"Captain, may I use your phone?"

"We've not had one in a good while. Too much money for too little talkin' is what Brother calls it."

"Ahh." He went to the front door and stood looking out, agonized. He couldn't see his car or the truck parked in front of the porch, only a gray film as if a heavy curtain had been lowered. He shivered in his knit shirt.

The captain reached up and pulled the chain on the light bulb. "B'lieve I'll just switch this off."

In the odd twilight of the storm-darkened room, the old man eased himself into his recliner and sighed.

"Blowin' a gale," he said.

Father Tim thumped onto the sofa.

He'd wait for a letup-every storm had a letup once in a while-then he'd run for it and drive as far as he could go. One way or another, he'd make it home. . . .

"My great-grandaddy come over from Englan' in a little ship called Rose of Sharon. It broke up in a bad storm 'bout this time of year, and him an' five other men was warshed up on Dor'ster. We speculate it was about where this road ends at, down past th' church. Back in those days, th' beaches was littered with shipwreck of ever' stripe an' color, an' so they went to work and knocked together a little shack where they could look out for another ship an' git picked up."

What was this stubborn streak that had made him so all-fired determined to come to Dorchester today as if it were some life-or-death, do-or-die endeavor? Worse, how could he have left his wife saddled with a sick boy and a storm warning? Had he bothered to listen to a weather report and check out the particulars? No, he'd shrugged it all off as if it were nothing. . . .

"They wadn't hardly nobody livin' on these little islands back then 'cept Indians, there's some as thinks it was part of Wanchese's crowd. Story goes, my great-grandaddy wadn't more'n twenty year old when he married a Indian woman off of Whitecap, had a head of hair down to her ankles. I been tol' me'n Brother has th' cheekbones and nose of a Indian, but I don't know, I couldn't say."

Please, God, don't let this storm hit Whitecap and take the bridge out, keep the bridge in good working order, the bridge, that's the crux of the matter. . . .

"I built this house for my wife, Dora, back when I was runnin' trawlers. Dora was nineteen year old when we moved in, an' cheery as any angel out of heaven. Then, when we went down to Whitecap to keep th' light, Brother moved in an' managed things for me. When I quit keepin' th' light, I stayed on in Whitecap 'til Dora died, then come back to Dor'ster where I was born an' raised at."

Two thirty-five. An hour's drive in a storm like this would surely double, maybe triple the driving time, so he'd be home by five-thirty, maybe six o'clock, max. . . .

"I've been foolin' with Canada geese a good while, now, ever' fall I pay a neighbor to sow wheat an' winter rye 'round my pond out yonder. This spring, we seen nests as had four to eight eggs apiece. . . ."

He recognized a growing sense of foreboding . . . something that pressed on his chest and worried his breathing. Maybe he wouldn't wait for a break, he'd take his chances. . . .

He bolted off the sofa. "Captain, I've got a wife and boy to get home to, I'm going to run on, it's been a pleasure meeting you, I know how much they care for you at St. John's, God bless you and keep you, I'll be back before Christmas."

The old man looked at him, dumbfounded. "You ain't goin' out in this, are ye?"

"Yes, sir, I am," he said, running to snatch his damp jacket from the hook.

"Brother!" yelled the Captain. "Come an' say goodbye to th' Father, if ye don't object."

The dining room door opened, and Brother peered out, holding a jar of peanut butter with a spoon in it.

"The Lord bless you, Brother Larkin."

The old man scowled at him. "Goin' out in that, you'd do better to bless y'rself."

As he tossed the drenched umbrella into the backseat and slammed the door, he spied the lasagna sitting on the floor behind the passenger seat. Dadgummit, he'd forgotten to give Ella her present. Cynthia had even tied a bow around the foil-covered dish.

He sat for a moment and considered running it in to the twins. Then, feeling the chill of his sodden clothes, he squelched the notion.

He passed what he thought was Ella's house, but didn't see a light. No, indeed, St. John's organist was snug in her cottage with every plug pulled, as disconnected from civilization as any soul on the Arctic tundra.

A mile and a half to the highway . . .

With no yellow line to guide him, he kept his eyes strictly on the right side of the road, but there were long moments when the wipers were of no effect on the streaming windshield and he lost visibility entirely.

At the end of the gravel lane, he had a moment of sheer panic about pulling out to the highway. Pummeled by gusting sheets of wind and rain, he searched for headlights moving toward him from either direction, but saw nothing.

He eased onto the asphalt, praying.

Was this a hurricane? Surely not, or by now he'd be sitting upside down on the mainland in somebody's tobacco field. Besides, he would have heard if a hurricane was predicted; this was merely a heavy storm with high winds, of which they'd seen more than a few since moving to these parts. The thought consoled him, but a subsequent thought of the sea, roiling and churning not far from the highway, gave his stomach a wrench.

In truth, he had no clue about what he should be doing. To cling on in Dorchester seemed wasteful of precious time, but to push ahead seemed potentially hazardous and plain stupid.

He would push ahead.

Twice, he was tempted to pull into what he thought was a service station, but he seemed to be developing a kind of sixth sense for driving in these conditions, a sense that he didn't want to abandon too hastily.

He remembered what Louella said during their last visit. Something like, "You git in any trouble down there, jus' remember Louella's up here prayin' for you."

"Pray for me, Louella!" he shouted, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice.

On either side of the highway, trucks hunkered down like great beasts, waiting out the storm.

Easing south on what he estimated to be the last half of the coastal highway, the Mustang slammed into something unseen. It was a hard hit, and the motor died instantly.

His heart thundering, he leaped from the car and saw a tree limb fallen across both lanes. He pushed against the wind to get back in the car and switch on the emergency lights-he was a sitting duck out here-then, head down, he dived back into the squall to try to move the limb. Blast. The car had rolled over the limb before the motor died.

In the driver's seat, he turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Flooded.

He tried to think calmly. If he could lift the front of the car backward over the limb, he could then push the Mustang onto the side of the road, out of harm's way. He had never lifted a car. . . .

He got out and walked to the right, checking the shoulder. But there was no shoulder; it was a drop-off to a creek, which was quickly rising to the roadway.

His glasses slid off his nose and he caught them and put them in his pocket, half blind. He was a desperate fool, the worst of fools. The rain was hammering him into the asphalt like a nail.

He saw it as he turned from the creek.

It was the lights of a truck bearing down in his lane.

His heart racing, he ran to the rear of the car and threw up both arms, waving frantically. Dear Jesus, let him see my lights. . . .

But what if the driver didn't see his lights? He could be chopped liver between the grille of a tractor-trailer and the bumper of his own car.

"Please!" he shouted over the roar and din of the rain. "Please!"

He jumped out of the way as he heard the air brakes applied. The massive vehicle rolled to a stop only inches from the Mustang.

His legs were cooked macaroni, warm Jell-O, sponge cake as he walked to the driver's side of the cab and looked up in utter despair.

The window eased down. "What's your trouble?"

"Limb on the road, motor's flooded."

The driver climbed out of the cab in a flash, wearing an Indiana Jones hat with a chin strap, and a brim that instantly shed water like a downspout.

"I'll take a look." The driver bent into the rain and walked to the front of the car, squatted and peered underneath. "Goin' to need a chain. Get in your car, I'm goin' to haul you over th' limb, then we'll roll it off in Judd's Creek."

Sitting in the car, he heard the chain being attached to his rear bumper, and soon after felt the jerk as the big rig reversed its gears and rolled him backward over the limb. He pulled on the emergency brake and returned to the fray.

Together, they heaved, pushed, and rolled the sodden limb off the road and into the creek.

"Where you headed?" the driver shouted.

"Whitecap!"

"I'm runnin' by Whitecap. Come on an' follow me, but not too close or th' spray'll blind you. Just keep your eyes on my taillights and marker lights."

"Done!"

"I'll pull into that vacant lot by th' Whitecap bridge."

"God be with you!" he shouted.

He followed the truck for roughly half an hour in steadily decreasing rain. About four miles north of Whitecap, the storm had blown over, and he turned his wipers off.

In the vacant lot, rainwater stood in deep pools, and he saw a metal sign blown from Jake's Used Cars leaning against the entrance to the bridge.

But, hallelujah, there was no sign claiming the bridge was out.

Dodging the pools, the driver pulled the refrigerated rig into the lot, and Father Tim parked alongside.

Leaving the motor running, the driver swung down and shook his hand with an iron grip.

"Tim Kavanagh. I can't thank you enough."

"Loretta Burgess," said the driver. "Glad to help."

"Loretta?" he said, stunned. "I mean . . ." Well, well. Holy smoke.

Loretta Burgess laughed and removed her sodden hat. A considerable amount of salt-and-pepper hair fell around her broad shoulders. "I don't care what they say, Padre, it ain't totally a man's world."

"You're right about that!"

"I'd show you th' pictures of my grandkids if we had time, but I'm runnin' behind th' clock. You take it easy, now."

As Loretta Burgess pulled onto the highway, he turned to get back in the car. He was standing with his hand on the door handle when he sensed something odd and troubling: The air was strangely, eerily quiet.

And then he heard the siren.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Simple Graces Three army trucks blew past the vacant lot, tailed by a mainland ambulance with a wide-open siren.

He scratched onto the slick pavement and followed the procession across the bridge without any memory of doing it.

As he came off the bridge, he was clocking seventy, but had no intention of slowing down. Wherever the rescue squad was needed, he could be needed. Instantly he prayed for the need, whatever it might be, and realized he'd been praying, almost without ceasing, since six o'clock this morning. Surely, days on end had been packed into this single half day.

Water rushed across parts of Tern like bold creeks, carving out sections of asphalt. Whatever the vehicles ahead of him plowed through, he plowed through.

As the cavalcade turned left on Hastings, he saw the tree hanging, as if in a sling, on the sagging power lines. Across from the fallen tree was the gray house on the corner, the one Cynthia always admired-another tree had slammed across the roof, caving it in, and scattering bricks from the chimney into the yard. Next door, a section of picket fence dangled in a tree, and over there, a limb had smashed straight down, like an arrow from above, into the hood of a car.

In the rearview mirror, he saw two more troop trucks behind him and, farther back, another ambulance.

A chilling fear was spreading through him like a virus.

In the sullen afterlight of the storm, he had returned to a place he hardly recognized.

Several houses this side of Dove Cottage appeared to have taken a beating, but without any serious damage.

As his house came into view, his heart was squeezed by a kind of terror he'd never known.

Dove Cottage had no porch.

Its facade was oddly blank, like a staring face. He saw that the porch had been blown into the neighbor's yard, partially intact, the rest in smithereens. Pickets from the fence were scattered everywhere. A few had landed on the roof.

The need he'd prayed for only moments ago was partly his own.

He parked at what had been his front gate, as the stream of vehicles behind him blew past. He fled toward the house and stood looking up to the front door, wondering how to get in.

"Cynthia!"

The back porch . . .

He raced around the house and into the kitchen, where he stepped on fragments of china that crunched like bubble wrap under his feet.

"Cynthia! Barnabas!"

He skidded down the hall, and halted at the living room door, where the entire floor had caved in at the middle, in a deep and perfect V.

Their furnishings lay neatly piled along the crotch of the V, and on top of the pile was his mother's Limoges vase; it appeared unharmed, as if it had rolled down one side of the collapsed flooring and, at the last moment, landed conveniently on a chair cushion.

"Cynthia! Please! " He tore along the hall to the bedrooms, which looked as if nothing more than a strong wind had ruffled the bed-covers, as if the porch had not been blown to kingdom come, nor the living room destroyed.