The Hurricane (17 page)

“Oh my god,” he said, throwing his arms around a stunned
Daniel, who just stood there. “My little brother,” he said, his hand on the back
of Daniel’s head, his other hand slapping his back.

“You okay?” Daniel asked. His brother let him go, and Daniel
saw a young-looking girl standing on the back deck of the house, a hand on her
hip and another shielding her eyes.

“We were gonna set out in the morning on foot if nobody came
by,” Hunter said. He turned to the Bronco and waved at Anna. Edward was walking
around the car, his hand brushing along the hood. The passenger door clicked
open—

“No fucking way,” Hunter said.

He took a step back toward the crushed Taurus, shaking his
head.

“No way.”

“He’s only staying for a little—” Daniel started.

“Hello, Son,” their father said. He took a step toward
Hunter, who took another step back. Daniel watched Anna’s eyes dart between the
two of them, a frown on her face. Suddenly, Daniel felt the embarrassment of
his family’s dysfunctional nature. He wanted everything to be okay, and fast,
even if just for appearances.

“What are you doing here?” Hunter asked.

“Hunter, this is Anna.” Daniel waved her direction. “That’s
her father, Edward. They were kind enough to bring us over.”

Hunter waved him off. His eyes hadn’t left their father, who
at last remained still, a dozen paces from the two of them.

“Do you want to introduce us?” Daniel pointed toward the
house.

“That’s Chen,” he said, his eyes not wavering. “Chen, this
is my little brother Daniel and my asshole of a father that I’ve told you
about.”

Chen waved tentatively.

“Is it just you two?” Edward asked. He walked toward the
Taurus, scratching his beard.

Hunter nodded. As Daniel had suspected, his brother had lied
about Chen’s parents being home.

“Maybe we can have a moment alone?” their father asked. He
pointed down the driveway.

Hunter grunted. He looked around to Chen, who was hugging
herself on the back porch and biting her lip. He looked back to his father and
nodded. “After you,” he said, waving him down the driveway. He refused to budge
until their father had already started shuffling away.

“Chen, why don’t you see if they need anything to drink?”
Hunter called over his shoulder.

Daniel’s eyes hardly left his brother during the several
exchanges. Somehow, Hunter seemed so much older than Daniel thought of him
being. He seemed like their father’s peer, the kind of man that played host to
other people and owned a house and had a wife and that sort of thing. As his
father and older brother walked away, back down the narrow and heavily wooded
driveway, Daniel felt Anna tugging him toward the house. He let out his held
breath, managed to suck a deep new lungful, and reluctantly followed her.

••••

“Hunter talks about you a lot,” Chen said. She poured water
from a gallon jug like the kind you buy at the grocery store for a buck. She
handed Daniel the cup.Anna cradled hers, and Chen began filling another for
Edward, who told her to pour half as much for him.

“What does he say?” Daniel laughed and heard the nerves in
his voice. Everyone had become uncomfortably quiet after the scene outside.

“Mostly good stuff.” Chen smiled, her dark eyes shining. She
turned and slid some papers off the kitchen counter. “We managed to get into
the glove box through the broken window. Hunter was dying to know if the
insurance was up to date.” She handed a card to Daniel. Anna finished taking a
sip of her water and leaned over to look. “He said he couldn’t rest until he
knew. Our phone’s been dead, and the driveway was blocked even if the car’d
been okay. You should’ve heard it when it hit.” Chen shook her head. Her hand
was trembling as she poured herself a cup of water.

“It’s just good nobody was hurt,” Edward said. He looked
around the kitchen and out the back door. The tall grasses of marshland could
be seen beyond, an old wooden dock slicing out over them. “No major damage to
the house?”

“No.” Chen took a sip of water. “We were real lucky. My
parents, though, were in Columbia, so they have to be worried sick. Do any of
your phones work?”

They all shook their heads.

“Columbia got hit pretty hard, too,” Daniel said. “Lots of
tornados spun off, according to the radio.”

Chen laughed. “The only radio we had was the car’s. We
actually managed to squeeze in and turn it on, but the battery didn’t last and
the antenna must’ve been messed up. We heard mostly static.”

“You’ve had plenty of food and water?” Daniel asked.

Chen nodded. “We’ve been heating stuff up on the grill
outside. The cover got sucked off it, but everything else is fine. We were
actually going to try and walk to your house today, or at least until someone
gave us a ride, but decided to wait one more day to see if the phones came
back.”

“The phones are going to be out for a while,” Edward said.
“But we’ll give you a ride out of here. Why don’t you gather some things
together and maybe write a note to your parents just in case.”

“Yeah,” Chen said. “Okay.” She smiled at them and headed
down a hallway off the kitchen. “You guys just make yourselves at home,” she
called out. “I’ll just grab a few things and be right back.”

••••

Daniel peered out the living room window at the demolished
Taurus, past the Bronco, and down the shaded driveway. He thought he saw
movement out there, but couldn’t be sure. He was glad the conversation was
taking place somewhere private, but he was dying to know what was being said.

“You okay?” Anna asked. She walked out to join him by the
window.

Daniel turned and smiled. “I’m fine. Sorry to drag you guys
into my family crap.”

“Are you kidding?” Anna stepped beside him and peered out at
what was left of the Taurus. “Somebody needed to come out here. That would’ve
been a long walk back to your house.”

Daniel watched her lean forward, cup her hands around her
face, and press the sides of her palms against the window to peer out. The back
of her neck, the faint whiff of her presence, so much about this girl he had
spent all of a few hours around seemed so intimately familiar. He wondered if
he was going crazy, if he was insanely desperate to be with someone, if the
storm had triggered some sort of apocalyptic, end-of-the-world, one-last-time,
one-
first
-time, procreation urge. Wasn’t any of that infinitely more
likely than love at first sight? Did people even believe in that bullshit
anymore?

“Whatcha thinking?” Anna asked.

Daniel’s brain whizzed back to reality from wherever it had
gone. He saw that Anna was looking at him, and that he had been staring at her.
He was pretty sure he looked like a creeper in that moment, the sort of blank
stare from hyper-concentration (or complete lack thereof) that made him vastly
unpopular.

“Nothing,” he lied, looking away. “I just spaced out there
for a second. Tired, I guess.”

Chen paced though the kitchen and joined them in the living
room. “I’m almost ready,” she said. She set a black suitcase down by the door.
“Just need to write a note and grab some food that might spoil.”

“I’ll help with the food,” Anna said. She reached over and
squeezed Daniel’s hand for the barest of moments, then turned and followed Chen
to the kitchen. Daniel’s hand leapt up in some delayed response. He looked at
his palm and wondered what had just happened.

Had
it happened?
What did it mean? Just a
friendly gesture, right? Commiserating with his family stuff. Understanding
him, what with her parents living apart. Or had he found someone as crazy as
himself living just four houses down?

Outside, Edward walked by, having circled the house. He
seemed to be surveying the roof and the siding for damage. Beyond him, Daniel
could see his brother marching up the driveway, his arms stiff, unswinging and
powerful before him, hands balled into fists. He wore an adult scowl and moved
with purpose. Daniel grabbed the black suitcase, pushed the screen door open,
and hurried toward the Bronco.

“Chen’s inside?” Hunter asked, meeting Daniel by the Bronco.

“Yeah. She’s rounding up some food, I think.”

Hunter pointed to the suitcase, which Daniel loaded into the
rear bed of the Bronco. “That hers?”

“Yeah.”

“So I guess we’re going with you guys?”

Daniel turned and nodded toward the Taurus. “Were you gonna
stay here? She said you guys were gonna start walking tomorrow anyway.”

Hunter shook his head. He ran his hand up over his forehead
and through his hair. “Why’d you bring him here?” he asked. “Why would Mom let
him stay?”

“He traded his boat for a chainsaw,” Daniel said, wishing he
could make his brother understand—even though he knew it was all a lot more
complicated than it seemed in his head. “Did he tell you he quit drinking?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “He also told me that seven years ago
and a hundred times since.”

“I think he’s changed,” Daniel said.

A brief flash of rage spun across Hunter’s face before he
managed to look away.

“You always think he’s changed,” he said.

Daniel wanted to plead more, not for a strong belief in his
father, which he didn’t feel, but to soothe his brother. He wanted to keep lying
to make things better, but he knew it would make them worse.

Hunter laughed. “He really sleeping in the toolshed?” he
asked.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “I thought Mom was joking, but she lets
the chainsaw stay in the house while he sleeps in the shed.”

“That’s pretty funny.” Hunter turned and smiled at Daniel.
“Damn, dude, I’m glad you’re okay. How’s Zola?”

“She’s fine. Her thumbs don’t know what to do with the cell
towers out. She misses her friends, and a tree went through her bed and ruined
a ton of her shit, but she seems to actually be fine.”

“This is pretty fucked up,” Hunter said, looking around at
all the trees and scattered branches. Daniel noticed not a piece of the debris
had been moved. There were no piles of branches like around his neighborhood. He
imagined Hunter and Chen had been rolling around in bed doing whatever couples
did while he’d been working his ass off and worried about them.

“We should totally be in school right now,” Daniel said.

They turned to the sound of the screen door snapping shut.
Chen and Anna came out, plastic grocery bags in either hand. Edward headed
toward the Bronco from the far corner of the house.

“You got all your things?” Daniel asked his brother.

He patted his pockets. “Heh. I just checked to see if I had
the keys to the car. Yeah, I’ve got my wallet and phone.”

“I packed your other clothes in the suitcase,” Chen said.
Daniel took bags of food and a gallon of water from her and put them in the
back of the Bronco. Anna unloaded her arms as well, then began rearranging the
stuff in the back, pressing it all to the sides, leaving room in the middle.

“I guess we’ll be sitting back here,” she said, referring to
the cargo compartment behind the rear seat.

Daniel nodded. He watched his father make his sullen way up
the drive, hands in his pockets, chin down, feet dragging. He looked like a
whipped dog, and Daniel no longer wanted to know what had been said between
them. He didn’t want to feel any sorrier for his dad than he already did.

As Hunter and Chen got in the back seat and his father and
Edward slid in up front, Daniel felt overwhelmed with how
right
the
pairing felt. The presence of another couple seemed to solidify something
between him and Anna—some vicarious romantic energy.
We are what they are
.
He and Anna crawled in the back amid the bags of food and the suitcase. Daniel
grabbed the top edge of the hinged rear door, its window down, and swung it
shut. It banged and latched with the raw metal sound of an older car, and they
were off, crunching the gravel driveway, turning their back on the empty house
and ruined family car, working their way down the narrow alley of wounded and
broken trees, the glare of the sun dimming as they passed through the mottled
shade, then out to the unbroken shine and steady thrum of civilized pavement
beyond.

The world went by in reverse. Daniel and Anna watched the
past from the back of the Bronco, the road sliding off into the distance as
they leaned against the back of the seat and peered out the rear window. A tree
that they had cut and hauled out of the way just hours before popped into view
and then slid away from them. The plastic grocery bags rustled in the breeze.
Bits of conversation from the two men in the front drifted back, but in an
indistinguishable slur. The deep silence from Hunter and Chen was much nearer.

Daniel felt his body unwind from the several days of
tension. He relaxed against the seat behind him and felt the raw terror of his
life—not the storm aftermath, but of his normal life—slide out his pores. He
felt happy and calm in a way he couldn’t remember since childhood. Maybe it was
knowing his brother was okay, that his entire family was okay. Perhaps it was
the chilly breeze passing through the car, cooling the sweat on the back of his
neck, making his hair dance on his scalp. Maybe it was the thrill of being one
of the only vehicles in sight, or the view of all the destruction sliding over
the horizon, reminding him how awesome it was to be alive. He soaked in the
unusual state of bliss. He felt his shoulder bump up against Anna’s as the
Bronco lurched to the side. He felt Anna press herself closer, so that the
contact between them
remained
long after the limb Edward had dodged
disappeared into the past.

Maybe it was all the emotional outpouring of the last few
days, the thrill of the unknowable future rushing at him blindly from behind,
not knowing when he’d go to school again, not knowing when he’d watch TV again,
not knowing when his cell phone would come back to life and continue its
unringing mocking. It could have been any or all of these things that caused
him to do the unthinkable, the laughable, the it-only-happens-in-the-movies: