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She was light—too light—as I lifted her. She let out a small gasp but didn’t protest.
“Lord.” She giggled like a small girl. “Haven’t been carried like this since my husband was alive. Take me to bed or lose me forever, big boy.”
I chuckled as I maneuvered us out of the house. “Why don’t we get you checked out first. We can worry about the rest later.”
“That wasn’t a ‘no,’” she crooned before her cackles turned into weak coughs.
Rodriguez already had the truck idling when I stepped out into the street. The sun beat down, turning the soaked ground into thick, rancid air.
I eased Margaret into the back seat, climbing in beside her. “Hospital’s not far.”
She patted my arm. “You’re a good boy, Elliot.”
Rodriguez pulled out onto the battered road, the tires kicking up bits of dirt.
As the truck rumbled over the uneven roads, bouncing over debris, Margaret sat quietly beside me, her hands trembling slightly where they rested in her lap. At some point, her frail body leaned into mine. I wrapped my arm around her and held her close. The lines in her face seemed deeper now, carved by exhaustion, worry, and maybe even the weight of knowing just how close she had come to not making it out of that house at all.
I squeezed her against me, making sure she was steady as we hit another rough patch. She let out a quiet sigh and looked up at me, tears filling her eyes. “I was sure I was going to die.”
Her voice was so matter-of-fact it nearly knocked the breath out of me.
I swallowed hard. “You don’t have to think about that now, Margaret. You’re safe.”
She nodded slowly, but her eyes stayed distant, as if she could still see it—those long hours trapped in the dark, the howling wind battering her walls, the floodwater rising too close for comfort.
“You ever been so scared you couldn’t even pray?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I hesitated, then nodded. “A few times.”
She exhaled shakily, as if hearing that made her feel a little less alone. “That first night, when the winds came . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It was like the world was coming apart at the seams. I sat in my chair and listened to my house scream.”
I didn’t say anything—Icouldn’t.
“I heard things breaking, felt the floor shake. I thought about running—maybe to my neighbor’s—but then the water came. It rose so fast, faster than I thought possible. By the time I realized how high it was, it was already too late. I had nowhere to go. Just had to sit there and hope my house wouldn’t collapse around me.”
My God.
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat.
“At one point, I thought . . .” She hesitated, her voice catching. “I thought I might just close my eyes and let it happen. The water was already inside, creeping up my ankles. I thought, if it wanted me, maybe I was just meant to go. Maybe it was my time.”
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to breathe through the wave of anger curling in my gut. Not at her—but at the situation, at the fact that she’d been left alone to face that storm, that no one had come for her until now.
She glanced up and must’ve seen the look on my face because she reached out, patting my hand. “But then I thought of my grandson. He just had a baby of his own, you know. A beautiful little girl.” A soft smile played at her lips, a flicker of light in the dark. “I thought,Margaret, you can’t leave them yet. You have to meet that baby girl. You have to hold her and tell her stories.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
“So I stayed awake. I rationed what little food I had left. Drank what water I had, even when it ran out and all I had was rainwater I collected in a pot. I waited. And waited. And hoped someone would come.”
She looked up at me then, her pale gray eyes locking onto mine. “And then you were there.”
I had to look away for a second, stare out at the wreckage passing by outside the truck window, look atanythingbut the woman in my arms. What the hell was I supposed to say to that?
This was my job. Not rescuing people, per se. I was there to fix things so life could return to normal after a devastating loss. I’d been doing storm work for years, going wherever I was needed, fixing what was broken. I’d seen my share of disasters, watched families return to empty shells, seen the fear and pain and every other emotion that came with such events.
But no one had ever looked at me the way Margaret did in that moment—like I wasn’t just another guy in a hard hat—like I was something more.
“I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t,” she said after a moment. “Maybe my grandson would’ve found me eventually. Maybe not. But . . . I’ll never forget that it was you who carried me out of that house.”