Chapter Ten
It wasn’tas bad as I imagined. Though my parents are fairly open-minded, I envisioned screaming and judgment. I finally realized that I harbored unrealistic expectations, but still, I’d been afraid. My inevitable divorce upset my mother, but she seemed to be more disappointed for me rather than at me. My dad kept repeating that everything would turn out fine, and I was welcome home as long as I needed. I hated turning our lives inside out this way, especially with my dad’s condition. But this hadn’t been my choice, had it?
My retelling of the story left out anything to do with Harvey and our make-out session. I made a point of staying far away from him the rest of the evening as he helped my mom make dinner and then sat with my dad by the TV for the local evening news (most of it storm coverage). Yes, I stayed away, but that didn’t mean I didn’t watch him. Oh, I watched him— open a jar for my mom that she couldn’t budge, how his forearm muscles flexed and he barely made any effort. How he laughed when my dad told a stupid joke at dinner. How he looked at me and winked a couple of times throughout the night. Delicious shivers surprised me each time he did that.
The eleven o’clock update showed that the storm lingered off shore. While they weren’t sure how close the eye would be to us, the forecast showed at least tropical force storm winds, if not hurricane strength coming our way. Everyone said their goodnights and went to bed, hoping that the hurricane passed over in the night as we slept, with nothing but a little rain and wind. I was in the middle of a dream in which Harvey had made his way to my bedroom. In the dream, we continued where we’d left off the other night, but I woke with a start at a loud bang on my window – well, on the shutter.
“Audrey!” My mom yelled. I tried to calm myself enough to answer her. The wind outside whistled through the shutters and caused several more bangs on my window and others throughout the house.
“I’m fine! It’s the wind!” I called back. I tried to lie back and fall asleep when my parents opened my bedroom door without knocking.
“It’s on top of us. Come downstairs,” my dad said, and we made our way down. Harvey, groggy-eyed, sat up on the sofa bed and reached for the remote. Red banners popped up on the top of the screen announcing tornado warnings. The hurricane had strengthened to a Category 4 in the early hours of the morning right before making it onshore. The current satellite image showed that we were on the edge of the hurricane-force winds at the moment, with the eye traveling directly towards our town.
Just as we finished hearing the last of the update, everything went dark. With the power out, the silence inside— no A/C, no refrigerator noise, no TV— increased the noise outside. I felt my way to the dining table and grabbed a few flashlights, turning them on before handing one to each person. The wind howled— there was no other way to put it. I itched to open a door or something to see what was happening out there, but it wouldn’t be safe.
Mrs. Garrett had joined us earlier and now said, “Maybe we should huddle in the hallway with a mattress slanted over us. That’s what we did in the other hurricane, and it saved us when our roof caved in.”
“Let’s do that Elton,” my mom said, flinching when several things hit our shutters again.
“Let’s get the guest room mattress,” my dad said, “since it’s down here.” He made over to the room as if he was going to carry the mattress himself, but Harvey jumped over the sofa and beat him to the room.
“Let me, Mr. Whitman,” he said and lifted the mattress, but it was too large for one person to move alone. Mrs. Garrett and I each grabbed corners on the same side, my mom lighting the way with a battery-powered lantern.
This time I couldn’t avoid Harvey because, before I knew it, everyone was sitting on top of a pile of comforters on the floor. We were in a line with my dad first, then my mom next to him, then me, Harvey, and finally his mom next to the closed guest room door.
“Well, this is cozy,” Harvey said trying to lighten the mood. My mom gave a nervous laugh.
“It will be a rough next couple of weeks,” my dad said. We talked of last time, sharing our stories of the aftermath.
“But this is a Category 4,” I said. Everyone stayed quiet.
“Let’s say a small prayer for our town,” my mom said and led us in a short request that we be spared from great damage and loss of life.
I tried to check my Facebook, but the 4G signal apparently failed in the storm. Dialing out was impossible at the moment, though I didn’t want to call anyone right then.
The sounds outside got louder every minute, and we tried to have some light conversation to distract us. No one mentioned Harvey and my divorces, thank goodness.
We were in the middle of hearing Harvey tell us a story about rude customers at the restaurant when the doors inside the house started shaking. I jumped at the noise. It was as if there were people at each closed door trying to open them.
Bang, clang, bang, clangnonstop. My mom curled up onto my dad, and Harvey had his arm around his mother. I sat there, waiting for it to pass, praying for it to pass, not sure if I was even breathing as I heard something else. It sounded like a train, the kind of sound everyone who’s been through one describes as an approaching tornado. We all looked around and huddled even closer.
Harvey took my hand, and I held on for dear life. I don’t know if I’d ever been that scared in my entire life, with my eyes wide, my breathing ragged, and my heart a pounding mess. The noise was interminable, and I waited for the mattress and the rest of the house to be ripped from on top of us at any second. Harvey’s hand gave mine a reassuring squeeze.
When what seemed like years passed, and the noise finally faded away and dissipated into what sounded like regular wind and rain, everyone loosened their holds on each other, and I let go of Harvey’s hand.
“That was close,” my dad said, stepping out from under the mattress.
“Where are you going?” my mother called out. “Get back here!”
“I’ll be right back,” he said. The doors were no longer shaking, but the wind outside blew as strong as ever. He returned in two minutes.
“I remembered there are no shutters in the small bathroom window,” he said. “It’s a disaster out there, is all I can say.” We took in his words and rested on them for a few minutes.
“Did you see flooding?” Mrs. Garrett asked, obviously worried about her own house.
“You know, I didn’t notice any flooding, but I’m not sure if I could see that well, what with the rain sideways and the wind blowing leaves everywhere. It’s still dark out, but there are white planks in our yard, and I have no clue where they came from.” White planks? Our roof was brown and our walls concrete.
We had another tense few minutes when the doors began to shake again, but it passed, and eventually so did the storm. My dad went to the door, and while the wind continued, the howling had died down. We all huddled at the door, taking a look out onto the street which had water accumulated but not enough to make it impassable. One of those white planks my dad talked about, lots of leaves, and who knows what else were visible from the door. The neighbors in front had a tree knocked on to their car, but the house looked fine, albeit half of the roof shingles ripped off. From our vantage point there was not much else we could see until the storm finished, and so we went back in.
