Page 1 of Spark
Chapter 1
Avery
Wednesday—October 10, 2018 8:00 p.m.
Aboom shakes the house and a whiplash of pure, primal fear invades the tiny spaces in my body. Sensing my unease, the little life in my arms lets out a disgruntled squeal as hot tears leak from her reddened, tired eyes—eyes a blue-gray, the same color of the stormy evening sky outside the window. Neither of us has gotten much sleep today. I expect we won’t get any tonight either. As if to confirm my thoughts, lightning flashes, turning the living room from night to day in one quick instant.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I promise. It’s only a storm.” I wasn’t sure if she could hear me over the roaring wind and lashing of rain against the tin roof. “A really, really loud storm. We get them all the time.”
This isn’tanystorm, but I can’t tell her that. At a couple months old, my words are to soothe myself more than her. All she knows is her mom is terrified. No doubt she can sense the sour tang of my fear coming off me in waves.
“That baby needs a bottle. Sounds like she’s starvin’.”
I close my eyes for a moment, then turn to my grandmother. She sits in her customary rocking chair, a green so worn it’s nearly gray. “She’s not hungry. She’s just scared, is all.”
Her and me both.
Grandma Rosie purses her lips and rocks more vigorously in her chair. I hold my baby closer and ignore her. Nearly eighty and suffering from dementia, Grandma Rosie has a habit of repeating herself and calling me by my mother’s name. She also has a tendency for bluntness—which most people would classify as straight meanness—but I know that’s the disease talking. Grandma Rosie raised me and before her brain started failing her, she’d been the sweetest woman alive.
That’s why I bite my tongue and turn away from the living room, moving deeper into the house. The baby wails so loud it almost drowns out the wind and rain. Almost.
Readjusting her little body against my shoulder, I cradle her head and pat her back as I rock her back to a sense of calm. Soothing her helps me, albeit only slightly. Once she settles a little, I reach for my phone in my back pocket to check the weather again. I’m praying for a miracle with every atom of my being, though the only miracle I’ve ever witnessed is finally sleeping in my arms.
Please, please shift. Shift away from here.
I close my eyes as the weather radar loads and my heart thuds like a hammer in my chest. The last thing I want is to condemn someone else to the horror of what’s to come, but at the selfish, human center of me, I’d rather it’d go somewhere else, anywhere else.
Please.
If I’d been stronger, I would have convinced Grandma Rosie to evacuate this morning. Dammit, I should have carried her out kicking and screaming if I had to, but she wouldn’t budge.
“I’ve lived here for fifty years and I’ll die here,” had been her litany all day despite my pleading. I couldn’t leave her to die all alone and confused. She didn’t have anyone else but me.
So I’d spent the entire day battening down the hatches. I’d boarded up the windows, done last-minute runs for emergency supplies. Grandpa Jim had kept an old weather radio that still worked if only by the grace of God alone, so I’d have something in case the power and cell service went out.
Most people thought the hurricane would weaken as it came closer to the gulf. Most hurricanes that hit our area of Northern Florida did—in fact it’s a running joke that most Floridians have hurricane parties to celebrate their landfall. But according to the radar and the Facebook Live from our local weatherman, Hurricane Michael hasn’t weakened. It’s grown stronger. It’s predicted to make landfall as a Category 5. One of the strongest to ever hit our area.
And it’s supposed to be heading right for us.
My phone wobbles in my hands as the weatherman’s words ring in my ears. A Category 5. You hear about them, sure, and we’ve gotten some bad storms throughout the years, but
nothing like this. A storm like this could obliterate everything. We are far inland, thankfully, so we won’t get the brunt of the storm surge or the worst of the winds. I try to take a seed of hope from that thought and immediately feel guilty. So many people on the coast like me haven’t evacuated.
The baby lets out a mewl of protest and I realize I’m squeezing her too close. I let out a shuddering breath and move from the kitchen to the room we share. Carefully so as not to wake her, I tuck her into her bassinet while I finish last-minute preparations. Really, I’m not sure what else I can do to save us, but I have to try.
With every hour that passes, the storm moves inexorably closer. Despite my fervent prayers, or perhaps because God knows I’ve never prayed with any intention before, it doesn’t shift away. All of the models predict it’ll make landfall and move right over us.
“What the devil?” I hear Grandma Rosie shout sometime later. “My pictures done turned off.”
Moving from the hall bathroom where I’ve been filling the tub with extra water and organizing our first aid supplies, go-bags of food and clothes for each of us, and Grandma Rosie’s medical supplies, I join her in the living room. The ancient television she insists on keeping to watch local channels is filled with snow. The sight of the gray static sends a spear of fear straight into my gut.
I check my phone and note I still have service. “C’mon, I can put your shows on for you on my tablet, but we have to watch in the bathroom.”
“In the bathroom?” she repeats, aghast. “What in the world for?”
“It’s the only place it’ll work in the storm,” I improvise. “I’ll call the cable company and see if I can get your regular shows fixed, but for now this will have to do.”
She blusters and dillydallies, but I manage to get her to sit on the toilet while I roll the baby’s bassinet inside with us. Luckily, she’s still sound asleep, so at least I don’t have to worry about her still being afraid. Grandma Rosie is oblivious, so she won’t be scared either. As I close the door behind us, I thank my lucky stars for that blessing because I’m scared enough for all three of us.