The Aftermath

by Matayo, Amy

I reach for the flour and glance at the front door again.

  It remains shut, just as it should.

  CHAPTER 10

  Chad

  I’ve been helping with this search for nearly an hour now. To say it’s depressing is an understatement, even coming from a guy who sometimes wears depression like a high school letterman’s sweater earned from a sport he hated to play. In my case, that was wrestling. I wasn’t tall enough for basketball. My coach and my dad made that clear.

  A long-dormant seed of bitterness sprouts a tiny green stem, but I squash it with my thumb. There. Dead. This isn’t the time for thinking about anything except what’s happening in front of me right now. Certainly not bad memories that reflect entirely on me.

  I take a deep breath and concentrate on listening, observing, looking for anything that might be a sign of…something. The man in charge said to pay attention, so I’m paying attention. To what, I’m still unsure. But I tell myself I’ll know it when I see it.

  Speaking of seeing, in all my life, I’ve never seen cars piled one on top of another like discarded accordions whose music long quit playing. For an insurance adjuster who has witnessed nearly every unusual thing the world has to offer where natural disasters are concerned, this is new. The sight makes me question all I’ve ever known about tragedy and survival. In any other circumstance, I would call this place hopeless and beyond repair.

  I’m walking along a concrete barrier with mangled cars piled on one side and bricks and debris on the other, and that’s when I hear it. A moan is coming from somewhere below me. Right here, this moment. This is when survival becomes something we do at all costs, despite the overwhelming odds against it. The human spirit does not just give up, not without a fight. That reality is coming right at me with both fists, squeezing so hard I can barely breathe.

  “There’s something over here!” I shout at anyone and everyone, my adrenaline surging to heights it’s never reached before. Not even when I ran my first Nashville marathon three years ago, not even when I received the news they found my brother and his now-fiancée still alive after five days of being lost at sea. “Someone come help! I hear somebody! Get a paramedic!”

  Without thinking about anything but reaching the sound, I begin clawing my way downward, ripping debris away by the fistful and shoving it to the side. A rearview mirror. Part of a bumper. A broken window. Another moan comes from deep within the rubble, faint but it’s there. A fellow volunteer—a man dressed in overalls, wearing a surgical mask—rushes to my side. I should have worn a mask too; there’s no doubt my lungs are currently filled with dust and only God knows what else.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “I did. Be careful not to step in the wrong spot. Here, let me help you lift this.” He bends to grasp the side of a car door and waits for me to grip the other side. There’s a mangled tire on top, along with a piece of windshield, and the whole thing is heavy. Within seconds, we’re joined by two medical professionals dressed in green scrubs and their own surgical masks, almost as if they rushed out of surgery to come join us.

  Another moan comes from below, along with the soft sound of the word help. It’s enough to propel us forward, and on my count of one, two, three, we lift.

  A man screams in agony, and we stop, holding our collective breaths.

  “What should we do?” I ask the guy across from me.

  A woman in green scrubs rushes over, breathless and business-like. “How long has he been down there?”

  “I assume since the storm.”

  It might be my imagination, but her face goes pale. She nods slowly, like she’s trying to psych herself up for what’s to come. “Okay, we need fluid I.V.s and a gurney. Someone get them ready.” She shouts. Let’s hold up for a second,” the woman answers. We all listen, frozen in place, until…

  “Help me!” The man’s scream is so sharp and filled with despair that we move at triple speed, slinging the door to the side like it’s made of lightweight paper instead of heavy steel. I toss aside pieces of shredded metal and broken glass in a frantic effort to clear the area. Flesh rips from my knuckles, but I don’t stop. This would have been a great time to wear gloves, but as in the case of a surgical mask, I was unprepared for this.

  I was leaving the hospital after a long day working as an insurance adjuster to…well, adjust things. Help with claims. Ask questions and conduct a few off-the-cuff interviews. Which I did, all day long. My clipboard is lying not ten feet away, for heaven’s sake. I was prepared to meet Riley Mae for a quick search for Bella, and then I was going to casually ask her to dinner. I was leaving when I saw a few people scouring the hospital parking lot. Curious, I walked over to see what they were looking for. Someone had found a puppy deep in the rubble. That single sign of life was enough to set the wheels in motion of looking for more.

  I couldn’t just leave; this was the reason I came to Springfield in the first place. To help. But I’ll admit, this is the first time in my life I’ve assisted with what appears to be a live human rescue. And this time no one can tell me not to.

  It’s been almost three days since the storm hit. The thought of survivors left my mind sometime yesterday. How long can someone possibly live buried alive?

  Longer than I thought, clearly.

  I’m flinging and swinging debris away as fast as I can. We all are. I could get addicted to the feeling real fast. We’ve found a diamond in a mine filled with sand—a living person within the remains of so much devastation. There’s suddenly a clear purpose to my often-foggy life.

  “Stop, stop!” A voice screams in pain from beneath the rubble. I’ve just pulled on a metal rod, and my stomach plummets. The voice isn’t as muffled anymore, which must mean we’re close to reaching him. Good news. But the pipe caused him to scream. Bad news.

  “What is it?” I call to him.

  “It’s caught in my chest.” I hear vomiting, the wet sound of retching and tears. I want to vomit myself. When we finally pull him out, what on earth will we find?

  The sound of running footsteps begins to permeate the background. Relief washes through me in waves knowing help is on the way in the form of a gurney and medicine. I was too busy thinking about finding a survivor to consider what we would do with him after the rescue. God bless the clear minds of other people.

  “What should we do?” I ask the paramedic across from me, eager to get this last heap of metal off the man and bring him to safety.

  “You should probably step out of the way and let us take over,” she says. There’s a chance he could—”

  “I’m not leaving. Just tell me what to do.” My voice has never sounded so stern in my life. But I mean it, I’m not going anywhere, not when the man is in so much pain. I glance at the pile of rubble, then back at the paramedics. They seem to read my thoughts. There’s nothing but silence below the rubble now. No tears, no retching, nothing. An almost desperate fear descends on us all.

  She glances at the paramedic next to her, then snaps to attention and shoves the fluid at me. “Okay, but stay back here and hold the gurney in place. We’ll need to lift him up and wheel him straight inside, and we have to move quickly. There’s no telling what we’re about to find, so you need to prepare yourself. Got it? There’s no time for false bravado or weak stomachs.”

  “I can handle it. Just get him out.” I clutch the bag and step back, craning to see what’s happening as they move more metal, bits of paper, scraps of broken glass and random mementos out of the way. A scattering of other people’s memories has collected in this spot as though picked up by the funnel and deposited here, with no rhyme or reason to any of it. It will take months to rebuild, likely years. But if we can save even one life, then maybe another, hope won’t be a word that slowly dies with time.

  The second paramedic extends a stethoscope to the man; all is silent for a long moment while I assume he checks for a heartbeat.

  “He’s passed out, but he has a pulse.”

  I exhale in relief. They’ve r
eached him. No matter what happens from this point forward, at least the man isn’t alone anymore. There can’t be much worse than being trapped and unable to move with no food or water or hope. It hasn’t rained since yesterday.

  “At least he’s alive.” It’s a pitiful sentiment, but many haven’t been as lucky.

  He hangs the stethoscope from his neck and looks over at me. “At least he’s alive.”

  After that, no words are exchanged except a rapid list of instructions. Do not move the rod. Hold his head still. Everyone step back. Get him inside. It’s a blur of activity as the man is lifted onto the gurney and rushed across the parking lot, then inside the hospital. He doesn’t make a sound, a blessed relief under the circumstances.

  A three-foot metal rod the size of a television antenna protrudes from his chest, the same one I pulled on earlier.

  I send up a pleading prayer that I didn’t cause more damage.

  By eight p.m., I begin to think it is, in fact, possible to die from exhaustion. Every limb on my body aches, even limbs I didn’t know I had. Other people’s limbs, they hurt me too. My head has sprouted what feels like an extra brain—one that throbs and thinks about nothing but coffee, food, and sleep.

  Coffee. I haven’t had any since early this morning.

  Food. I haven’t had any of that either.

  For a man who works out on a nearly religious basis—free weights on Tuesday and Thursday, run five miles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—I’m exhausted. It takes an entirely different set of muscles to lift heavy metal, and those muscles are currently furious with me. The good news is the man survived surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. The rod didn’t nick any major arteries or organs, thank God. I spent hours in the waiting room hoping to hear an update and eventually got one by overhearing a conversation between the doctor and a reporter. They still haven’t located the man’s family. The bad news is the man has four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. The healing process will be a long one and not without risks.

  Still, a life is a life. I’m glad the guy still has his.

  Even though that single rescue has made me question mine.

  Sure, I like working in insurance. My father is an insurance guy and was more than a little proud when I decided to pursue the profession. If I wasn’t tall enough for basketball, surely I could make a semi-nice life working behind a desk. And I have, for the most part. I like dealing with people, and I’m particularly fond of problem-solving. Meaning people have a problem making ends meet, and I solve it by saving them money or getting them top dollar on their claims. There isn’t much better than seeing the relief that comes from a client receiving enough money to keep them afloat.

  Except maybe saving a life.

  Between the man today and Bella two days ago, it’s a high like I’ve never felt before. Which is why for the past hour, I’ve been researching what it takes to become a paramedic. Crazy maybe, but I’ve lived on the normal road for a long time now. Suddenly I’m wondering if I might need to veer left. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

  Except I unconsciously veer left in real life and find myself in front of Riley’s bakery. An honest mistake—after all, my hotel is across the street, so obviously it was nothing more than an accidental wrong turn. An easily explainable accident. At least that’s what I tell myself when I push through her front door.

  I don’t know what I expected, maybe to see Riley tidying up or quietly making lists of things to claim for insurance, but the woman across the room from me is doing none of those things. What she is doing is wiping a flour spill off the counter that’s somehow also landed in her hair, while at the same time laughing at something that older man from yesterday says. I rack my brain, but I can’t remember his name. He looks happier than the last time I saw him.

  As for Riley, her shirt has some sort of oil spill on the sleeve, her apron is inside out and untied at the waist. It’s flapping in front of her as she walks, though she’s too busy to notice. A painful-looking burn mark is on her arm. I don’t like it. I don’t like the fact that it bothers me even more.

  Why do I even care? She’s opinionated and has pink hair.

  “A hot wife wouldn’t hurt.”

  I’m so tired of hearing those words in my mind that resentment boils up and nearly spills over. I take a deep breath and lean against the wall, watching the scene play out in front of me as a soundless war rages inside my brain. When you’ve fought skin and teeth to garner a parent’s approval your whole life, anything that challenges that fight makes you feel disoriented, questioning everything. Was all that effort a waste of time?

  Riley is beautiful, a near goddess when she smiles the way she’s smiling now. It’s ethereal, so bright her face practically glows. But she isn’t my type. Even if she were, she’s hardly the type my dad was talking about. After all the years I’ve spent chasing his approval, showing up with Riley on my arm would set me back miles and miles. I know this. I know it. So why, when I look at her, does my dad’s opinion suddenly seem significant? More importantly, do I even want his approval anymore? I’m thirty years old with a good job, strong beliefs, and my own goals and dreams. When did those things become less important than what my father thinks of me? Can you win someone’s approval when they view everything through the clouded lens of judgment?

  I watch as Riley retreats into the kitchen and re-emerges seconds later with what smells like an apple pie in one hand and hot rolls in the other, which she slices and separates onto giant serving platters that she lines up on the bar in front of her. When did she have time to make those?

  “Okay,” she announces, “this is what I have left. Help yourselves, but do it quickly because I’m closing in thirty minutes. And from now on, I’m sticking to cupcakes, so don’t tell anyone I bent the rules for you.”

  Mumbles of reluctant agreement rise through the room and almost make me smile. I don’t, because I’m having trouble processing the sheer number of people in this bakery. There are at least thirty, maybe forty people here. A sign by the front door says Maximum Capacity Twenty-Eight, and there are positively more than that.

  Riley holds up her hands. “Okay, okay, I’ll make more pies another day. But for now, a girl’s got to sleep. And shower. Just look at me.” She gestures to her seriously disheveled self while everyone laughs; she’s right, there isn’t a speck of cleanliness on her body. Even her hair is pulled back and held together with two pencils as if she couldn’t be bothered to locate a hair tie, and then most of it is sticking out everywhere. She plunks a hand on her hip. “You laugh now, but you try cooking solo for this group and see if you come out looking pretty on the other side.”

  “You’re the most beautiful thing in Springfield, Miss Riley,” a soft-spoken guy of about twenty years old says from the back of the room. A murmur of appreciation ripples through the crowd. “No one has ever been this kind or welcoming. I can promise you that.” Deep down, there’s a twist in my heart that I try real hard to deny. It’s like trying not to notice a spider crawling across your leg. You can’t.

  A softness creeps into Riley’s eyes at the same time a curious pink stain crawls up her neck. She swiftly dismisses both with an eye roll.

  “I’m not that nice. But if you’ll let me go home and sleep and shower for heaven’s sake, I’ll open back up at ten in the morning.” She whips out a piece of paper from behind the counter and lays it down on the bar, tapping it with one finger a couple times for emphasis. “In fact, here are my new hours for the foreseeable future. I’m not open all day because as you can see, a lot needs to happen before I can re-open full-time.” She twirls a finger in the air to indicate well…everything wrong with the place. “And I can’t promise much, but you’re all welcome when the doors are open. If nothing else, I’ll have coffee ready.”

  A few people stand and push chairs back into place. Others wander toward the counter for slices of pie and hot rolls, while a few more grab to-go plates and wrap up leftovers. Everyone is moving, a few are le
aving, and most everyone seems lighter somehow. As though the weight of the atmosphere has lifted slightly. When I arrived a few days ago, this place was desolate, sad, and very nearly destroyed—both the room and the people. It’s still a mess of broken windows and dirt-covered floors, but the people are different, and not just in the overwhelming numbers.

  It’s almost as if Riley Mae has opened her bakery to the entire town. From the looks of things, she has, and I’m struck with realization.

  Riley Mae Floss doesn’t shut the door to anyone.

  I’m so rattled that I can’t move, even as she steps up onto a chair to survey the room. “Okay, is everyone doing okay? If so, I’m going to—”

  She spots me from across the room. In the movies, this would be the moment the hero and heroine lock eyes, feel the stars align, and see visions of their impending happily ever after, which certainly includes two kids, a dog, and a remodeled Victorian house in the suburbs. Isn’t this what every flash-forward shows? In this case, Riley looks like she wants to run. Her hand flutters to her neck. The pink flush on her neck reincarnates itself as bright red, and she develops a sudden need to clear her throat. It happens three times. Maybe four before I lose count.

  Finally, she drags her eyes away from me. “Anyway, I’m just going to head back here and clean up, but I’ll be back out here in a few minutes. Help yourselves to whatever you want. And if you want to take anything to go, just grab a paper plate.” She steps off the chair, glances my way again, and practically flees to the door, disappearing behind it.

  It’s puzzling, until I realize she thinks I’m mad at her for standing me up.

  It’s nearly eight o’clock, and we were supposed to meet hours ago to check for news on Bella. She has no idea that I didn’t show either.

  I head to the kitchen, fully aware that everyone in the room is staring right at me, watching as I go.

  She’s sitting on the floor with her head tilted back against a cabinet door, one hand wrapped around her burned wrist, eyes closed. She looks exhausted, like she’s been drained of every resource the Good Lord gave her, both physically and materially. Supplies are laid out everywhere—on the floor, on the counter, inside the refrigerator. The door is open an inch as though she tapped it with her hip in a rush, but not hard enough to close it. I walk as quietly as I can and push it the rest of the way until it suctions, then look down at her. It’s at that moment I finally notice the tears.