Chapter 3
Tuesday morning arrives too quickly. My parents are in the kitchen when I wake up, looking bright and happy unlike most mornings when they look like me—the walking dead. We aren’t a morning type of family, but they’re so excited about their stupid trip to the next state over, that Mom’s even made breakfast for us.
“Waffles!” she says when I enter. “I’ve got strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream for toppings.”
“Awesome,” I say, grabbing a plate and slinking into a chair next to Dad. He’s looking up the weather channel on the iPad he has for work. We have a television in the living room, but no cable, and the antenna signal isn’t very good, so most TV-watching gets done on the iPad.
“Morning, Punk,” he says, not taking his eyes off the screen which shows a radar of the approaching hurricane.
“When is that thing supposed to hit land?” I ask.
“Friday,” Mom says, dropping a waffle on my plate. She takes her plate and sits across from me, reaching for the whipped cream and sliced fruit. “We’re leaving today so we’ll be there well before it arrives.”
“So you’ll be indoors the whole time?” I ask.
Mom nods. “There’s an entire wing of the hospital that’s just dorms for staff. Dad and I have a room booked and we’ll be able to go from there to the hospital without stepping outside. It’s all very safe.”
“The hospital is built to withstand a category 4 hurricane direct hit,” Dad says.
Right now, the hurricane is a category 5, which doesn’t do much to put my mind at ease. I stab my waffle with the knife and fork and saw it into smaller pieces. Mom’s waffles are amazing, but I have very little appetite right now. Last year when I came home to a destroyed house and found my dad hiding in the bathtub of what used to be our bathroom, I thought that was the most scared I’d ever be for my parents. Now they’re both walking right into the storm instead of staying safe here in Texas.
I heave a sigh. “Why do ya’ll have to go?”
Mom looks at Dad, and they share one of their husband-wife looks that they understand and I don’t. Finally, Dad speaks.
“Punk, when we lost everything last year, the community came together to help us. The Poes took us in, the clean up crew donated their time, and even my coworkers gave me their unused sick days so I could take off work and still get paid. Your mom and I want to give back somehow. We think this is a good option. The people of New Orleans are about to get hit hard, and many will lose homes, power, maybe even their lives. We want to help.”
I feel like a freaking five year old right now because instead of admitting that my parents are awesome, selfless heroes, I just want to stomp my foot and pout and tell them to stay. I try to put my trust in their confidence. My parents are good people, and they’re not stupid. If there was a serious danger of them getting hurt, I bet they wouldn’t go.
I smile as best as I can. “Just be careful. I’ll miss you guys.”
“We’ll be back a few days before you go off to college,” Mom says. “We’ll have to take you and Ethan out to a fancy dinner to celebrate.”
“Sounds fun,” I say, but my stomach does a little flip flop at the mention of college and now I’m even less hungry.
After breakfast, I drive my parents to the airport. Usually, they’d just drive themselves to New Orleans since it’s not very far but the odds of their car getting destroyed in the hospital’s parking lot are too high to risk it. So the good news is that I get to keep the Corolla for the next few days. After we say our goodbyes, I’m driving myself back home and I can’t seem to get the radio to go loud enough to block out all the thoughts that are bothering me.
I’m worried about my parents, but not so much anymore. I did some research on the hospital after breakfast and it turns out that building is pretty strong. They have backup generators and flood gates and all kinds of safety features. My parents will be fine. I worry that the people of Louisiana won’t be so fine, but at least my parents will be okay. Hopefully the residents along the coast will evacuate on time, even if they lose their homes in the process.
When I get home, I’m still feeling like crap. I don’t think it’s my parents anymore. I think I’m just so worried about starting college and the possibility of losing Ethan in our long distance relationship that I tried to put all the blame on my parents. The fact is, they will come home in a few days when the hurricane is over. Ethan will always live hours away once school starts. In a perfect world, Ethan would also have culinary dreams and we could go to the same school and open a restaurant together once we graduate and never have to be apart at all.
Of course, real life isn’t like that.
As soon as I get home from the airport, my best friend April calls. “Perfect timing,” I say instead of a hello. “I just got home from the airport and I need something to take my mind off everything.”
“Well, I was going to suggest getting a pizza for lunch but that doesn’t seem very crisis-fixing,” April says with a laugh.
“Pizza can work miracles, but I’m not sure it can fix this one.” I sigh into the phone as I sit in the Corolla and stare up at my rental house. “Pizza wouldn’t hurt though. What’s Toby doing? Is he coming with us?”
April started dating Toby a few months ago. He’s one of Ethan’s best friends, so it makes for great double dates. April’s relationship isn’t in peril though, since they’re both attending the local community college this year.
“Nope, I told him I needed some girl time,” April says. “I think he’s going over to Ethan’s.”
“Girl time is definitely needed,” I say. “Do you want to come over?”
My rental house may be small and lacking in furniture, but April’s house has her six little brothers and sisters in it, and that’s worse than not having furniture or cable TV.
April arrives with our favorite brick oven pizza from this small hole-in-the-wall pizzeria we discovered on this side of town after I moved here. We eat it on the back patio, because unlike the tiny house, the patio is huge. It’s a wooden deck that stretches across the entire back of the house, and extends out into the yard. There’s built in tiki lamps and a covered pergola and a sound system. Whoever owned this house before renting it out really loved to hang out in the back yard.
