Hemingway's Girl (43 page)

Loud crashes could be heard outside, along with the steady sound of the rain and the
hiss of the sand pelting the hotel. Gavin felt frantic inside, looking at the boards
over the windows, imagining the vets huddled in the shacks that he knew wouldn’t hold.
The roof started banging, and Gavin looked up.

“It’s gonna go!” yelled Bonefish.

Gavin dived over Fran and her son as the roof ripped away, and rain and sand poured
in over their heads.

“To the car!” yelled Ed. Ed pulled Fran and their kids away into the storm. Sheeran
found Gavin and told him to come with him aboard the dredge boat in the canal, where
about thirty people from camp three were already waiting.

Gavin grabbed Sheeran’s arm and then Bonefish’s, and they started a human chain out
of the hotel. Gavin couldn’t open his eyes because of the sand. He put his head down
and squinted to watch the ground as he moved to the dredge. The wind knocked them
over, but they were able to right themselves and hunch toward the canal. The red tricycle
that had been stuck in the mangrove smashed Gavin’s side hard enough to knock the
wind out of him. He put his hand on his side and tried to stand against the wind,
but it kept pushing him down.

“Crawl, damn it!” yelled Sheeran, and the men clawed along the ground toward the dredge.

They passed the Butterses’ car and heard the door slam. Gavin hoped all of the Butterses
had made it in.

The wind screamed so loud it stung Gavin’s ears. Under the howling, the sound of wood
splintering and snapping caused him to turn around. He cupped his hands around his
eyes to block the sand and rain and saw the hotel where he’d just been standing buckle,
fold, and blow away like a house of cards. The side wall lifted, folded in half, and
slammed into a nearby fire truck, setting off its siren. Splintered wooden beams exploded
into the air.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky as a sharp wood beam flew past Gavin. It went
through Bonefish’s head with a sickening crunch, killing him on the spot. Gavin stared
in horror as Sheeran grabbed his arm. The only thing he could think was that he didn’t
even know the guy’s real name.

Gavin pulled out of Sheeran’s grasp and reached for Bonefish’s arm. He knew he had
a family who’d want to bury him, and
Gavin wanted to find a place to put him. He tried to drag the vet over the sand and
through sopping puddles, but he could barely stand himself.

Suddenly a wave crashed over him, pulling Bonefish away. Gavin’s mouth filled with
salt water. Sheeran jerked him to his knees.

“Get the hell under cover!” yelled Sheeran. “Now!”

Gavin looked once more for Bonefish, but couldn’t see him, so he turned and let Sheeran
pull him to the road.

They staggered low along the road, but rocks, shells, and flying debris hit them with
shattering force. Suddenly another wall of water crashed over them, separating Gavin
from Sheeran and pushing him toward the gulf. His feet found the ground and another
wave crashed over him. He felt the seawater filling his mouth. He tried to find something
to anchor himself to, but he kept spinning in circles.

His back slammed flat against the side of a stone wall. The water pushed into him
and he thought it was the end, but the wave passed and he was covered up only to his
knees.

While he struggled to get his bearings and find Sheeran, lightning flashed. He saw
corpses of men he knew floating by. Mike Wilson. Al. Their bodies slipped by in a
tangle of broken shacks and bed frames, construction equipment and coral.

Gavin saw a large group silhouetted against the sky, stumbling along the railroad
bed. He knew it was the highest point on Matecumbe, and started wading through the
water to reach them. The water was back up to his waist, but he pushed through to
reach the railroad. When it got shallow, he crawled up the rest of the way.

The group he met was the hundred or so vets and their families who’d been in the mess
hall at camp three. They pulled themselves along the railroad track.

He tripped in the water and ran into a woman.

Lorraine Morrow!

She was there with Janie and Teddy, and Janie was wailing. There was no sign of Henry.
The wind pushed them off the track and the baby fell into the water. Gavin grabbed
the infant before the water swept her away. He pushed Janie up through his shirt so
her head rested against his chest and the shirt held her securely against him. He
grabbed Lorraine by the hand and pulled her back to the railroad tracks. Teddy clung
to the tracks and wouldn’t move.

Suddenly Gavin felt rumbling. He thought the wind was about to rip the tracks off
their ties. The crowd started shouting, and word reached him that the train had arrived.
Gavin pried the boy’s fingers from the tracks as cries of relief went up. The mass
of people moved off the tracks to let the train through. Its front light was a beacon
of hope to the weary, storm-battered group.

When the train stopped, the people started climbing in. Gavin put Teddy on the train
and removed Janie from his shirt. He passed her back to her mother.

Lorraine cried and thanked him and disappeared into the car. Gavin helped lift a vet
with a broken back on board the train and then climbed in himself, thankful for shelter
from the battering storm. The car was filled only with soft whimpers as the wind screamed
on outside. Gavin’s face was raw from the blowing sand, and he was covered with bloody
bruises from flying debris. His side where the tricycle hit him ached.

As the train started moving, a sudden gasp went up along the other side of the train
car. Gavin turned to look over the heads of the people and through the windows, and
saw a black wall rising over them. Before he had time to register the storm surge,
he felt the car lift off the tracks and then start to turn. Gavin hung on to the rail
at the doorway where he’d been standing until the pressure inside the car pushed him
out. He tried to swim with the surge away from the train so he didn’t get crushed,
and made it to a clump of mangrove bushes.

He held on as the surge passed. The bush scratched him, but he knew it was his only
hope for survival. He couldn’t believe the train had been pulled from the track. He
felt a fury rising in him against Sheldon and Ghent and all the bureaucrats who’d
caused this, and thought that if he ever made it through the storm, he’d strangle
them with his bare hands.

In every flash of lightning, Gavin’s eyes met new horrors. A man impaled by a steel
pole. A dead woman, the clothes blown off her body, tangled in the bushes nearby.
A child…but he had to turn away from that. Henry. Oh, God, Henry.

He felt his chest tighten, and the sudden image of Mariella in this mess made him
unable to breathe. He started mumbling a rosary to himself for her safety and that
of her family and John. He knew he couldn’t bear it if anything happened to them.

And all at once, it was as if a switch flipped and the storm went off.

The sky twinkled overhead. The moon lit the landscape with the gentle glow of a night-light.
Not a breath of wind stirred.

The eye of the storm.

Gavin uncurled himself from the bushes and saw others rising around him. He staggered
back to the train to help people out of it. He found Lorraine and the baby, but not
Teddy.

“I can’t find him,” said Lorraine.

“Is it over?” yelled a man.

“No,” said Gavin. “It’s about to get worse.”

“Why?” screamed Lorraine. “I thought God was havin’ mercy on us.”

“It’s the eye,” said Gavin. “We’ve got to find shelter.”

“You’ve got to help me find Teddy,” said Lorraine.

Gavin knew she had to find shelter quickly, but also knew he had to find Teddy—whether
he was dead or alive. Gavin searched the landscape trying to find a shelter, but to
his astonishment, there were no houses. An occasional wall or bent frame dotted the
horizon, but almost everything had been flattened. He spotted a bus that had been
parked by the hotel.

“This way,” he said.

“Teddy!” she screamed.

Gavin grabbed her by the arms. “We’ve got to get you to safety or you’re gonna lose
the baby. I’ll find Teddy once you’re safe.”

He put his arm around her waist and guided her to the bus. The sounds of people crying
and retching over the corpses floating in the knee-high water were all around, but
survival was paramount. They picked their way over fallen poles and through thickets
of mangroves. When they made it to the bus, Ed Butters opened the door.

“Get in, for God’s sake, before the storm’s back upon us,” he said. His face was pale
and he was in a cold sweat.

Lorraine climbed into the bus, and Gavin passed her the baby.

“I’ll find him,” he said.

“Please,” she sobbed. He turned and started to make his way back to the train.

He tried to run, but the obstacles on the ground and in the water made it difficult.
His side ached as he climbed back through mangrove bushes and fallen palm trees. The
idea of searching for Henry’s body entered his mind, but he dismissed it. The living
were the priority. He saw the overturned train cars just ahead and started calling
the boy’s name.

He stopped to listen, but instead of hearing a response, he heard a sound building
under the silence. Suddenly the water around Gavin’s knees dropped sharply. The noise
started growing—a faraway howling and the sound of rushing water.

Gavin looked in the distance and saw what he feared.

The eye had passed and the edge of the hurricane was roaring back—the most powerful
edge—preceded by a wave so large Gavin could scarcely believe his eyes. He felt the
ground tremble
beneath him and knew he had to find Teddy or the boy would be lost forever. Gavin
ran to the railroad tracks, where he hoped Teddy would be clutching them, and to his
relief he found him doing just that.

“Teddy.” Gavin pulled at him, but he wouldn’t let go, so Gavin had to uncurl Teddy’s
fingers himself. He finally got Teddy loose and started running with him back to the
bus. He couldn’t bear to look behind him. Gavin knew the water was nearly upon them
and didn’t want to see his death.

Teddy sucked in his breath as the howling grew louder. The wind started to push against
Gavin’s back as he jumped and crawled over mangrove bushes, shouting to Ed to open
the doors of the bus.

When he reached the bus, he passed the boy in through the door. He heard a tremendous
crash, and as he turned he was swept away in a powerful current.

Under the water, the noise of the wind was gone. It struck him how peaceful it was
until a tree hit his bruised side. He felt his ribs crack. He opened his mouth in
a cry of pain, and water rushed into his mouth, but he didn’t fight it. He wanted
to live in that stillness. The noise of the hurricane was so far away. He thought
he’d take in the water and fill his lungs and escape the hell around him. He felt
frantic for a moment, but then peaceful again.

As the water pushed him along, the hurricane started slipping away from his consciousness.
Instead, he felt Mariella’s body cradled into him on the bed in Bimini after the fight.
He felt her warmth at his side in church. He felt the sand on his hands while he built
a castle with Lulu. He saw Mariella’s face, laughing, as he pulled her up from the
floor when he’d flipped her that night, dancing. He saw her sweet face under her boy’s
baseball cap and felt her firm handshake.

He thought of his mother’s coffin being lowered into the earth.

Then his father’s.

He saw the red bloodstain on the white snow.

He felt his father’s hands on his on the baseball bat.

He tasted the butterscotch his mother bought him from the soda shop.

And then heard the sound of her lullaby.

Lower Matecumbe Key

Mariella stood in the cabin of the
Pilar
, her hands tight against the wood, willing the boat to move faster through the water.
She wiped her face, but couldn’t tell whether it was a tear or the salty seawater.

Earlier that day, survivors who’d made it down to Key West had given preliminary reports,
but she and Papa didn’t want to believe what they’d heard about the level of destruction.
Papa had volunteered to take relief supplies in his boat, and Mariella jumped at the
chance to help and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d begged her not to go.

Mariella scanned the island coming into view. There were no buildings at all. None.
But the little grassy mound nearby looked like Veterans’ Key.

“This couldn’t be it,” she said. “Could it?”

Hemingway nodded. “This is it.”

He slowed down the boat and motored to the dock, only it wasn’t there.

It was as bad as they’d said.

She scanned the landscape and saw a barge and a boat, both heavily battered but upright,
and wondered whether anyone on
them was alive. She looked where the bridge once stood and saw people shell-shocked
and walking around in various states of injury. There were uniformed National Guardsmen
and what appeared to be Red Cross workers. Their faces were covered with masks.