Low Country Daddy

by Lexi Whitlow

  The big Yamaha engines roar against an oncoming tide and the wind. We’re faced into both, heading east, straight into the fury, with rain flooding the deck, stinging our skin as it strikes. It takes twice as long as it ordinarily would to get over to the point at Coosaw Island. The water here is big, with whitewater waves breaking over what’s usually a mile-wide salt marsh. The marsh is gone. What remains is just a ferocious, unnavigable mess.

  “Look!” Stu calls out, pointing south. “A thousand yards. Maybe less.”

  I struggle to see what he sees. The waves obscure a clear view that far out. Then I see it; two boats not far from land. Beyond them, a car, half submerged in the storm surge.

  I swing the boat around hard, piloting it in. We head straight toward what used to be shallow marsh, sand dunes, maritime scrub, and dry land. There was a creek here before this storm. I let muscle memory and little else help me following its channel.

  “It’s gonna get awfully shallow, awfully fast,” Stu warns, hanging on to the canopy beams beside me. “If we run aground, the surge will flip this boat in a heartbeat.”

  Which is why I only sail catamaran’s. This boat can go places boats were never meant to go.

  “Get some lines and life jackets,” I say, feeling the surge push us into the creek with intimidating power. We’re moving fast, surfing toward the oncoming shoreline. The engines are doing very little work. It’ll take every ounce of skill I possess to control this boat, put it where it needs to be, and keep it in place.

  A hundred yards out, I slow the engines. When that’s not enough, I reverse them, fighting the storm surge to bring us about. The two boats ahead are doing the same, running reverse, trying to keep off the sand. They’re thirty feet from the car, which is submerged up to its door handles with two figures huddled on the roof, waving for help. In ten minutes that car is going to be swamped and swept out. Anyone left on it will be swept away too.

  The pilot of the boat nearest us waves. I come alongside as near as I dare.

  “Can’t get to ‘em!” he shouts. “Just about grounded us. There’s a dune between us and them. Can’t see it till ya hit it!”

  I nod. “What’s your draft?” I ask him, shouting the question over the wind and thunder.

  “Thirty inches with the engines.”

  Mine’s sixteen. It may make the difference, and the water is rising.

  “Have ya’ll called the coast guard?” I shout.

  He nods his head vigorously. “They ain’t coming.”

  I still can’t see the people on top of that car to even know if it’s Justin and Joe. But who else could it be?

  “I’m going in,” I call to Stu. “I’m gonna need you to take the wheel.”

  “I’m right here,” he says. He’s standing so close behind me I can feel his body heat. This is just like fucking Afghanistan. A bunch of guys all tuned up, risking their lives because one incredibly stupid son-of-a-bitch has an axe to grind, and there’s no one around him who’s man enough to check him before he starts doing damage.

  I press my catamaran slowly forward toward the car, fighting the surge and the churning currents trying to turn me fore and aft. We make it just fifteen feet before I feel the scrape of sand on the twin hulls. I let the boat slip forward another five feet before reversing the engines, trying to hold it in place against the angry tide.

  “Drop two anchors,” I call to Stu, but he’s already anticipated me. The first one grabs hold, but the second one takes longer. The boat starts listing and I can’t stop it. “Come on Stu!” I shout.

  The anchor grabs and we straighten up.

  “Take the wheel and keep this boat in place,” I say. “Two throttles. You can turn it on a dime. Do it if you have to. I’m going in the water.”

  “You can’t go in the fucking water, Jeb,” he says. “Throw them a god-damned line.”

  We’re too far away to throw them a line.

  “I’m going in the water.”

  I don’t give him any more time to argue. I tie a line around me, attaching it to my vest, then tie a second one to me and another vest. I go over the edge of the boat, feeling my heart in my throat, and my lungs seizing with fear.

  As soon as I’m in, all my fear releases. The water is warm and it’s shallow. It’s just waist deep, but the current is fierce and fast. There’s no way to swim in it. If I’m going to get there, I have to walk, and that’s gonna take some power.

  Five feet distant from the bow of the boat and I can see water has come up to the windows of the car ahead of me. I also see Justin’s yellow rain slicker whipping in the gale. The wind has torn it to shreds around him. He’s huddled in a ball on top of the car, his head down, eyes seared shut, one arm hugging his knees, one hand wrapped around the rubber molding of the open car window, hanging on for dear life.

  The other figure is crouched on his knees, sitting up, face into the wind, staring straight at me, his expression desperate.

  “Justin!” I shout, straining to move toward them against the sucking current.

  His eyes open, but he doesn’t move. He’s petrified, frozen in place.

  “I’m coming, buddy!” I call to him. “I’m almost there.”

  Behind me I hear the catamaran’s engines rev. A few seconds later I’m slammed in the back by a big wave. It knocks me down, shoving me under water. I come back up a few seconds later, shaking it off, getting my bearings. The wave pushed me three feet closer to the car. I can almost reach out and touch it.

  Justin see’s me now. He’s staring at me with wide, fearful eyes, but he hasn’t changed his position.

  I reach the car, and reach up for Justin, but before I can get a solid grip, Joe comes over the top of him, scrambling straight at me, lunging for the life vest looped over my arm.

  Another big wave slams me hard, pressing me into the car with a force that’s impossible to resist.

  “Give me the vest!” Joe screams. “Give me the god damned vest!” He’s got a hold of it, pulling it hard, fighting me for it.

  Fuck that.

  I reach up with my left hand and seize his throat, digging my fingers in hard. Summoning every bit of strength in me, I pull him forward, over me, dumping him head first into the churning water. After that, I don’t see him again.

  Justin watches, unmoved.

  I get a hold of his waistband, dragging him across the car’s roof toward me.

  “Help me,” I urge him. “I gotta get this vest on you.”

  He tries to help, but he’s so stiff, from either exposure or terror, he can barely move.

  “Hold onto me. Hold on tight,” I tell him, “We’ve going back to the boat.”

  “We’ll drown if we go in the water,” Justin says, his voice as thin and brittle as icicles.

  “Not today, buddy. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Walking back, against the oncoming surge, is even more difficult than going out was. The effort is compounded by the fact that I’ve got forty pounds of terrified little boy wrapped around me. I struggle, heaving against waves. Every step I take seems to leave me in the same place.

  Stu calls out, urging me forward. It’s impossible to move. My legs aren’t strong enough to resist the tide and my boots are sticky on the muddy bottom.

  I put my head down and with all my might, press forward. When I next look up, Stu is at the side of the boat, reeling my line in, pulling hard. The journey of just ten or fifteen feet feels as if it takes hours. By the time I get close enough to the boat to hand Justin off, I don’t have the strength to raise him up. Stu grabs the strap on the back of his vest and hauls him over the edge, dropping him on the deck before he grabs a strap on my vest, trying to do the same with me.

  I weigh quite a bit more than Justin, but together, we manage to get my sorry, exhausted ass back on the boat.

  “Get us the fuck out of here,” I holler at Stu, laying flat on my back on the boat deck, heaving for air, rain pouring on my face. Justin is sprawled beside me, sitting on h
is ass, dazed. I reach out, wrapping a hand around his ankle, feeling his water-soaked tennis shoe. He’s going to be okay.

  Stu cuts the anchor lines and backs us out of the shallows, then with almost as much skill as a seasoned South Carolina waterman, he turns the craft and powers out into deep water.

  I collect myself enough to sit up, then reach over and pull Justin close, under my arm. “We’re okay,” I say, hugging him, feeling the words in the pit of my stomach. “You’re okay.”

  He slips his hands around my waist, holding on tight, not saying a word.

  As soon as I’m able to stand, I haul both of us under the canopy, settling Justin on a bench beside the cockpit. Stu’s doing a fine job getting us along, so I let him. He managed to keep the boat together back there, he can probably pilot the thing successfully over Niagra Falls. The water is choppy and darkening along with the skies overhead. We’ve still got many hours to go before this storm has done all the damage it’s going to do, even longer before we see clear skies and flat water again.

  “Take it to Blanc-Blue,” I tell Stu. “I doubt my docks are even there anymore.”

  He gives me a sad smile. “I doubt my truck is there anymore.”

  “If it is,” I say, “It’s an aquarium. I’ll cover your losses. You needed a new truck anyway.”

  Stu shrugs. “I’m insured.”

  The dock at Blanc-Blue isn’t there anymore either. In fact, Blanc-Bleu, from our vantage approaching from the river, looks like a house built in the river, not on the river. There’s water a third of the way up the ground floor, lapping at the front porch steps.

  “That’s four or five feet of water,” I say. “Shit. Take it slow but take it right up to the house.”

  Justin comes up beside me, holding onto my belt, looking at the big house ahead, his eyes wide with wonder.

  The appearance of a boat in the middle of a hurricane draws the attention of people inside the house. A crowd appears on the front porch. As we idle up close, an older African-American man scrambles down the steps into the water to pull us in. He takes a line, tying us off on one of the porch columns.

  “I never saw that before!” he shouts, grinning at us as the rain douses hims. “I never saw anybody bring a boat right up to the porch in the middle of a hurricane. I’ve seen it all now.”

  The next face I see is Maddie’s. She’s frail, haggard. Then she sees Justin and she just dissembles into tears, running forward.

  I lift him over the edge, onto the porch steps, and into her arms.

  I promised her I wouldn’t come back without him.

  Chapter 27

  Maddie

  He’s here, safe, in my arms, hugging me. I’m never letting him out of my sight again. I’ll never, ever take a second of time with him for granted.

  “I’m okay, Mom,” he says, squirming. “I’m okay.”

  I pull back, wiping my tears so I can see him. I touch his face, his hands, his too-long hair, I feel him all over, making sure he’s got no broken bones.

  “I love you so much,” I squeak, my voice breaking. “I was so scared.”

  Justin nods at me, his eyes tired. “I was really scared too,” he says. “But Jeb wasn’t ever scared. He’s awesome. He saved me. The water was everywhere. It was so scary. I thought we were dead. I was sure of it, but then Jeb and Stu came, and they saved me.”

  They saved him. Joe’s not on the boat.

  “You can tell me all about it,” I say, “But first I want to get you dry and some water to drink. You’re dehydrated. I can see it.”

  I look away from Justin for the first time in many minutes. All the people who were on the porch have gone back inside. Only Jeb remains, leaning on the doorjamb, soaked to his skin, watching us. A few feet away, just beyond the cover of the porch, this terrible storm continues to rage, and the water keeps rising.

  I have my son back, but our little cabin is inundated. I didn’t have any idea anything like this could happen. We’re homeless again. But that doesn’t matter, because Justin is safe. He’s safe because of Jeb.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, gazing up at him. “Thank you.”

  Jeb smiles at me, shrugging. He strolls forward, careless of the storm or his soaking clothes. “I promised,” he says. “I keep my promises.”

  He offers me his hand, leading me and Justin inside. Somehow, Rose has managed to find peanut butter and jelly, and a bottle of ice cold water, along with clean clothes and a towel.

  Hours later, I watch Justin drift off to sleep on a small cot in an upstairs room, with the storm raging overhead and the din of a hundred anxious voices echoing throughout the cavernous, lamplit house.

  Downstairs, Jeb is with Rose, making sure everyone has a safe place to lay down their head, has something to eat, fresh water to drink, and a flashlight if they need one. Their day began before the sun rose, preparing for catastrophe. They’re still at it, tending to the needs of their neighbors, keeping everyone safe.

  “Hey,” a soft voice says behind me. I turn to see Stu standing in the doorway, a flashlight in his hand. We have a lantern hanging on the wall, dowsing the room in golden light. “Is he asleep?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “I want to tell you about today,” he says. “Let’s talk.”

  I follow Stu out to the landing, keeping Justin within easy view. We speak in low voices, so we don’t wake him.

  “Justin’s not going to remember,” he says. “And Jeb’s not going to tell you, but I want you to know what he did today, because it was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, and you need to know all of it.”

  Stu tells me about the treacherous conditions on the water, and about the other two boats who couldn’t get near enough to the inundated car to help. He emphasizes the risks all these men took, just trying. He tells me about Jeb going into the storm surge, and how long it took him to get to the car, and what Joe did when he got there, trying to get the life vest instead of saving Justin first.

  “Joe went into the water and went under,” he says. “He got swept out fast. The other two boats went after him. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  Stu tells me about Jeb hauling Justin from the car through the water, and tiring out, and how he managed to withstand a hurricane storm surge to get my son to safety.

  “He’s a stubborn bastard, but even stubborn has its limits. I’ve never seen Jeb anywhere near his limit until today. What he did was superhuman. It would have killed anybody else. It took everything I had just to get him back on the boat. He was as weak as a fish by the time he got back. I was sure he was going to slip under and drown.”

  I listen to Stu, processing what he’s said.

  “He told you he wasn’t coming back without Justin,” Stu says. “I think he was prepared to die in that water today, rather than come back empty handed.”

  I almost lost both of them. The thought of that is too hard to bear. The idea of Emma growing up without her father, just because I made bad choices. The idea of Rose losing her son, after he survived the war and came home to her. The idea of Manuel and his family, and all the others who work for Jeb, left untethered without income or protection. All these people huddled in this big house; without Jeb, most of them would be huddled on roofs like Justin was, waiting for rescue that never comes.

  His reach is long. His importance here in this community is profound. We all almost lost him.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I hope you’re right, that Justin forgets.”

  Stu smiles. “He will. He’ll have a story to tell, but the trauma will fade. I know that, cause my brothers and sisters and I spent a couple long days and nights trapped in an attic during a storm like this one. We didn’t know if our parents were alive or dead. It’s the scariest thing I ever went through, but we survived it. You manage through something like that, it makes you realize you can get through pretty much anything.”

  He may be right. Losing my parents made me realize nothing ever stays the same, and it’s okay
to start over again and again. I never quit trying to make things better for me and Justin.

  “Mom!?” Justin calls out.

  “I’m right here,” I call back, heading into the little bedroom. “Hey, I’m here.”

  He rolls over, looking up at me with sleepy eyes. “Where’s Jeb? I want him to tuck me in.”

  Yeah. I bet he does.

  “I’ll find him sweetie,” I say. “I’ll go find him.”

  Chapter 28

  Jeb

  As catastrophes go, today has been a good day. The National Weather Service is reporting Amelia has turned, heading northeast. If she makes landfall at all, it’ll likely be in the cooler waters at New Jersey or Long Island. She’ll have lost some steam by then, and probably won’t do anything near the damage a direct hit here would have rendered. Whatever high water we’ve got, this is the worst of it. It could be so much worse. The wind never got above eighty-miles-per-hour with gusts. I doubt we even lost many trees. We got off easy.

  There’s more good news. I didn’t kill Joe. Drake Callahan, Stu’s buddy from over on Coosaw Island, was in one of those boats trying to get to the car before we got there. When Joe went in the water, Drake went after him, fishing him out of the ocean a half-mile south. He was still breathing. They turned him over to EMS on Maiden Island, then called the Sheriff’s department.

  I just got a call from a Deputy. They have Joe in custody on kidnapping charges, along with a long list of other infractions that should complicate any designs he has on further harassing Maddie. I plan on pulling a few strings to make sure he doesn’t get sent back to Indiana. He’s gonna enjoy some South Carolina hospitality served up courtesy of the state penitentiary system. I hope he makes some new friends there.

  The wind is already dying down. The rain hasn’t stopped yet, but it’s barely drizzling. The barometric pressure is rising. Soon the water will slip away, leaving us with one hell of a mess to clean up, but no lives lost and a lot to be grateful for.