoms wrapped in the “arms” of a strangler fig. Also called a love tree, the fig both embraced and strangled its host. A flyer in the dining hall detailing plant life around the preserve noted that the host trees often died, their life snuffed out by the determined fig.

  She’d been struck by both the sadness and the determination of the two intertwined trees. At some point, the fig would likely win the battle, absorbing all the available light and water, leaving the cypress to wither and die. But right now, they were balanced, both sporting bright-green leaves and healthy bark. Both determined to thrive.

  And now, that moment was housed in a black frame, standing out from the pale wall behind it, only Jenna wasn’t the one who’d framed it.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” Gregory entered the gallery from a room in the back. He dropped his bag on the floor and sat on one of the chairs across from her photo on the wall. “What do you think?”

  “You did this?”

  “It’s one you left hanging to dry. I had an extra frame in a closet . . .” He shrugged. “Just thought you might like to see it.”

  Snappy comebacks and sarcastic brush-offs skirted through her mind, then leaked away. “Thank you. It’s hard to believe I took it, really.”

  “It’s all you. You have a knack for getting just the right angles, but you also see things others might not notice. Like that tree there.” He nodded to the picture. “A lot of people, myself included, probably would have walked right by it in search of something less . . . mangled. But you saw a different kind of beauty. Sometimes perspective is more valuable than technical skills. You’ve got that instinct.”

  “I’m not so sure.” She sat in the chair next to him.

  “Trust me. I’ve been doing this a while.” He leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows on his knees. “Let’s see what you brought.”

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a manila folder. It was the first time she’d used the Epson printer in the main studio, and she’d been excited to see how her photos came out. However, while the Epson printed her photos in perfect, crisp color, she missed the almost spiritual process of developing the black-and-white film in the dusky red light of the darkroom.

  He sifted through the stack of photos, pausing to look at one or another, then slipping each one back in the stack. When he got to the end, he flipped them back and started over again from the beginning. As she waited for his reaction, she smoothed the bottom of her shirt, pressing it flat with her hands, then rolling the bottom edge in her fingers.

  Her second week at the retreat had been drastically different from the first. She’d walked nearly every path, bridge, and sandy mound in the preserve, some with Gregory at her side but often alone. She stayed out all day, often forgetting to stop and eat, shooting until the dusk swallowed the light. Though she felt out of her element when she had first arrived at the retreat, unsure of her ability to capture anything meaningful from trees, leaves, and darting geckos, she now felt as adept shooting nature scenes as she did people. She felt electric, her creativity burning through her as it hadn’t since her time in Wyoming, alone and free.

  She was beginning to think she could do this—could find a way to fit her art, her creativity, into her routine life of kids, work, bills, and housework. The task seemed impossible—her life at home was so tight, her free time doled out in such small chunks, she didn’t know how to add these new urges into her normal, day-to-day world. But her new sense of purpose was hard to ignore.

  “Tell me about this.” His sudden words jolted her from her thoughts. He flipped through the stack and pulled one out. It was the shot of the canoe she’d rescued by the lake. Ugly and rusted, with a shaft of fuzzy sunlight beaming through the jagged hole. “When did you take it?”

  “A few days after you took me to the waterfall and blasted me about my amateur photo skills.”

  “Blasted? I prefer to think I inspired, but whatever I did, it was worth it if it pulled this out of you. The first images you took were bland. Then—wham—you come out with something like this.”

  Relief flooded through her. She loved the shot too. “I was on my way to dinner when I saw it. I wasn’t even thinking about what I was doing.”

  “That’s when the best stuff happens—when we’re not overthinking. It’s a good way to live, really. Don’t overthink, just do. Works in a lot of situations. It’s already working for you.” She inhaled, the corners of her mouth pulling up into an involuntary smile. “But you still need practice. Let me show you a few things.”

  He spent the next few minutes dissecting a handful of photos, pointing out where she’d missed her angle or lost perspective. She was glad for the critique—to grow as a photographer, she needed the honest feedback—but it was hard not to hear his words as marks against her hard work. Against her.

  “Do you agree?”

  He was watching her, waiting for an answer, but she’d missed the question. “I’m sorry. Do I agree with what?”

  He reached forward and dropped her photos on the low table in front of them. “All right. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Please, continue.” She swallowed back the annoying lump in her throat. “You were talking about how I got the shadows wrong, I think.”

  He sighed. “Jenna, this is your critique, just like if you’d been in the workshop. If you’re an artist, you can’t react like this.”

  “I’m not . . . I’m not reacting in any way. And I’m not an artist.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I’m a photographer, right? Isn’t that what you want me to say?”

  He leaned forward, close enough that she could see gold flecks in his brown eyes. She looked down at her hands. “But what is a photographer if not an artist? Are you not creating something beautiful, something that will make the viewer feel, or escape, or dream? Something that challenges the way we see the world, or encourages someone, gives them hope or direction? That’s what art does. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  “I’m trying to.” Her words were clear and as sharp as his, but she still couldn’t look in his eyes.

  He reached forward and tilted her chin up with one finger, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t guess. Know it. You are an artist. Get it through your head now or when you leave this place, you’ll go right back home and pick up your life as if this experience were nothing more than a blip on your radar.”

  He sat back in his chair and gazed at her photo on the wall. “Look, there will always be people who criticize your work. I’m trying to help you, to make you better than you think you can be, better even than you’re trying to be. But those people who truly criticize, who belittle—their words don’t matter. What matters is that you can’t be the one to drag yourself down, okay? You have to carry on, regardless of whether anyone—me, another mentor, or some idiot walking down the street—understands or appreciates your art. It is yours alone and your approval of it, your acceptance of it, has to come first.”

  Outside, the world was alive with nighttime sounds, but inside, other than their breathing, it was silent.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She nodded, buoyed by his intensity and the fire in his eyes. “I get it.”

  “Good. You are a photographer, Jenna Sawyer. Even more than that, you’re an artist. A good one. And you have the potential to be even better.”

  She waited for more, but he stood and looked at his watch. “I have a mentor meeting at nine, so I nee
d to get back. You’re welcome to stay here if you want.”

  “I need to get back too.” She gathered her photos. “It’s been a long day. And I need to call my sister and let her and my girls know I’ll be heading back soon.”

  “So they’re staying with your sister?” He flipped the lights off and held the door open for her. Outside, the steamy air was quieter than before, as if the humidity were cotton in her ears.

  She nodded. “She and her husband live on a farm in Alabama. Lots of room for kids.”

  “Bet they’re having a blast.”

  “Oh yes. Betsy sent me a photo today of the girls sitting on top of a cow out in the middle of a field. They had such big smiles.” She couldn’t admit it, but seeing Addie’s and Walsh’s carefree, easy smiles had been hard. Did they miss her at all?

  Their feet made soft sounds on the leaves covering the path through the trees. Their only light was the moon, full, round, and unobstructed by clouds.

  “It’s good they’re with family. Sounds like you don’t have to worry about them.”

  “I’m not really worried.” She gave a small laugh. “Betsy’s good at everything. She probably figured out the whole mom thing in about five minutes. Five years in and I’m still trying to get it.”

  He glanced at her. “Seems like it’d take a while to get the hang of parenting. It’s probably not something that comes naturally—giving up your wants and needs for someone else.”

  They came to the bridge over the bayou, the water hazy with moonlight.

  “You know you can stay longer if you want.”

  She thought she’d heard him wrong. “Excuse me?”

  “You can stretch out your retreat. Stay.”

  She stopped where she was on the bridge. “What are you talking about?” When he realized she’d stopped, he backtracked. “What about those hundreds of people who apply for each session?”

  He shrugged. “If you want to stay, we try to make it work. As long as there’s space, of course, and in this case, we just found out a writer had to back out of his session. He was planning to stay to the end of the eight weeks, so that spot is wide open. If no one here takes it, Casey will call the first person on the waiting list sometime tomorrow.”