by Beth Jones
How would she be able to tie the rope in time to something on the house, with surging flood waters all around her? She wasn’t a great swimmer. Her fear of drowning came over Rachel again, but she pushed the thought away, like floating wicker furniture caught in the current.
She couldn’t believe people were playing around with this storm. That they’d been warned on the weather radio not to go to the pier, not to get too close, or try to take pictures or videos to upload to YouTube in real time. But yet they were doing this, in droves—and dying for it.
People are thrill seekers. People are crazy, she thought. She was actually surprised at herself for not getting out her iPhone, too, trying to take pics and videos for her blog. But this is one time her blog content could wait!
Besides, it was so dark outside and late, and with the wind, torrential rain and the booming thunder, sounding like the Apocalypse horses’ hooves pounding across the sky, nothing would show up on her camera. It seemed the darkness was not just from the night, but a pervasive spiritual darkness as well. A devouring spirit, a spirit of death and destruction hovering over the land. You could sense an evil presence, thick in the air.
She knew from studying storm surges on the internet about Hurricane Katrina that water rises six to 10 feet in minutes, and the speed of a surge is comparable to Class III or Class IV rapids, with people often drowning trying to get out of the room they are staying in. Violent storm surges put people at risk of being hit by debris or being swept away.
It wouldn’t do any good to try to call 911 if your house was flooding, even if your phone miraculously worked (highly unlikely due to towers going down) or you had a license to have a ham radio, because the waters are unnavigable by boats when it’s coming ashore.
Almost 70% of cell phones didn’t work during Hurricane Katrina, she remembered. People freaking out, panicking, trying to call the police, the sheriff department, family, seconds just before they drowned in the flood waters. Innocent children’s little bodies in mud-caked, blue jeans and tenny shoes, discovered alongside their parents, desperately trying too late to rescue them. People pulled from trees by the force of the current, washed out in the Gulf and drowning.
Why am I thinking of all these horrible things? Think positive, Rachel scolded herself. She then prayed Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.
Rachel then remembered the horrifying movie The Impossible with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, about a tourist family in Thailand who were caught in the destruction and chaos of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on a true story.
The tsunami’s waves, in some places up to 100 feet high caused by an earthquake measuring 9.1 to 9.3 magnitude, slammed into the Orchid Beach resort two days after Hendry Bennett, his wife Maria, and their three sons Lucas, Tomas, and Simon arrived, where they were happily vacationing for Christmas. The Thai people lost everything—homes, businesses, families. Rachel remembered the woman, Maria, and her son Lucas in the movie coming up out of the water, gasping for air.
Maria and Lucas submerged from the water, with Maria having serious injuries. The father, Tomas, and Simon survived, too, but Simon was injured. Eventually the family was miraculously reunited—the impossible.
Would she survive this storm, although much less severe in comparison to the tsunami? Would the impossible be done in her own life, in her family? Her marriage healed? Her relationship with her stepdaughter renewed? Would Faith realize she really did love Rachel if she died in this hurricane, even though she never told her mom, “I love you”?
Had Rachel’s life made any difference in the lives of others? Had her life ever mattered and done anyone any good? Had she fulfilled the purpose for which God created her?
Rachel knew storm surges killed people. It was madness that she had stayed here. Suddenly she wanted her husband Jackson and her child Faith. She began crying. God, what have I done? What if I never see them again? What if this really kills me?
She thought about her marriage and reflected on the beautiful words penned by author Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her book, Gift From The Sea, one of Rachel’s favorite books. It was timeless.
“Communication—but not for too long. Because good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. Before we sleep we go out again into the night. We walk up the beach under the stars. And when we are tired of walking, we lie flat on the sand under a bowl of stars. We feel stretched, expanded to take in their compass. They pour into us until we are filled with stars, up to the brim.”
Rachel had memorized this passage when she did a book signing at LifeWay Christian Store in Destin. Jackson’s brother Ken’s wife Penelope worked there and had put in a good word for her with the owner, Anastasia, when Rachel’s third book in the trilogy series came out, to do the book signing there. She hoped by quoting Anne, it wouldn’t sell her book instead of Rachel’s, but it summed up all that she felt and loved. Strong coffee. Intimacy in relationships. The beautiful beach. The brilliant stars.
She wondered why it was that creamy coffee, the ocean, and the stars could satisfy her soul, but Jackson couldn’t. She had an insatiable, black hole inside of her that only God could fill. Her emptiness and her need for love, for always something more, seemed infinite. Maybe it was true like he said that she didn’t know how to give or receive love with a man, just with her child.
Marriage was a complex and fascinating animal, like the starfish, sometimes shedding arms as a means of defense. How she wished she could shed her hurt, her anger, her walls that kept Jackson out and him constantly at arm’s length for her self-protection. The starfish’s leg could break off, and it would grow another. But if her heart broke completely in this marriage, would she be able to grow a new one again? It felt irreparably broken. And she didn’t want to try again with a new man.
If this one didn’t work out, she was done forever. But she didn’t want it to be done. She simply wanted peace—and to be loved and wanted. When was the last time they had sex? She couldn’t remember, it was that long.
She knew Jackson hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he did. A lot. And she had done the same to him.
It was the same mountain they kept going around, again and again. Year after year. Fights over ridiculous things, yet the arguments all had the same root. Mistrust. Rejection. Unforgiveness. It was time to let go. To stop trying to demand and require and need all the time and me, me, me.
Anne wrote in Gifts From The Sea that woman “spills herself away,” yet wasn’t it in giving that you receive? Rachel knew that Luke 6:38 said your gift will return to you, making room for more, running over and pouring into your lap. Why then did it seem that all she did was give to Jackson, and nothing was returned to her?
She felt too empty to give any more, like the empty, glossy, pearl-like shell she’d found on the beach the other day. She’d stared at it, wondering where its tenant was, what had happened to it. Seashells are empty because its inhabitant has died and the shell washes up on shore. Sometimes hermit crabs take the empty shell and use it as its home.
Rachel welcomed a hermit crab woman, someone else far more capable, patient, good, and loving, to take over her wife role with Jackson. His expectations of her were just unrealistic. He wanted his wife to be a composite of his grandmother Shane who always cooked breakfast and supper every day for his grandfather, combined with a sexy Jennifer Aniston body for the bedroom, and a submissive, always organized, frugal Proverbs 31 woman never spending a dime, like their friend Jody was—the perfect wife and mother. And Rachel definitely was not.
Jody loved her husband Ron to pieces, did Zumba every morning religiously, always had a perfectly clean and organized house, and her children, who excelled academically, were such good, obedient helpers to her. It was almost too much. She loved Jody so much, but she was so envious of her.
Jackson often pointed out to Rachel how their home
was in order because Jody dutifully submitted to Ron like a wife should. Rachel couldn’t imagine Jody ever arguing with Ron over anything—unlike Rachel did with Jackson, who told her she’d argue with a tree if she could.
Jody was a peace-maker, always bubbling over with joy, and one of the most positive women she’d ever met. She was Ron’s biggest cheerleader and fan, and he adored her. Her kids did, too. Jody was just a nice, sweet person—and sometimes Rachel wasn’t. She could be a real B, in fact.
What was wrong with her? Why was she always so moody? Jackson was, too, but he hid it well, under a very charming façade. Nobody would ever guess that he had a temper like hers. Everyone thought he was such a good man. Good as gold. And Jackson was—until he wasn’t, with her. Like Patsy said about Charlie, in the movie Sweet Dreams.
Thus Rachel’s walls and their difficult marriage. It made her constantly feel defeated and like a failure. Why couldn’t he just love and accept her how she was, faults and all? He wondered the same thing about her with him. Their love, like the tide, receding over the years. Would it ever return?
Suddenly Rachel heard the wall of water hitting the beach house stilts. Storm surge. She screamed.
Chapter 5: Storm Surge
Autumn was working graveyard shift as an intern for Dayspring Children’s Hospital. She was on her 3rd cup of java making rounds with Dr. Alex Goddard, chief psychiatrist, and his assistant Jolene, who wore cat-eyed, thick, black glasses and her hair up in a bun reminiscent of the 1950’s.
But she was smart as heck and was Dr. Goddard’s right-hand. She kept him organized and on top of things in his demanding schedule every day. It was like they were married, their thoughts were so close they could finish each other’s sentences, and she seemed to anticipate his every need before he even spoke them to her.
Both brilliant physicians, they talked freely about their patients’ symptoms, effectiveness of their medications, needs for a change in their treatment plans, and the patients’ dysfunctional family dynamics. They thought alike, rarely disagreeing on anything. She didn’t flatter him, but her similar findings stroked his big ego and he enjoyed her company immensely as she was so intelligent. Only there was there was no chemistry between them at all.
She was 15 years older than him, plain-looking and Olive Oil-thin with an embarrassingly loud laugh, and he liked much younger, beautiful, sexy women—like Autumn. Jolene and Autumn got along okay for the most part, but Autumn often felt like she looked down on her as “just an intern,” occasionally saying something derogatory in a veiled manner—and Autumn sensed she was jealous of Rachel, from the dark looks she shot her sometime when Dr. Goddard flirted with her. Autumn wondered if Jolene had chosen a career over marriage, and if she regretted it. That was one mistake Autumn didn’t want to make.
She was desperate for a husband, and wanted one just like her dad, but there were few and far good men between like him. She felt like she was a walking time bomb, at risk of never marrying or having children. What if her dreams never came true? She was so afraid of winding up old, alone, and bitter. Her sister Faith came to mind. Faith had never even gone on a date with a man. She worried about her. She knew she was lonely and depressed, but didn’t know how to help her. Dad’s and Rachel’s constant arguing made things even worse.
She wondered where her own “Prince Charming” was in the world. She thought obsessively about marriage. Yes, work was satisfying, but nothing could fill that empty, black hole inside of her. She wanted a man’s arms around her. A guy who would love her for just who she was, and stick around forever, to grow old together. Was she cursed by fate to an unhappy life with no true love? Why had God called her to do this alone? Why was it that all of her friends was finding a soul mate but her?
Recently she didn’t even go to her own niece’s wedding because it just hurt too much. The family was furious with her, and her niece said she wasn’t ever speaking to her again. But Autumn felt like God was cruel to do this to her. Either give her a husband and kids, or take the desire away, but don’t flaunt others’ happiness in her face like that. How could God be so mean?
She had prayed and prayed, and God never answered her prayers. She was almost ready to give up her faith. She also questioned why God didn’t do something about child abuse. Didn’t He care? Why did He allow it to go on? What kind of God allowed such things? Autumn believed in Jesus, but sometimes she felt mad at God. She just didn’t get Him.
The stories of the children in the hospital were heart-breaking. Broken ribs, arms; legs; black eyes; cigarette burn marks; several with head traumas. The work was intense and emotionally draining, the hours long, and as an intern, Autumn received little pay. But she loved the children and hoped she could make some kind of positive difference in their innocent, sad lives.
Dr. Goddard was extremely professional, extremely intelligent, and extremely good looking. The hospital nurses gossiped incessantly about him, because he was divorced and well-known as a ladies’ man after hours. Most of them had “made their rounds” with him.
He’d hit on Autumn a couple of times, but she had no interest in becoming involved with her direct supervisor despite her desires for a husband. Too complicated and nothing good would come out of it, she was sure. She’d just be another conquest for his ego. It seemed to miff him that she wasn’t responding to his advances, and he tried all the harder to seduce her by looking deep into her eyes, flirting more blatantly, and “accidentally” touching her arm at times. It gave her goose bumps and she was afraid she was going to wind up falling for this god-doctor, but she told herself to knock it off and focus on her work, on the children. She had to trust God for the right husband.
She tried to keep her distance physically from Dr. Goddard as they worked together and she treated him politely, but with cool reserve. Maybe it was just the challenge she presented that made him so determined to conquer her.
As the three of them walked down the hospital hall, he laughed loudly at some joke with Jolene, who giggled, looking discreetly at Autumn out of the corner of her eyes to see if Autumn had noticed his unusual attention to Jolene that shift. But Autumn seemed preoccupied or spaced out, like she was in her own little world, which irritated Jolene. Despite how intelligent Autumn was, sometimes she seemed like such an airhead—the typical “dumb blonde.” She wondered if it was an act to get attention from men, making them feel smarter.
They were now in little nine-year-old Kelly’s room, the victim of her stepfather’s sexual abuse. Her mother Morgan was in the room with her, a victim herself from his physical battering. She kept telling herself he loved her, he’d change and stop hitting her. But she had no idea that late at night, after he’d had several glasses of whiskey, he’d come into Kelly’s room and climb in the bed with her, threatening her life if she told her mother or anyone what they were doing.
One night Morgan, a very heavy sleeper, had woken up and something—was it God?—prompted her to go into Kelly’s bedroom. The house was quiet, but she felt an evil pervading presence throughout the house, something like she’d never sensed before in her life.
And there in her daughter’s bedroom was her husband perversely forcing her child to perform oral sex on him. If she’d had a gun, Morgan would have killed him. She’d thought about it already after several episodes of his drunken, abusive behavior, slamming his fist into Morgan’s face. You could still see the yellow-purple bruise around her eye and her cut lip from the last time he hit her, a couple of weeks before she discovered him sexually abusing Kelly. He’d never hit Kelly, only Morgan.
But Kelly and Morgan were equally traumatized. Morgan was on heavy doses of anti-depressants and Ativan. Autumn had also assigned her to write a letter to the abuser, her husband, to express her bottled-up feelings, which Jolene thought was an excellent, creative idea. Underneath Morgan’s depression was an incredible amount of rage.
Autumn’s calm, gentle personality made her one of the most highly requested therapists by Child Protective Services
on some of their toughest child abuse cases. She intently disliked CPS, as she felt they had far too much power, pushed their weight around, and took children needlessly out of the home sometimes, just for minor things like a sink full of dirty dishes and a messy bedroom.
Jolene told Autumn that this was quite a compliment that Mrs. Walton, one of the strictest CPS workers, wanted Autumn on all her cases. She had requested Autumn as the therapist for this case, too.
Kelly was in therapy at the hospital daily, opening up a little more each day about what had been happening at home. She had finally started to cry and get angry about it, which was progress, and Dr. Goddard and Mrs. Walton were pleased with her fast breakthrough.
Even though it was in the middle of the night, Morgan had the hospital TV on. When it was too quiet, she started panicking so she filled the room constantly with noise: the TV show Jeopardy, The Apprentice, Dancing With The Stars, Gilligan’s Island, The Flinstones, Scandal, Rachel Ray, anything to keep her from thinking too much and reliving that fateful night.
Fox News was now reporting about Hurricane Ana, and the storm surge hitting Panama City and the surrounding areas. As Autumn walked into the room with Dr. Goddard, she caught the tail end of the report of a 12-foot storm surge that was destroying homes and businesses, and 9 deaths were already reported.
“Wow,” Dr. Goddard said, “now that’s some waves.”
Autumn glanced over at him, frowning. He was always making light of the news and telling stupid jokes about serious things. He used sarcastic humor for deflecting any somber conversations or to keep people from getting to close to him and really knowing him. It was one reason she couldn’t stand him, despite his charm and good looks. Fear rose up inside of her and she said, “Dr. Goddard, Morgan, please excuse me a minute, I have to make a phone call. I’ll be back in a minute.”