“They’re saying it’s going to be one of the really big ones!” He gestured so excitedly as he described the spiraling bands of storms around the eye that the plastic syrup dispenser went flying and he had to get up and chase it down.
Lashanda looked less than thrilled by the approaching storm and moved closer to Cyl till she was tucked up almost under Cyl’s arm. “I wish we could spend the night at your house.”
Cyl put her arm around the child and gave a little squeeze. “I wish you could, too, baby.”
“Shandy!” said her brother.
“Grandfather scares me.” A tear slid down her cheek. “And Mama’s not coming home tonight and if Daddy stays with her and we get tornadoes—”
Her lip quivered.
“What about your mother’s friend?” I asked. “Someone named Rosa?”
“Miss Rosa hasn’t come yet,” said Stan. “She must’ve worked last night ’cause we couldn’t get her on the phone either.”
Not much of a best friend, I thought, thinking how I’d react if something like this happened to Portland or Morgan or Dixie or two or three other close friends.
“Don’t worry,” Cyl told Lashanda. “Things will work out.”
She wet a napkin in a glass of water and gently wiped the little girl’s sticky lips.
* * *
When we delivered the children back to the ICU waiting room, Ralph immediately came over and thanked us again.
“How is Mrs. Freeman really?” Cyl asked when Stan and Lashanda spotted friends of their own age and moved away from us.
“Really?” Ralph shook his head, clearly weary from lack of sleep and a deep sadness. “Dr. Potts can’t say. She should have regained consciousness by now, but she hasn’t. There are broken ribs, bruised windpipe from the seat belt—thank God she was wearing it! Those things are relatively superficial. But the concussion . . . and of course, the longer she’s in a coma, the worse the prospects. Maybe by lunchtime we’ll know better.”
The mention of lunchtime made me look at my watch. Ten after nine.
I squeezed Ralph’s hand. “We have to go now, but we’ll be praying for her.”
“You’ll come back?”
“Yes,” said Cyl.
* * *
She was silent in the elevator down and as we walked out through the parking lot, I said, “You okay?”
“I’m holding it together.” She gave me an unhappy smile. “For the moment anyhow.”
“See you at the courthouse, then.” I headed for my car a few spaces past hers, then stopped short. “Oh, damn!”
“What?” asked Cyl.
“Somebody’s popped the lock on my trunk again.” I was totally exasperated. This was the second time in a year. “What the hell do they think I carry?”
“They take anything?” she asked, peering over my shoulder.
My briefcase was still there. So were my robe and the heavy locked toolbox where I stash wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, extra windshield wipers and the registered .38 Daddy gave me when I told him I was going to keep on driving deserted roads at night and that I didn’t need a man to protect me. Things had been stirred and the roll of paper towels was tangled in my robe, but I couldn’t see that anything was missing.
I transferred robe and briefcase to the front seat and wired the trunk lid down. It irked me that I was going to have to spend my morning break filing another police complaint so I could prove to the insurance company that the damage really happened.
Court was disjointed that morning, complicated by a bunch of no-shows and motions to recalendar due to the weather. With Fran expected to come ashore tonight somewhere between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington, everyone seemed to have trouble concentrating and by the time I gave up and adjourned for the day at one p.m., the wind had picked up and it was raining hard again.
Frankly, I was getting more than a little tired of both the anticipation and the rain, too.
“Enough already!” I grumbled to Luther Parker, with whom I share a connecting bathroom. “Let’s just have a good blow and get it over with and get back to sunshine.”
“Hope it’s that easy,” he said.
Everything smelled musty and felt damp. I almost slipped off my shoes and wiggled my stockinged toes just to make sure they weren’t starting to grow little webs.
At the midmorning break, when I reported my jimmied trunk to the Dobbs town police, I’d cut through the Sheriff’s Department to gripe about it to Dwight, but his office was empty.
He was there at one-fifteen, though, munching a hamburger at his desk. I started through the door of his office singing my song of woe, then stopped when I saw Terry Wilson sitting at the other end of the desk with his own hamburger and drink can.
