“It’s a body tag,” the officer explained. “Please tie it around your big toe so we can identify your body. Thank you, sir, and have a good day.”
Pat left the island immediately.
Unfortunately for my plans to stay put, the family had heard Pat tell that story one time too many. Everyone, especially my sons, ganged up on me and insisted I leave. Bullheaded as ever, I refused. I’m not even sure why. Forecasters predicted that the hurricane would make landfall in Beaufort early Saturday morning, October 8, most likely a category 3. Hurricane Hugo, which utterly devastated Charleston, had been a category 4, so Matthew would be only slightly less horrific. (Starting in the Caribbean, Matthew would end up leaving behind a path of death and destruction. Before it finally fizzled out in the North Atlantic seas, over six hundred people had died.)
I held out as long as I could, but late Friday afternoon I caved in and drove to Columbia, two hours inland, to stay with Tim and Terrye. Although I went reluctantly and only to keep the family from rioting, it turned out to be a good call. Most of the folks who stayed behind, including Kathy and Bobby Joe, swore later that they’d never do it again. Beaufort got hammered, and from all reports, it was utterly terrifying.
As soon as the roads reopened I drove home and almost wept at what I saw along the way. Beaufort looked like a war zone. Most streets were impassable and the downtown area was flooded. None of the traffic lights worked because power was still out, but only a few people were on the road anyhow. Due to the flooding it would be days before everyone could return. Not far from my neighborhood, I drove past a house I’d often admired for its cozy facade, a charming little cottage with a white picket fence and neat flower beds. A tall leafy tree had fallen and landed right in the middle of the roof, flattening the front porch and splitting the house squarely in two. I prayed that no one had been inside.
Although I knew from Kathy’s reports that my house hadn’t suffered any major damage in comparison to so many others, I approached it with dread. To prepare me, Kathy had texted some photos. The day after the hurricane hit, she walked several blocks from her house to mine to take pictures; fallen trees, downed lines, and standing waters made driving impossible. The house appeared to be okay, Kathy reported, but the yard was a wreck. She was able to drag enough debris out of the way for me to drive in. I’d have trouble getting to the front porch, she told me; several fallen branches blocked the front steps, and they were too big for Kathy to move. The backyard was even worse, she warned. There, the storm had destroyed two things that I dearly loved: our dock and a beautiful old oak tree by the water.
I thought that I’d braced myself until I drove up and got out of my car. Seeing everything so ravaged hit me like a punch in the gut. I was grateful that the house still stood, and I sent up prayers of thanksgiving as I crawled through the downed branches to get to the door. The real test waited. Inside, I fearfully approached the wall of glass overlooking the back, dread clawing at my throat. Everything from the porch was now in the living room, piled in front of the doors to the outside. After pushing my way through the pile, I stopped at the double doors and blinked in disbelief. For a long moment I just stood there stunned, unable to take it in. This couldn’t possibly be the same place I’d left four days ago! Like everything else I saw that day, the storm had turned my backyard into an unrecognizable jungle of scattered debris; mangled trees with hanging, splintered limbs; strewn palm fronds; and washed-up marsh grasses.
But the creek—my beautiful creek! The sweeping, moss-draped oak that had stood so majestically on the bank—the one that had anchored one end of a tattered old hammock to a palmetto—was no longer there. That proud old oak once framed our view of the creek and the marshes, and now it was gone. All that remained was a shockingly blank expanse of sky. The poor tree had been savagely uprooted, as if a giant hand had reached down and tossed it aside like a gardener might toss a dandelion. I flinched at the sight of the oak’s massive roots silhouetted against the serene blueness of the late-afternoon sky. The trunk, with its graceful, wide-sweeping limbs, lay half submerged in the water.
My mind kept trying to grasp what I was seeing—or rather, not seeing. In the blink of an eye, a landscape that was once so familiar had been swept away. All that was left of our dock were two sticklike pilings. The pilings rose from the depths of the debris-strewn creek to stand as bleak reminders of our utter helplessness against the mighty rage of nature.
I turned away from the scene so abruptly that I tripped on a clay planter and had to reach for a chair to keep from falling. Not that I would’ve fallen far with all the stuff in the way. Without taking time to think it through, I grasped the heavy chair with both hands and lugged it to the porch to put it back where it belonged. Oddly enough, despite the devastation of the backyard there was no litter on the porch, not a single twig or leaf. The wind and rain had swept the long, narrow porch as clean as if it had been power washed.
Mindlessly I began to put everything back in place. Although I told myself there was no hurry, and too many other things that needed doing—like throwing everything out of the fridge—I couldn’t stop myself. What else can we do with chaos except try to restore order? I carried out the corner shelves, then the furniture—two metal lawn chairs and the little round table and rattan chairs where we sometimes had our evening meals. In addition to the dozen or so clay planters, heavy as tombstones, there were hanging baskets, bird feeders, and wind chimes to replace on their hooks. Any of them could’ve become a deadly missile in hurricane-force winds.
But on this particular day they weren’t going anywhere. As if in mockery of the destruction, it was a dazzling day of blazing blue skies and white wispy clouds. Only the slightest of breezes, warm and soft, stirred the leaves and the swaying moss on the branches that had withstood the storm. Sunbeams sparkled on the rippling waters of the creek, so bright that I had to shade my eyes with my hands. Without the once-stately oak on the creek bank as part of the view, the marshes appeared to go on forever before disappearing into the horizon. The tide was coming in. Occasionally an errant tree branch or palm frond floated by, carried along by the swift current, and I wondered where the bits and pieces of our dock had landed. Had they lodged in the marsh somewhere farther down the river, or had they been carried out to sea?
I stood on the edge of the porch and tried to shake off the dizzying effect of a changed landscape. So much of the familiar was no longer where it should be, which left me disoriented and dazed. Last March my world tilted on its axis, and just as it was beginning to right itself, this.
The view of the creek might have been marred, forever altered; but it’s still one of such heart-stopping beauty that I stood on the porch as mesmerized as I was the first time I saw it. From the start I loved the majestic oaks with their low, graceful branches, but the Carolina palmettos I regarded with a grudging admiration. It’s almost impossible to bring a palm tree down, no matter how strong the wind or how heavy the rain. Palmettos are made of sturdy stuff and resistant to harsh weather conditions. They withstand the ravages of wind and rain by bending, not breaking. We can learn from them.
Just beyond the submerged trunk of the uprooted oak—almost in the dead center of the creek’s wide expanse from bank to marsh—an odd movement in the water caught my eye. More debris, I imagined, snagged on something. Then I realized what it was. Once in a blue moon, the incoming tide collides with the outgoing and creates a dramatic vortex of swirling water. In the four years we had lived here I’d seen it only rarely; the first time I yelled for Pat, sure that I’d spotted a whale in Battery Creek. Pat laughed at such a fancy then explained what I was seeing. Just a tidal creek, he said, doing what tidal creeks are supposed to do—bringing in and taking out the tides. Sometimes they meet in the middle and do a little dance. As I watched it that day, the whirlpool began to scatter the sparkling sunbeams over the blue waters, and I wished for my binoculars. But I knew that the unusual convergence of ingoing and outgoing tides would be gone even in th
e short time it would take me to run inside. So I stayed put, and watched.
It’s the way of beauty, I thought. Destruction and devastation are always there, always demanding our attention. The chaos of life makes us forget that sometimes, if we don’t get too distracted by the wreckage, the losses and heartbreaks, we’re offered a glimpse of something better, maybe even something we can call divine. But we’ll miss it if we forget that beauty, like joy, is fleeting and never lasts more than a moment.
A sparkle of sunlight on water, then it’s gone.
Author’s Note
Please visit my website, CassandraKingConroy.com, for photos from my and Pat’s life together. They can be found by clicking on the Tell Me a Story book image.
About the Author
Cassandra King Conroy is an award-winning and bestselling novelist whose fiction has won the hearts of readers everywhere, especially in the American South. Often told in first person, her novels portray strong and memorable characters who struggle with the same timely issues and dilemmas that readers face in their own lives. Before becoming an author, she taught creative writing on the college level, conducted corporate writing seminars, and worked as a human-interest reporter. The widow of acclaimed author Pat Conroy, Cassandra resides in Beaufort, South Carolina, where she is honorary chair of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
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Also by Cassandra King Conroy
The Same Sweet Girls’ Guide to Life
Moonrise
Queen of Broken Hearts
The Same Sweet Girls
The Sunday Wife
Making Waves
Copyright
The names and identifying details of certain individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.
tell me a story. Copyright © 2019 by Cassandra King Conroy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Jeanne Reina
Cover photograph © Elizabeth K. DeRamus
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-290563-5
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-290562-8
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