The Belief in Angels (39 page)

The storm has become a blizzard by the time I wake up. The wind howls and rages all morning. Alone on the cliff, our house has become a target. With no development around it to buffer the gales, the roof groans and branches from our trees scrape across the wooden shingles, making unearthly noises. The power has gone out, the telephone lines are down, and the heavens still dump snow. I decide to
start a fire in the fireplace. We still have quite a bit of wood left in the backyard, and the cupboards are full. But I have a new problem—a refrigerator and freezer full of food. I know it all won’t last more than a day with the power out.

It takes the better part of an hour to dig a hole in the snow in the backyard where I can store the food. The snow still pounds down, and the wind howls at huge speeds. Once I finish digging, I transfer the food outside. I have no idea if everything will be fine, but I figure it’s probably my best bet, and with the phone lines down I have no way of contacting anyone to ask. I know if I need assistance I can ask the O’Connells, or another neighbor, or even walk around the corner to grab Timothy. I feel glad to find a solution myself, though, and when I finish and sit in front of the fireplace, warming back up, I feel industrious.

Someone knocks. Mr. O’Connell cowers on the stoop. I’m surprised because neither he nor Mrs. O’Connell has ever come over. I unlock the door and try to brace it as the wind blows it open. “Hello there. Come in.”

He steps inside and we push the door closed against the wind. “Hello Jules. The Missus sent me over to check and make sure you were all right here. I understand you’re roughing it on your own for a few. It’s a nasty storm and a full tide. I expect we’ll see enormous damage when we’re through here. I heard there’s another going to move through tonight and the tides will be high again.”

“I’m fine, but thank you,” I say.

“I see you’ve got a fire going. Keep the grate up and be careful of the down-drafts, they’ll blow the fire right back in on ya. Did you need anything? Food or a flashlight for tonight? It’ll be awhile before they pull the power up again. You can join us for dinner if you like?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got a flashlight and lots of batteries. I put the food in a snow bank out back to keep it cold. How long do you think it’ll keep that way?”

“Oh I expect as long as it’s freezing out there it’ll keep, as long as an animal doesn’t route it out. That was smart thinking, young lady. Remember to keep the faucet running a bit in the sink so’s the pipes don’t freeze.”

I hadn’t thought of this. “I’ll keep the fences locked and the faucet running.”

Mr. O’Connell moves to go. “You do that. I’ll be checking back. You come over if you’ll need anything. All right?”

“All right. I will, and thank you for stopping over.”

“It’s no problem, Jules. You come over if you need anything. Anything at all.”

I’m overcome with his kindness and don’t know how to express my gratitude. “Thank you,” I manage to say as I push and he pulls the door closed. I watch him make his way gingerly down the slippery walkway, the snow now almost knee high, although I shoveled it away just this morning.

I have another visit later that day from Timothy, who comes carrying a basket of goodies from his grandmother. I have more than enough food, so I invite him in to share it with me. We eat canned oysters, water crackers, and homemade canned peaches. Afterwards, we play backgammon and he teaches me how to play Blackjack and Gin Rummy.

Before the sky darkens again he helps me carry several loads of wood in to stack by the fireplace. He bundles up and makes his way back home after I assure him I’m fine. I have several good books and my flashlight. I make up my sleeping bag in front of the fireplace and settle in for the night.

In the middle of the night I wake up to what sounds like a freight train roaring outside. I’ve never heard the wind so strong and loud and scary-sounding.

I hear a long, loud, groaning and cracking sound.

The old willow tree in the backyard.

It comes down with a giant thud that makes the foundation tremble, and when I look outside I can see it lying perfectly perpendicular to the back stairs. A few more feet and the branches would have taken out all the windows on the back side of the house. I clutch the flashlight and make a round of taping all the big windows on the north side of the house. The panes rattle in the sills, and I worry the wind might blow them in.

I think about calling Timothy. He has a private phone and I know I won’t wake up his family. Then I remember the phone lines are down.

The blizzard continues for another full day.

After perusing our library wall, I find one of the largest books I haven’t read yet, Tolstoy’s
War and Peace.
The power is still off. I bundle up in my sweatshirt and coat in front of the fireplace. I don’t sleep at all, but the book keeps my mind off the storm.

When I take a break early the next day and check, the power and phones are still down. The storm has stopped, but the sky is still draped in a deep, pearl-gray shroud.

I settle back in with my book, but a knock at the door soon breaks my concentration. Timothy poses in the doorway with a huge grin on his face. He lifts a pail up. “Grab your boots. I wanna show you something.”

“What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”

“Down to the beach.”

“Are we going clamming?”

By the time we’ve gotten halfway down the cliff, I see something I’ve never seen before.

The beach swarms with lobsters. I’ve never seen so many crawly things except in a horror film.

“Oh my gosh! We are going to have a lobster feast!”

The craggy rocks that line the jetty are covered in icy snow, and the lobsters must have slid over them, falling back onto the beach. The high tides have created a strange dividing line between the rocky sand and the mounds of snow that blanket the seawall down below. The lobsters dot the snow mounds like slow-moving bites of red licorice.

As we scramble down the beach path I ask, “Why is this happening?”

Timothy calls over his shoulder. “The high tides, the changes in water salinity and temperature … so many things can cause their movement.”

“Will they find their way back to the water?”

“Most of them will, but let’s move the ones by the seawall back towards the water. They won’t live more than a day out of the water.”

First we fill our pail with the lobsters that were moving in the wrong direction, toward the cliffs, and we dump them back at the water’s edge. We do this until we can’t find any more stragglers. Then we fill our pail with lobsters and seaweed to bring back with us. I figure I can cook them all and store what we don’t eat out in the igloo refrigerator I’ve built in our backyard.

Back at my place, we drop the pail of lobsters on the porch. After throwing off our wet boots and coats inside, we grab newspaper from the fireplace and lay it out on the kitchen floor and around the sink. Lobster makes a mess. Timothy brings the pail inside and helps me stuff them all in the sink while we get everything else ready. They drip all over everything.

I put our lobster pot—a beat-up big old silver-colored thing—in the sink, covering the bottom of the pan with water. After transferring the pot to the grate in the fireplace, I boil the water with salt and white vinegar. Timothy helps me grab the backs of the lobsters, lift them, and throw them into the pot headfirst to stun them. I throw the lid on and wait for it to boil again. They’re small lobsters, so they’ll be tasty. I set the timer on the stove for ten minutes. The lobsters knock against the pot like they’re doing a sabre dance. Without opening my mouth I make a high-pitched sound in the back of my throat to make Timothy think they’re screaming.

“Stop that!” he laughs. “It makes me sad to think they have to die so we can eat them.”

After a while the sabre dancing stops inside the pot. I have a smaller pot on the grate. I run outside to my snow igloo of food, and I bring back a stick of butter to melt in the pot.

When the timer goes off, the lobsters are carnelian red, my favorite red. I use a long-handled wooden spoon to test the tails and make sure they’re all curled tight.
I move the pot into the kitchen sink and let it cool down with the lid off. I can smell the salty cooked lobsters and start to taste it in my mouth. By this time the butter smell is mingling with the salt, and I can feel my stomach grumbling.

“Plates are in that cabinet,” I remind Timothy. We hardly ever eat here, so he doesn’t know my kitchen very well.

We are moments away from savoring cracked lobster. I grab the tiny tined forks from the drawer, and then remember I need more newspaper for under our plates on the counter.

By the time I’m back from the living room Timothy’s already put the lobsters on our plates and soaked the floors and counter with the briny water.

“This floor is a Slip ’N Slide,” I exclaim.

“Whoops.” Timothy grins.

After mopping up what I can with the newspaper, I grab the hammer from the tool drawer we keep in the kitchen and we go to work—first twisting the claws off, then bending back the claws to expose the soft, pinky-white flesh inside, then trading off with the hammer to open the hard shells. We pull at the meat with our tiny forks and dip it into the small saucepan set on countertop. I worry that it might burn the Formica, so I grab a couple of potholders to put underneath. I figure they’ll catch any unruly butter drips.

The lobster is tender and sweet. We’re quickly creating a pile of lobster carcasses, passing the hammer back and forth. We grab spoons from the drawer to drizzle butter over the midsections before we suck the juicy meat out of the small, sharp-edged holes. I almost lick the buttery spoon, but remember my manners. The meat is moist, sweet, and salty. Lobster heaven! We eat every single one.

Outside the kitchen windows the sun is finally shining, and the sky is a deep cobalt blue. It’s still snowing, but now the wind is light and the snow falls like dust on everything. It looks like someone in the sky is sifting flour onto the landscape.

After we clean up the kitchen we play multiple games of Scrabble. Timothy wins. He always wins.

At two o’clock he says it’s his turn to shovel his walk and walk his dog Crikey, and he heads home. We make a plan to do the lobster thing again the next day.

I decide I should probably shovel my own walk, as the snow has piled another foot on top of what we already had this morning. By the time I finish shoveling, the wind has picked up and is whipping the snow into tiny ice pebbles. The sun has disappeared, and the sky has darkened into the color of pale ashes. My gloves, my hat, my scarf, my coat—everything is studded with tiny ice crystal buds.

Inside, I peel off my snow gear and change into dry clothing. As I sit warming
up by the fireplace, someone knocks again. I assume it’s Timothy and don’t bother to check out the window before opening the door.

Howard squats on the stoop.

I’m sure my face must register the shock of seeing him. It’s been about two years since any of us have seen him. He’s made himself scarce since Moses’s funeral, and in the last few years the only contact we’ve had with him has been an occasional call.

He pushes the door open as he steps inside. He’s collected a keg-sized beer gut and he resembles a Wishnik Troll with his rusty orange hair sticking up everywhere. I can see he’s starting to go gray where his hair is thinning at the temples. He smells musty, like a dirty, wet dog.

“Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” he asks as he sticks his tongue into the side of his face and pushes it out for me to kiss.

“Wow. I’m surprised to see you,” I say, giving his protruded cheek a kiss. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s no way to greet your father after you haven’t seen him in a long time. I came to make sure you were all doing all right. The car got stuck down by the yacht club. It’s like a lake at the bottom of the hill right now. So I hiked the rest of the way over on the seawall. The top of the seawall’s the only dry ground to walk on right now.”

I’m interested to hear that the storm has divided the island into two islands. I’m also happy, because this will surely lead to more school cancellations. But I’m angry to hear he’s been staying in Withensea for who knows how long and, as usual, hasn’t bothered to let us know or to visit.

“Oh, well, we’re doing as well as we can here. We still don’t have any power or phones, but we’ve got food and lots of firewood. We should be fine for a long time.”

I try to be upbeat and friendly with him, but I’m nervous since I’m uncertain why he’s bothered to show up. He probably assumes Wendy and Jack are also here. I don’t know how he might react to Wendy’s leaving me alone.

“Well, Aunt Doreen’s has no more firewood. I can’t stay there anymore. I can barely sleep at night. I’ve gone through most of the food already, and what was left went bad in the freezer before I got to it. Where’s your mother?” he asks, almost as an afterthought.

“I buried ours in the backyard in a snow cooler I built,” I say proudly. He stares at me like I might be an idiot, but doesn’t comment.

“Do you have any canned foods?” He heads toward the kitchen and starts pulling open the cabinets and hunting through everything.