Focused

by Julie B. Cosgrove

  On her dresser in their bedroom was a faded photo of her as a little girl dancing with her dad. Cute, button-nosed, blonde, blue-eyed angel. He could picture her in her baby-doll pajamas, holding on to her dad’s hand, staring into the heavens waiting for that tiny man-made light to move across the sky. Even at four years old she would’ve stolen his heart. He was glad he and Christina never had a girl. If she’d had been anything like her mother, he would’ve locked her away in a nunnery by the age of twelve. How did her dad do it?

  Jeff looked at the clock on his computer’s tool bar. It said 3:30. Popping his neck one last time, Jeff hunkered down and willed his thoughts to return to his scrawled figures on the yellow legal pad angled in front of him. He shook away the past and concentrated on the present . . . and their future. If he wanted to keep a roof over her head he had better get back to this proposal. If he could work undisturbed for just a few hours, maybe he could finish it by Friday and not work this weekend. Maybe he could take her back to that restaurant in San Antonio, if it still existed. Saturday night, he’d say he wanted to go into the city for a bite, just for a change of pace. Let her get in the car, turn towards the highway, then surprise her when they kept on driving through Austin. It’d take close to two hours to get there from Allensville. Maybe they’d talk about old times on the way. Yeah, maybe.

  One of the younger staff tapped on his door, arms full of plans. He had a lost expression on his face.

  Uh, oh. Then again, maybe not. Looks like this is going to take awhile. Jeff motioned with his left hand, “Come on in, Tim. Whatcha need?”

  * * *

  Josh, who had his mother Christina’s blond hair and his dad’s blue eyes, scanned the parts manual for HP laser printers. The customer on the phone wasn’t making the drive all the way out there unless he was sure they had the drum he needed for his 2005 model. Smart man. Let your fingers do the walking, bro. “Yes, sir. I am still looking it up. Thanks for your patience,” he said into the receiver lodged in his shoulder blade.

  “Hey, don’t you have family that lives near Kerrville?” Mandy leaned over the counter and swayed her shoulders back and forth to an invisible beat, definitely not the one playing on the store’s Muzak speaker.

  Josh cupped his hand over the receiver. “Yeah. Sort of. A cabin. Used to be my grandparent’s.” He held up a finger for her to hold that thought. “No sir, I don’t see it in stock right now. We can place it on rush order and it will be here in forty-eight hours. Is that okay?” He rolled his eyes. Mandy giggled and kept swinging her foot.

  After a minute or two, Josh convinced the customer and forwarded the call to the ordering department to process the credit card purchase. He turned to Mandy, now drawing on the glass case with her finger. It was a very slow night. “Why?”

  “Huh?” Nobody home behind her big brown eyes.

  “Why did you ask about . . .?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Lights on. Recognition. “ ‘Cause its flooding real bad. It’s on the TVs.” She stopped swinging her foot long enough to pivot her shoulder towards the other side of the store. Various size rectangles flashed images of light and color. Six showed the basketball game. Three more, a commercial with a squirrel, but four showed a weather man pointing to a red and purple blob on the radar.

  Josh closed the three-ring binder. He walked across the sea foam colored linoleum to the buckskin indoor-outdoor carpeted area that designated the Entertainment section. Legs spread in an at-ease position and arms crossed over his waist, he listened as the weatherman explained the colored blotches overlaid on the area map. Little white jagged-lined graphics depicting thousands of lightning strikes overlaid on it. He felt his manager’s garlic-bread-for-lunch breath on his shoulder.

  “Switching departments on us, Willis?”

  “No sir. It’s just that I have family…” He pointed at the screen that was now flashing “FLOOD WARNING”.

  “He does,” Mandy chimed in, as if that added weight to the excuse for leaving one’s designated work area without permission.

  The weatherman’s brows knitted and his hands swirled around the purple blotch spreading east, absorbing the map like Kool-Aid spilled on the carpet. More warnings flashed in a marquee scrolled at the bottom of the frame. “Residents are advised to move to higher ground immediately,” he urged.

  Something grabbed Josh’s mind with urgency. Why he didn’t know. No one had been up there in years. Still . . .

  “Just a quick call, Sir. May I.?” Josh turned to garlic-toast mouth. “I’ll take my break while there’s no customers on the floor.”

  “Do it. Five minutes.”

  Josh walked back to the break room, flipped open his cell and punched “M”. No answer. He tried again. No luck. He exhaled into his employee polo shirt and pressed “D” for Dad.

  “Jeff Willis.”

  “Dad. Have you heard about the floods in Kerr?”

  He heard his dad’s office chair creak. “No. Heard a flash flood watch a while back. Had to turn the radio off. Big bid due. . .”

  “Dad.” He raised his voice, then stopped. Not respectful. “Sorry. Didn’t mean that. Work’s got me on edge. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

  “Contagious. Had one all day.”

  Josh heard the aggravation in his father’s voice. At least the lecture about respecting your elders seemed diverted.

  “Heard from Mom? I’ve tried her cell twice now.”

  There was silence. The chair creaked again. A throat cleared. “No.”

  Josh didn’t like the tone behind that answer. “You Okay? Is Mom Okay?”

  The sigh at the other end disturbed him. He gripped the cell phone tighter and swallowed. Something was not right. His psyche told him that, even if his brain didn’t. “Dad, what’s going on?”

  The chair creaked again. He heard a pencil tapping. “We are both just swamped with stuff now. You know her. She’s busy. It’s nearing tax time and someone is sick or something. It’s probably buried somewhere deep in her purse.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Still, I . . .”

  The chair squeaked, louder. “Son, gotta git. If I hear anything, I’ll give ya a holler. But no one’s up there, ya know.”

  Click.

  Josh stared at the glow on his cell phone. He tapped it off then shoved it into the back pocket of his regulation khaki Dockers.

  Parents.

  Chapter 10 The Crossing

  Jeff stared at the proposal. If he finished it tonight, all he had to do was enter it into the bid program in the morning, and pray the thing didn’t reject his findings.

  His eye caught the framed photo on his desk of him, Christina and a teenage Josh sitting on the diving board. Behind them, her parents posed for the camera. The Guadalupe River glistened in the background.

  It had been ages since they ‘d been to the cabin. He figured the memories were too raw for his wife. Maybe for Carrie and Carl as well. None of them had been there in a while. Their mom passed away a year ago this June, their dad eighteen months prior to that, both sudden and unexpected. No Richter scale could have forecast the earth shattering effects, or the aftershocks on their lives.

  Her mother drove in from the cabin to see her doctor the day she suffered the fatal stroke. Christina called to apologize, saying they couldn’t make the visit over the weekend, again. Jeff never heard the excuse, but suspected the raw-edged memories of her dad served as culprit. Her mother said it was just as well because she’d been feeling a little flu-ish off and on for a few days. Christina phoned back twice that weekend and finally convinced her to call the doctor first thing Monday morning. She did. That afternoon, the doctor’s office notified Christina they were admitting her mother to the hospital. Twelve hours later she was gone and the love-hate relationship screeched to a halt.

  In a last ditch effort to gain approval, his wife took on the chore of planning every detail of the funeral, from the hymns that wouldn’t offend anyone to the catered food from her mother’s favorite bis
tro. She wanted her mother, even though in Heaven, to finally be proud of her. Perhaps it worked. At last, her mother’s friends admired her stoic daughter.

  But when the casket closed, so did his wife’s desire to head for the Hills. He missed it almost as much as he suspected she did. At least the cabin was sealed tight. Nobody’s been there lately. Besides, it’s on a bluff anyway. The place, once his wife’s lifeline for rest and relaxation, now lay abandoned in the pouring rain. What a shame.

  * * *

  Even with the wipers on full blast, Christina could barely see the red taillights of the truck in front of her. As the rain cascaded down her car windows in filmy sheets, enveloping her in an opaque shower curtain. Flashes of lightening did little to illuminate the highway. Claps of thunder shook her car. She lost the satellite radio signal.

  A sudden bolt jolted her memory. Oh, no! I forgot to let down the awning on the porch. The place will get soaked and everyone is gonna know where I’ve been.

  Christina grimaced at herself. How stupidly absentminded. She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks as she gave herself a mental tongue thrashing. That’s where the entire psychobabble trek down the yellow brick road led—short term memory loss due to emotional overload. Why did she even step foot on it?

  She steered her car two lanes over and took the exit ramp, hoping there wasn’t another car beside of hers. She couldn’t see them through the downpour if they had been there. Saying a fast prayer, then U-turning under the overpass, she climbed the other ramp to get back onto the highway in the opposite direction. Water rushed down, blocking her attempt.

  She felt like salmon swimming upstream. In her head she heard the monotone droll of the commentator on a Cable nature show, “…And now we see the undaunted drivers edging their way up up, up the ramp against the torrential blah, blah, blah.”

  It took her an hour to inch the twenty-five miles back to the cabin. Traffic crept the entire distance like one big school zone. Even at a snail’s pace, the rain made it difficult to see the road’s curves as it snaked next to the meandering river bank.

  She stopped at the crossing. The river resembled chocolate milk. The gushing water churned up silt. The two-lane road, marked by a center yellow line lay underwater. At the far edge of the bridge waves lapped a few inches below the two foot mark on the Texas Highway Department’s flood gauge pole. Good, not that deep yet.

  Christina breathed a quick prayer and patted the dashboard. “You can do this,” she said as much to herself as the car. She slowly rolled her vehicle into the rising murk. Her headlights bounced off the leaves and debris which swirled on the surface of the water. A slight jolt as her front tires left the blacktop and grabbed for the concrete bridge’s surface made her gasp. Thank goodness I have new tires. She felt sheepish that she argued with Jeff when he insisted she buy them.

  Just ease your car across, steering away from the current. Christina talked herself into driving through. Steady, now…slowly, keep the gas pedal even. She recited each step from past- learned country wisdom. Water pushed against the sides as the coupe crept across the low bridge. Her car froze as if in fear. The whir of her tires told her they were no longer gripping the road. She patted the dashboard and pressed her foot back and forth on the accelerator pedal. Come on, Baby. You can do this.

  The water level rose half way up her car door. Debris flew by her, swirling in the current caught in her car’s headlight beams. The pressure made her car wobble. A broken limb bobbed up and down, streaming towards her car. The rushing sound of gallons of muddy water filled her ears. A minute seemed like ten. Something caught her eye. She turned to see the limb reach the bridge.

  Lord help me. That thing is as long as my car!

  Its branches reached out a boney hand to grab her. Her heart pulsated in her fingers as they tightly grasped the wheel, in beat to the pounding in her soul. Christina pressed her foot further down on the pedal, praying for her tires to gain traction and lift her out of the murk. Come on. Come on. Do it now!

  Finally the tires obeyed. Her car surged forward. The pressure against the doors let loose its grip. Her coupe jerked up the other side out of the swirl.

  Christina glanced in her rearview mirror and saw the limb sail behind her. It twisted on one of the concrete pylons marking the low-water crossing then continued downstream. It bobbed for air. Bits of leaves, twigs and a piece of rope trailed in its wake.

  Made it. We made it.

  Christina put her car in park and rested her head on the steering wheel. For the second time today she felt like blubbering. How on earth did I get into this mess?

  A Bible verse scrolled across her mind.

  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you: and when you pass

  through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” Is 43:2

  Had the hands of angels pushed her out of the swirling waters? Were there celestial fingerprints on the back of her car now being washed away by the storm? Christina breathed a heartfelt thank you heavenward then sat a moment in the white noise silence of the gurgling, swirling stream behind her and the steady pellets of raindrops on the hood of her car.

  Finally, she breathed again. Getting her mind and her car in gear, she applied slight pressure to the gas pedal and eased the car onto higher ground. Two miles later, she reached the cattle guard. The muddy sludge muffled the popping sound of the gravel as she entered the property. The rain was not letting up. She parked the car. Now or never. Christina pulled the collar of her blouse up over her head and made a dash for the cabin. The oak saplings provided little canopy against the downpour as she wiggled the key into the seventy-five year old lock.

  Unlock, key. Darn you.

  She stomped her foot hard, splashing water inside her shoes. Great. Just wonderful. Finally the moisture-swelled cedar door gave entrance for its owner.

  Drenched to the bone, she rushed to the open screened window. Luckily, the rain blew in the other direction across the deep cedar eaves which jutted two feet out from the screen. The furniture was only slightly damp and the few raindrops which had made their way through sat beaded on the lacquered slat floor.

  “Thank you, Lord!” She hurried to lower and latch the awning just as the wind picked up again and thunder rumbled over the hills. The awning billowed as she struggled to push the toggles through the grummets.

  Here it comes. Round two. Christina decided to sit and catch her breath for a minute. She dropped into a wicker chair with a Mexican rendition of poppies painted on the back. When she removed her muddy heels, her soaked knee highs sucked cold against her skin. The right leg of the hose tore as she tugged. She wadded them up in a ball and threw them across the room.

  What’s next? Christina rubbed her bare feet back and forth on the hemp woven porch rug. Almost as good as a massage, it warmed her cramping toes.

  She jumped when lightening cracked and stark whiteness blasted through the flaps.

  Wow. What a test for her new glare-free glasses. Before her brain could register if her specs passed with flying colors, a rattle of the thunder shook the cabin and vibrated through the pier and beam floor under her feet. Again. And again. The wind howled. Water rushed off the eaves and splashed onto the caliche dirt outside. She became encased in a roaring waterfall. The saplings bent to the ground and bounced under the pressure of the wind and water like playground teeter-totters as . . .

  The phone rang?

  Chapter 11 Are you there?

  The phone is ringing?

  She dashed for the ancient black receiver and stubbed her toe on the hemp rug. The phone had a rotary dial wheel. In the center, a faded round paper revealed a smudged four digit number of 9267. At one time that number was all neighbors on the trunk line needed in order to connect them to the Winslow cabin. Christina plopped on the bed, phone cradled on her shoulder, and rubbed her big toe as she fought tears once again.

  “Hello?”

  “Miz Christina?” A crackly voice came over the wires. Vaguely familiar
. But from where?

  “Yes?”

  “I thought that was you I saw sittin’ on the stoop earlier when I was down checkin’ the trotline. It’s Mr. Owens from across the way. Remember?”

  She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Thank you, Lord for Hill Country folk. As with most rural residents throughout the USA, the families here seemed more tolerant and accepting of people than their big city counterparts. In the country, families relied on each other instead of police and emergency responders. Obviously, there were no grudges over what happened between her and their son in high school. Neighbors were still neighbors and she was thankful this one remembered the phone number.

  That’s why Christina had preferred coming here in her youth. She’d trade these folk any day for the high society city friends of her mother’s with their fancy cars, expensive designer clothes and lavish parties. A more laid back lifestyle existed in the Hill Country, which the hustle bustle, want-it-right-now, don’t-waste-my-precious-time city dwellers often found frustrating and mistook for laziness. But, these were salt of the earth people, not afraid of hard work or life’s hard knocks. It was in their nature to check on neighbors and offer a hand.

  “Oh yes. Of course. How are you? I know we haven’t been up here a lot since…”

  “I know. All of ya’ll River Rats are grown and have families and work to do.” The old man’s Texas drawl showed no ill will. “Listen, is your husband witcha? The river’s a risin’ mighty fast.”

  “It…it is?” She laid down the phone and peered through the flaps. A flash of lightning revealed the river below. The swirling milk chocolate had risen half way up the bluff carrying with it tree limbs, a canoe, and God knew what else.