Margaret's Ark

own drink, and smiled. Suresh knew instantly his generalizations hadn't fooled her.

“Still,” she said, “you haven't told us whether you believe in their stories or not.”

Fully aware of Neha’s presence beside him, Suresh smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “You do not see me building an ark, or joining any of the others. Whether I believe or not is not the issue. Not to me at least. Some of the ships look strong and seaworthy, while others I have serious doubts will weather any storm. Perhaps the issue with the Divine God is simply that they are building them.”

“Then you think God is going to wash us all away.”

Sensing the inquisition, Derek Jahns leaned in and said to the group as a whole, “Have you noticed the sorts of people building these things? Just regular people, no priests or Senators, folks like that? I hadn't, until the press picked up on it. Now that's all they seem to talk about lately.”

Suresh felt his wife's subtle touch on his leg. She gave a squeeze. He let out a quiet sigh in response, relishing his wife's appreciation.. He avoided Maureen's occasional gaze, wrinkled in amusement, and let the conversation carry itself away from him. He again visualized the grove, reminded himself he'd made the correct decision. His wife's hand never left his leg. She was able to debate the sanity of those fearing the end of the world quite well with the other.

The wind and rain continued to batter the doors. A small puddle formed along the raised door jamb, catching the light of the fire. Linda Meyers rose again to mop the water up with a dish towel.

*     *     *

The drive home from the Meyers’ took longer than the trip there. Many more roads were flooded. The rain had not let up since the morning. As during the earlier drive, neither Suresh nor Neha turned on the radio, not wanting to hear any “sensationalist news reports” about the storm.

The major difference about this trip was Neha's attentiveness to her husband. Suresh forced himself to drive carefully, even as Neha teasingly pinched his earlobes and ran a finger along his cheek. Eventually, he pulled the car into their driveway. Instead of getting out, Neha turned his face towards her own and kissed him, long and with great wanting. Suresh lost himself in her passion. The constant barrage of rain on the car roof was a symphony around them.

Neha kissed her husband and listened to the rain. She thought of Meyers, his approving nod as the Ramprakashes said their goodbyes and ran to their car. Suresh had done well, so she pulled him closer, her need almost as strong as his. She would give him the ever-promised reward, now, in the car like American teenagers. But it was not over. She held her husband and listened to the rain slamming down all around them. It was far from over.

*     *     *

It felt like the middle of the night. Margaret glanced up at the clock. Only eight-thirty. Without speaking, Al placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of her, laid a hand briefly on her shoulder before moving on to converse quietly with his former co-workers. The fire station buzzed with the influx of people. The entire contingent of firefighters had been called to duty, woken or paged from their private worlds.

Margaret wanted to ask if the coffee was decaffeinated, decided against it. If it wasn't, she'd be up all night. If it was, she probably wouldn't feel much different. She was tired. Exhausted past anything she'd felt since the days following Vince's death and subsequent blur of wake and funeral. She took a sip and winced when the coffee burned the small cut on her bottom lip.

“But, how? Plywood's not exactly waterproof.” The man beside her had given his name, which Margaret quickly forgot. Not that she'd been listening when he came into the station, shadowed by Carl and Marty Santos. The fire chief had taken the role of receptionist, screening anyone wanting to speak with Margaret within the dry confines of the station's upstairs living room. Carl wasn't accompanying Marty but simply checking in. He'd been arrested, along with half of Margaret's crew and a dozen others from the mob who’d refused to move outside the circle of cruisers and fire trucks. Then, Margaret had shouted to her people to go quietly. She'd get them out when she could. With the crowd subdued, or at least contained, Al had gone to the police station and, in his words, “Had a hell of a time getting anyone to even talk to me.” In the end, he'd convinced the night Sergeant to release the crew. They left under the wails and derisive shouts of those left behind in over-crowded cells.

Margaret made notes along the edges of the paper, writing as legibly as possible with her cramped fingers. The sheets had been printed from one of the detailed web sites Carl found on the Internet, offering “blueprints” of the ark to anyone interested. Not everything was exactly as she envisioned, and those points she corrected or amplified with the pen.

“You need to get enough sealant tape to cover every seam,” she said, “and lather the glue across the whole exterior. You can't miss one seam. Here. I'll start a clean sheet for a list.” The man beside her nodded, a little too often for Margaret to think he was taking much of it in. Still, she discussed wood and nails and cross-supports and the short mast, pointing out the storage compartments and making sure he understood that the lower deck required additional beams to support the harnesses. Thirty of them.

Al and Carl stood close by, listening intently. Though Margaret had covered the erection of the additional beams with them, she hadn't said much about the harnesses. Their installation wasn’t yet required. Estelle was the exception, responsible for tracking and monitoring supplies, and her obvious situation with the wheelchair. Margaret had gone into this particular requirement with her early on.

The only thing she was not able to explain, to either Estelle or the man sitting beside her, was their actual purpose. It seemed like overkill. In the worse storm that might happen at sea, she could think of better handholds, more conventional seating during calm weather.

But the harnesses, adjustable for the largest man or the smallest infant, were a requirement burned into her brain as deeply as the placement of every nail. She could not question it.

The man beside her did, and Margaret tried to press home the one point that was now a natural assumption for her. He had no choice. These specs were from God, and there was no room for modifications. The man nodded. Again. She saw in his contemplative expression that he was already changing things in his mind.

Carl and Al moved on to other distractions, mostly standing by the window and staring at the ark capsized on the grass. The area was bathed in rain-dimmed brilliance from twin halogen spotlights, powered by electrical chords running from the station. The two men kept any questions they might be forming to themselves. Carl held Margaret’s Bible in both hands, absently turning it over and over. When she’d learned the teenager had spent a lot of that first night at her house reading it, she gave it to him. He’d refused at first, having seen the inscription from her late husband on the inside cover. In the end, they’d compromised on him borrowing it for as long as he wanted, or as long as it took for him to get his own. She would have liked to spend more time with the boy, answer his questions, but there never seemed to be any time and there would probably be even less as June approached. Maybe later, she thought. After.

Margaret brought her attention back to the moment, drawing rough schematics with her Bic pen when the printed image was not enough. This man was planning on building on the opposite end of the common. Margaret reminded him again that he was free to inspect her own ship, see what her artless scribbling actually meant.

The well of knowledge implanted in her was running dry by nine o'clock. The man looked tired. A few minutes ago, Estelle had called from Margaret's home to say the girls were in bed, though not yet asleep. Fae had returned from the house with extra dry clothes for her and Carl.  the day after he arrived at her door, Margaret had sent him to Wal-mart for a new wardrobe using her credit card. The rest of the crew, save Carl and Al, reluctantly returned home. It made no sense to try righting the ship tonight. Privately, Margaret wondered if it wasn't better off where it lay. Not much rain could build up below deck in this position.

Not long after Fae arrived with the clothes, Margaret caught a glimpse of Adrian Edgecomb. The selectman had stormed through the town hall and police station, and judging by the occasional shouting during the evening, he'd paid a number of visits to the fire station. He was not happy. The town had been turned into a circus. His words. Three people were in the hospital because that nut decided she was a twenty-first century Noah. Those were snippets of conversation Margaret overheard during his brief visits with Marty. She didn't want to know what he was saying about her. She did wonder about the other two selectmen. Edgecomb seemed to have taken the most vociferous stance so far.

Edgecomb posed more of a threat to her completing the task than any mob that might come in the future. Her free ride on taxpayer property, yet another quote, was about to end.

No sooner had she begun wrapping up her overview with the man beside her, and organizing her notes, than