14.

A great noise had startled Daniel awake the first time-an eerie silence pulled him from his slumber hours later. Daniel sat up and saw that his mom and Carlton were gone, their blankets folded back away from their dented pillows. Zola was making sleep sounds beside him. He rubbed his face to remove the fog from his brain and got up quietly to go search for his parents.

The first thing he noticed was that it was light out, the pale glow of dawn filtering through the windows. Daniel went around the corner and saw that the front door was wide open. He crossed the living room and stepped outside into a different world.

"Holy s.h.i.t," he whispered, which drew looks from his mom and Carlton. They stood together on the front stoop, her arm around his back, him clutching her shoulders. They had been looking toward the ma.s.sive tree leaning askance across the front of the house.

Out in the front yard, it was a tangle of limbs. Piles of broken branches formed vast dunes and disjointed heaps of greenery. What was odd was the lack of sound. Not even the birds chirped; there didn't seem to be any fluttering about. Daniel hurried down the steps to look back at the house. The tree that had gone through the roof was one of the biggest in the yard. Three people couldn't have reached around it holding hands.

"Don't go far," his mom said. "In fact, I'd rather you stay in the house."

"Why?" Daniel looked around, his arms raised. "It's over, right? Man, we're gonna be picking up limbs for ages. And how do you get a tree like that off your roof?"

"It's not over," Carlton said. He shielded his eyes and looked up at the brilliant blue patch of sky overhead. Gray clouds stood in the distance. "I'm pretty sure this is the eye. Storms don't end this suddenly. There's just as much wind and rain on the back side of the storm, if not more."

Daniel looked up at the sky. He could see clouds off in one direction, but the house blocked the other. It didn't look like the solid wall of a hurricane's eye like he imagined it should, but then, the woods hid the entire lower half. He was just seeing the dark tops of the storm.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Pretty sure," Carlton said.

"The worst part was the last hour," his mom added. "It sounded like the house was gonna blow over. And then it just went dead quiet." She snapped her fingers.

Daniel spun around and took in the utter destruction of their front yard. He heard a cat mew pathetically in the distance. He couldn't see past the tall walls of fallen limbs to see how bad off the rest of the neighborhood was.

"How long do we have?" he asked.

Carlton ran his fingers through his hair. "Depends on how large the eye is and how fast the storm's moving. I hope we don't have long."

"You're ready for it to come back?"

Daniel didn't understand.

"I'm ready for it to move on. I'd hate for it to stall here."

Daniel nodded.

"Do you think it's safe to run around the house and see how everything else looks?"

His mother shook her head. "There might be power lines down or something else we can't think of. Let's just get back inside."

"I'm going to go upstairs and see how bad the damage is," Carlton said. "And we should try and eat something before the winds pick back up."

Zola appeared behind him, dragging her blanket, which she held wrapped around her shoulders. "Can I go upstairs, too?" she asked. Before anyone could answer, she dropped the blanket and turned and ran toward the stairs. Carlton kissed Daniel's mom and ran after her.

"Sucks about the house," Daniel told his mom. He followed her into the house and watched her close the door and secure the deadbolt.

"It's insured," she said. "I just hate it for Zola. I hope it's not that bad."

"It looked pretty bad."

She waved him toward the kitchen. "I don't want to try the gas just yet, so let's do cereal." She went to the cabinet and pulled out a mix of boxes. "We also have these Poptarts if anyone wants to eat them cold."

"How long will we be without power?" Daniel grabbed the milk out of the fridge and shut the door as fast as he could, trapping the cold inside what had become a lifeless cooler.

"It might be a few days, as bad as it looks outside. And it might look even worse once the other side of the storm gets done with us."

"It doesn't feel like anything's about to happen," Daniel said. Looking out the window, it looked like a normal morning with just some heavy rainclouds on the horizon.

Zola stomped down the stairs with the heft of a mule and burst into the kitchen, crying. She had her sodden bookbag on one shoulder, a stuffed animal in her hand.

"It's ruined!" she cried. She ran into her mother's arms and threw her hands around her back. "Everything's ruined!"

Their mom didn't say anything. Carlton walked in and went immediately for the cereal. Daniel noticed, in the sad and quiet exhaustion on his mother's face, how worn out she was. Her work weeks were invariably draining, but she always had the weekend to recharge herself. A glance out the windows-past the leaves and twigs plastered to the gla.s.s and to the debris field beyond-suggested it would be some time before anyone rested.

The light outside dimmed like a curtain drawn over the sky.

"Get some breakfast," their mother said. She let go of Zola and pa.s.sed her a bowl. Carlton crunched loudly on his cereal and leaned over the sink to gaze up at the sky.

"Make it quick," he mumbled around his food.

An eerie shade fell over the house. A distant howl drew closer. It sounded like wide and fast columns of highway traffic were whizzing nearby. Daniel shook some cereal into a bowl, did the same in the bowl held out by his sister, watched his mom splash some milk on both, then grabbed a spoon from the counter and followed Carlton back down the hall.

"These're the worst winds," Carlton crunched over his shoulder. It sounded more like he was steeling himself for what was to come rather than trying to enlighten Daniel.

The four of them filed back into the bathroom. Daniel and Zola sat in their corner and ate while their mom and Carlton sat on the edge of the tub. An empty bucket floated on the water behind them, and Daniel realized how badly he needed to pee.

There was a crack outside, a sharp report like a canon, and the roar of the wind was right down their necks. It grew even darker in the house, almost as if the sun had changed its mind and slunk back over the horizon, ducking from the storm. The four of them stopped crunching on granola as the pitch and intensity of the wind grew and grew, but still seemed so distant.

And then the wall of hurricane Anna reached their yard. There were more gunshots of snapping trees, audible over the din of the wind. The house shuddered violently as it was. .h.i.t by the edge of the storm. Daniel felt a surge of nausea clench his stomach. A hollow pit of anxiety and fear of this indomitable thing had returned, much like he'd felt in the surf with Roby those years ago.

The house rattled and creaked. Something snapped somewhere-bits of the roof peeling off, a window shattering, another limb or tree smashing into their home-it was impossible to tell.

The wind groaned through the cracked windows, belching in after them. Daniel could feel the air grow colder, could feel a breeze on his cheeks, could smell the wet rot of disturbed soil and bark. None of them were eating. None were reaching to light a candle. They sat with their spoons in their hands, dripping milk, waiting for the world to end.

"It was like this before, just before the eye came," their mother said. Daniel didn't know if she was trying to rea.s.sure them or let them know how lucky they'd been to sleep through it. Daniel thought about how that earlier chaos had just ended suddenly with the eye pa.s.sing over. This time, it would be another half day of powerful winds clawing at their house, their neighborhood, their entire town. Zooming out, he had a sudden and terrific shift in perspective that made his mind reel. Daniel thought about all the millions of Americans going about their days in other states, glancing perhaps at the weather, asking friends what that storm was named again, marveling at the size and shape of the thing on their functioning and powered TVs . . . and Daniel was in the middle of it all. He was terrified for his life in the middle of someone else's idle curiosity. He was one of those numbers people rattled off: so many dead, so many injured, so many without a home, so many displaced, so many orphaned. He was a living statistic.

The house shuddered, and Daniel's brain did the same. He remembered Hurricane Katrina, when he was younger. He had watched the news for two days, marveling at how water could literally burn, at people being airlifted from their homes, and he had been little more than curious and awed.

Closer to home, he thought of the people standing in the storm's eye right then. His neighbors and fellow South Carolinians. What where they going through? What were the winds like in Charleston? Were people in distant Myrtle Beach surfing and laughing? Were people in Florida thrilled and relieved? Were kids watching on their TVs, hoping it would be a bad storm so they could be entertained by the news?

There was a great crash on the other side of the wall near him and Zola, and his sister jumped, spilling some of her cereal. She screamed and moved up against him, groping for his hand with one of hers. Daniel put his bowl down by his feet and wrapped his arms around her. Her spoon and bowl rattled together as she held them with one trembling hand.

"It's okay," Carlton told them. He slid across the edge of the tub. His cereal had been put aside; his hands went to their shoulders. Daniel felt himself and Zola leaning into his strong touch rather than pulling away as they normally might have. Their mother moved to the floor and huddled up close. She rested her hands on their knees, and the ring of touching almost felt like a seance or a blessing before a meal. With all of them quiet, Daniel could hear naked and raw wind and rain in the living room. At least one window had blown out.

The wind continued to rattle the house, but the initial wall of fury gradually dissipated. It slid further inland, tormenting others. What was left was a deafening howl and the hiss of sheets of rain. The goose b.u.mps of fear subsided on Daniel's arms and legs. The four of them unwound from their familial knot of terror. Soggy cereal with warm milk was stirred, but little more was eaten. They took turns in the hallway, watching the trees bend through glimpses out the kitchen windows, while others went to the bathroom one at a time. Daniel saw trees nearly denuded of leaves in the height of summer, their naked limbs whipping, their trunks bent and bobbing. He leaned out to see better and watched as the entire yard swayed in synchronicity, following the furious waves of rain and screeching gusts of wind like seaweed caught in the tide.

Taking his turn in the bathroom was the worst. It was the being alone, the moving shadows cast by the solitary flickering candle, the sound of his family conversing in the hallway out there with the storm. Daniel made the mistake of looking in the toilet as he finished his business.

"Is it okay to flush?" he yelled through the door.

Everyone else had gone. His mom said it was fine. Daniel flushed and was refilling the bowl with a bucket of tub water when his family came back inside.

"I hope Hunter's okay," he said aloud.

"Me too," said Zola.

"The Deng's have a nice brick house. He'll be fine."

Daniel looked to his mom. "You've been to his new girlfriend's house?"

She shook her head. "No, but you can bet I asked about how safe he'd be before I told him he could stay the night."

The rain pelted the living room on the other side of the bathroom wall. More dust fell from the ceiling.

"What if our house goes down around us?" Zola asked. "It isn't brick."

"It won't," Carlton said.

Daniel was pretty sure he couldn't know that. It was just what adults said to a.s.suage children's fears.

"When will I find out if my friends are okay?" she asked.

"Well," Carlton said, "it was about eight hours or so after the heavy winds that the eye got here, so it'll be at least that long again before we're through this."

"And then I'll be able to get online?" she asked.

"Honey, it's gonna take them a while to get power restored-"

"What about my cell phone?"

"Zola-" Daniel started.

"Let's try and get some rest," their mother said. She gathered bowls together and placed them in the bathroom sink. When the house shook, the spoons vibrated against the porcelain. The four of them shifted about like campers in a too-small tent, tugging blankets and pillows out from underneath each other and trying their best to get comfortable.

"There's no way I'm going to be able to sleep through this," Daniel muttered as his mom puffed out the candles.

But as before, he was wrong.

15.

He endured the sleep of the sick. It was a sleep punctuated by repet.i.tive awakenings, each more blurry-minded than the last. It was a sleep of sticky sweatiness, of damp pillows, of tossing and turning and being kicked by his neighbors. It was the horrid daytime sleep of headaches and demi-awareness. Dreams started seeming more real-and the dark, stuffy, smelly, noisy room into which he awoke felt less and less true.

At some point in the day, Carlton and his mother moved out into the hallway. They slept with their feet inside the door to keep it propped open. Daniel and Zola stretched out and found new, cool spots on the tile and around the other sides of their pillows. They slept some more to while away the hours as the wind outside became less of a menace and more of a nuisance. The wind was never going to abate. Daniel felt like the noise had moved into their lives, like another stepfather, unwanted and unannounced, and now they would have to get used to it. It felt like a fever that wouldn't go away. And just like when he was sick, Daniel thought about how little he appreciated that time of wellness. He never thought about the lack of deafening wind on a normal day. The absence went unnoticed. When he was sick, he always promised himself he'd never again take for granted being well. But once the fever pa.s.sed, life continued as usual, and he rarely paused to appreciate his wholeness.

If the wind ever goes away, Daniel thought to himself, I vow to soak up the silence. The quiet. He'd let the ringing dissipate from his sore ears, eek from his rattling bones, slide away from the anxious lining of his skin, and appreciate the calm stillness left behind.

He promised.

aaaa The smell of soup pulled Daniel from the hazy mist of his fretful sleep. He slowly stirred. There was pressure behind his eyes from sleeping at the wrong time of day. He stood and rubbed his face, glanced at himself in the mirror, and realized how dirty and grimy he felt. He could still taste beer on his breath, now stale. He rummaged in the bag of toiletries his mom had stashed below the sink and found his deodorant, his toothbrush, some toothpaste. He slid the former up his shirt and applied some over his sweat. He ran some water over his toothbrush, but the gurgling, hissing drip reminded him of the absence of power-and that he'd just used what was left in the pipes. He brushed as he walked out of the bathroom and turned to survey the damage in the living room.

Carlton looked up from an embrace with his mother. She was facing away from Daniel, but obviously wiping hurriedly at her eyes to keep him from seeing that she'd been crying. Daniel looked away from them and studied the mess in the room. Shattered gla.s.s twinkled all across the carpet like spilled jewels. A sheet had been hung from the blinds over the blown-out window, but the wind kept pushing it back, and rain kept filtering down to soak the insides of their home. The entire floor was soaked. Puddles had formed here and there, revealing defects in the otherwise level floor. The TV and stereo cabinet had been rained on for hours and were likely ruined. Daniel looked at his old original Xbox sitting on the floor and wondered if maybe this would be an excuse for him to finally get a newer 360.

He hated himself as soon as he thought it.

"Do I smell soup?" he asked around his toothbrush, trying to change the course of his thoughts.

His mom sniffed and nodded. She hurried past him and into the kitchen, and Daniel followed.

"The gas isn't working," she said. "Carlton pulled the camping gear out of the attic before the storm hit."

Daniel saw that their old Coleman stove had been set up on the island. A worn fuel canister dangled from its curvy pipe. Flames licked and hissed at the bottom of a pot; the clear lid was fogged and bubbling with the steam of warm calories.

Daniel spit toothpaste into the sink. "I could eat that whole thing," he said.

His mom dried the bowls from earlier with a clean towel. Daniel saw a bucket of water sitting by the sink, and realized how primitive their home had become. It was nothing more than a cave, and one that leaked rain.

He tapped his toothbrush on the edge of the sink to clean it and left it to dry. Taking a bowl from his mother, he ladled some soup into it and dug in. Carlton pulled out a loaf of bread and handed him a slice. Daniel didn't even inquire about b.u.t.ter-he took a bite and chewed contentedly.

"Should we wake Zola?" he asked.

"Let her sleep as long as she can," his mom said.

"What time is it?"

"A little after two."

"Man." Daniel shook his head and spooned more soup toward his lips. "When will things get back to normal? Like, when will we be able to get the house fixed? Get power and water back? That sort of thing?"

"It depends," Carlton said, helping himself to soup. He turned down the heat on the Coleman, and the hiss lessened. "It could be that we got the worst of it, that there isn't much damage across Beaufort or any of the surrounding area. If that's the case, they'll be able to concentrate on us and get things back to normal in a few days."

"But that's not what you think," Daniel said between bites.

Carlton frowned. "After we eat, we should try your radio again."

Daniel nodded. He turned as Zola exited from the bathroom, rubbing her eyes and pouting.