The Hurricane (14 page)

Daniel hooked a thumb in his backpack’s shoulder strap. The
fear and hesitation he’d felt from the risky visit melted. It was as if Anna
had been expecting him, or at least anticipating his return.

“Just a few things,” he squeaked.

“Bring ’em outside,” she said, hurrying past him and throwing
open the screen door. “I’ll get back to my studies in a little while,” she
called to her father.

Daniel smiled meekly at Edward, lifted his palms in a shrug,
then turned and pushed open the door that had just cracked back on its springs
against the jamb.

“Let’s see what you got,” Anna said. She crouched by the
open doors of the little shed and waved her hand impatiently. Daniel hurried
over and set his backpack on the walk. He rummaged for each device and paired
them with their chargers.

“A Zune, eh?” Anna picked up his music player and squinted
at it, then looked up and squinted even harder at Daniel, like she was looking
past some glaring flaw to see if she still approved of him.

“I woulda pegged you as an iPod kinda guy.”

The way she said it made it sound as if she might’ve
disapproved even
further
of that.

“What do
you
use?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t really do music,” she said. She tucked a loose
strand of hair behind her ear and stared at Daniel. He saw for the first time
that her eyes were green. He memorized that in case there was ever a quiz
between them, some marital dispute about how little he truly knew her.

She turned away and reached inside the small house. “Looks
like you two are done.” She unplugged the two devices on the shelves and moved
them to a separate waiting area.

“Are those yours?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her hair was so fine, it laid so silky
flat on her head, that Daniel could see the shape of her skull beneath. He
admired the way the back of her head curved out like a bowl and swept back to
her neck, which was half exposed by the parting curtain of brown locks. Her skull
seemed loaded with brilliant nerve endings, like Daniel could just cup it in
his hand and feel the electrical shocks zap his palm.

“They belong to the Michelsons across the street,” she said,
turning to face him. “My dad has a cell phone, but he hasn’t even tried to turn
it on.” She held out a palm and curled her fingers. “Lemme see your chargers.”

Daniel handed them over one at a time. Anna took the time to
check the back of each, reading out the wattage and nodding.

“What were you saying about studies?” Daniel asked. “Is your
dad making you do schoolwork?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “School might be closed for you, but
mine’s still standing.” She glanced up at the brick face of her house.

“You’re
homeschooled
?” Daniel asked.

Anna frowned. “You say that like I belong to some kind of
satanic cult.”

Daniel laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s not that, it’s just that I
was wondering why I’ve never seen you around school.”

“Oh.” She studied the last power brick. “Four point two
watts,” she said, “so you have a total of just under seventeen.”

“Is that bad?” He couldn’t believe he was crouched down so
close to her, that they were just
talking
, like they’d always known each
other.

“It’s fine. I think the panel and inverter can handle around
twenty.” She looked up at the sky, which was scattered with only the barest of
gossamer-thin cirrus clouds. “I’d say these’ll be done by lunchtime or a little
later.” Daniel handed her the cellphones and Zune one at a time, and Anna
inserted the plugs that fit each one.

“So I should come back around then?” Daniel pictured coming
over and grabbing the devices without her help. The thought depressed him. He
looked across the street at another house full of people he didn’t know. He
thought it was likely that a good-looking boy lived there who was also
homeschooled and was Anna’s boyfriend. He felt the dangerous urge to ask her if
she was seeing anyone—

“Come back at noon,” she said. She stood up and rested her
hands on her hips. Daniel fumbled with the zippers on his backpack, then slung
the now-light sack over his shoulder. “If you want, you can eat lunch with us,”
she said. “It’s nothing special. We’re just having some salad to use up the
tomatoes and cukes that survived the storm.” She frowned. “Of course, you don’t
have to, you can always just pick up your things whenever—”

“Of course,” Daniel said. “I’d love to.” He nodded. “Noon.”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a salad, much less as an entire
meal, but it sounded like the most appetizing thing in the world right then.

Anna smiled. She held out her hand. Daniel grabbed it and
felt her pump his arm up and down. “See you then,” she said.

Daniel practically skipped home, his hand and cheeks
burning. The sweat from the humid Beaufort air stuck his shirt to his chest and
back, but hardly bothered him. The awkward goodbye, the way Anna’s perfect eyes
had darted about while waiting for him to accept her invitation, the handshake:
Daniel was thrilled with the stiffness of it all. It was like every stuttering
encounter he’d ever had with the opposite sex, but this time it had been
mutual! She was almost as awkward as he was.

He ran past one of the brush piles and breathed in the air
of injured timber and tree sap. He was pretty sure he was in love. His legs
felt at once light and powerful with it, as if he could run a marathon. His
brain tingled with the newness, the feeling of being let in to some august and
exclusive club. He suddenly knew what so many others must’ve known for much
longer. He could feel his hatred and envy of Roby dissipate. Even as he no
longer cared about the storm’s aftermath or the loss of power, he desperately
wished for some temporary line of communication, some way to tell his best
friend that he was no longer a loser for not having a girlfriend and that Roby
was lucky to have someone as well.

“Oh my god,” Daniel said to himself, slowing to a walk. “I’m
losing my fucking mind.”

Some girl had invited him to share some salad for lunch, and
now he was wondering if it would be better, for their future family, to have a
boy first or a girl first. There were good arguments for both ways. An older
brother could look after his sister, or he could torment her. Daniel was moving
right past losing his virginity to wondering what kind of parent he’d be.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” he said to himself.

The deflated sensation intensified as he entered his
cul-de-sac and saw his father hoisting a massive limb before letting it flop
down on top of the growing debris pile. Daniel used the bottom of his shirt to
wipe the sweat from his forehead. As he started up the driveway, he scanned the
yard for his sister, but didn’t see her anywhere. His mom was also absent.
Carlton had moved off to another tree with the chainsaw; the last tree had
become nothing more than a dashed outline of its former self, a line of sawdust
marching down the row of jumbled logs. Daniel waved at Carlton as he peered up
at him through his safety goggles. His stepdad pointed in a tall arch as if
over the house, signifying perhaps that the rest of his family was in the back
yard.

Daniel dropped his book bag by the garage and hurried around
to the back of the house. Yet another pile of twisted limbs lay jumbled at the
end of the drive. His mother and sister were just beyond it, talking to one
another, their gloves off.

“Am I interrupting?”

Daniel walked slowly in their direction. Zola turned her
back. His mom wiped at her eyes and shook her head.

“You guys need any help back here?”

“We’re fine,” his mom said, which was the opposite of how
they looked.

“How long is he gonna stay?” Daniel asked, taking a guess at
what was upsetting them.

“He says he has a friend in Charleston he can stay with,”
Daniel’s mom said. “So just until the phones work or he can get a ride some
other way.”

“And we’re gonna make him sleep in the toolshed until then?”

“He’s
not
staying in the house,” Zola said, her voice
as broken up as the tree out front. She kept her back turned; her hands went to
her face. Their mom stepped closer and put an arm around her shoulders. She
looked back toward Daniel.

“I think there’s more for you to do in the front yard.”

Daniel let out a sigh. He hated being excluded, but he
thought he understood their wanting to be alone. “He says he’s quit drinking,”
Daniel told them. It felt like a feeble attempt. His mom glowered at him over
her shoulder, her brow wrinkled and lips drawn tight. Daniel turned and headed
back around the house, his elation from a few minutes prior completely and
utterly smashed.

For the next several hours, he barely saw his mom or sister.
It was only when he was dragging something down the driveway, walking
backwards, that he might catch a glimpse of them working slowly and
methodically on their brush piles in the back yard. He and Carlton and his
father worked with few words. They alternated between disentangling limbs and
hauling them to the street, and stacking the green firewood Carlton chopped up
between a rare pair of still-standing trees.

When the chainsaw ran out of gas, Daniel’s father offered to
get more out of the toolshed, but Carlton waved him off and insisted on going
himself. That left the two of them, father and son, piling logs, the yard
silent of the tree-chewing machine, the distant buzz of a few other saws and
the chirping of some returning birds to keep them company.

“I’ll be moving on just as soon as I can,” Daniel’s father
finally said. “I hate that I’ve brought so much tension here.” He threw a log
on the pile. It landed with a solid and ringing clunk.

“So the boat’s gone?” Daniel asked quietly. He remembered
days anchored out on the river with the old houseboat. His dad would grill out
on the roof while he, Hunter, and Zola trailed behind on the swift current,
clinging to fenders and life rings strung out on chewed lines and suspect
knots.

“Yup,” his father said, then cleared his throat. He turned
and wrestled with one of the biggest logs, almost as if to punish himself.

Daniel remembered helping him toss the lines on the boat
that last time. When his father had puttered down the intercostal waterway over
a year ago, Daniel had watched from the dock and had suspected they were both
gone forever, boat and father. Now one of them was back in his life. The other
sounded as if it had been demolished in the storm.

“I hope Hunter gets back before you go,” Daniel said. He
wasn’t sure why he wished that, but he did.

“You picked out a college? Or are you gonna go to the
community center with Hunter next year?”

“Probably go with Hunter, unless I get some kind of
scholarship. My grades are good enough, but they want you to have all these
other things. Club memberships, community events, summer camps, volunteering
and whatnot.” Daniel shrugged. “I’m taking my SATs again next month before I
send some more applications out. I’m hoping I can get some money from Wofford
if USC and the College of Charleston turn me down.”

His father nodded and threw another log on the ever-higher
wall of circular bricks. “You dating anyone?” he asked.

Daniel laughed. He felt close to telling him about the girl
down the street, but already his delusions of their status felt ridiculous. He
didn’t even want to explain why he wouldn’t be around when the rest of them
were eating canned ravioli for lunch.

“Not really,” he said.

“Probably best to wait until you see where you’re living
next year,” his father said, almost as if consoling him.

Daniel felt like arguing, like saying a year was too long to
be alone—he felt with a burning rage that he needed to
not
be alone.
Then he thought of what his father must’ve been doing the last year, how hard
the last few months of sobriety—if he’d really been able to manage it—must’ve
been like. He felt like yelling at his dad for being down at the docks all
summer and never calling him. An entire summer of being alone and scrounging
for things to do. All those days they could’ve taken the boat out on the river,
the wasted days when he hadn’t known some gorgeous girl lived just a few houses
down, an entire summer wasted doing nothing when so much had been so close by.

“Whatcha thinking?” his father asked. He looked Daniel in
the eye. “Or do I not want to know?”

Daniel shrugged. He looked at the tall pile of logs
shouldered between the two trees, dappled light filtering through the gaps. “We
should start a second pile,” he said. He thought about how rarely they used
their fireplace in the winter—mostly just for ambiance around the holidays.
Normally, they picked up a bundle of split wedges at the grocery store, a cloth
handle stapled to one of the logs, and paid who knows how much for one fire’s
worth. What they had stacked, once it was split and dried, would last them for
decades. It would be sold with the house, he suspected. More than once,
probably.

“How about over there?” His dad pointed to two other lucky
trees, which would soon hold the remains of their fallen kin.

“Looks good,” Daniel said.

He picked up one of the larger logs before his dad could.
Carlton came around the corner with a red canister in his hand, a dark mass of
fuel and oil sloshing around in the lower half of it. The three of them fell
back into their silent routine, working against the backdrop of the roaring and
chewing chainsaw. Now and then, they would take breaks and drink warm water
from the cups on the stoop. When Daniel did so, he marveled at the idea of the
three of them doing yard work together. There was no force in the universe, he
would’ve thought a week ago, that could have coerced him to do half as much
with either man, much less willingly.

Daniel’s mom took the news of his lunch plans in stride, her
face showing more shock and bemusement than any pain of abandonment. Daniel
used the excuse that he had to go back for their phones and his Zune, anyway.
After stripping off his sweat-soaked clothes and sponging off with some soap in
the upstairs tub—a bucket of downstairs tub water at his feet—he toweled off, pulled
on a fresh pair of shorts and a new shirt, grabbed his backpack, and sped out
the front door. The smells of heating tomato sauce faded behind. Outside, as he
strolled through his neighborhood, a different smell greeted him: it was the
smell of campfires, of burning wood. More than one rising column of gray smoke
beyond the trees of his neighborhood signified the beginning of the great fires
it would take to remove the debris. It was funny. Daniel had imagined someone
would be coming along to scoop up the limbs and leaves. He never considered
they might be having bonfires up and down his neighborhood, sending the ash up
to chase away the clouds that had felled them.