No Ordinary Day (21 page)

“Mrs.—Mrs. Cox?”

The principal heard her name and stopped, then glanced around the street, finally seeing the light from Ace’s lantern.

“Who’s there?” she called up the street.

“It’s Lucy—Lucy Sullivan.”

Mrs. Cox, who was carrying what looked like several empty bags with handles, dropped them in front of her and began rapidly making her way up the street.

Lucy broke into a run, slipping through the mud next to the submerged sidewalk.

The two women met in front of Lucy’s house, a tiny two-story with a porch and a fenced, postage stamp-sized front yard, throwing their arms around each other.

For a long moment, they held each other in profound silence. Then Deb Cox spoke.

“Lucy, oh Lucy, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Deb Cox said as tears streamed down her cheeks, still hugging Lucy tightly. “You brave thing—you, you—you
Amazon warrior
—those five girls—”

“Please, no, Mrs. Cox,” Lucy said sincerely, returning the embrace. “I’ve had more than enough of that, please—I’m just glad everyone got out all right.”

Mrs. Cox went stiff in Lucy’s arms.

Lucy raised her head and looked up. “What? What is it?”

Deb Cox stared at her, immeasurable pain in her eyes.

“Omigod, Lucy—you—you don’t know, do you?”

The blood in Lucy’s veins began turning as cold as the water through which she had traveled. “Know what?”

Mrs. Cox glanced at Ace, then returned her gaze to the young teacher.

“Not—not everyone made it out, Lucy.”

Her cold blood froze; she could almost hear it crack.
“What?
Who? Who?”

“Carl Spinola at the bus garage,” Mrs. Cox said sadly. “He got caught in the path of the flood; he was outside before the alarm went off. Evie Cortwright, the custodian—her shift started just as the flood did. She was coming in from the parking lot. And—”

Her words ground to a halt.

Lucy just stared, waiting.

“Lucy,” Mrs. Cox said slowly, carefully, “Glen Daniels didn’t get out.”

Lucy’s face went slack. “Wha—what?”

The petite principal looked up at Ace again, then back at the shaking young teacher.

“He didn’t make it, Lucy. He was the first to see the floodwaters—amazing, given that his room doesn’t have a window—and he tried to call the office, but the phones weren’t working. We didn’t even know that there was a malfunction, or a flood, yet.”

Ace put his hand below Lucy’s elbow, ready to grip it as she swayed slightly.

“He must have packed those girls up on as high ground as he could find, probably told them to stay put, and ran out into the hall, looking for help,” Mrs. Cox continued. “He pulled every fire alarm, banged on doors along the eastern corridor, did everything he could, and tried to head back to his classroom, but—”

The principal choked, then broke down.

“If he hadn’t gone out into the corridor, who knows what would have happened? We probably would have lost every room on the lake side of the school, because the eastern corridor flooded so fast, and so deeply. Because of his actions, all the alarms went off at the fire station, so they knew to come immediately—”

She stopped as Lucy turned away, white and shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Cox whispered. “I’m so sorry, Lucy.”

She looked back at the principal. “Did they—is his—body—?”

Mrs. Cox shook her head.

“So they could still find him, right?” Lucy’s eyes were starting to gleam with a manic light. “He—he might be—maybe he’s unconscious somewhere, hit his head or something—it’s dark, maybe he’s—”

“Lucy—”

The principal stopped, feeling nausea at the knowledge of the horrifying facts. She thought about sharing them, then looked once again at Ace, who shook his head. She turned back to Lucy.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I—I came to get some of the—school backup documents from my house, for the—for—the obits—but my house—is—there’s nothing—left—”

Then she ran out of words and turned away, going back to her soldier escort.

Lucy turned away as well.

She walked unsteadily to the gate that was hanging, one hinge broken, in the fence that encircled her tiny front yard, and walked inside.

Ace followed her.

“Miss Sullivan?” he said softly.

She stopped in her tracks, as if unable to move.

The National Guardsman came to a halt behind her and waited.

Finally she turned around and stared out into the street.

“Was he family—friend—someone you loved?”

Lucy shook her head, the golden ringlets hanging in front of her face.

“No. None of those things.”

Ace’s brows drew together as his forehead wrinkled.

“No,” Lucy continued, talking to the air in front of her as her eyes grew glassy with building tears. “He—he was someone who worked with me for—three years, and until—yesterday, I had never given him the time of day. Instead of—making my—own damned judgments, instead of giving myself the chance—the privilege—to know him, I—I listened to the stupid, vicious gossip of the other teachers about him.”

She was starting to shake violently now, and Ace looked around again for someone with dry Red Cross blankets, but couldn’t see anyone in the controlled zone with one.

“He wasn’t just a nice man, it turns out,” Lucy continued, almost babbling now. “He was a hero in the end. Before that, he was kind, and thoughtful, and interesting, and funny, and a
good person
—and I managed to utterly ignore him for
three years
. I managed to
entirely forget
about him until now—it never even occurred to me to ask why those girls were alone. You know why, Sergeant? You know why? Because, unlike him,
I am not a good person
.”

Her legs gave out from under her, and Lucy Sullivan collapsed onto her knees on the muddy ground that had once been her front lawn.

Ace Evans looked around, still hoping to find someone to provide a dry blanket, then crouched down in front of her.

“Well, you’re right about that,” he said. His tone was hollow and emotionless.

Lucy looked up at him.

“A good person would not have ignored someone sent to help her,” the soldier continued. “A good person would have listened when a member of the United States military told her to not to go back into a flooding school, to evacuate, and would have done so, quickly and quietly.”

Lucy’s already distraught face grew even sadder, as if she had been kicked in the stomach. “You don’t need to tell me what a bad person I am, Sergeant. I already know it.”

Ace leaned a little closer, still in his crouch.

“With due respect, ma’am,” he said seriously, “that’s crap.”

Lucy blinked.

Sergeant Evans paused, as if gathering his thoughts. When he spoke, his dark eyes were gleaming intensely, and he spoke carefully, as if the words were heavy and important.

“You didn’t think about him because you were in shock, just like everyone else was, and your brain was in survival mode. But, even then, you knew there were five little girls in a music room, a room with no windows, no other exits, and, at fairly serious risk to yourself, you went back inside to make sure they got out. You could have left that to us, but you chose to take that risk. While the trained rescuer in me doesn’t particularly appreciate it, the rest of me recognizes that you are an
extraordinary
person, not just a good one.

“And, if that wasn’t enough to prove it, you managed to keep your head about you for the sake of those kids, to not panic when they balked, to talk to them cheerfully, to be strong for them when I’m sure you were terrified yourself. Here’s the truth, Miss Sullivan—those girls would have drowned before the firefighters, or the Guard, or the Red Cross got to them if you hadn’t gone back.”

Ace’s eyes gleamed in the dark.

“In the Guard, the term we use for someone like you is
badass,
ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a high compliment.”

He took a breath, as if the words were getting even heavier.

“This has been no ordinary day—but, because of extraordinary people, like you, it will not be the last day for this broken town. As bad as it seems now, you will rebuild, and life will go on here.”

He stood, rising into a crisp military stance.

Lucy stared at him for a long time, no sound but the muffled noise of the other guardsmen standing watch and patrolling the streets in the distance and the gusts of the wind, finally dry. Then she lowered her head and shook it, smiling.

“Those were more words than you’ve ever said at the same time in your life before, weren’t they?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked up and met his gaze again. “Anything else you want to say?”

The soldier thought for a moment. “What happened yesterday?”

Lucy’s forehead wrinkled.

“You said until yesterday you had never given Mr. Daniels the time of day.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“So what happened yesterday?”

She exhaled, deeply and raggedly.

“He asked me to dinner and, even though I really didn’t want to go, I sucked it up and went with him. And, guess what?—I had a wonderful time. Dinner was great. Afterwards, he walked with me, in between bouts of rain, to the top of Tree Hill and showed me how to listen to the music of the tree, of the town, of the Adirondacks. Then he gave me—oh, my God.” Her voice broke.

Concern colored the soldier’s face. “What?”

It took a moment for Lucy to collect herself. “His umbrella. He let me keep his umbrella so I wouldn’t get wet walking back to my car after the meeting. He walked back to his own in the rain. I didn’t bring it inside this morning—I didn’t get to give it back to him.”

“He was looking forward to seeing you again to get it back.”

Lucy looked even sadder. She said nothing more.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ace said. He looked in the direction of the flooded side of town. “I imagine you’ve heard that too many times in your life.”

She nodded silently.

“You made his last day a happy one. That has to count for something.”

“Is there anything else you want to say?” Lucy’s tone was bitter.

Ace exhaled. “Let’s go find your cat.”

‡

“I
’m gonna check
the basement,” Ace said as they approached the little house. He jogged around the side, squatted down in the muddy grass, and peered through the window near the ground, then stood up easily and headed back to where Lucy was standing at the bottom step leading up to the front porch.

“It’s full of water,” he said regretfully. “Sorry—I doubt anything down there survived, including the furnace.”

“Of course it didn’t,” Lucy said dully, starting up the porch stairs.

“Well, summer’s coming,” Ace said, following her up the stairs. “Uh—do you have a key?”

Lucy stopped dead in her tracks and hung her head, remembering the loss of her wallet.

Then it popped up again, making her curls bounce.

“Actually, maybe,” she said, heading over to the little tree-branch couch and chair on the right side of the porch. She flipped the chair over, felt around in the dark at the bottom of one of the legs.

Ace held up the flashlight for her.

“Got it,” she said, pulling the key from the hollow branch that formed the leg. She set the chair back and came to the door, unlocked it, and waited as Ace swung the light inside.

It looked to Lucy like nothing had changed since she had left that morning, but the smell of the house was different, wrong somehow.

“What’s the layout downstairs from this doorway?” Ace asked.

“To the right, dining room in the front, kitchen behind. To the left, living room from back to front. Directly across, stairway that turns right halfway up, with a half bath and a closet underneath. Door down to the damned flooded basement at the end of the hall outside the kitchen. Door to backyard kitty-corner to it.”

Ace nodded. “I’ll go first and check the floor joists. Don’t want you to fall through, ma’am.” He handed her the lantern.

“Thanks,” said Lucy grumpily.

He turned around and looked at her seriously, his eyes so dark they blended in with the air all around them.

“I know we’re here to find the cat, but make sure you get everything else that’s valuable to you as well,” he said. “The aid workers are not guarding valuables primarily, they’re still working mostly with people. There’s looting already going on—get whatever you would mourn if it was lost.”

Lucy blinked, then nodded.

“Sadie?” she called as Ace started into the house. “Sadie?”

They walked slowly
from room to room, beginning at the left front of the house and walking past the central staircase to the back door, which Ace unlocked and looked out, shining the light into the backyard. He closed the door and locked it again.

He had lapsed into heavy silence as they made their way from room to room, which made Lucy increasingly uncomfortable. She continued to call for the cat, a
pssh pssh pssh
sound that echoed through the house, but heard no reply, not even the sound of tiny footfalls. After they had checked the front hall closet, from which Lucy took a number of things, and were scoping out the little bathroom, she had finally had enough.