by Cadle, Lou
His mother ran home to get towels and check the house. While she was gone, he took his charged-up phone and called his father.
His father’s voice came from thousands of miles away with only a second’s delay. “I’m glad you’re both okay.”
“It was interesting, being without power,” Ray said. “But I’m fine. And I learned to swing an ax, so I guess it wasn’t all a waste.”
“I doubt you’ll use that skill often in your life.” His father expected him to get advanced degrees and would be horrified if Ray told him he might do otherwise.
Instead of arguing with him, Ray said, “Well, you never know. Anyway, there’s a lot to do here, a lot to put right at the house. I’ll email you tonight my time and tell you more.”
“That would be good,” his father said. “Tell your mother hello from me.” That’s what he always said at the end of their conversations. Not that he loved Ray, though Ray thought he probably did in his own way. His father didn’t seem to bond closely with anyone, not his mother, not girlfriends, not a best buddy. There was no reason to take it personally. It was just his father being himself. The conversation was over in five minutes, and he plugged his phone back in. Then he took some time to straighten up the living room, cleaning up the bits of twigs on the floor.
He turned to his mom as she walked into the room. “What happens to me if you die? Do I still get sent to him?”
“Don’t you want to be?” she said. “Also, I won’t die.”
“People do. I bet if we turn on the news, we’ll learn a lot of people did die this week. I’m afraid some might have frozen to death.”
“Yes,” she said. “Your father would have custody of you. That’s the same as it always has been.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Would you prefer something else? Someone else?”
“There’s only a couple of years that it matters,” he said. “I would make the best of South Africa if I had to. It might be interesting to go to school there, to finish high school that way. But I’m glad you’re promising not to die. I’ll hold you to the promise.”
“Done. You want to shower now?”
He showered and ran back over to their house to make sure the kitchen was as shut off from the rest of the house as it could be. That included pounding another two nails into the ceiling. The outdoor temperature was slowly rising, and it’d be over freezing any time now. He turned the water supply back on to test if it was working. The water was running in the bathroom, as he’d left that tap open. So he’d managed to keep pipes from freezing. He’d need to thank Eve for telling him to do that.
He shut the bathroom water off again, collected his clothes, and put a load of laundry in. He watched the machine’s lights go on and heard the sound of water splashing in. Something he’d always taken for granted. Imagine if he’d had to wash all those clothes by hand in freezing water, or in water heated on a stove. He told himself he’d never take electricity for granted again, but then he had to admit, in a week, he probably would. He went to his computer and opened his journal document. At the very top, he wrote, “Be grateful for electricity!”
Then he looked at the chart he’d been keeping—for months now. He’d started it soon after he began high school, when he’d felt awkward and out of place. He scanned the entries, and they all seemed silly and petty. The thought behind it had been okay, that he wanted to be a good person more often than a bad person. But now it seemed ridiculous to keep track of every minor thing.
Reality was, sometimes he’d tell a small lie. Sometimes he’d do something nice for someone or get an A+. It wasn’t that none of that mattered. It was more than he knew now that he could trust himself to come out more on the positive side than the negative without having to keep track. He erased the chart without a twinge of regret.
He wasn’t who he was at the beginning of high school. He wasn’t exactly who he was just a week ago. He wasn’t sure who he was today either, but he knew he was changing. Last year had been a hard year for him. He’d lost friends. Some had gone to parochial or private school. Some were in different districts so at different high schools. Probably by now, some had moved elsewhere. Remembering how hard freshman year had been for him, he wrote himself a second note. “Ask Julia how freshman year is going for her.” He didn’t know if he had any wisdom to give her, but he could be a friend and listen to how it might be hard for her.
When his laundry was done, he put it in the dryer and shut off the water again. Until they got the furnace back on, it seemed safest.
He and his mom and worked for three hours at their tree, getting a good deal of it sawn away. There was a big section of trunk and a lot of debris left inside the house. He moved the extra blankets and sheets to the hole in the wall itself and hammered them up.
“We can stay here tonight,” he said, when they were done. “And turn the heat on, I think.”
“After we clean Eve’s place. I need to find her house keys to lock up.”
“And you should buy some food so when she comes home, there’s something to eat. And I want to see her today. Can we fit that in this afternoon?”
“Yep. Let’s change clothes so we look presentable and I’ll treat you to lunch out somewhere. Then the hospital to see Eve, then shopping for groceries.”
He had her stop by three places first. One, the firefighter’s house. She was home, and he thanked her for getting his friend help. Two, he had his mom go to Julia’s. “I’ll be back in five minutes, max. If you get waved at, wave back and look friendly.”
“I’ll try to not look like a serial killer.”
He laughed. His mom had a weird sense of humor. Spontaneously, he leaned over and gave her an awkward hug. “I love you, Mom.”
He trotted up the sidewalk and knocked on the door. Julia’s mother answered, looking a bit cross.
“Hi, I’m Raysan Mitchell. I was talking to Julia the other day. I just wanted to make sure you were all okay and didn’t need anything.”
The woman’s facial expression eased into a pleasant one. “That’s nice of you. Raysan, is it?”
“Most people call me Ray.”
“Ray, come in.”
“I can’t. My mom and I have to hit the store and see a friend who’s in the hospital. But I wanted to check and make sure you had food and could get to the store. If not, I’d be happy to buy a bag of groceries and bring them back.” He backed away and gestured to his waiting mom, and the two women exchanged waves.
“That really is nice of you. Julia and her father are out shopping now, for all kinds of things. My car had a limb fall on it, but it’s still drivable, and they took that to make sure it drove okay.”
“Okay, I’m glad you’re all okay.” He’d written down his cell number and email address on a note card and handed it to her. “If you’d give this to Julia, I’d appreciate it.”
She glanced at the paper. “Oh, you’re not friends from school.”
“Not yet. But it’d be cool if we were,” he said. And then he left, feeling pretty good about that.
His mom pulled away from the curb. “What was that about?”
“I met a girl.”
“Oh, really? A girlfriend candidate, or just a friend?”
“I don’t know yet. A friend would be great. But I just met her, so I’m not even sure about that.”
“And you fit this into the last few days somehow? In addition to everything else?”
He smiled at her. “I kept busy.”
“Apparently! Where do you want to go out to eat? I’m starved.”
“We can eat first. But I also want a florist shop, or even one of those home centers. I don’t think Eve would want flowers, but I bet she’d like a plant. One she can keep inside now but put out into the yard in spring. You think they’ll have something like that?”
“I imagine so. Manny’s for lunch? My treat.”
“Not Manny’s. Sit-down would be nice, if we can find something open.”
Most restau
rants seemed to be open, and his mom picked a local one rather than a chain. The waitress apologized for a limited menu, which was printed out on paper from a computer, already a bit dirty from being used all morning. Ray ordered a big meal and dessert and ate every bite. It’d take him a day or two to sate his hunger fully, after days of eating so little and working so hard.
At the hospital, they visited Eve. She seemed her old self again and thanked him for the plant. It was the only thing on her bedside table except for an insulated mug.
“You look great,” he said.
“I feel great. I want them to let me out, but they say not until some test results come back.”
“If it’s not rude of me to ask, what was wrong with you? Why were you unconscious?”
“Plain old hypothermia, they say. I was too cold for too long. And I’m old. Your young body could take it, but mine couldn’t. That simple.”
“They thought you might have had a stroke, the firemen,” he said. “But you didn’t?”
“No, thankfully. But they’re worried about my kidneys or some such. If I pass this test, then I can go home.”
Ray’s mom said, “I want to thank you for helping Ray.”
“He helped me as much as I helped him. You raised a good boy there, Celia.”
“I lucked out. We’re going shopping now, and I’d love for you to give me a grocery list. Your cupboards are nearly bare. Teenage boys eat a lot.”
“Oh, I’ll get to it.”
“No, I will. I’m sure even if they release you, they won’t want you wandering around in the cold weather anytime soon.”
“It won’t be cold forever.”
“It’ll be cold weather for longer than it’ll take for you to get groceries. I’ll just buy one bag.”
“Easy things, then. Soup, whatever kind, and sandwich fixings. Nothing too hard to chew like raw carrots. Just anything, really.”
Ray said, “I want to thank you too. You taught me a lot. Now I know how to work a woodstove, for instance. And I want to hear more about your travels when you’re better. And play some more Go.”
Ray’s mom made sure she gave Eve her phone number and insisted on driving her home from the hospital when she was released. “Do not take a cab. I’ll come,” she said.
“We both will,” Ray said. “See you soon, Eve. I’m glad you’re better.”
“I’m glad your mom came home safe and sound. Bye, Celia.”
Ray and his mom also did a crazy amount of shopping for themselves. “If this ever happens again, I want to make sure we have lots of canned food on hand,” he told his mom. “It’ll last for years.”
So they stocked up on that, and on various kinds of crackers, and on juices in plastic containers that would be good for a year. It took a while, because some of what they bought his mom didn’t usually buy, and she had to read all the labels. “Don’t drink this stuff unless it’s an emergency,” she said of the juices. “All the sugar!”
“You know they sell juice and Coke and stuff out on the street, right? I have an allowance. I could have a ton of it if I wanted.”
“Only until your allowance ran out.”
“You don’t have to worry. I have better things to use my allowance for.”
“Gaming,” she said. “I bet you’ll be happy to get back to that.”
“Not really,” he said. “There’s too much to do. And maybe I’ll game less. And spend my allowance on other things than games.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Really?”
“Really,” he said. He had a lot of ideas. Like maybe there was a class on chainsaw use and safety, and he’d pay for that. Or maybe there were classes on how to survive emergencies. Or first aid, though he thought he could take that at school. First aid and CPR and stuff like that. He’d ask the academic counselor at school. And if he was lucky enough to date someone this coming year, he’d want to spend his money on that, on going out to movies or to eat. “I’ll still play some games,” he said. “But I don’t think as much. I lived without for several days and it wasn’t a problem. So now that I know that, I’ll probably play less.”
They went home and put away groceries, first at their house, and then at Eve’s. At the last second, Ray remembered to turn the heat back up to where she liked it. He didn’t want to send her back to the hospital again from being too cold. His mother locked Eve’s door when they left.
While his mother made dinner, Ray put away his clean laundry, and then looked up information on repairing the house. His mom would call someone to do it, and Ray knew it was well beyond his ability, but there was likely something he could do temporary. First, he might ask the neighbor with the chainsaw to come over and cut the tree trunk into lengths he could lift and get it entirely out of the house. Then there’d be a hole—two holes, really, roof and wall—and he looked up how to cover those. One way was tarps or plastic sheeting, but a good wind would blow that away. The other way was nailing up plywood or particleboard. He looked up prices for that, and for a nail gun to get the tarps up securely if that’s what they did. He was pretty sure his mom didn’t have one of those.
As she finished cooking dinner, he discussed the options with her.
She said, “School Monday. Tomorrow already, if you can believe it. It was on the news. All schools are open again.”
“Well…” he said, “maybe I could go back one day late, to get the hole covered.”
“We need to get back to normal. I have to go to work too. Buses are back to normal schedules as of tomorrow at five in the morning. They’ll need me.”
Ray would rather get the house fixed right away, but he knew better than to argue about it. “Okay, I’ll find the guy with the chainsaw tonight and ask him to come over when I get home from school.”
“He probably works.”
“He seems like the best option, unless you can pay to get someone here sooner. And besides, I want to get to know the neighbors better. In case this ever happens again, I think we should know who we live near. What everyone can do. Who needs help, and who can give help.”
“Like Eve needing your help.”
“Like her having a woodstove and being able to give me help.” If he discovered someone on their block froze to death while he and Eve were warm, he’d feel awful. There was no reason to let that happen.
His mother finished serving dinner. “I’ve barely started asking around for someone trustworthy to use for the repairs. We’ve been busy!”
“At least it’ll warm up later in the week,” he said. “We won’t be heating the outdoors quite so much. I’ll get the plastic sheeting on the way home from school and get it up the best I can without removing the tree. We have a ladder.”
“Not without me here will you use a ladder. I don’t want you falling and breaking something and lying there for hours until I get home.”
“I’ll keep my cellphone with me.”
“You’ll wait until I’m home.”
He sighed. “Okay.”
“And I’ll get the stuff you need on my way home. Just make me a list. You sure you can do this okay?”
“It can’t hurt to try. And yeah, I think I can figure it out. We will probably need to work together. Some of it might take four hands.”
His cellphone rang in his room. He let it ring. Dinner was almost over, and he’d check it in a moment, after he helped with the dishes. For now, he was hungry and he wanted to finish eating. He still felt like he was a few meals short of normal.
His mom glanced up at the sound of the phone, watched him, and then said, “Ray, I’m proud of you. You’ve really grown up this week.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Though he didn’t entirely deserve the praise. Grown up?
Not quite yet. It’d take more school, and more outside classes, and being brave enough to introduce himself to strangers and ask people to teach him things. Maybe the firefighter’s husband, Reed, for instance, could teach him about that radio he had. He could ask for one for himself for his birthday or
Christmas. He smiled at his mom. “Maybe not all the way grown up.” But it would come, it and a future he still could not see, but that didn’t worry him. He was okay. He’d survived the ice storm, and he could make sure he would survive other emergencies in the future. He felt optimistic. It was going to be an interesting year.
The End
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Gray
Lou Cadle
Chapter 1
The midmorning sun lit her way as Coral pulled in near the cave’s entrance. She parked, climbed out of the cab of the motor home, and looked around the small clearing. An evergreen forest stretched down the slope ahead of her and back up to the distant mountain ridges. The woods were eerily still, not a bird singing or insect buzzing.
She shook off a vague sense of unease as she walked over a pad of fallen pine needles to the cave’s entrance. She could see inside to curved walls marked by horizontal striations, carved patterns of water cutting through the rock in centuries past. Beyond the first few feet, the darkness of the cave beckoned.
Returning to her brother’s aging 20-foot motor home, which he kept for hunting getaways and had reluctantly let her borrow for this trip, Coral found a flashlight in the glove box, shoving it into the daypack she always kept ready on the passenger seat for spontaneous hikes. Hauling the pack with her, she crawled back between the bucket seats to the living area. In the propane-powered mini refrigerator were two one-liter bottles of cold water. She made sure the cap of one was tight and tossed it in the pack, then, thinking better of it, grabbed the other, too. From the closet, she pulled her gray sweatshirt off a hook and tied it around her waist.
She had nowhere to be and no one to report to until July 1, when her summer job started. Over the past ten days, she had lost track of days and calendar dates, a loss she found made her nearly giddy with relief after the past year of a rigid and packed freshman schedule at the University of Michigan. She was pre-med, and the classes were tough. This month was her well-deserved reward for a freshman year spent working while most of her friends had spent theirs partying.
