Finding Tranquility

by Laura Heffernan

  The door wasn’t budging, so I abandoned my bedroom and continued my exploration. I felt nothing. Somewhere, deep inside, shock numbed my emotions, kept me from feeling the brunt of the pain.

  My feet carried me from one room to the next as my mind took in, but refused to process, the damage. Windows shattered. Broken glass everywhere. Plaster coated every surface. A soaked couch in the dining room. Something soggy touched my right foot. I jumped, then realized it was a scrap of paper.

  Thick, heavy paper, part of something once much larger. The letters on the front now spelled “Colum—.” This could be either my diploma or Tara’s. It didn’t matter. Below it, I found a soggy mass of blue and red fabric. It took a minute to realize this wad of filthy sateen used to be horseback riding ribbons from my childhood. Shaking my head to ward off the onrush of emotions, I dropped everything into the rubble and continued picking my way toward the door.

  Outside, movement caught my eye. Hermione dashed across the lawn, chasing a squirrel or something. Oh, no. I should’ve locked her in her carrier before doing this. Assuming I could find her carrier, which in my defense, was a pretty big assumption.

  A wave of despair welled in my chest. A familiar old emotion I thought I’d long since conquered. I needed to get out of here.

  If only I’d been wearing shoes when I went to hide in the basement the night before, escape would’ve been easier. I poked along the floor the best I could, trying not to step on nails or broken glass until I got to my “picking up the mail” slippers near the front hall. I slid on sunglasses I found dangling off the chandelier in the dining room, a pair Tara lost before she left for her mom’s. She’d be glad to know I finally found them. With a deep breath, I headed outside to assess the rest of the damage. I just needed a plan. First a plan, then I could be sad.

  One glance at the trunk of my shiny red Infiniti sticking out from under a tree broke through my emotional barriers. I blinked back tears as if when I hit the hundredth blink, my car would magically be restored. My pride and joy was a total steal at seventy-two payments of four hundred fifty dollars. Two payments down, only seventy to go. Random stuff covered the lawn: the lid to my cast iron skillet, what looked like an old prescription pill bottle, the remote for a window air conditioner I’d recycled years ago. Not knowing where to start, I bit my lip and forced my gaze toward the curb.

  Across the street, the house belonging to my favorite elderly couple mirrored mine—half the front room lay in ruins, the garage decimated, but the other side more or less intact. Thankfully, my neighbors already left for Florida for the winter, so they would be fine, but I needed to call when the networks cleared to let them know. They unfortunately didn’t know how to text.

  No one else was in sight, but I called out, looking for anyone trapped inside their homes or needing an extra pair of hands. Only my voice broke the eerie silence.

  Downed power lines to the east and the storm-created swimming pool next door in what used to be Mrs. Everling’s living room persuaded me to head west, up the hill, toward a gas station on the corner. Walking past the house to the west, I marveled at the lack of damage. One front window was broken, the hole shaped suspiciously like a baseball.

  The shouting match that had carried across the yard the day before and the sulking teenage boy who’d offered to mow my lawn for twenty dollars suggested the storm had little to do with the damage to my next door neighbor’s house. That conversation felt like a lifetime ago.

  Most of the other houses on this end of the street were fine, untouched. The sun still hovered near the horizon, filling the air with tinges of color. If I didn’t turn around, only the eerie stillness would give any indication a storm occurred. I couldn’t think about that. Focusing on the road ahead helped staunch the rising panic in my chest.

  A week ago, the fact that the gas station owner still maintained a working pay phone had been a running joke throughout Red Bank. Now, the archaic device reeled me in like a lifeline. Me, and half the town, apparently. I stood in line with neighbors I’d seen a million times and never spoken to. Everyone wore the same sunken-eyed, slack-jawed expression on their face. If I’d possessed a mirror, I suspected the same dead eyes would peer back at me. We were haunted. No one spoke above a whisper.

  The woman behind me poked something in my back. I whirled around before realizing she held a crumpled granola bar. “You hungry, honey?”

  My stomach rumbled, but the thought of eating didn’t appeal to me at the moment. I shook my head.

  She shoved it into my hand. “I walked by your house, your kitchen’s gone. Take it for later.”

  The woman’s sincerity touched me, even as I struggled to remember how she knew me. Finally, it hit me: a week after I bought the house, her dog got loose. We’d met when I returned him, exchanged pleasantries, and not spoken since. “Thank you. Are you okay?”

  She laughed. “Ain’t nobody okay around here, but I’ll live. I’m doing better than you, I think.”

  The sun rose higher. Our voices dropped away as we each processed the extent of the storm. I inched closer to the phone, wondering if anyone was trying to reach me.

  When I finally reached the booth, my fingers fumbled for a minute. Change. How had I forgotten I needed change? Once upon a time, Mamá made me memorize her calling card number for an emergency such as this one. If someone asked me two days ago, I’d have been hard pressed to recall what a calling card was.

  A voice rumbled behind me. “Make a call or get out of line, sweetie.”

  I didn’t acknowledge them. Instead, I grasped at a distant memory and dialed the operator. “I’d like to make a collect call, please.”

  Less than a minute later, my boyfriend’s voice filled my ear. “Anna, thank God! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but the house is destroyed. My car’s smashed. Phone’s dead. I can’t possibly get to work today. Or all week, probably. I can’t even get my clothes. We’ve got no elec—”

  “Don’t even worry about that, sweetie. My place is fine; the storm passed right over it. I’ll come pick you up, we’ll pack your stuff together, and you can stay with me until you get everything settled.”

  A three-thousand-pound weight lifted off my shoulders. “Thanks, Jay.”

  “Where are you calling from? I’m on my way.”

  “Just come to the house. I’ll be sifting through the rubble all day.” I thanked him again and hung up.

  With the condition of the roads, I didn’t expect to see Jay any time soon, so I headed back. The insurance company would send people to help with clean-up eventually, but I needed to do something to keep my hands busy. I couldn’t just sit here and stare at the mess. The scope of the damage overwhelmed me. For a long time, I stood in the kitchen doorway, just staring and hoping Hermione would bound across the lawn.

  Deep breaths, Anna. One thing at a time. Just do one little thing. Then do one more little thing. That was manageable.

  All those leftover magazines from the basement turned out to be useful, after all: I used them to divert water away from the main hallway, back into what used to be the kitchen. I spent several seconds watching the water seep into my image on the cover before flipping the top one over and dumping more slick pages on top. Not quite as good as a door, but at least Hermione could hop over the stacks when she returned to get into the house. My treasured ribbons, memories of a lost youth, went into a trash bag with chunks of plaster, broken picture frames, and something furry that might’ve been a drowned rat. Sniffling, I added the now-beheaded, one-legged ceramic horse Tara made me when I gave up riding to the trash pile.

  I wiped my eyes. “Goodbye, Sir Maxwell.”

  The last time I saw the horse was twenty years ago, and I hadn’t been in a saddle since. But saying good-bye to the figurine hit me almost as hard as the day I quit. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. Ignoring them, I continued to sift through the rubble, looking for anything that could be salvaged. Tara’s favorite Blu-ray,
our picture from prom, both of us sporting “the Rachel”. I sniffled again, wondering if a bit of music could lift my spirits.

  The lack of a phone, computer, router, or electricity made streaming music impossible, but I rooted around in the basement until I found an old battery-operated CD player with my other camping stuff, along with some tarps that could come in handy.

  “Hello? Anna?” Jay’s voice emanated from the general direction of what used to be the kitchen.

  The moment I saw him, my facade of bravery broke. An armload of tarps tumbled to the ground. My chin quivered, and a sob escaped me. He held me, the boom box cradled awkwardly between us, for a long time. “I’m so sorry. It’s okay. We’ll rebuild together.”

  “Thanks,” I sniffled. “How did you get here? And what time is it?”

  “I borrowed a scooter from my neighbor. I couldn’t leave you to deal with this alone. Traffic is backed up all the way into the city. You don’t want to go out there if you don’t have to. Trees blocking lanes, power lines down, flooding everywhere. About three blocks over, water’s up to people’s doorsteps. But I’m here now.”

  I smiled up at him and leaned forward to give him a kiss. “Thank you. Te amo, mi vida.”

  “I love you, too. Let’s get to work.”

  Eventually, everything would need to come out while contractors did the repairs, but at least I could try to avoid more water damage until I got a truck and a storage unit. I turned on the boom box while we got to work. We needed to move as many of my belongings as possible to the basement, since I could lock that door. Tarps would hopefully protect things we couldn’t move and what used to be the kitchen entrance from the elements for a few days. At least we might be able to keep out the local wildlife, although I hoped Hermione would come back.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Jay said as Ace of Base filled the room, “When was the last time you listened to your boom box?”

  I thought for a minute. “A little over a year ago, maybe? Tara and I went camping around the time I met you.”

  “Not that I don’t love ‘The Sign,’ but do you have anything more recent than, say, 1993?”

  “Nope,” I shot back. “When was the last time you bought a CD?”

  “Touché. I don’t even own any CDs anymore. Donated ‘em all years ago.”

  I gestured toward my room, swallowing a lump in my throat. “I had some yesterday.”

  A heartbeat later, Jay wrapped his arms around me. “Hey, it’ll be okay. I’m here with you. We’ll both take a couple of days off work to clean this mess up. They’ll manage without us. The whole office is closed. You can’t stay with me until this place is rebuilt. A few weeks, several months, it doesn’t matter. Okay?”

  I nodded, trying to quell the growing panic inside me. Everything I lost was stuff. It wasn’t me. Stuff could be replaced. Breathe in, breathe out. “Thanks.”

  We moved to the living room and sat on the couch. From this angle, with the wall blocking my view of the blue tarp, I could almost pretend things were normal if I didn’t let my eyes wander toward the pile of debris Jay’d swept into one corner. Perhaps any light in the room would’ve helped the illusion. Or maybe it would’ve made everything worse.

  No puedes tapar el sol con un dedo, as Mamá used to say. You can’t cover the sun with one finger.

  Unfortunately, now I possessed a perfect view of the mantel. Where Tara and I once displayed our favorite pictures.

  I got up and sifted through the stuff on the floor.

  “Ahn? What are you doing?”

  Ignoring him, I kept digging until I found what I wanted—the only gold framed picture in the room. Mamá always hated silver, thought it looked cheap. In the frame, she and I stood before the house, with our identical long dark hair and smiles. Her white sundress made her seem half her age; I wore a light blue cap and gown. Glass showered onto the floor when I lifted the frame. Dirt and gook streaked our clothes and faces. We gave the impression less of mother and daughter at college graduation, more like survivors of a disaster movie.

  “This is the last picture of us together.” My voice cracked. “Now it’s gone, too.”

  A tear dropped off my nose, making a clean spot on the snapshot.

  “It’s going to be okay. Your dad probably took a hundred pictures that day, right?”

  I nodded.

  “We’ll call him when we leave here, tell him you’re okay, ask him to send you another one. Good?”

  It wasn’t good. We hadn’t owned a digital camera back then, and Papa probably didn’t keep the original negatives. Still, I nodded, knowing if I didn’t put on a brave face, I’d never get through the rest of the house. “Okay. Thanks.”

  When the waning light made further work impossible, we walked into town to see if anyplace serving food was open. One of the sagging power lines had given way under the weight of a tree during the afternoon, blocking access via the route I followed earlier. Jay and I picked our way through fallen trees, soggy leaves, broken glass, and puddles until we reached the end of the street. The bistro at the corner now offered outdoor seating in the back, but I suspected the owners would’ve preferred to build a patio over losing the rear walls. Employees milled around, moving chairs and boarding up the broken windows. I waved, offered condolences, and kept moving.

  We weren’t picky: restaurants, fast food, a gas station. Since my stove was in the kitchen, and the kitchen was no longer attached to the house, all foods requiring any preparation whatsoever were out of the question. Luckily, the nearby pizza shop used a wood-burning oven and a back-up generator. The line stretched for a couple of blocks around the corner, out of sight.

  Jay pointed at a bench across the street, partially hidden from view by a green Acura stopped in traffic. “You’ve been on your feet all day. Do you want to rest?”

  I hesitated. As much as I hated to show weakness, my left leg throbbed where the end connected with my prosthetic. The only thing I wanted more than my bed and my house back was to sit and remove the device. Jay touched my chin, forcing my gaze back to him. “Hey. You’ve had a rough day. There’s no shame in sitting down.”

  Puddles littered the path between me and the debris-covered bench. Still, sitting seemed more appealing than standing in line. My heart warmed at his thoughtfulness. “You’re right, thanks. I’ll take—whatever they have, honestly.”

  About an hour later, Jay returned with a large pepperoni pizza. Although the wind carried a bite, we ate on the bench, as if this were an ordinary day and we were just another couple enjoying a pizza for dinner in the middle of a disaster zone. We shared a tender, cheesy kiss under the stars.

  Cars packed the center of town. As we tried to decide whether we wanted to fight traffic to get back to Jay’s, I realized the green Acura I’d walked past to get to the bench still idled at the end of the street, waiting to turn onto the main road. If this tiny town was gridlocked, trying to get to Jay’s house in midtown would take hours at best. Considering the amount of work left to us the following morning, we decided to unpack the rest of the camping gear and spread it out in the basement.

  We picked our way up the hill, detouring around more tree branches. Two college-aged guys in a raft offered to take us up one of the side streets, but the road to my house wasn’t totally underwater, so we declined and gave them each a slice of leftover pizza. Emergency crews hadn’t made it anywhere near our neighborhood yet. Between the rubble, the flooded areas, and the lack of street lights, walking home took nearly twice as long as the trip into town.

  On the way back, I insisted we knock on a couple of doors to see how the neighbors were faring. The only one who answered seemed more concerned with feeding me than the tree lying across her living room. I asked her to keep an eye out for Hermione and convinced her that we had enough leftover pizza for the night.

  Although part of me wanted to take the scooter back to Jay’s for the night, I hoped the cat would return if I stayed. On top of everythin
g else, I couldn’t stomach telling Tara I lost her beloved pet. I couldn’t even call her with the news about the hurricane until I knew Hermione was safe. Jay put bowls of food and water on what used to be the back porch while I scoured the house for usable pillows and blankets.

  The next day passed in much the same way, except we finished securing the house before dark. Hermione remained out of sight. News reports told me that traffic into the city had lightened up, so I went to a neighbor whose house was mostly okay and offered him some free samples of our new product line in exchange for borrowing his truck. He agreed, and even helped me load up a few boxes.

  “You ready?” Jay asked after he loaded the last of the stuff.

  I shook my head. “I can’t leave without Hermione.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine. You know how cats love to hide.”

  “I do,” I said, “and she’s probably in the basement. But I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure.”

  Jay surveyed the resolute line of my mouth, the determination in my eyes. He’d seen it before at many a board meeting, and he knew what it meant. After a long moment, he sighed. “I’ll pack up the food and kitty litter, then get the carrier. Check the basement again, and if you don’t see her by the time I’m done, we’ll go for a walk.”

  “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded and disappeared into the house. After a moment, I followed. Hermione did love to hide in the basement when Tara or I opened the door to do laundry. With luck, I’d find her squished behind the water heater.

  Ten minutes later, I’d scoured the entire basement and determined that if the cat hid there, I would never discover her hiding place. With a sigh, I grabbed a bag of cat treats from a drawer in what used to be the panty, and went outside. Jay and I walked up and down the block, shaking the treats and calling her name, until finally, a meow answered us.

  “Hermione?”

  The fat cat bounded out of the bushes, absolutely soaked, and catapulted into my arms. I’d never been so happy to see another living creature. I snuggled against her, cooing until Jay pointed out that it was dark and we’d need close to an hour to get home.