The next bit is still a blur. I know I packed my things because I have a vivid memory of watching the powder-blue suitcase my mama had ordered for me for my honeymoon float away in the rising waters later, but all I can remember is the numbness settling over me again.
I’d had five days in St. Medard’s Bay, and they had been some of the best of my life, but they were over now.
I think Mr. Chambers tried to stop us. I think he might have even called Linus a “stubborn bastard,” and there’s a memory in there of Mrs. Chambers standing in the doorway, one hand over her mouth, the other resting on her stomach, as she watched us leave. I hoped her baby would be okay, that this storm wouldn’t be too stressful for her, and thinking that I’d never know if she had a Thomas or an Ellen made me so sad for some reason.
The wind was so strong we could barely open the car doors, and even once we were inside, the rain was so heavy, the windshield wipers of our Lincoln Continental were fighting a losing battle.
That was when the fear started. When I realized that all I could see outside the windows was water, water, water, everything gray, and the car slid underneath us, Linus’s hands clutching the wheel, sweat popping out on his bald head as he leaned forward and squinted.
And then we were weightless for a sickening moment, the tires losing contact with the road. I screamed, grabbed at the door handle, and even as Linus yelled for me to stop, I shoved the door as hard as I could, tumbling out into the road with a splash.
Whatever road had once stretched out before us had become a lake, and Linus got out of the car, too, then, yelling something at me, but it didn’t matter what he was saying. Not when the wind was screaming, when the pine trees on the side of the road were bending, snapping, and the water on the road seemed to be getting deeper.
“Get back in the car, Beth-Anne!” he screamed, but I didn’t want to be trapped, didn’t want water rushing in as I sat in that burgundy leather tomb. Panic had ahold of me now, and the water was rising, rising, rising.
I remembered coming down this road on the way here, how close the ocean had been, how calm and serene as we’d driven past.
It wasn’t calm now. It was a force, pushing in, smelling like salt and sky and death, and my eyes darted around me even as the rain stung, the wind making it hard to stand.
The pines were still swaying, but there, across the road, was another, bigger tree. A magnolia, shivering in the wind but standing.
I ran toward it, and then, as the water moved up my thighs, I slowed down, swinging my arms, pushing myself forward until my hands were pressed against its bark.
I didn’t know how to cook, and I didn’t know how to dress, and I didn’t know how to take care of a house, but guess what?
I sure as shit knew how to climb a tree.
That same body that Linus made fun of, that “Robertson County trash” body, was strong. The bark hurt my hands, and rain meant I could barely open my eyes, but I hauled myself up branch by branch, the wind howling around me.
I didn’t know Linus had followed me until I felt his fingers curl around my ankles, and then I looked down to see him below me. The water was high now, already covering him up to the knees, and he’d lost his glasses somewhere in all of this.
For the first time ever, Linus looked afraid.
“Help me!” he screamed, and I hooked an arm around the nearest branch, reaching down, almost out of instinct.
Our fingers brushed, but I wobbled on my perch and jerked my hand back to steady myself.
“Help me!” he yelled again, and I wanted to yell back that I was trying.
His fingers tightened on my ankle—to hold on better, I thought, but then his nails dug in, breaking the skin.
“HELP ME, YOU STUPID COW!” he shouted, lips drawn back in a snarl.
It happened so quickly.
I jerked my foot back out of his grasp, nearly sending him back to the ground and that frothing, angry water.
And then, like I was watching myself from a distance, I saw my foot—my ugly foot, as Linus often reminded me, squat and square, probably why fancy high heels never looked quite right on me—land squarely in the middle of his face.
There was a crunch, and I felt his nose give, the blood shocking red in a world that had turned gray.
His arms pinwheeled, and it reminded me of a cartoon I saw once, Wile E. Coyote, I think, about to fall off a cliff.
Ooh, he’d hate that, I thought. Being told he looks that silly, and then he was falling, the dark waters below closing over him.
Linus bobbed back up a few times. Or at least I think he did. I’d turned my face back to the trunk of that magnolia tree, holding on tight, eyes closed.
So maybe it wasn’t him screaming. Maybe that gurgling, shrieking sound was just the storm.
