“Okay,” I conceded. “Please be super careful.”
“I wouldn’t be allowed to fly millionaires three thousand miles above the earth if I weren’t careful,” he said.
He was attempting to make me feel better, and I guess he did, a little. But the minute I pushed the school’s double doors open, I was reminded of what we were up against. If the house had been hot, the school was a sauna, and the air was ripe with the smell of sweat and mildew. By the look of it, there were already several hundred people packed into the building.
I glanced around, expecting to see Milagros and the girls waiting for me just beyond the entrance, but instead I was greeted by unfamiliar faces every bit as weary and spent-looking as I must have been. Though living in New York for so long had given me a ninja-like ability to weave through crowds, navigating the halls felt like swimming through sludge, and by the time I managed to get into the gymnasium I’d grown frantic—where were they? Had something happened to Charlotte or Milagros? As I was scanning the crowd, I saw a woman wearing a bright yellow vest holding a clipboard in the middle of the basketball court. I was desperate to find my family, but as the cooler banging against my hip reminded me, I was just as desperate to find a power source. I made a beeline for her.
“Excuse me,” I said when I reached her.
“¿Sí?” she said, looking up from her clipboard.
“¿Hablas inglés?” I asked.
“Claro. How can I help you?”
“Do you have a generator here? A fridge? My daughter is a type one diabetic and I have to refrigerate her insulin, or it’ll stop working,” I explained breathlessly, motioning to my cooler.
The woman had a kind face, but when I asked her this she looked at me like I’d just inquired about catching the next iceberg out of town. “The generator broke during Maria, and they’re expensive to fix and run,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” I said, because I didn’t. How could an emergency shelter possibly be without a generator? “Where can I find a place with a fridge? What about a hospital?” I said, glancing around with the wild eyes of a trapped animal.
“In this storm? Lo siento, but no one has power right now. And there’s no hospital in Vieques,” she said. “Not anymore.”
I couldn’t respond right away. In fact, it was all I could do not to keel over and empty the scant contents of my stomach. Charlotte was going to die—and all because I’d been so desperate to fix everything that I’d neglected to do my due diligence and make sure there was still a hospital available for my sick child. Not only had I not turned out to be the mother my own was, I’d somehow managed to become the exact opposite of her. Because I knew as sure as I knew the sun would rise again the next morning, whether we were alive to see it or not, she never—ever—would have made this mistake.
“How can that be?” I finally gasped. “There was a hospital the last time I was here.”
“It’s been closed since Maria. FEMA was supposed to do something about it, but . . .” She shook her head with disgust. “There are a few health clinics you can try, but I don’t know if they’ll be open right now. If I were you, I wouldn’t go out in this weather.”
I thanked her, then pushed back through the crowd to find my family.
After nearly ten frenetic minutes, I finally spotted them in a kindergarten classroom at the far end of a hall. The girls were sitting on the floor beneath a chalkboard, fanning themselves with construction paper, and Hector was cross-legged on a colorful braided rug; Milagros was seated on a cot beside him. I ran to them, then knelt down and hugged the girls so hard that Charlotte sputtered a little.
“Weird, Mom,” she said. “Are you okay?”
The opposite, in fact, and seeing her only reminded me of my own stupidity and impotence. “I thought you guys would be waiting for me near the door,” I said.
“Sorry, Libby. I ran into someone I knew,” said Hector, nodding in the direction of an older man on the other side of the room. “He told us to come over here while there was still room. The school’s almost full.”
“It’s okay,” I said, because it wasn’t his fault our cell phones didn’t work, and it’s not like he could have left Milagros or the girls to wait for me. “Thank you for finding a space for us.” I turned to Charlotte. “Do you need to check your blood sugar? I have your kit here.”
“It’s not time yet,” she said, flashing her phone at me.
“You should leave that off,” I said. “I’ll watch the time for you.”
“Too late. My battery’s at two percent—it’ll be dead in another minute.” Her eyes scanned the room. “When are we getting out of here, anyway?”
“Soon,” I said, more a prayer than a promise. “Have either of you seen Shiloh?” I asked Milagros and Hector.
“Not yet, mija,” she said.
Isa looked up from the picture book she’d grabbed off a shelf. “Is Papi okay?”
“Fine,” I fibbed, because if they were somehow managing to stay calm amid this chaos, I wasn’t about to ruin that. “He’s just parking the Jeep.” That part was true, at least. The question was, what was taking him so long?
I shot Isa a tight smile, then turned to examine Charlotte. She was sweating, but so was everyone, and she didn’t look clammy. I began running through a quick mental inventory of the food we’d brought: the last of the protein bars, a couple of unripe pears, some cheese sticks, which we’d need to eat soon, before they spoiled. At any rate, we’d be lucky if it lasted through the next day. And while the emergency coordinator was handing out packets of crackers, they were pure, simple carbs—guaranteed to send her blood sugar soaring. I wished I could turn my mind off, or at least put it in low-power mode. Because the more I thought this through, the worse it became.
“Libby?” said Milagros. “You okay?”
For someone with poor eyesight, the woman didn’t miss a thing.
“Just really tired,” I said. “How are you, though?”
Unlike me, she didn’t try to sugarcoat it. “I don’t like it here,” she said, jutting her chin out. “I want to go home, to my comfy bed and my own bathroom. My dogs are probably waiting for me right now and thinking I’m dead.”
I winced, because she’d said the only D word worse than divorce.
But then my eyes darted to the door, where a man about Shiloh’s height wearing a black T-shirt, as he’d been, had just arrived. I’d already risen to my feet when I realized it wasn’t him.
“He’ll be here soon,” said Milagros, reading my mind again. “He’s fine, and so are we. It’s going to be okay, mija.”
I didn’t have it in me to tell her she was wrong.
TWENTY-ONE
The minutes passed at molasses speed. More people streamed in and out of the classroom, but each time I realized Shiloh wasn’t among them the lump in my throat grew larger. All of our marital troubles suddenly seemed so insignificant in light of the storm. If only it hadn’t taken a matter of life and death to realize that.
“How about some cheese?” I said to the girls. I could tell they were getting squirrelly; Charlotte was pacing back and forth in the narrow space between where we and another family were seated, while Isa kept opening the books she’d taken from a shelf, only to discard them seconds later.
“Ugh,” said Charlotte, like I’d just offered her snails.
“Please don’t wait too long to eat,” I said.
“I know,” she said in the same annoyed tone.
Did she, though?
“I’ll take your cheese,” said Isa, holding out her hand.
“Um, no you won’t,” I said, but before I could launch into a lecture about how I was rationing food for everyone’s benefit, I’d just realized that Milagros was starting to look a little peaked.
“You doing okay?” I whispered, crouching in front of her. She was leaning on Hector, fanning herself with a piece of construction paper. “Do you want some food? Water? Anything?”
“Eh,” she said softl
y. “I’m just warm. Don’t worry about me, mija.”
It wasn’t possible for me not to worry about her, but I was juggling enough catastrophes that she wasn’t the only one on my mind. I turned to Hector. “Can I steal you for a second?” I said in the calmest voice I could muster. Though the thunder had let up, the wind was still howling, and I couldn’t help but think of footage I’d seen of weather forecasters clinging to lampposts in the middle of a hurricane. What if Shiloh had literally been blown away trying to get through the parking lot?
“Of course,” said Hector, already on his feet and heading for the door. “What is it?” he said once we were in the hallway. The underarms of his linen shirt were dark with sweat, and the bags under his eyes seemed to have doubled in size since we’d left Milagros’.
“I didn’t want to worry everyone, but I’m concerned that Shiloh isn’t back yet,” I said quietly.
“I am, too,” he said, glancing around. The hallway was filled with people who looked wary and exhausted. I blinked back tears as it occurred to me how many of them were probably thinking they’d gone through this already.
“Do you think they closed the shelter and he’s stuck outside?” I asked.
“I think it’s unlikely that they’d turn anyone away. But how about I go check?”
I exhaled. “That would be really great. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said kindly. “Thank you. Milly wouldn’t have come to the shelter if you hadn’t been here to convince her.”
Maybe not, but now that I knew there wasn’t a generator here, I was starting to wonder if it had been a mistake to come. Heat killed all kinds of people, but especially the elderly—and the shelter was even hotter than Milagros’ house.
Hector headed for the entrance, so I went back to Milagros and the girls. When I sat down, Isa glared at me. “Where is Papi?” she demanded.
“He’s coming,” I said, forcing my lips into a smile. “Hector just went to go get him, in fact.”
“He’s a good one,” said Milagros, who had a faraway look in her eyes. I couldn’t quite tell if it was love or exhaustion.
“He is,” I said, sitting in front of her. “He’ll be right back.”
“Hector or Papi?” called Charlotte.
It was then that I realized she’d just perched on a low stool and was trying to peer through the metal shutters. They were keeping most of the rain out, but the floor beneath the windows was wet from what was leaking through.
“Charlotte, get away from there,” I said. “That’s not safe.”
“A little water’s not going to kill me, Mom,” she said, wiping the mist from her forehead.
“No, but—”
“Libby.”
When I spun around, Shiloh was standing in the doorway. He was drenched and splattered with mud—but he wasn’t missing limbs and hadn’t been charred by lightning, and none of the other terrible things that I’d imagined had happened to him.
“Oh, thank God,” I choked, running to him.
He caught me in his arms and pulled me tight. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispered. “Hector told me you were worried. I was helping a family whose car had gotten stuck in the mud.”
Of course he had. “Don’t apologize—that was so good of you. And you’re here now. That’s all that matters.” I looked past him at Hector. “Thank you so much for finding him.”
Hector shrugged sheepishly. In spite of his polished appearance, I realized that he reminded me of Shiloh. No wonder I’d been jealous of Milagros. “I didn’t do much. He was already close to the door when I went to look,” he said.
“All the same, thank you. I’m really glad you’re here,” I said, and he smiled shyly.
“Well, I kind of have good news,” said Shiloh, looking back and forth between the five of us. “My cell’s still down and I can’t check the weather, but I spoke with a guy who just came from the beach. He said the waves are lower now, and the wind is letting up.”
My eyes widened. “So it’s the eye of the hurricane?”
He cocked his head and gave me a funny smile. “I said good news—not bad, cutie. The guy I chatted with has lived here for seventy years, and he said that in his experience, that means it’s passing. I can’t say for certain, but I’m willing to bet this is just a tropical storm and it’s blowing over.”
“How soon until we know for sure?” I asked.
“Next couple hours, most likely. If for some reason it’s been upgraded to a hurricane and we don’t know, the eye still wouldn’t last more than two hours.” His eyes flitted to Charlotte before meeting me again. “Want to go talk?”
“Yes,” I said, already starting for the door.
In the few seconds it took to get out of the classroom and into the hall, his face had shifted from calm to deeply concerned. “What is it?” I said.
He sighed deeply. “Even if the storm does pass—and I do think it will—we’re not out of the woods yet. I’m worried about Charlotte.”
As much as I wished he’d just told me she was going to be fine, I was relieved to hear I wasn’t alone in my concern. “Her insulin seems okay so far, but there’s no way to know if her test strips will hold up,” I said. “Remember when I left the extras in the car too long last August, right after she was diagnosed?” They’d baked in our ancient SUV for the entire weekend. After we’d finally retrieved them, her meter couldn’t read the strip at all. We thought we’d learned everything there was to know about diabetes then, but no one had mentioned that the strips disintegrated in heat, too; it had taken three more tries and a distraught Google search for us to figure out that was the problem.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no way the electricity is coming back anytime soon, either.”
I grimaced. “Did you know there’s no hospital here? And the emergency coordinator said we shouldn’t count on the clinics being able to help.”
He looked so stricken I almost wished I hadn’t said it. “I should have checked before we came.”
“No, I should have.” After all, I was the girls’ mother. Protecting my children wasn’t just my job; it was literally my purpose in life. “This whole stupid trip was my idea.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching for my arm. “It’s not a stupid trip at all. I know it wasn’t what you had planned—or what any of us had planned—but at least we have each other, right?”
We really did, and though I was still convinced I was on my way to winning a Darwin Award, hearing him say that eased my shame a little. “We do,” I agreed. “But how soon do you think we can get off the island?”
“Well, the ferries aren’t going to be running until the skies clear, and that’s assuming they aren’t damaged. Same with planes. We’re stuck here for a while.”
“Then I’d better start figuring out a way to keep Charlotte’s supplies cold,” I said.
“Absolutely,” he said. He smiled softly. “Team?”
Tears pricked my eyelids as I smiled back. “Team.”
After checking on Milagros and the girls, we spent the next half hour circling the school to see if anyone had a cooler that was actually cool. Nearly everyone we encountered was eager to help—but couldn’t. Like ours, their ice packs had thawed, and their coolers were warm; no one had the faintest idea where we could find a functioning generator.
“Crap,” Shiloh said to me as we made our way back to the classroom.
The relief I’d felt had already gone up in flames. “We’re going to have to find a plan C,” I said.
“Maybe I can find a plane and fly us back to the mainland,” he said, stepping around a woman lying listless on the floor beside her children.
“You know how crazy that sounds, right?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. He paused just inside the doorway. “But Libby?”
“What is it?”
“Crazy or not, we’re going to have to do something.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But what?”
“
I have no idea,” he whispered back. “But between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” I agreed, because hadn’t we tackled myriad other problems—from the mundane to the truly life-threatening—side by side for thirteen years?
Which is why it was so strange that I couldn’t seem to believe we were ever going to find our way out of this one.
TWENTY-TWO
The afternoon stretched endlessly before us. The emergency coordinator passed out cheese sandwiches, which provided all of five minutes of distraction; Hector found a set of dominos in the classroom and managed to engage the girls for another ten. But they’d since abandoned him, as well as the rug where we’d been stationed, and were sprawled out on the tile floor, which they claimed was the coolest place in the school. I didn’t even bother warning them about germs, because bacteria and viruses had nothing on the heat. Although—or maybe because—the wind had begun to die down and the rain had slowed to a steady patter, the school felt even more stifling than it had before. I’d sweated through my T-shirt while we were searching for ice packs, and Shiloh’s clothes, damp from the rain, had yet to dry. But I was most worried about Milagros, who had given up mopping her forehead with one of Hector’s handkerchiefs and was murmuring to herself on the ground.
“How are you holding up?” I said, squatting beside her.
She tried to smile, but it came out like a grimace. “I’ve had worse days, but not many,” she said.
My stomach sank. “The heat?”
“Eh, I’m used to that. Maybe it’s having to sit in the same place too long. That’s my secret to living so long—I don’t stop moving. Except now,” she said, motioning toward her legs, “I’m stuck.”
“Do you want me to walk you to the bathroom?” I asked. I would have attempted circus tricks if it would have made her feel better. Charlotte’s blood sugar had remained steady, and her test strips and insulin were still working. But I wasn’t about to celebrate with Milagros looking so worn out.
She shook her head. “I don’t have to go.”
She hadn’t used the bathroom once since we’d arrived, which made me wonder if she was dehydrated. “Have some water,” I said, pressing a water bottle into her hand.
Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around Page 14