“Can I get some help here?” He cocked his head toward the injured man hanging on his shoulder. Maurice stepped forward and hoisted the man’s weight. They followed Bobby to the house, a sad parade slogging through three feet of water. Bobby warned them away from obstacles. “Don’t step there!” he shouted, and pointed off to his right. “Big hole!” And a few moments later: “Old tractor parts up here. Swing wide. Follow me.”
Obi respected Bobby’s sure instructions. Here was a boy who’d spent his life on these acres and who knew them by heart. Bobby’s stutter disappeared as he led them across the land. Obi kept an arm around Liam as they walked, though he needn’t have bothered. Liam wrapped his body around Obi’s torso like a strangling snake, and there was no chance he’d let go.
* * *
At the house, a frantic young woman rushed to meet them. “Oxygen!” she shouted. “Electricity is out. Daddy needs oxygen.”
Maurice pushed the injured man back onto Obi and sprinted into the house. The woman followed. Obi and Bobby stood on the porch, supporting the weight of the injured man between them, all three of them soaked to the core. Obi felt shackled. His rifle, slung across his back, was out of reach as long as he held the man.
The woman reappeared. “He’s okay. He’s okay.” She looked at Bobby when she spoke, but he didn’t respond. Her chest heaved. Obi felt sorry for her. She had the look of a woman completely overwhelmed. She let her eyes track across the sorry group of soggy men.
“Dear God, what in the hell happened?”
“Wreck wreck wreck car,” Bobby said.
“This is too much.” Her body slumped until Obi thought she might fold in half. “This is too goddamned much.”
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” She looked hard at Obi.
“Your friend here almost killed my son,” he said. “We’ll be on our way.”
The woman reached out and touched Liam’s arm in a way that was just a little too familiar for Obi’s comfort. “No,” she said. “You can’t have a child out in this weather. Is this your son?”
“Of course he’s my son.” Obi kept his voice steady, but he didn’t mask his anger. Liam could have been killed, and all they wanted to do was establish paternity.
“Come inside,” she said. “Leave the gun. I won’t have that gun in the house.”
Obi hesitated. She met his eyes. “You won’t need it.”
She took the injured man’s arm, and Obi slid the strap of the rifle off his shoulder. He placed it under an old, rotted wood-slat bench on the porch, close enough to retrieve as soon as he got a chance. He might not need it, but he didn’t intend to be without it for long.
It was dark inside and oddly quiet except for the rain on the roof and the whoosh of the wind. The only other sound was a steady pffft, pffft, pffft coming from the next room. They stood, dripping, in the kitchen.
“How did this happen?” The woman pulled a chair from the kitchen table, and the injured man slumped into it.
“Wreck, wreck, wreck,” Bobby said.
“Wreck, wreck, wreck,” Liam whispered against Obi’s neck.
“He lost control in the rain,” Obi said. “Damn near killed my son. He had no business driving in this storm.”
“I forced him out.” Her voice shook. She sank into a chair. “I sent him out into this mess. He never should have come here, but I’m the one who sent him out. I saw how bad it was raining, and I sent him out anyway.” She sighed. “If everything in life is a choice, then my choices are terrible.”
Obi recognized fear in the woman’s voice. She was running, too, if only from her own demons.
Maurice strode through the kitchen and opened the freezer. “I need ice. And you should call 911. We need to get both of them to a hospital. That spare tank won’t last more than a day.”
Obi gathered that Maurice was caring for someone in the next room. His mother had mentioned a sick husband.
The woman went to the phone, and put it to her ear. “Line’s down.”
Maurice emptied ice trays into a plastic bag at the sink. The woman rushed over and shut the freezer door. She scolded Maurice. “There’s no electricity. All our food will spoil.”
Maurice put the plastic bag on the man’s head. “I needed ice.”
The man’s head lolled forward. “Ouch.”
“Well, don’t hurt him,” the woman said.
“I’m not hurting him. He has a concussion. We need to keep him awake.”
Bobby reached over and pinched the man hard on the arm. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll keep him awake.” He pinched the man again.
“That’s enough for now.” Maurice touched Bobby’s arm. “Just make sure he keeps this ice on his head. It should help with the swelling.”
Obi watched all this from his spot just inside the door. Liam squirmed; Obi held him tight. He didn’t want any part of these people’s messy, complicated lives. He had enough problems. It was one thing to take shelter in a house; it was quite another to get mixed up with people. Obi intended to keep his distance. Liam had other plans. He squirmed wildly until Obi had no choice but to set him down or drop him.
“Oh, you’re soaked to the bone, aren’t you?” The woman smiled at Liam. She was prettier than Obi had first thought. Liam grinned at her, walked straight over, and crawled into her lap. It took every bit of control Obi could muster to keep from snatching him back. Liam looked all too happy in his new spot. The woman put her nose to Liam’s head and sniffed. “We’ll get you dried off. I’ll bet you’re freezing.” She wrapped her arms around Liam. Obi froze. To see Liam in this woman’s lap, so comfortable and content, disturbed him. He’d thought they were doing okay without a woman, that Liam didn’t need a mother. He saw now that he was wrong. Something about this woman called to Liam. She called to Obi, too.
He forced himself to speak. “I’m Obi. That’s my son, Liam.”
The woman kept her face buried in Liam’s curls. “I’m Melody.”
“Your mother knows my mother,” Obi said. “Your mother told my mother that we could camp here. I’m sorry for the trouble.”
Melody raised her face to meet his eyes. “You know my mother?”
She seemed familiar. Her brown eyes were the color of the earth, and her skin was pale and clear as the full moon. He knew her from some other time, perhaps from some other life. “No. My mother knows her. I don’t know her at all.”
“Well, you’re not missing much.” Melody expelled a bitter laugh. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth in a way that made her look like a very young girl. She seemed even more familiar. Thunder shook the house.
Maurice pulled the injured man’s head back and pressed ice to the wound. He used a damp towel to wipe away the worst of the blood. The man moaned and then giggled. “That tickles.” He pitched forward and vomited on the table, stared at the steaming puddle, and said, “Whoops!”
“He needs a doctor,” Obi said.
“No kidding,” Maurice said. “Until then, we have to keep him awake. We’ll get him to a hospital as soon as the storm passes.” Maurice gestured for Bobby. He moved Bobby’s hand under his on the ice pack. “Hold this here for me. Be gentle.”
Obi noticed the affection between the men, and wondered about the nature of their relationship. Maurice left the room, returned with a large black bag, and rummaged through it. “Here we go.” He taped the gash on the man’s face, wrapped a length of gauze around his head, took the ice from Bobby, and handed it to the man. “Hold this against your head. That’s your job, okay?”
The puddle of vomit on the table began to stink. Melody shifted Liam off her lap. At the sink, she soaked a dish towel with water. “The pumps must be down. We don’t have much pressure.” She wiped up the mess on the table and dropped the soiled towel in a trash can. She fetched a larger towel from under the sink and wrapped it around Liam. “We’ll have to find you some dry clothes.”
Liam pulled the towel around his shoulders. “I like water,” he said.
The injured man pressed the ice pack to his face, sat back in the chair, and closed his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m awake.”
“How do you feel?” Melody asked.
“Worse and worse,” the man said. “Why did I come here?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I don’t remember why I thought it was a good idea.”
“It wasn’t a good idea,” Melody said.
“I thought I could convince you. I prayed on it.”
“Well, that’ll teach you.”
“Everything has gone so wrong.”
“It could be worse.” She sat and Liam crawled back into her lap. The towel she’d wrapped around him fell to the ground. “Though I don’t know how.”
Obi knew how it could be worse. He could be stuck here with these people when the law came for him. It did not ease his mind to see Liam cuddled up with the woman again. He resolved to retrieve his rifle first chance he got. He’d feel better with it close at hand. These people seemed okay. He liked the woman, but he didn’t trust her yet. He wasn’t ready to trust anyone.
Chapter Eighteen
Geneva’s mouth watered when she pushed open the heavy door of the bakery. Yeast, sugar, cinnamon, and comfort filled the air. Rain-soaked, shivering, a painful pulse of fear in her chest, she forced herself to speak to Atul. “What do you want? Let me get you something to eat.”
“I am not hungry. The smell of this place makes me ill. Fried dough and hollow pastry.”
The woman behind the counter glared at Atul. “We’re closing.”
“Oh, I just want some coffee and a quick bite of something,” Geneva said. “Your rolls are my favorite.”
“My rolls are everyone’s favorite,” the woman said. “There’s a flood coming. Haven’t you seen the news? I don’t want to be stuck here when the waters rise. I have to get home to my family.”
Geneva hadn’t seen any news, of course, but she hardly needed a weatherman to tell her a flood was coming. “I’m trying to get home to my family, too,” Geneva said. “I understand.”
“You’d better get moving, then. The man on the news says we haven’t seen a flood like this since 1927. We could get fifteen inches of rain before noon. The levees won’t hold.”
The men on the news were always measuring weather against the Easter flood of 1927. They were always wrong. It was just a bunch of hype in a place where days and weeks and years went by with nothing to report but cotton yields and catfish prices. Every few years, the floods came and riled up the forecasters. Geneva doubted this flood was any different from the rest, but she knew she ought to head home before the roads became impassable.
“I have some cinnamon rolls.” The woman slid the sticky buns into a white bag lined with waxed paper. “You can have them.”
Geneva opened her purse, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. It was all she had.
“No,” the woman said. “I’ve already cleared the cash register.”
“I should give you something.”
“Go home,” the woman said. “Go be with your family.”
“Let’s go.” Atul pulled at her arm. “We need to get back to Chandra. I should never have left her with that terrible man.”
The woman handed the bag to Geneva. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any coffee.” She turned off the lights in the bakery and herded them out the door, which she locked behind her. “Y’all drive careful, now.”
The woman’s car fishtailed as she pulled out of the lot. The rain fell in a frenzy, falling down and sideways and rising up at the same time.
“We have to go back!” Atul shouted, though he was standing right next to her.
She slogged back to the car, slogged through water that swallowed her calves and licked at her knees. The pulse of fear in her chest grew stronger.
“We have to get back to the station,” Atul said. “We should never have left her there.”
“Chandra’s not a child.”
“She’s just a girl and we left her there with that brutish man.”
Geneva’s pulse of fear turned to anger. “She’s grown, Atul. That’s what happens to children. They grow up.” For the first time, she felt a bit of pride for Melody’s stubborn independence. At least she could venture out into the world without falling to pieces.
“She is just a girl.”
“Fine.” Geneva slipped the key into the ignition. The engine groaned but didn’t turn over. She tried again.
“Oh, this is terrible. God is punishing us.” Atul beat his chest with his fists.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Geneva said. “It’s an old car. Give it some time.”
“You are trying to keep me from Chandra. You are trying to stop me from getting back to her.” Atul reached over and turned the key again. The car made an angry grinding noise.
Geneva slapped his hand away. “You’ll flood the engine. We just need to give it a minute.” She reached into the bag on her lap and pulled out a gooey, soft cinnamon roll, bit into it greedily. Sugar, mixed with the salty yeast of the dough, filled her mouth. Perfect. “Here.” She handed a chunk of the pastry to Atul. “This will make you feel better.”
He swatted it from her hand. “I said no!”
“You’re behaving like a child.” She popped another bite of the roll into her mouth. “Like a spoiled child.”
“We are going to be stuck here, and you don’t even care.”
“How can you say I don’t care?” She lashed out at him. “My husband is dying. I should be home with him and not here dealing with a grown man’s tantrums.”
“You don’t love your husband.”
“I love Bruce.”
“No,” he said. “You love me. You cannot love us both. If you loved your husband, you would not be here.” Atul crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window.
Geneva turned the key. The engine cranked. She backed out of the parking spot and pulled the car onto the road. Atul knew nothing. Of course she could love two men at once. She could hate them both at once, too. Bruce would understand that. He wouldn’t like it, but he would understand. Anyway, marriage was not about love; at least it wasn’t about the kind of love Atul understood. Bruce wasn’t a good husband or father, but he stuck it out. Anytime Geneva took a notion to leave, Bruce stayed. When she was in the mental hospital, he stayed. When she went to see Pisa and then Atul, he stayed. Geneva enjoyed the luxury of being eccentric and flaky, because Bruce was steady. He let her be just crazy enough to stay sane, something her own father never did for her mother. She loved Bruce for that. Atul could never understand that kind of love.
She steered the car through the waterlogged streets, skidding to the right and left. The road disappeared beneath her. Rain flew off the wheels, spraying a blanket of mud and leaves across the windows. The floorboard was soaked, and not just because they were dripping. She couldn’t see a thing.
“Slow down!” Atul braced himself against the dashboard. “Slow down or you’ll kill us.”
She laughed. It took so little to frighten him. Bruce wouldn’t scare so easily.
“Let me drive,” he said. “Stop the car.”
She pressed her foot down hard on the gas. The car lurched and swerved. “We have to hurry,” she said. “We have to get back to Chandra.”
“Stop!”
There were no cars on the road, no farm equipment blocking the way, just water underneath and overhead and inside. The windows fogged over with the heat of Atul’s fear and the damp warmth of their rain-soaked clothes. It was like traveling in a steam bath. A stream of water rushed across the road ahead. It was either go through the stream or turn back. She floored it. The car’s rear end swerved beneath her, then shot forward. Atul tensed and closed his eyes. Geneva leaned forward, kept the gas pedal pressed to the floor. “Come on, come on, come on,” she said. It was like flying. She believed the car would lift off and carry her over the water, carry her home. Instead, hitting the moving water was like slamming into a brick
wall. Water engulfed the car. They spun until she couldn’t tell which way they’d been driving. Her head yanked back and forth on her neck. Atul screamed. The car flipped and landed on the passenger side in a ditch full of rushing water, mud, and probably snakes. Atul panicked, tried to push open his door. Geneva unbuckled her seat belt and fell down on top of him.
“Get off!” He slapped at her. His nose was bleeding.
“Are you okay?”
“Get off of me.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
Geneva’s right knee throbbed and her left shoulder ached, but nothing seemed broken. If she could get out of the car, she could walk. Water seeped in around the passenger door where Atul lay pressed against the window.
“We have to get out of the car,” Geneva said.
He tore at his seat belt, complained it was choking him. She reached up and pulled the latch to open the driver’s-side door. Gravity and the pounding rain made it nearly impossible. She braced herself and kicked the door hard. Rain poured into the car.
“We’re going to drown,” Atul said.
“No,” Geneva said. “We surely are not.” She unlatched Atul’s seat belt and dragged him up past the steering wheel. He struggled. “Be still.” She hoisted her legs out the door and pulled them both out. They landed in three feet of water and stinking muck.
“We’ve got to get to higher ground,” she said.
“We are going to die.”
“Stop saying that!”
“I’m bleeding.”
“It’s a nosebleed. You’re going to be okay. We need to climb up to the road. No one can see us down here, and the water is rising fast. If we can get up a little higher, we can flag down some help.”
“Who?” Atul flailed his arms around. “Who is going to help us? Who would be out in this?”
“We can walk to the sheriff’s office. It isn’t that far from here.”
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