“We need more bikes,” Alex said. “You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we’ll need three more.”
“We only have four bikes,” I said. “Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon.”
“Your mother won’t need one,” Alex said. “She never leaves the house.”
“She will someday,” I said. “When she has to.”
“She’ll get a bike then,” Alex said. “In the meantime you’ll need a bike a lot more than she does.”
I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren’t. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.
“I want you so much,” he said, and then he laughed. “I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you.”
“You have me,” I said.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my million doubts flew away.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”
We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we really existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.
It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. “Let’s ride them back,” I suggested. “And go out again to look some more.”
“Good idea,” Alex said, kissing me again. “We’ll look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours.”
We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn’t scared anymore, just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.
We’d gotten back to Howell Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pulled him down instead, and we kissed.
What a dumb word that is, “kiss.” I’ve kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I’ve kissed other boys.
This kiss wasn’t that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.
“Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him. “In the eyes of God and the Church?”
“Does that mean you will?” he asked.
I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.
But then hail started to fall, little pellets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.
“We’ve got to get home,” Alex said as he pulled me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.
It’s been a year since I’ve seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantically down the hill, both of us falling as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.
And then I saw the twister. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.
I yelled to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn’t turn off onto the driveway. Instead he yelled something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.
In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them. And he’d shouted to me to get his missal.
I had only seconds to decide. Do I go back home, warn Mom and Syl, and ride out the tornado in the cellar with them, or do I go to Dad’s, warn Lisa and Charlie, and do the one thing Alex had asked of me?
I turned away from home, rode to Dad’s, jumped off my bike, and pounded frantically on their back door.
Charlie opened it.
“Tornado!” I screamed. “Go to the cellar!”
I didn’t stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure he understood, that he warned Lisa and led her and the baby to safety. I trusted him to do that, as Alex trusted me.
Instead I ran to the parlor and looked frantically for the missal. I went through a pile of textbooks, but it wasn’t there. I felt all the furniture, to see if it was stuffed under cushions, but it didn’t seem to be. I got on the floor, searching under the chairs and sofas. I have no idea how long I looked, maybe a minute, maybe more. But then I caught a glimpse of something in his neatly folded pile of clothes. I flung the clothes until I found the missal.
I raced back toward the kitchen, but I could tell from the terrifying sound, the way the house was beginning to shake, that there wasn’t enough time to get to the cellar. Instead I ran into the little storage closet under the stairwell, clutching the missal tightly, as though it could keep me from harm.
When we were kids, we were forbidden to go in that closet. It was the perfect size to hide in, and we’d always been tempted. But now I was grown up, and the closet was too small for me to stand. I curled up in a ball, making myself as small as possible, so the tornado couldn’t find me.
All around me I could sense the house collapsing, and I felt like a sparrow being sucked into an airplane engine. The sound was ungodly. But the stairwell held, and the tornado passed, and I was still alive.
I pushed against the stairwell door, but it wouldn’t open. I pushed harder, shoving my shoulder against it, but nothing happened. I twisted my torso so my entire chest faced the door, and I rammed my body into the door, pushing, pushing, pushing, but the door stayed shut. There was too much debris piled against it.
I was stuck in the closet, in a tiny space under the staircase. I’d survived the tornado, but now I was buried alive. If no one found me, I’d suffocate.
“Help!” I screamed. “Help!”
“Miranda? Where are you? Are you all right?”
The voice was muffled, as though it was a long way away. Then I realized it was Charlie, calling to me from the cellar.
“I’m in the stairwell closet,” I yelled. “I can’t get the door open. Are you all right? Lisa? The baby?”
“We’re fine,” Charlie shouted. “Keep still, Miranda. Don’t talk anymore. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I shook from relief. Charlie would save me. Death would be cheated, one more time.
But Charlie didn’t come. I heard thuds from the cellar and a noise I couldn’t identify, and then Lisa screamed.
I knew yelling would use up needed air, but I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?” I shouted. “Lisa?”
Lisa didn’t answer. She just screamed, “No! Charlie, no!”
“Charlie!” I shouted. “Charlie, answer me!”
But there was no answer, just the sound of Lisa and Gabriel wailing as though they’d lost their best friend.
I was too stunned to cry. Something had happened. I couldn’t be sure what, but whatever it was, Charlie hadn’t been able to get the cellar door open. He and Lisa and Gabriel were as trapped as I was. They had more room, so they wouldn’t suffocate, but unless someone came and got us out, they would die, just as I would, only their deaths would take longer.
Assuming Charlie hadn’t already died.
It was then, only then, that I realized everybody might have died. I hadn’t warned Mom or Syl. Mom could have been in the sunroom, Syl in her bedroom, when the tornado struck. Matt and Dad were outside chopping wood. And there was no way of knowing where Jon and Julie were, if Alex had gotten to them in time, and if it would have made any difference if he had.
Before I’d shook from relief. Now my body spasmed in terror and grief.
“Lisa! Lisa, are you all right?”
“Daddy!” I screamed. “Daddy, help me!”
“Miranda?” Dad called. “I can hear you, but I don’t know where you are.”
“In the stairwell closet,” I said. “Daddy, get me out. Lisa and Charlie are in the cellar. Something happened
