At Wave's End: A Novel

by Patricia Perry Donovan

  19

  Faith woke to the skunky odor of gas. She sprang off the couch cushions and upstairs to the candlelit kitchen, where Maeve huddled over the stovetop with a match.

  “Advantage of gas,” the innkeeper said as a burner sprang to life. “Now I can start some coffee.”

  “So there’s still no power?”

  “None. And no sign of anybody working on it, either.” On the counter sat an old-style stovetop percolator with a glass-bubbled lid. “Something told me to hang on to that thing,” Maeve continued. “How did you sleep?”

  “Not very well.” As the night wore on and the storm had escalated, even the thick basement walls could not mute every howling gust, every thud of a tree limb on the roof, every emergency siren.

  Yawning, Faith dropped onto a stool, watching Maeve fill the round stainless filter with ground coffee. As coffee began to bubble in the pot’s transparent top, Faith inhaled the strong aroma, suddenly acutely aware of the quiet. For the first time since she had left Piquant the previous day, heavy, uncomfortable silence surrounded her.

  “I’ve been outside already,” said Maeve. “I’ve walked the entire property. We’ve lost so many shingles we’ll have to patch the roof before the snow comes, or we’ll be in trouble. And branches are down everywhere. But overall, this place is livable. Something to be said for being a ways from the beach, wouldn’t you say, Faith? I can only imagine those poor people up there . . .” Maeve shook her head.

  At that, someone rapped on the back door. “Everybody present and accounted for?” a man called.

  Without looking, Faith knew it had to be Bruce.

  “You look like you’ve been through the war,” Maeve observed as she let Bruce in.

  Faith had to agree. In his sand-caked boots, waders and oilcloth slicker, his ever-present camera slung around his neck, Bruce did appear beaten, his eyes bloodshot and his chin sporting several days’ growth.

  “This town certainly has,” he said hoarsely. “I had a front-row seat all night, and Nadine’s the clear victor, hands down.”

  Bruce sat down at Maeve’s kitchen table and quietly sipped the coffee she set in front of him. “I just never thought I’d see what I saw last night,” he said after a while. “Armageddon . . . my own town. Wind, sand, water . . .” Bruce shook his head. “I tell you: I’ve never seen people work so hard in my life. There were literally surfers riding people to safety on their surfboards. Can you imagine? All heroes, in my book.”

  Faith nodded, recounting the Bayport Jet Ski rescue she had witnessed.

  “And times that by every seacoast town,” added Bruce. Wave’s End officials had done a rough estimate, identifying more than three hundred homes rendered unlivable. “And they’re not done counting.” Families were beginning to gather at a church in town, he said.

  “Let’s go up to the beach and help,” Connie said as she entered the kitchen. She smiled brightly and tossed her hair as she sat beside Bruce. Preoccupied, the reporter appeared oblivious to her mother’s behavior, to Faith’s relief.

  “You can’t,” replied Bruce. “It’s a war zone up there. They’re not letting anybody back until the National Guard arrives to secure the area.”

  “But what about these displaced homeowners? Where will they go?” Maeve asked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question. And actually, that’s another reason I stopped by. The town council held an emergency meeting this morning and voted to set up a contingency fund to temporarily shelter displaced residents. They’ll issue vouchers to eligible applicants and make a list of places where these residents might live.”

  Bruce cleared his throat and got to his feet. “I know you’re kind of in transition here, Maeve, what with Connie about to take over. But given this emergency, would you consider housing a family or two?”

  Maeve answered without hesitation. “Of course we will. I’ve lived and worked in Wave’s End most of my life. We’re blessed that this inn has been spared. Tell that mayor to put The Mermaid’s Purse on the list.”

  “Thank you, Maeve,” said Bruce, tipping his imaginary cap.

  “How soon should we expect them?” asked Connie.

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “They left their homes with the clothes on their backs, just about. Most of them have nowhere to go. Would tomorrow be too soon?”

  20

  Galvanized by the twenty-four-hour deadline, Maeve and Connie sprang into action. The innkeeper dictated a list of tasks to Faith’s mother, giving Connie a crash course in hospitality in the process. Faith admired Connie’s willingness to pitch in but worried how this turn of events might impact her mother’s long-term plans.

  Meanwhile, Bruce promised to drop off a spare generator from the paper to provide limited electricity and hot water until the power returned.

  “Did the council know when that might be?” Maeve asked.

  “Out of their hands. With eight million customers up and down the coast without power, we may be in it for the long haul.”

  Eight million? How high the numbers had climbed overnight, Faith thought.

  After pocketing the foil-wrapped scone Maeve pressed on him, Bruce swallowed the rest of his coffee and prepared to head out. Faith followed him to his car.

  “Excuse me, but since you seem to have the inside track, could you tell me the best way to get back to the city?”

  Bruce smiled thinly, his lips white from fatigue. “Wings, maybe? You were listening to me in there, weren’t you?”

  Why was he patronizing her? “Yes, of course. But the weather’s calm now, and I don’t see how damage up at the beach—”

  “It’s not just the beach. There’s downed power lines and fallen trees everywhere. Most roads are impassible, and traffic lights are out. And if I heard right, I believe the city’s tunnels and bridges are still shut as well. If you want my advice, you should wait a day or two. Let the crews get a handle on the situation and start to clear the debris.”

  “But I can’t wait. I’ve got to get back to the city.” She pulled out her phone and displayed Xander’s message. “This is the place I work. Worked, I should probably say. My boss needs me.”

  Bruce peered at the picture. “I’m sure he does. But I expect that area will be restricted, just like our beachfront. One day won’t matter, Faith. And if you’re talking about need, there’s plenty right here.”

  “I’m sure there is, but I only came down here to check on my mom. And seeing that she’s fine, and about to be very busy, I really need to—”

  “Hold on a second. You’re a chef, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Grab your coat and come with me.”

  PART 3: HEROIC

  21

  Faith read the church billboard as Bruce pulled up:

  COME IN TO RECHARGE AND RECOVER.

  ALL WELCOME.

  “Why are we stopping here?” she asked.

  “You’ll see soon enough. Go on in. Straight through there.” Bruce pointed at a red door.

  “But when will you be back?”

  “Before too long,” he said, before driving away.

  Really? You’re just going to leave me here stranded? Faith stared after him, dumbfounded. Overhead, the stark black cross on the church spire bisected a cloud. She rubbed her arms, still shaken from the short but sobering ride from The Mermaid’s Purse that tendered a glimpse of Nadine’s wrath. Not even a block from the inn, Bruce had swerved to avoid a wayward boat teetering on a curb.

  “How did that get there?” wide-eyed Faith asked.

  “Tip of the iceberg.”

  Squaring her shoulders, Faith entered the church. She found herself on a landing, a humid wave of caffeinated air washing over her. Below her, dozens of people milled about, a handful energetically, but most standing and talking quietly, their faces strained.

  Downstairs, someone had arranged a makeshift buffet on one wall, but few were availing themselves of the chafing dishes. Of the dozen or so tables arranged c
afé-style, only one had occupants: a mother bent over a sleepy child, encouraging her to eat.

  Faith felt a tap on her back. “Welcome! If you need housing, we’ve started a list there.” Beside her, a smiling middle-aged brunette pointed to a board half covered with index cards.

  “Thank you, but I don’t.” Faith noticed the woman’s name tag read Alicia. “Is there anything I can do? I’m a chef.”

  Alicia grabbed her arm. “Perfect. I’ve got just the job for you.” Pausing at a welcome table to scribble a name tag for Faith, Alicia then pulled her through the knots of people, where snippets of conversation floated by: “. . . lost everything”; “. . . roof fell in”; “. . . never thought I’d ever see a boat on Main Street.”

  Once in the church kitchen, Alicia patted a mountain of plastic-sleeved loaves of bread. “First order of business is sandwiches. Lots of them. First responders up at the beach have been working all night. All we’ve got right now is peanut butter and jelly, but that’ll have to do.”

  Faith nodded. “Okay. Easy enough.”

  “As soon as you’re done, someone will run you up to the beach to hand them out.”

  Faith frowned. “I’m not sure how long I can stay.”

  Just then, a man called into the kitchen for Alicia.

  “Yikes. That’s the pastor. I’m needed.” Alicia patted Faith’s arm. “Whatever you can do. Good luck. Holler if you need help.”

  And with that, Faith found herself alone in the kitchen. Rummaging through drawers, she located knives, sandwich bags, wax paper to cover the counters. She set up rows of bread and got to work spreading, slicing and wrapping sandwiches. By the time someone shouted into the kitchen for the beach food, she had stacked dozens of sandwiches in disposable aluminum pans.

  “It’s all set,” Faith called.

  “Great. Meet us out back. And the guys requested plenty of coffee.”

  Shortly after, Faith climbed into a public-works truck, its bed crammed with urns of hot coffee, bottles of water, shovels, brooms, trash bags, disposable masks, cans of spray paint. She piled the pans of sandwiches in her lap and on the floor.

  “Why spray paint?” Faith asked the driver, Craig.

  “To mark the condemned houses.”

  Faith fell silent as Craig started the truck. They rolled up Main Street, giving Faith her first glimpse of the Wave’s End downtown, where storefronts were dark but relatively unscathed. A few blocks farther, dejected customers returned to their cars after finding the supermarket shuttered.

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” Faith said hopefully.

  “Wait.”

  Advancing a few more streets, he slowed the truck as the road began to disappear beneath a layer of sand. Looking to her right, Faith started at the sight of a peach bi-level split in half by an ancient oak, a grim admonition of how close she’d come to disaster the previous evening.

  “Empty, thank God,” Craig said, anticipating her question. As they moved forward, the devastation mounted with each block: buckled roads, toppled cars buried up to their doors in sand. And the boats—boats on lawns and curbs and helter-skelter in the road, as if their captains had been racing merrily through the streets of Wave’s End in a nautical free-for-all, then abruptly abandoned ship.

  Worst off were the homes. In a catastrophic game of hopscotch, Nadine had gobbled some houses whole, gnawed immense holes in others and spit out the remains, and bizarrely, randomly, turned up her nose at the rest. There appeared to be no reason or sense to Mother Nature’s destruction.

  Speechless, Faith stared at Craig.

  “Like a bomb went off, right?” He pulled over to park the truck. “Okay. This is us.”

  Faith looked around at the abandoned street. “But there’s nobody here. Who are we going to feed?”

  “You’ll see. We go on foot from here. Slight traffic jam.” He jutted his chin at a schooner sprawled across the drawbridge in front of them, its battered masts flattened like the wings of a wounded bird. Faith’s breath caught, awed by the force capable of ripping a craft from its moorings and pitching it onto a bridge.

  “We’ll come back for the cleaning supplies.” After grabbing a coffee urn, he trudged toward the span. Faith followed, juggling sandwiches and a sleeve of cups and wondering how much worse things would be on the other side.

  22

  As she and Craig dispensed sandwiches and coffee block by beachfront block, Faith realized their meager inventory would soon be depleted. In addition to the first responders they had been dispatched to feed, dozens of anxious homeowners swarmed the streets, ignoring the crime tape and violating the town’s order to stay away until the area could be secured.

  That process might take weeks. Homes tipped and lurched precariously, garages, dormers and porches severed from main residences. Not that this deterred their owners; Faith watched as a man scaled a half-buried truck to enter a house whose sheared-off roof rested in the driveway, until a firefighter convinced him to return to the street.

  Sand had found its way everywhere, blanketing streets, saddling houses, penetrating first floors—as though the entire beach had been rolled up like a carpet and fanned over the coastal town.

  “You know what’s scary about the sand?” Craig asked.

  “How hard it will be to remove it?” Faith guessed.

  “That, and the fact it acts like a filter. If there’s a gas leak, which is fairly common in situations like this, the sand absorbs the gas odor. A house could be about to blow, and you might never even smell it.”

  “You mean, like right now?” Faith glanced around nervously.

  “I’m just saying we’ll be better off once the utility trucks get to work up here.”

  As the two shuffled through the streets, Faith’s strides kicked up random items: a child’s plastic shovel, a basketball trophy, a woman’s bedroom slipper. Photos floated in puddles. Faith retrieved an image of two small blondes in matching plaid sitting on the lap of a shopping mall Santa, their features and the date on the plaque at their feet rubbed off by the sand bath.

  Who owned this misplaced memory? she wondered, tracing the photo’s pebbled surface. Thinking someone at the church might know, she tucked the photo in her pocket.

  As she and Craig walked, residents approached them, wanting to tell their stories about the height floodwaters had attained in their kitchen or the distance their car or bike or swing set had floated from their home, as if in the telling, they might begin to process the tragedy. Long after the sandwiches were gone, Faith stayed and listened, feeling like an intruder yet unable to abandon the shell-shocked Wave’s End residents as they came to terms with their losses.

  She observed how some homeowners sprang into action right away, carting debris to the curb and phoning insurers. Others could only circle their properties, speechless with shock. When she spotted a middle-aged couple clinging to each other on the sidewalk, Faith had to turn away, going to sit on a far curb while Craig finished his conversation with a police officer. As she waited, Faith overheard a woman’s consoling voice behind her.

  “Just give it time. He’ll turn up. He’s smart.”

  Faith turned to listen, afraid someone had gone missing until she spotted the teenage boy swinging a heavy chain leash and realized they were referring to a lost dog. She had not considered the storm’s toll on animals; if the hurricane could flatline a community, what were a dog’s chances of survival?

  “But Tucker’s a puppy, Mom.” The boy ran his fingers along the lacquered spikes atop his head. “He doesn’t know his way home. And what if he’s hurt?”

  “Someone will take care of him. I know it. Now come and help me move some of this sand so we can get inside.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Faith watched the boy take the shovel his mother offered then angrily attack the wall of sand blocking the front door. After a few attempts, however, he gave up, planting the shovel in a dune and dropping onto the concrete steps. “I’m done,” he said. “All you care about is t
his stupid house in this stupid town you dragged me to. Admit it: you don’t give a shit about Tucker because Dad gave him to me.”

  Ouch. Clearly, this family’s pain extended beyond miseries inflicted by the storm. Frozen on the sidewalk, Faith didn’t dare move. She snuck a look at the mother, who held her cheek as though she’d been struck, and hoped she’d never been that cruel to Connie as a teenager.

  23

  When Faith and Craig returned to the church in midafternoon, she spotted Bruce at a table having coffee with a middle-aged couple.

  “The Beacon’s putting out a special storm edition,” Alicia said after greeting Faith and Craig. “Hopefully, getting some of the survivors’ stories out there will generate some assistance.”

  “Won’t hurt the paper, either,” said Craig, as he and Faith moved to the buffet and helped themselves to coffee.

  “What do you mean?” Faith asked.

  “The Beacon’s in trouble. Has been for a while. Everybody wants to read the news on their phones. Anyway, this ought to help their cash flow for a while.” Craig waved his cup to encompass the disaster relief effort.

  Interesting, Faith thought. When Bruce finished his interview, she sat with him and recounted what she had seen at the beachfront.

  “So, did it convince you?” Bruce asked.

  “Convince me of what?”

  “That you should stay in Wave’s End awhile. There will be plenty to do in the coming weeks.”

  “I’m sure there will be. I feel for everyone who’s been affected. I . . . I’m haunted by what I saw today. But my boss is in trouble, too.”

  “I see.”

  Faith set down her cup. “With all due respect, Mr. Neery—”

  “Please. Call me Bruce.”

  “Right, Bruce then. With all due respect, Bruce, I don’t think you do see. You don’t even know me—or my mother,” she added pointedly. “I’m not a selfish person. I came down to check on my mother, remember? And she’s fine. She and Maeve will be occupied with the new people. It doesn’t mean I won’t come back to Wave’s End. But my livelihood is in New York. That has to count for something.”