"I think Peter's running out of steam," I say, like nothing happened. Like I didn't just sit motionless with a dead arm so a stranger could sleep on my shoulder during a hurricane. "Listen. Hear that? The wind's dropping. Worst is over. We made it and we didn't even have to hang onto the roof or swim."
He's quiet for a moment. I can feel him wondering whether I'm going to acknowledge what just happened or let it go.
He needs me to let it go and I do.
"What time is it?" he asks. His voice is rough from sleep, lower than usual, and it sounds almost normal.
"Almost five. Landfall was around midnight, so we're about five hours past. The backside is winding down. Should be clear by sunrise." I stand up and shake out my arm, which feels like it's not even there. "Let's check the damage."
We go to the balcony door. I open it and the wind pushes in, but it's a shadow of what it was. The rain is still heavy but it's falling down now instead of sideways.
"We'll wait for first light," I say. "Should be about thirty minutes. Then we'll see what Peter left behind."
Stormy stands near the doorway, arms crossed, watching the sky lighten from black to gray to that pale, thin gold that comes right before sunrise. He's quiet, but it's a different quiet than yesterday. Less tight.
The sun comes up right before six. I watch it happen in real time, and will remember it for the rest of my life.
It breaks over the horizon in a line of orange and pink so vivid it looks fake, like someone cranked the saturation up to a level that doesn't exist in nature. The sky goes from gray to gold to blazing blue in the span of minutes, and the clouds that are left, the trailing edge of Peter's tantrum, catch the light and turn colors I don't have names for.
It's the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen.
And it's shining on absolute devastation.
The coastline is destroyed. I step onto the balcony and grip the railing and look out at a world I don't recognize. The parking lot is buried under two feet of sand and debris. The beach road, or where the beach road used to be, is covered in wreckage.
I can see roofing material, pieces of fencing, what looks like the remains of someone's deck, a refrigerator lying on its side in the middle of the road. Power lines are down everywhere, draped across the road like black spaghetti, some of them still attached to broken poles that lean at crazy angles.
The buildings along the strip are gutted. The condo building two doors down lost its entire gulf-facing wall. I can see into the rooms, like a dollhouse with the front ripped off. Furniture, curtains, a TV still mounted to an interior wall.Some of the furniture is lying on the sand. The beachfront swimming pool is gone.
The beach itself doesn't exist. The sand has been redistributed across three blocks of the surrounding area, buried under wood and seaweed and things that don't belong on land. There's a boat, a small fishing boat, sitting in the middle of the road a hundred yards from the water. Debris is everywhere.
"Oh my God," Stormy says beside me. I didn't hear him come out onto the balcony. He's standing next to me, hands on the railing, staring at the same thing I'm staring at. "Is it always this bad?"
"I don't know. I've only been through one before and Michael was bad too."
We stand there for a minute. The sun keeps rising, cheerful and oblivious, pouring golden light over the destruction like it's proud of the view.
"Let's go check out the first floor," I say.
We go downstairs. The water has receded, mostly. There's still standing water in the lowest spots, maybe six inches in the corners, and the rest is a film of muddy saltwater over everything. The smell is bad. Not rotten yet, but that heavy, organic, brackish smell of water mixed with sand and whatever it dragged in from outside.
The bar is wrecked.
I stand at the bottom of the stairs and take a long look. I let myself feel the heartbreak for a second before I put it away. Crying won't help. The hardwood floors are buckled and warped, pulling away from the subfloor in long, curling strips. The pool tables are turned on their sides, shoved against the far wall by the force of the water. The jukebox is face-down inthe mud. The neon signs are dark, some of them cracked, the BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSE sign hanging by one chain. The gift shop display is scattered, racks toppled, keychains and shot glasses spread across the floor in a soggy mess.
The bar top is still there. Dad built it to last. He bolted it to a concrete footer he poured himself, and the water couldn't move it. But it's been submerged for hours and the wood is dark and swollen. I know from Michael that saltwater does things to wood that you can't always fix.
I walk over to it and put my hand on the surface. It's wet and gritty with sand. Closing my eyes for a second, I think about my dad standing behind this bar. Pouring drinks, telling stories, knowing every regular's name. This was his bar and his bar top. He built it with his hands.
"Well," I say, and my voice comes out a little rough but I clear it and keep going. "Guess we're remodeling. Again."
I turn around. Stormy is standing behind me, near the stairs, looking at the destruction with an expression I haven't seen on his face before. It's not fear. It's not that careful, calculated blankness he wears like armor. It's softer. Sadder. Like he understands what this place means to me and he's sorry it's hurt.
He's hurting for me.
"Stormy," I say. He looks over at me. "I'm glad you're here with me." I say it straight, no joke attached, no deflection. Just the truth. "You being here, through all of that last night, it meant more than you probably know. So, thank you."
He shrugs and looks down at the floor. "I didn't do anything."
