by Nikki Ash
I check my phone and note I still have service. “C’mon, I can put your shows on for you on my tablet, but we have to watch in the bathroom.”
“In the bathroom?” she repeats, aghast. “What in the world for?”
“It’s the only place it’ll work in the storm,” I improvise. “I’ll call the cable company and see if I can get your regular shows fixed, but for now this will have to do.”
She blusters and dillydallies, but I manage to get her to sit on the toilet while I roll the baby’s bassinet inside with us. Luckily, she’s still sound asleep, so at least I don’t have to worry about her still being afraid. Grandma Rosie is oblivious, so she won’t be scared either. As I close the door behind us, I thank my lucky stars for that blessing because I’m scared enough for all three of us.
It lasts forever.
It’s over in an instant.
I’m not certain which is true, maybe both.
Grandma Rosie isn’t even hollering anymore. She sits on the toilet, rocking herself back and forth and carries on a conversation with Grandpa Jim like he’s sitting right next to her. The baby woke up a while ago and after nursing, she contented herself with a pacifier and went back to sleep. I keep her in a sling wrap, close to my chest, because it’s the safest place I can think to have her. I can’t bear to let her out of my sight.
Unwelcome and unhelpful tears trail down my cheeks no matter how much I try to swipe them away. They’re part fear, but mostly frustration. Everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve over the past two years could be ripped from my grasp—literally. This house is old. Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Jim bought it new when they were first married, but it’s fallen into disrepair since his death. I don’t even know if it’ll withstand the 100-mile-an-hour winds. All of my possessions, all of the baby’s things I’d painstakingly collected, and everything Grandma Rosie holds dear, could be sucked away in a moment. The thought fills me with a black, sucking despair.
The roaring sound intensifies. My hands are shaking too hard to manage my phone, so I don’t try. My last radar check told me the eye of the storm was about to pass overhead, so another look would be pointless. The weather radio works in fits and spurts. Artificial light from the electric lantern washes everything in an eerie orange glow.
“Oh, Jim,” I hear Grandma Rosie wail. The sound cuts me deep.
If I’m scared, I can’t imagine what it must be like for her to be here, not really knowing where or even when she is with the madness going on around her.
“It’s all right, Grandma Rosie,” I say, even though I’m not certain she can hear me over the noise. “It’s Avery. I’m right here with you. It’s going to be okay.”
“Where’s Jim? I want Jim.”
I dry my tears. Rosie and the baby need me to be strong for both of them. There’s no use in crying. “We’ll find him when the storm is over, Grandma, I promise. I’ll be here with you until it’s over. It can’t be much longer now.”
If the eye of the storm is close, that means we’ll hit the other wall and then it’ll go on to terrorize someone else. I cling to these thoughts as the winds beat at the walls, as some of the tin roof over our heads begins to peel away and slap against the slats underneath. SLAP SLAP SLAP. The sound is so loud I feel it in the backs of my teeth. The baby jumps against my chest and then settles again, snuggling closer. Thank goodness for small mercies. I kiss her head and murmur, “I love you,” against her sweet-smelling skin.
Because I do, more than I ever thought I could, more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world. I’d make it through this for her, for them. I have to.
There’s a boom and a large, shuddering crash from outside. I jolt and hug the baby tighter to me, rocking when she frets a little. I’m afraid to imagine what the sound could have been. A branch falling. A car being thrown by a gust of wind. The last news reports I’d watched had been of two storm chasers nearly drowned in the storm surge in Mexico Beach. We’re landlocked here, but with a storm this bad a car being thrown about wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibilities.
You’ve seen too many movies, Avery-girl.
Great. Now I’m not the only one hearing Grandpa Jim.
All at once, the roaring sound stops and the quiet is almost as deafening for its absence. The runaway hammering of my heartbeat replaces the wind, and it takes me a moment to realize we must be in the eye. I’m equal parts relieved and terrified because it means we have the other wall to go through before this nightmare is over.
The only thought that keeps me from going completely insane is the thought that it’ll be over. There will be an end. It may not seem like it now, but it can’t last forever. No matter how much it seems like it.
Water drip, drip, dripping reaches my ears through the stillness. I have enough presence of mind to give a passing thought to the damage it could cause. Then I have to laugh at myself. We’ll be lucky if we still have a roof over our heads when this is over, let alone a little water damage.
Soon, there’s no time to think. The roaring wind returns, and it begins again. A hand reaches out for me and I look up to find Grandma Rosie solemn and lucid—which is so rare it distracts me for a moment from the horrors outside.
“Grandma Rosie?” I croak out.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay. Just a little rain.” Her smile is tremulous, but warm and so like the woman who raised me that I manage to smile back, despite everything.
Her words are nearly identical to the ones I said only a few hours before—a sentiment I’ll have to revisit when I have a spare moment to think on it more.
The baby in my hands lets out a little sound in her sleep and Grandma Rosie says, “What a sweet baby. What’s her name?”
“Rosalynn Grace. I named her after you.” I don’t know why it seems so important to tell her this now, of all times, but I force the words out in a rush over the din.
“A mouthful for a little girl.” Grandma Rosie’s eyes begin to cloud over. “You should call her Gracie.”
“I will,” I say, but she’s already gone, her eyes glued to the tablet where I’ve downloaded her favorite shows for her. It hasn’t gone dead yet, but it must be on its last legs. I don’t have a generator, so Lord only knows what I’ll do when the last dregs of juice drain away. I doubt there will be power anywhere if we make it out of this.
I doubt there will be much of anything for a long, long time.
Chapter Two
Avery
I settle Grandma Rosie into her bed, thankful she still has one. She has one bar of battery left on her tablet, but it should be enough to help her off to sleep. I leave the lantern in her room in case she wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to wander around, as she’s prone to do. I’d done a thorough once-over of her room and found the only damage was a broken window from the porch swing I’d forgotten to take down.
It could have been worse.
So, so much worse.
A broken window, damaged roof, those were things I could come back from. The complete loss of the house, or someone I loved? There’s no coming back from that.
I settle onto the couch in the living room after cleaning up the glass. One of the flashlights sits beside me, pointed up at the ceiling. It’s a poor substitute for the lantern, but beggars can’t be choosers. From what I can glean from the radio and the spotty cell reception I have, rescue efforts are underway, but it’s an arduous, painstaking process. The sheer number of downed trees is incalculable, making it hard for rescue operations to commence.
Needless to say, there won’t be anyone coming through tonight and I haven’t even looked outside to see what shape my car is in. I’m afraid to. One catastrophe at a time is all I have the energy to face. I’ll deal with figuring out our next steps and clearing away debris tomorrow.
Now that the adrenaline is fading, weariness settles over me. I arrange baby Rosie’s bassinet next to the couch. While she nurses, I attempt to connect to the internet, but it’s next to impossible and loads i
ndefinitely. It’s strange, being so disconnected. It’s isolating and in a weird way freeing all at once.
It’s then that I remember the battery pack I use to charge my phone on vacations—or when I used to take vacations. I’d plugged it in when I first realized the storm was coming and there was no way Grandma Rosie was leaving her house, meaning I’d be stuck here too unless I wanted to condemn her to a horrific fate. Once the baby is done nursing and is once again sound asleep—thank goodness—I tuck her into her bassinet and retrieve the battery pack and charger cord.
Thankfully, it has half a charge, which allows me to hook up both my phone and the tablet, which I retrieve from a snoring Grandma Rosie’s room. I take a full water bottle on my way back to the couch and a granola bar to stave off the breastfeeding munchies that will inevitably come. Once I polish off the granola bar and half of the water, I finally—finally—allow myself to relax into the couch with the baby close beside me. Sleep finds me easier than I thought it would.
“I want eggs and bacon,” Grandma Rosie announces way too damn early the next morning.
I blink blearily up at her hovering over me at the couch. “What—what?”
“Look at you sleeping the day away. It’s morning time. Time to wake up.” She shuffles over to her rocking chair, freshly charged tablet in hand. “Up, up, up. Everybody up. If I can’t sleep, nobody sleeps.”
“I’m up, I’m up.” With a quick look at the baby, who is blissfully still asleep, I push to sitting.
The first thing I notice is the heat.
Then, I remember the night before.
The storm.
“I don’t think we have power for eggs, but I can make you some cereal.” I’d packed some of the contents of our fridge in a cooler while I was prepping the day before. The milk should still be good for a while.
Grandma Rosie harrumphs, but doesn’t argue. Good. Maybe today will be a good day for her, relatively.
The front door protests when I try to open it, swollen from the moisture and humidity. When it opens, it’s to an alien world on the other side. My hand flies to my mouth as I gasp. The front yard looks like a jungle. Several trees had toppled over. One thick oak limb lies horizontally across most of our fence, obscuring the front walk. Another has fallen over the front porch, its limbs spiderwebbing inside like a corpse’s fingers. Dozens, hundreds, of smaller branches litter everything.
Debris covers the roads in front of the house along with more fallen limbs. I don’t even see how we’d get help even if we needed it. There won’t be any trucks on the roads until they can get them cleared and that’ll take a couple men and a half dozen chainsaws. A water main has busted across the street, flooding a neighbor’s yard. Several limbs crush another’s car and my eyes fly to my own busted up sedan. Aside from debris blown on top, it’s relatively, shockingly, unscathed—not that it’ll do us any good now.
All we can do for the time being is sit still and stay out of the way. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I do know there will be crews out at some point to help clear the roads, fix the downed power lines, and check on residents to make sure no one is injured. God, I hope no one has been injured.
Once I feed Grandma Rosie and the baby, I’ll take a more thorough look outside, make sure there’s no one close by who needs help. Then…I don’t know. One step at a time, I suppose. That’s all any of us can do.
While I’m making bowls of cereal, I attempt to check online for any news. The loading symbol at the top of my phone keeps going round and round and the pages stay blank. I don’t know if all the towers are down or if it’s taking a long time because of general chaos or what. It’s strange not being connected to anything at all. It makes me feel very alone.
By the time we sit down at the small dinette table, it’s nearly ten or so in the morning and already sweltering. It was a warm October before the storm, but it has to be in the high eighties, if not higher. Our house stays cool, but it won’t for long if the temperature keeps rising. Once I find a way out of here and make sure no one is injured, my first priority will be to find a generator. Perhaps I can plug a window unit into it and keep our small living room cool, at least. The nights won’t be so bad, but a hot Florida afternoon can be killer.
Later, I leave Grandma Rosie watching her shows and baby Gracie napping deeply. With the baby monitor receiver clipped to my belt, I strap on a pair of old sneakers and head outside for the first time since the storm. By the time I make it through the front yard to the gate, my legs are scraped to all hell and I realize all the fallen trees have disturbed dozens and dozens of yellow jacket nests. I’m stung twice and am left cursing and sweating, already lathered up in a mood.
Hissing through my teeth, I work my way across the road to my closest neighbor. I’m almost to their steps when I hear their shouts from the other side of the closed door.
“Hello? Can you hear us? We’re trapped inside!”
I speed up picking through the debris on their porch—including a large downed limb that’s wedged in their doorway, completely blocking the majority of their front windows and their front door. Quickening my pace, I shout back, “Mary? Tom? It’s Avery. I’m coming!”
“Avery, thank God,” comes Mary’s relieved voice. “We’ve been hollering all morning. There’s another limb that damn near crashed through the back door. We’d jump out the windows if I didn’t fret about Tom breaking a hip.”
“Fool woman,” I hear Tom mutter, which makes me smile despite everything.
“You guys say there. I’m going to find a way to get inside.”
The limb is the size of a small tree. There’s no way I’ll be able to move the damn thing, but I try nonetheless, to no avail. The windows on either side of the house are over my head, so there’ll be no climbing up unless I can find something to stand on. They weren’t kidding about the back being caved in. Half a rotten tree collapsed on it.
I come back around to the front, hoping I can wiggle my way in between the tree and the front door to get it open. Above the sound of distant buzzing chainsaws and humming yellow Tomets, I begin to hear the sound of more voices, some raised over the din. More people must be up and moving around trying to clear out paths, discern the extent of damage.
The crunch of boots on leaves snapping twigs has me looking up as I near Tom and Mary’s front steps. Maybe it’s someone who can help.
I open my mouth to call out to them when the words die on my tongue.
The man hasn’t noticed me yet. He carries a chainsaw with one hand like it doesn’t weigh a thing. He scans the area, sharp and observant. I know that gaze. I’ve stared into it, dreamed of it. His eyes haunt me every day.
“Walker,” I say, louder than I intend, because it’s the only thing I know about him other than what it feels like to have him inside me.
He stops. Turns to me.
Those blue-gray eyes meet mine.
Chapter Three
Walker
Past
“I don’t normally do this,” is all I remember her saying before she tugs me to my Airbnb.
“Neither do I.”
She pushes open the door and stumbles inside. “No, I mean it. That’s not just a line. I don’t go home with strange guys.”
When I’m over the threshold, she pushes it shut behind me and presses me against its surface. My brain short-circuits like it had the moment I saw her in the bar. Sounds cliché, but they’re clichés for a reason.
She’d been waiting tables at the restaurant I’d gone to for dinner. Not my waitress, but one a couple sections over. I’d lingered over a mediocre steak and over-dry baked potato that I’d washed down with cheap beer to watch her like some kind of creep. I’d stayed through dinner rush, then wandered over to the bar where she’d taken over serving drinks. She plied me with alcohol until I, with some stroke of luck or fate or both, convinced her to go to the bar next door when we couldn’t stay at the restaurant any longer. Some hours later, with enough alcohol to make bad decisions
sound like good ones, I’d convinced her to come back to my place where we could be alone.
“I’m not complaining,” I say and let my hands wander wherever she’ll allow them. “I wouldn’t judge you even if you did.”
She pauses her own explanation to peer up at me with fathomless brown eyes. “That’s so sweet,” she says, causing me to laugh. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Walker,” I answer and brush back her loose brown curls from her face. God, I want to kiss her.
“I’m Avery.”
“I remember.”
She presses her eyes shut, sighs a little. “We should probably talk some more. Get to know each other better. I think I’m a little drunk.”
I close my eyes and lean my head against the door, praying for some self-control. “Whatever you want. I just don’t want to be alone.”
Her fingers pause their exploration of my chest over the thin material of my T-shirt. I glance back down at her, watching her study me. Fuck, maybe she was right. I’d had way too much to drink.
“I don’t want to be alone either,” she confesses.
Wanting nothing more than to taste those confessions on her lips, I instead put my hands on her arms and put some much-needed distance between us. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll make us some coffee. I think there’s some in the kitchen.”
At this, she chuckles and carefully sits on the small leather sofa in the living room. “You don’t know if you have coffee in your own house?”
“It’s not mine,” I answer as I hunt through the cabinets searching for K-cups. “It’s an Airbnb. I was only in town for a few months. Didn’t seem like it would make much sense to rent a place for longer when I’d be leaving soon.”
“Oh, so you aren’t from Battleboro?” Was I imagining it or was there disappointment in her voice? I like the thought of her wanting to have me around. Not many people do these days.