by Polly Becks
“I’m fine,” Lucy muttered, her eyes still closed. “All I need is a hot shower and a shot of whiskey, Jameson’s, if possible. Oh, and to make sure my cat’s all right. Other than that, I’m dandy.”
She put out her hand. “Somebody help me up, please.”
“I think you should stay put for the moment, ma’am—”
Lucy’s eyes, a glorious shade of Irish blue, popped open.
“All right, I’ll get up by myself.” She started to rise, then felt a large, calloused hand seize hers.
Ace pulled her to a stand, shaking his head.
The children on the gurneys nearby, now more awake, were anxious, looking around desperately for their parents, and beginning to weep. Lucy came over to each of them and smiled as bravely as she could.
“Your parents will be with you in a few minutes,” she told them in as reassuring a way as she could muster. “Dr. Byrnes is just trying to make sure you’re all OK. I am so proud of you guys.”
Five nervous pairs of eyes were fixed on her. Even Sloane was awake, staring at her.
“While we wait, let me tell you a quick story,” Lucy went on. “It’s a story about Obergrande—the tree, and the town, and some brave ladies just like you.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to get warm. A moment later, she felt the sensation of heat as a Red Cross volunteer encircled her with a blanket.
“Thanks,” she said, turning, but the man was already on to others in need. She looked back at her little students again, a fondness beyond measure swelling in her heart.
“So, a very long time ago, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, when Obergrande, the tree and the town, was new, there were only about ten families here. They lived in cabins and had to work very hard, because they were building a settlement from the Adirondack forests.
“One winter, the men of the tiny town went hunting together to gather food for the long winter ahead. While they were gone, another group of men that wanted their land and their things attacked their settlement, with just the women and the children there. This could have been a very bad thing—a lot like the flood in the school today was a very bad thing.
“But the women of the settlement that would one day be our town fought back. They were brave, and strong, and they knew how to take care of themselves. And, most important, they refused to give up, no matter what—a lot like you guys did today.”
She lapsed into silence, suddenly feeling weak.
“Did they win?” Sarah asked, her voice shaking.
Lucy smiled raggedly. “They sure did. And when their husbands came home from hunting, they saw their town had been attacked, but it was still standing—and their wives were there, cleaning up the mess from the fight, like nothing had ever happened.
“So the husbands decided to have a celebration and to name the women the Eight Queens of Obergrande, even though it was a silly thing, because you can’t have eight queens of anything.”
“Right,” said Sloane. “Only one at a time.” She coughed again.
“The men just wanted the women to know how proud they were of them—just like your parents and I are proud of you today.”
“And Prince Charmin’?” Corinne asked.
Lucy glanced around, but did not see Ace. The parents, however, were being led quietly over to where the gurneys were. “Yes—I know he’s proud of you, too. So, I think we should name you girls The Five Princesses of Obergrande, like the Eight Queens—” She turned to the approaching parents. “What do you think?”
“Highly appropriate,” said Professor Byrnes, smiling down widely at his little girl.
Mr. Wallace was leaning over his little redhead. “Where’s Mommy?” Sloane asked her father as he took her hand and kissed it.
“Out of town, remember, honey?”
The little girl looked crestfallen. “Oh, yeah. Gone again.”
From across the park, a firefighter was approaching, running, heading for the helicopter. He ran straight to the gurney and, in complete violation of the briefing given to the other parents by the Army medic, bent over Sarah and threw his arms around her, hugging her gently but tightly.
When he released her and pulled up, tears were streaming down his face.
“Sarah,” he whispered over and over again. “Sarah. Sarah. Sarah—”
“It’s OK, Daddy,” the little dirty-blonde girl said solemnly. “I’m fine. There’s no need to cry—unless you stuck’ed forks in your eyes. Then I think I would cry too.”
Around the assemblage of parents and rescue personnel, a roll of chuckling laughter went up.
The first really happy sound the field had heard that day.
“Mommy and the baobabs will be so happy you’re fine, and so proud of you,” Dave Windsor said to his daughter, who shrugged.
“Well, now we is princesses, they should be proud,” she said. “If I’m a princess, does that make Blythe and Bonnie princesses too?”
Dave, who had missed the story, just nodded, overwhelmed with relief.
Hovering anxiously at the edge of the group were Elisa’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Santiago, who looked exhausted, and Grace’s mother and father, the Reverend Fuller and his wife, Kathy.
“No sé donde nos alojaremos,” Mr. Santiago whispered to his wife. “La casa se ha ido.”
Kathy Fuller, overhearing them, smiled and took Mrs. Santiago’s elbow.
“Your house is gone?” she asked gently.
The Santiagos exchanged a glance, then nodded.
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Fuller said.
“Not a problem,” Reverend Fuller added. “We have plenty of room at the parsonage of the church. You can stay with us.”
Mr. Santiago looked nervous. “We—we are—”
The Fullers waited patiently.
Finally he finished his thought. “We are Catholic.”
The Fullers chuckled. “That’s all right,” Reverend Fuller said. “We speak Catholic.”
At that moment Dr. Byrnes finished her exam, then spoke quickly to the Army medics. She came back and signaled for the parents to step away from the gurneys.
“They are in remarkable condition under the circumstances,” she said in her beautiful, low-pitched voice, a voice that had a calming effect on the frazzled group of parents. “Sloane has suffered the most by far; she was submerged, it seems, inhaled some water and I’m sure is quite traumatized. The rest of them have some minor hypothermia, which is beginning to be treated as we speak, and, of course, they are all very frightened. I suggest we look into some short-term group therapy immediately. They survived this together; I think it’s best we try to facilitate their recovery together.”
The other parents nodded.
“Time for transport,” said the Army medic who had been managing the triage. “Whichever parent is riding along, please board the ambulance. We’ll be leaving in ninety seconds.”
Lucy raised her fist in the air.
“Princess Power!” she said.
Each of the little girls responded as well as they could.
“The Fearless Fivesome,” Lucy said quietly as the gurneys began to be taken away, remembering what Ace had called them.
Reverend Fuller, whose wife was riding along with Grace, touched her elbow.
“We can never, never thank you enough, Miss Sullivan,” he said in his soothing, musical voice that Lucy had heard at parent-teacher meetings. “But we are definitely going to try, when everything is right again.”
“Indeed, I’m at a loss for words to express my gratitude,” said Professor Byrnes, who was also staying behind. “And, if you told my college students that, they would never believe it’s possible for me to be at a loss for words.”
Dave Windsor said nothing. He was distracted by the sight of his wife, exiting Lenny Verillo’s SUV, a twin in each arm.
Then he ran at breakneck speed, straight toward her, sweeping the rest of his girls into a wild hug.
“I’m going with Sarah to the hospital,” Susan s
aid within his embrace. “Lenny’s going to watch the girls with his granddaughter, Abby.” She pulled her head up and whispered in his ear. “Lenny’s daughter, Abby’s mom, is missing.”
Dave exhaled deeply, then nodded. His crew was part of the search for her and the other people in her flooded office building that had, until this morning, stood by the river’s edge.
“There’s a spare playpen at the church,” said Reverend Fuller. He turned to Mrs. Santiago, whose husband was already heading toward the ambulance. “I expect we will be opening the church hall to a lot of people in your same situation tonight—can you give me a hand until I see who shows up to help?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Santiago. She was looking at the ambulance with her little girl and husband aboard, pulling away into the dusk.
As the four others did a moment later, one by one.
On their way to the hospital in Emmettsville.
Dave Windsor stood in silence, watching them leave.
Then he took off his glove and turned to Sue. “We won’t be able to stay in the house tonight,” he said, running his hand over her tangled hair. “That whole area of town is a controlled zone; there’s no power or running water, even if the house is still standing. Find a Red Cross worker—you’ll know them by the badge, of course—and get directed to putting your name on the list for shelter. Be careful—it’s chaos all over town, especially between here and the west end of Tree Hill Park, but that’s where a lot of the aid workers are.”
Susan nodded and put her hand over his, resting it against her cheek for a long moment.
“We are blessed,” she whispered.
“Sure are,” Dave said. “I love you. Forever and ever, honey. Give Sarah lots of kisses for me, and have a good ride to the hospital.”
Then he kissed his wife and baby daughters, put his helmet back on, and returned to the trenches of Hell.
Chapter 17
‡
5:33 PM
AS THE AMBULANCES began to pull away one by one, carrying each of the girls and the parent accompanying her to Medical Emergency Center in Emmettsville to be checked over, Sergeant Evans came over to Lucy Sullivan.
It took him a few moments to find her, because she was wrapped in a Red Cross blanket, her curly long hair hidden from view.
“Miss Sullivan?”
Lucy didn’t appear to hear him. Her face was blank, her eyes locked on the emergency vehicles, each one bearing a child she loved away from the nightmare they had all survived.
Together.
Even though the logical part of her brain was not really functioning, the thought that passed through her mind was that somehow this had bonded the girls to each other for life.
And all of them to her as well.
I’m going to worry about them forever now, she thought.
“Ma’am?”
She said nothing.
“Ma’am,” Ace said quietly, “who do you have here waiting for you?”
After a few moments, she blinked.
“No one,” she said. Her voice was hollow.
“No family in town?” the soldier pressed.
“No family, period.” As the flashing lights of the last of ambulances disappeared into the darkness, she sighed and let her head drop. “Lost my mom when I was twelve, my dad four years ago—at least he got to see me graduate from college with my Masters—first one in the family. Then the last one, my grandmother, last year. So, no one. On the bright side—at least there was no one worrying about me the way so many of these folks are worrying. But thanks for asking.”
“Let me get you someone from the Red Cross—”
Lucy’s head snapped up and she glared at him. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“OK,” said Sergeant Evans.
He turned quickly and disappeared.
Lucy returned to watching the rescue workers—the National Guardsmen in their fatigues, the Red Cross aides with their symbol on their arms and chests, and the firefighters from the Obergrande volunteer companies scrambling like ants, moving with surprising organization through the wreckage that had once been her adopted hometown. She tried to form a coherent thought, to make a determination about where to go next, what to do, but her mind seemed to be filled with the heavy mist through which the helicopter had lifted her.
A moment later, a gentle nudge at her elbow brought her around again.
Ace stood in front of her once more, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.
“Please drink this, ma’am,” he said. “Sorry it isn’t Jameson’s.”
Lucy snorted wryly. “Ma’am? What is it with you and ‘ma’am’? How old are you, Sergeant?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Well, you’re two years older than me. ‘Ma’am’ seems a little over the top, wouldn’t you say?”
The soldier shrugged, but a fragment of a smile touched the corner of his mouth, a mouth that Lucy had first noticed was sensual and pleasant when he was staring in her car window the night before, his upper lip shaped like Cupid’s bow.
“Standard operating procedure, ma’—er, Miss Sullivan.”
Lucy eyed him humorously, a little bit of light coming back into her eyes. She took a deep swig of the coffee.
“Even ‘Miss Sullivan’ seems a little formal, given that I know you’ve seen my boobs from above today at least once, and you had your hand on my butt and up my skirt, or at least on my thigh, when you pulled me into the helicopter, Sergeant,” she said jokingly, holding the Styrofoam cup in both hands and trying to keep the blanket from falling off her. “You could probably get away with calling me ‘Lucy,’ I think.”
“Sorry, Miss Sullivan,” Ace said solemnly. “I’m on duty.”
Lucy nodded. “Ah. I see. Well, I’m glad groping my caboose and my thigh was something you were allowed to do while on duty, but calling me ‘Lucy’ isn’t.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She drank the rest of the coffee.
“There’s some intake information the Red Cross needs, if you feel up to giving it,” the young soldier pressed carefully. “Just information about your residence, your car—”
“Oh crap,” Lucy said, desperation rising in her voice, “did the flood get my car, too?”
“Was it in the faculty parking lot?”
“Yessss,” Lucy said faintly.
Sergeant Evans cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Lucy closed her eyes. “What about my house?”
The soldier reached into his gear and pulled out a folded map of town.
“Where’s your house?”
“Second Street,” Lucy whispered, her voice almost gone. “River side of the street.”
Sergeant Evans opened the map and consulted it in the beam of his flashlight. “Second street is borderline. Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Can we go there?” Lucy asked desperately. “My—oh, no, Sadie—my cat—omigod—”
“It’s a controlled zone at the moment,” the soldier said uncomfortably. “No admittance, except for rescue workers. I’m sorry, Miss Sullivan.”
“Sergeant, please,” Lucy begged. “Sadie is my only family. Please.”
Ace looked uncomfortable. “Uhmm—”
Lucy did not have to try to look pathetic; her eyes had already filled with tears and her chin was quivering.
Sergeant Evans exhaled in defeat.
“Can you show me a driver’s license or some sort of ID that proves you live on Second Street?” he asked, looking around so as not to be overheard.
“I—yes! I took my wallet out of the classroom with me!” Lucy said, her hopes rising. “It’s—it’s around here somewhere—”
Sergeant Evans cleared his throat again, rumbling deeper this time.
“Was it that plop from a falling object as you were being lifted into the helicopter?”
Lucy felt quickly in her bra, finding it empty of anything but what it was meant to hold. She sank to the ground in a flood of tears and a cyclone of curse words.
Ace cleared his throat again. He crouched down in front of her.
“Well, I think I saw your wallet—at least for a moment—so I guess I can take you into the zone. I have to check in with Colonel Genovese, and my commanding officer from my unit—we’re deployed for rescue, though I expect they may reassign me to the dam tomorrow. It may be a while before I can get back to you tonight, but, if you want to wait, I’ll come back. Without fail.”
“Well, I had big plans for a night on the town, but I suppose I can make room on my dance card for you, since you’ve been so accommodating, Sergeant,” Lucy said, a sour note in her voice.
Ace smiled. “I’m honored, ma’am. If you get help or shelter from the Red Cross, or need to go somewhere else, no problem. I will have plenty to do here if you need to leave the dance early.”
Lucy looked at him and felt a sudden swell of remorse rise inside her. She had displayed a wide range of emotions that day, many of them ugly, and in response he had been unfailingly pleasant. She cleared her throat.
“No, I’ll wait. My dad always told me to dance with the one that brung you, and let him take you home. So, since you brung me, and are probably the only one I know who’s willing, and authorized, to take me to my house, I guess I’ll just be patient.”
The Sergeant’s slight smile widened, and he nodded. “All right. Get something to eat and drink, and stay warm as you can,” he advised. “I’ll grab you another cup of coffee, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He rose as smoothly as she had seen him do the night before, and melted into the dark.
Chapter 18
‡
7:16 PM
LUCY PULLED THE blanket higher up around her neck and took another sip of her second cup of coffee, lukewarm now. She watched the scenes, some happy, of parents and children being reunited, or sad, parents desperately searching for unaccounted-for kids, most of whom had stayed home that day. As far as she could tell, all of the kids who had been in the building had been successfully rescued.
She glanced at one point to her right and saw a mother huddled with two children on her lap, both boys, it seemed, hugging them tightly and staring blankly off into the coming night.
