“What? She break your heart? Course, that means you’d have to have one.” Dee’s voice went up even higher. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
His lungs seized on the noxious air.
If he didn’t get out of there soon, he’d suffocate.
“I don’t,” Tuck croaked.
He had his hand on the door before Dee called to him. “What should I do with the picture?”
“Burn it.”
27
The machine was there to monitor her mother’s heart, but Elaina felt her own synced up with the consistent beeping. It was strong. Steady.
On the screen, the cadence spiked with sturdy peaks and fell to deep valleys. It was the perfect heart; warm, loving, willing to take in a child and raise her as her own.
Her own heart felt like a racehorse behind a starting gate. It wanted to sprint. Lucky for her, listening to beeping machine had the same effect as a donkey in the barn. It calmed her, made her breathe slower breaths, think clearer thoughts. Even unconscious, Connie still managed to mother her.
In the three days since the stroke, time was measured in nursing shift changes. Nothing else has changed. Her mother still lay there, the beige blanket tucked under her arms, a thin cotton gown sprouted wires out of the top and her long white hair flared out on the pillow.
“You should talk to her,” a nurse said after checking vitals. “There’s a lot of science behind comatose patients being able to hear their loved ones.”
Elaina lifted her gaze to the young nurse with kind eyes. Eyes that witnessed people’s most desperate moments. Moments of complete loss and helplessness. The warm brown eyes that absorbed so much grief and gave encouragement in return.
“What if she’s better off without me here?”
The nurse’s mouth pulled up into a bless-your-heart smile. “Sweetie, whatever happened before doesn’t matter now. You’re here, I’m sure all is forgiven.” She finished checking the IV bag and tugged at Connie’s sheets. “I’ll leave you two alone. Call if you need anything.”
She counted one hundred heartbeats before she could find the courage to speak. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried before. In the past three days, every time she’d open her mouth, tears would strangle the words.
What if her mom knew she was there, even if she couldn’t tell her? What if she thought that Elaina’s silence meant anger, not remorse?
Another storm of guilt thundered in her heart. She couldn’t let another day pass without speaking. Just because Connie was stable didn’t mean she wouldn’t slip away in the middle of the night, dying of a broken heart.
“Mom.” Her voice cracked and she could feel the familiar sting of her tear ducts. She cleared her throat and closed her eyes. No, this wasn’t going to happen. Not now. “Mom, it’s me, Elaina. Your daughter.”
She wrinkled her nose.
Of course she knows I’m her daughter.
Why was it so hard to speak to someone who wasn’t going to interrupt you?
“I’m sorry, let’s just go ahead and get that out of the way.” She took a deep breath, feeling better with the apology. “I didn’t mean to push you so much. I just—”
She just what? She just wanted to find out who she was. Looking down at the woman who raised her should be answer enough. She was Elaina Adams, daughter of a nurse, Connie. She was a meteorologist was drawn to the worst storms, as if there was a secret held inside them.
It always felt as if the secret was purely scientific, decoding Mother Nature, discovering why tornadoes dropped to the ground and destroyed lives.
Was it more? Was her life somehow ripped apart at the seams, only to be sewn back together by this woman she’d nearly pushed into death?
“I feel like I just dropped out of the sky and landed in your life. And you’ve never made me feel like I didn’t belong, but I think that was always there, in the back of my mind. This intense need to understand where I came from.”
Elaina’s phone buzzed on the table next to her. A text message from Heath.
Northeast Arkansas firing up. Leaving in 30. You coming?
Every cell of her being wanted to go, to see what other memory could be teased from her brain, but her heart reminded her that was what had gotten her into this mess.
“And as much as I want to put it back,” Elaina continued, ignoring the text and the pull to get back into the storm. “I can’t. It was all neatly packed away before, but now it just won’t fit back in.”
Another buzz pulled her attention away from.
Pierce antsy. This could be big. Trying to stall but he wants you to go.
She typed a quick response back. Visiting Mom. You go, I’ll catch up.
“It’s Heath, storms in northeast Arkansas, but don’t worry, you’re safe here. Boring blue skies outside. You’re probably wondering what I’ve seen. I’m trying to understand it myself. The first one was me, as a little girl, and I was inside some storm debris. That’s why I asked you if we’d been in a tornado. The second was me in a hospital.” Elaina glanced around the room, a shudder rattled her teeth. “It was a room like this. I was hiding and scared.”
She took a deep breath. This last memory was the hardest to speak about. Her heart knew what her brain didn’t want to comprehend. The woman in this memory was most likely her biological mother. The emotion accompanying it wasn’t one of fear or being a burden, it was love, unequivocal, unending, and bigger than life itself.
“I just need to know if there’s someone out there looking for me. Not to replace you or leave you, but to let her know that you did an amazing job.”
Her phone rang this time.
“Hi, Dr. Pierce,” she whispered into the phone, as if not to disturb the unconscious woman lying there.
“Have you seen the models?”
All she’d noticed from the last glance was a frontal boundary was forming and there was a good chance of storms forming to the east.
“Uh…”
“Things are really intensifying west of Fayetteville. Heath is about to hit the road, I really need you out there with him.”
There was an urgency she’d never heard before. The words came out faster, coated with the hard edge of demand.
“Okay, I’m with my mom. She’s in the hospital.”
“I heard. Condolences. We’re talking potential for several EF5s with some of these staying on the ground for a sustained period,” her advisor paused. “Need I remind you that you have a deadline looming, and thus far you haven’t completed your research. It’s a three and a half hour drive, and you needed to leave an hour ago.”
“Well, if I’m that far behind, why don’t you just have Heath do it?”
“Since when did you let someone else take control of your future?” His words dripped with judgement.
Since my mother nearly died because of me.
That thought was shushed by ambition and the desire to make her professor and mentor happy.
“I’ll get on the road and catch up.”
Dr. Pierce responded by ending the call.
If the storm was really as dangerous as he’d said; was it safe for them to go out? For the first time ever, apprehension spun in Elaina’s gut like a twister, picking up fear, dread and anxiety like storm debris. What would happen if she called Heath, told him her concerns, explained how dangerous it could be, questioned why their advisor, of all people, was pushing them into what could potentially be a deadly storm?
Would her partner agree they needed to stay away? Or, was he as eager to finish their dissertation and willing to take the risk?
No, she couldn’t let Heath down. They’d been working toward the same goal since freshman year. Partners, colleagues, best friends. He was the brother she’d never had.
Elaina had already let enough family down to last a lifetime.
“Mom, I have to go. Work. But before I leave, I need you to know, that this was never because you weren’t enough. You’re more than enough. I just hope I never let you down.
I hope you never regretted picking me as your daughter.” She kissed her mom’s soft forehead. The skin cool beneath her lips. She inhaled the breath of life still pulsing beneath the surface.
It took no time to catch up to Heath on the highway. The lumbering van was loaded down with heavy equipment. The sky ahead of them was an ugly gray-green with a misplaced double rainbow luring them forward.
“Do you get the feeling we’re driving into hell?” Heath’s voice came over the radio.
“What gives it away? The cauldron of green clouds or the rainbow asking if we want any candy?”
His chuckle broke through the static as a streak of lightning zinged down to the earth. If there were weather gods, they weren’t just angry, they were pissed.
“I really don’t like this,” Heath said after several minutes. “We’re not going to get there in time. It’s going to be cutting it really close to drop everything and get back to safety.”
“Why is Pierce pushing us on this? I mean, I know we’re close to the end of storm season, but we have the summer to calculate and finish the paper. Over.”
“I was asking myself the same question, it doesn’t feel right.”
They continued down the interstate for several more minutes. The storm they drove toward seemed to fill more than just the sky, it felt as if the dark clouds and static electricity invaded the inside of her truck, causing the hair on her arms to stand.
Elaina had never had this reaction before. Rather than the thrill of the chase, she was full of dread and regret. Regret at leaving her mother’s side, dread at the thought of what lay ahead in the storm. Assuming they could even get there in time.
The van in front of her heaved forward and she locked down her brakes, swerving to avoid rear-ending their equipment.
“Sorry,” Heath said through the crackle of static. “Gridlock. Apparently everyone else is smarter than us.”
She rolled down her window and stuck her head out. The air was cool, wet and heavy with anticipation. A trail of red taillights dotted the path to the storm ahead.
“I’m going to get off the highway,” her partner added. “Follow me and let’s see if there’s a back road.”
They pulled into an abandoned restaurant to check maps. What little cell service was available that far out was overwhelmed with the number of people calling, texting and weather-checking.
The GPS on Elaina’s phone simply churned a spinning wheel rather than give her any clue as to which way to go.
Heath dug the map out of the glovebox of the van and they bent their heads over it.
Her finger traced the various lines, like trying to figure her way out of a maze. Finally, they settled on a path and she took the lead.
The minute they turned down a one-lane road, the rain came down in sheets. Her gaze swept the clouds, trying to see anything that indicated ground truth, the moment a twister touched down. Elaina already knew her ground truth. She’d left her comatose mother behind to chase after a hot mess of a storm. What did she need to see to prove that?
She watched the odometer tick off three miles but the left-hand turn she’d expected was nowhere to be found.
“Did we pass it?” Heath asked over the radio.
“No, it has to be up here, just a little further.”
She slowed again to study the map in the dying daylight. The supercell was still to the northeast of where they were. If they didn’t turn soon, they’d be too far south of the storm to get into place.
Elaina’s truck lurched forward again, and within minutes, a red reflector of a turn lit up in her headlights. Relief washed away the tide of self-doubt that threatened to drown her. “Here it is.”
The two vehicles turned, but doubt slammed into her when they came upon a house sitting nestled at the end of a long driveway.
“Shit.” She slammed her palm on her steering wheel. Sweat tickled her neck. A chill slivered down her body.
“Should we just drive right through their back pasture?” Even though Heath was teasing, she could hear the undertone of concern.
They backed out and retraced their drive. Somehow the turn magically appeared this time and they headed east.
The sky ahead of them darkened into a yawning maw. A swirling black hole, illuminated only in bursts by yellow lightning. Her windshield wipers were flailing themselves back and forth, but made hardly any impact on the rivulets of rain. Wind rocked her truck from the right and then again from the left.
As far as Elaina could tell, they were the only ones out in the storm.
Her foot lifted slightly at the first tinge of fear. Not fear for her own life, but a cold, noxious breath of death blew in through her cracked window and stroked her cheek. What if Connie woke up and learned she’d died out here, in a storm, chasing after an apparition. “We have to hurry,” Heath’s voice broke her thoughts. “It’s moving really fast.”
As if to punctuate her partner’s eagerness, a flash of lightning lit up a perfectly shaped, monstrous wedge tornado miles ahead of them.
Adrenalin kicked concern to the curb. One side of Elaina’s lips lifted in a smile as she pressed on the gas. Just seeing the shape of the twister reminded her why she was on the earth. So what if she dropped from the sky, it meant there was no one better to ride the storms.
“Don’t lose me,” Heath crackled over the radio.
She glanced into the rearview mirror to see his headlights a hundred yards behind him and slowed. Sparks of light ahead of her beckoned.
The monster was devouring transformers, leaving little illuminated bread crumbs in the dark path ahead of her.
“Elaina, it’s moving too fast and it’s too far,” her friend said. “I don’t think we’re going to make it. Over.”
“No, we will get there,” she said, not bothering to press the mic open on the radio. She flexed her foot on the accelerator again and felt the back end of the truck sway in the water-filled ruts. The lights behind her faded to barely visible pinpricks.
“What are you doing?” The fear in his voice bounced around her truck cab. “Stop!”
Elaina took one hand off the wheel and reached for the radio. “No, we can make it.”
“No we can’t. I’m looking at the radar, the storm is moving into open farmland and there are no roads to get us in front of it.” Heath paused. “Let it go Elaina, we didn’t catch this one. We can get ahead of the next one though.”
She stared at the radio in her hand, fighting between agreeing with him and arguing his point. If Nim were with her, she’d know what to do. A flicker of lightning reminded her she was still speeding down a dark country road in the middle of a storm.
She looked up just in time to see a Buick heading in her direction. Not with wheels gripping the road like her own vehicle, but sideways with its roof pointed right for her.
Elaina ducked and slammed on her brakes. The car hit the ground twenty feet in front of her but tumbled on its side as if a petulant child had tossed it. Her old brakes squealed in the wetness and refused to react.
A head-on hit would surely kill her, but cutting the wheel could put her in a similar rollover.
With every bit of strength she could muster, she slammed her left heel hard on the parking brake while her right hit the other brake. The engine grunted and she felt the truck heave forward. The seatbelt cut into her shoulder as she bit hard on her tongue, gagging on the bitter taste of copper.
The car tumbled toward her. Side over side. A tumbling dice. White top, black axis. White top, black axis.
It rocked up on the side once more, but the momentum was gone and it teetered back on its wheels, bouncing twice as if an unseen energy radiated through it.
Her truck came to a stop, its front bumper just kissing the passenger door of the formerly flying car. She leaned forward, peering through her windshield wipers, holding her breath. Elaina exhaled. The car was empty.
Another flash of lightning showed the storm slipping away from her. In the dark green roiling clouds it remind
ed her she was merely a child’s plaything.
When the storms tired of her, they’d discard her like the car. Whether it told her all of its secrets or not.
28
The supercell stretching across northeastern Arkansas painted a dramatic backdrop for a stand-up. Seth and his cameraman traversed the country roads in the lumbering live truck, searching for the perfect spot to capture the roiling clouds.
Trees with fresh leaves bowed down for the oncoming storm. The contrast between the warm, welcoming air of Gulf Shores and the electrified, clashing of cool and warm fronts was whiplash to his senses. Goosebumps rose and fell on his arms with every shift of the wind.
The roads were filled, both with cars trying to escape from the oncoming storm, and those rushing toward it.
Seth sat up in the passenger seat, searching for a faded brown truck driven by a petite brunette who scared him more than an EF5 barreling down on him. It took him getting a thousand miles away to realize Elaina was nothing like Julia.
His ex struck with the unpredictability of a cat. She’d curl up, purr and snuggle only to strike and draw blood the moment he let his guard down.
He was more of a dog person anyway.
Especially loyal yellow Labs owned by pretty girls with long, curly hair and could give Mike Tyson a run.
He shook his head. In the field with a deadly storm bearing down on them was not the place to fantasize. Searching for Elaina in a sea of storm chasers was purely professional. She had a knack for being in the perfect place at the right moment.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
A few fat raindrops pinged off the windshield. He refreshed the screen on his laptop. The colorful depiction of the storm outside the van showed what he suspected; a bow echo was forming to the west. The ingredients were all present. Now the weather just needed the right chef to whip up a tornado.
“We’ve got some action,” Seth said. “I’m going to switch on the dash cam for a while.” He switched on the camera. “Seth Maddux, with ‘Riders in the Storm’ here in northeast Arkansas, on the trail of a supercell. Folks, this giant is dangerous, so please, please don’t try this at home. We’re trained meteorologists, and take every precaution out in the field.” He smiled into the expressionless glass eye staring back at him. Most people ran from the camera, but the camera was always friendly, never judged him, never lied to him.
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