The Hurricane

Carlton ran his fingers through his hair. “Depends on how large the eye is and how fast the storm’s moving. I hope we don’t have long.”

“You’re ready for it to come back?”

Daniel didn’t understand.

“I’m ready for it to move on. I’d hate for it to stall here.”

Daniel nodded.

“Do you think it’s safe to run around the house and see how everything else looks?”

His mother shook her head. “There might be power lines down or something else we can’t think of. Let’s just get back inside.”

“I’m going to go upstairs and see how bad the damage is,” Carlton said. “And we should try and eat something before the winds pick back up.”

Zola appeared behind him, dragging her blanket, which she held wrapped around her shoulders. “Can I go upstairs, too?” she asked. Before anyone could answer, she dropped the blanket and turned and ran toward the stairs. Carlton kissed Daniel’s mom and ran after her.

“Sucks about the house,” Daniel told his mom. He followed her into the house and watched her close the door and secure the deadbolt.

“It’s insured,” she said. “I just hate it for Zola. I hope it’s not that bad.”

“It looked pretty bad.”

She waved him toward the kitchen. “I don’t want to try the gas just yet, so let’s do cereal.” She went to the cabinet and pulled out a mix of boxes. “We also have these Poptarts if anyone wants to eat them cold.”

“How long will we be without power?” Daniel grabbed the milk out of the fridge and shut the door as fast as he could, trapping the cold inside what had become a lifeless cooler.

“It might be a few days, as bad as it looks outside. And it might look even worse once the other side of the storm gets done with us.”

“It doesn’t feel like anything’s about to happen,” Daniel said. Looking out the window, it looked like a normal morning with just some heavy rainclouds on the horizon.

Zola stomped down the stairs with the heft of a mule and burst into the kitchen, crying. She had her sodden bookbag on one shoulder, a stuffed animal in her hand.

“It’s ruined!” she cried. She ran into her mother’s arms and threw her hands around her back. “Everything’s ruined!”

Their mom didn’t say anything. Carlton walked in and went immediately for the cereal. Daniel noticed, in the sad and quiet exhaustion on his mother’s face, how worn out she was. Her work weeks were invariably draining, but she always had the weekend to recharge herself. A glance out the windows—past the leaves and twigs plastered to the glass and to the debris field beyond—suggested it would be some time before anyone rested.

The light outside dimmed like a curtain drawn over the sky.

“Get some breakfast,” their mother said. She let go of Zola and passed her a bowl. Carlton crunched loudly on his cereal and leaned over the sink to gaze up at the sky.

“Make it quick,” he mumbled around his food.

An eerie shade fell over the house. A distant howl drew closer. It sounded like wide and fast columns of highway traffic were whizzing nearby. Daniel shook some cereal into a bowl, did the same in the bowl held out by his sister, watched his mom splash some milk on both, then grabbed a spoon from the counter and followed Carlton back down the hall.

“These’re the worst winds,” Carlton crunched over his shoulder. It sounded more like he was steeling himself for what was to come rather than trying to enlighten Daniel.

The four of them filed back into the bathroom. Daniel and Zola sat in their corner and ate while their mom and Carlton sat on the edge of the tub. An empty bucket floated on the water behind them, and Daniel realized how badly he needed to pee.

There was a crack outside, a sharp report like a canon, and the roar of the wind was right down their necks. It grew even darker in the house, almost as if the sun had changed its mind and slunk back over the horizon, ducking from the storm. The four of them stopped crunching on granola as the pitch and intensity of the wind grew and grew, but still seemed so distant.

And then the wall of hurricane Anna reached their yard. There were more gunshots of snapping trees, audible over the din of the wind. The house shuddered violently as it was hit by the edge of the storm. Daniel felt a surge of nausea clench his stomach. A hollow pit of anxiety and fear of this indomitable thing had returned, much like he’d felt in the surf with Roby those years ago.

The house rattled and creaked. Something snapped somewhere—bits of the roof peeling off, a window shattering, another limb or tree smashing into their home—it was impossible to tell.

The wind groaned through the cracked windows, belching in after them. Daniel could feel the air grow colder, could feel a breeze on his cheeks, could smell the wet rot of disturbed soil and bark. None of them were eating. None were reaching to light a candle. They sat with their spoons in their hands, dripping milk, waiting for the world to end.

“It was like this before, just before the eye came,” their mother said. Daniel didn’t know if she was trying to reassure them or let them know how lucky they’d been to sleep through it. Daniel thought about how that earlier chaos had just ended suddenly with the eye passing over. This time, it would be another half day of powerful winds clawing at their house, their neighborhood, their entire town. Zooming out, he had a sudden and terrific shift in perspective that made his mind reel. Daniel thought about all the millions of Americans going about their days in other states, glancing perhaps at the weather, asking friends what that storm was named again, marveling at the size and shape of the thing on their functioning and powered TVs . . . and Daniel was in the middle of it all. He was terrified for his life in the middle of someone else’s idle curiosity. He was one of those numbers people rattled off: so many dead, so many injured, so many without a home, so many displaced, so many orphaned. He was a living statistic.

The house shuddered, and Daniel’s brain did the same. He remembered Hurricane Katrina, when he was younger. He had watched the news for two days, marveling at how water could literally burn, at people being airlifted from their homes, and he had been little more than curious and awed.

Closer to home, he thought of the people standing in the storm’s eye right then. His neighbors and fellow South Carolinians. What where they going through? What were the winds like in Charleston? Were people in distant Myrtle Beach surfing and laughing? Were people in Florida thrilled and relieved? Were kids watching on their TVs, hoping it would be a bad storm so they could be entertained by the news?

There was a great crash on the other side of the wall near him and Zola, and his sister jumped, spilling some of her cereal. She screamed and moved up against him, groping for his hand with one of hers. Daniel put his bowl down by his feet and wrapped his arms around her. Her spoon and bowl rattled together as she held them with one trembling hand.

“It’s okay,” Carlton told them. He slid across the edge of the tub. His cereal had been put aside; his hands went to their shoulders. Daniel felt himself and Zola leaning into his strong touch rather than pulling away as they normally might have. Their mother moved to the floor and huddled up close. She rested her hands on their knees, and the ring of touching almost felt like a seance or a blessing before a meal. With all of them quiet, Daniel could hear naked and raw wind and rain in the living room. At least one window had blown out.

The wind continued to rattle the house, but the initial wall of fury gradually dissipated. It slid further inland, tormenting others. What was left was a deafening howl and the hiss of sheets of rain. The goose bumps of fear subsided on Daniel’s arms and legs. The four of them unwound from their familial knot of terror. Soggy cereal with warm milk was stirred, but little more was eaten. They took turns in the hallway, watching the trees bend through glimpses out the kitchen windows, while others went to the bathroom one at a time. Daniel saw trees nearly denuded of leaves in the height of summer, their naked limbs whipping, their trunks bent and bobbing. He leaned out to see better and watched as the entire yard swayed in synchronicity, following the furious waves of rain and screeching gusts of wind like seaweed caught in the tide.

Taking his turn in the bathroom was the worst. It was the being alone, the moving shadows cast by the solitary flickering candle, the sound of his family conversing in the hallway out there with the storm. Daniel made the mistake of looking in the toilet as he finished his business.

“Is it okay to flush?” he yelled through the door.