What would this do to the adoption?
The sudden, dark, horrifying thought squeezed her throat. What if this stopped everything? What if Lynda said, “no house, no go”?
No. She would never do that. Dusty and Tessa would live at the Summer House or find a rental or something. They weren’t going to be homeless, and neither would Olive.
A hurricane was not a moral failing. A flooded kitchen was not an unfit home. The renovation had been disclosed to the agency from the start, the timeline approved, the working plan in the file. They would clean up. They would remediate. They would rebuild. They would call?—
“We’re good,” Dusty called, jogging back from the other side of the house. “Structure seems solid, just wet. No visible cracking at the corners. The exterior stairs to your old unit are dry above the line and the railing’s firm. We can go up. I still want a structural inspection, but for now, today, we can get into the upstairs from outside.”
“Can we stay there?” Tessa asked.
“That might be pushing safety.”
She nodded in agreement and they climbed the outside steps that led to what once was a pricey rental before it had been Tessa’s home for a brief few weeks.
The little porch at the top was wet only in the places where rain had blown sideways. The door was dry. Tessa fished her key out of her bag with shaking fingers, put the key in the lock, and turned it.
The upstairs was untouched.
After a tour of the soaked, wet, ruined downstairs, the upstairs hit her like a clean breath. Her old living room. Her old kitchen. The rooftop deck slider beyond, still boarded, but the inside of the room exactly as it had been. The pictures on the wall. The plant, the blankets, the toys.
“Cat three,” Dusty murmured as they looked around. “A blessing. If it had been a five and a direct hit, this would be open air.”
Olive took in her home with cautious blinking.
“My room,” she said, hopefully, squiggling to get down and go there.
Tessa gave Dusty a questioning look and he held up a hand. “Let me make sure no window broke or leaked.” A few seconds later, he called, “Come on back, Olive!”
Tessa set her down and she ran on her tiny two-year-old legs, letting out an “Oh!” of relief at the sight of her untouched toddler bed, the row of stuffies, the shelves of books, the dollhouse and tea table and everything Tessa had given her to make her little-girl life wonderful.
She practically twirled with joy, making Tessa and Dusty share the first real smile either of them had felt all day.
Dusty’s hand came to the small of her back. “We’re going to be okay.”
“I know.”
She did know. Most of her knew. The downstairs would be rebuilt. The insurance would do whatever insurance did. They would find somewhere to stay—Eli would offer the Summer House the second they pulled up, she was certain. They would live their lives upstairs from a gut job as soon as it was safe.
One day, not soon but eventually, the new staircase would be finished, and Olive would clatter down it to a kitchen that smelled of breakfast and not of a flood.
It was just hard to fathom the road from here to there.
She packed several days’ worth of Olive’s clothes into a bag, and some for herself, and Olive’s favorite cup, and board books. Olive filled two tote bags with essential stuffed animals and toys.
Dusty had moved some of his clothes up to Tessa’s bedroom after their first, civil ceremony wedding. So he packed from that collection, using an old suitcase Tessa had in a closet.
Somehow, they gathered what they needed, and came back down the outside stairs into the hot, rain-washed afternoon with a little more hope in their hearts.
The Bremers were still in their driveway. Mr. Bremer raised his tired hand again.
After loading the back of the truck, Dusty went to chat with them while Tessa got Olive into her seat with Wingo and a giraffe who had tales to tell about surviving a storm. She looked like a queen flanked by ministers, happy and probably about to realize she needed food.
Please, God, let the Summer House be fine.
Dusty came back with a report of damage similar to theirs and started up the truck. “Summer House?”
“Where else?” Tessa laughed. “It’s the closest thing to a home we have.”
