The Last Train to Key West

by Chanel Cleeton

  “I’ll be up there as soon as I can get out of here. I promise. You’ll be in good hands.”

  * * *

  —

  The men come to the cabin an hour later with a boat like John said. My legs are weak from the delivery as I walk from the structure to the water’s edge where the boat waits, and John scoops me up, Lucy cradled in my arms, carrying me the rest of the way, my worn nightgown trailing behind me, my head resting in the curve where his neck and shoulder meet, the scent of sweat and man filling my nostrils. I grip his neck, clinging to him.

  We walk past a group of men standing near the shore, looking worse for the wear. One of them seems familiar, and I struggle to place where I have seen him before.

  John carries me through the water, his pants growing wet as he wades deeper, until we reach the boat bobbing in the sea.

  Neither one of us speaks.

  The owner of the vessel has come down from Miami and is the only one who is not sporting visible injuries from the storm, his clothes in far better condition than those of the rest of the survivors.

  John sets us down gently, and I clutch Lucy to my breast, the rocking of the waves jostling us.

  I want to hold on to John, to the security I have known these past few days, but I force myself to release him.

  “I’ll find you as soon as I can get out of here,” he vows.

  What happens next? Where will we go? And what awaits us when we get there?

  John turns to the man with the boat, and they exchange a few words before we cast off.

  I bat at the tears running down my face, crooning to Lucy as she fusses at the pitching of the waves.

  It is only once we are out to sea that I recognize the man on the shore—he is the man from Ruby’s, the one with the young, pretty Cuban wife, Mirta. He appears nothing like he did days ago, his clothes dirty and torn, his face haunted.

  What happened to his wife?

  I hope she is somewhere safe.

  I keep my eyes trained to the shore, on John, until the Keys are behind us and he is little more than a speck on the beach, the ocean surrounding us, and we’re alone once more.

  Twenty-Seven

  Mirta

  As exhausted as I am from the night before, I cannot sleep. I wait for Anthony, the gun clasped tightly in my hand, my heart racing at every creak of the house, every noise outside.

  The communications are still down—given the destruction caused by the storm they likely will be gone for a very long time—and considering we are cut off from the rest of the world, it’s easy to feel both alone and entirely too cramped on this tiny island. Are there people out there in the night scavenging for whatever they can find? Anthony was right to be concerned earlier—depending on how long it takes for us to be rescued, food and water shortages will likely be a problem.

  A noise breaks through the relative silence of the night—a rustling, followed by the fall of footsteps over the floorboards on the front porch.

  Gun in hand, I walk from the sitting room to the front door, my heart hammering in my breast.

  “It’s me,” a familiar voice shouts, and I open the door in time to see Anthony make his way up the porch.

  I close the distance between us, meeting him halfway, and he sags against my body, his arms around my waist.

  We stand there holding each other, no words between us. What is left to say? We have lived what seems like a lifetime in the past twenty-four hours, and I am hollowed out and strung tight. At the moment, I only want to forget everything that has happened.

  I want Anthony.

  I press my lips to his, my body taking over.

  I sense the same desperation that lives in me in him as the kiss changes, his body shifting from pliant to possessive. From the moment our lips meet, it’s clear this embrace is different from all the ones we’ve shared up to this point; maybe he’s been holding back from me, and now I’m seeing a new side of him.

  Or maybe he’s as broken up by what we’ve seen today as I am.

  We move apart, and I look at him, and suddenly, it’s like something has been unlocked inside me.

  “Why did you want to marry me?” I demand.

  I hear my mother’s voice in my ear, admonishing me for my forwardness, and I don’t have the energy to care.

  “Because I wanted you.”

  His words send a thrill through me.

  “And you always get what you want?” I ask.

  “Almost always.”

  “And you want what exactly? From me?”

  “Everything.”

  My heart pounds.

  “I want you to respect me. I don’t want you to regret this.” He takes a deep breath. “I want you to love me.”

  “I want that, too,” I acknowledge, surprising myself with how much I mean it. “But you can’t tell me you want those things and not give me more of yourself. Why did you want me? What about me specifically? Was it merely that you’d heard through the grapevine that my father was in dire straits and I was pretty enough to suit your needs?”

  “No. You sell yourself too short.”

  “I’ve learned to be pragmatic.”

  “You don’t have to worry about such things anymore.”

  “Does anyone really stop worrying about them?”

  “No, I suppose they don’t. And I did know you. In a manner of speaking, at least.”

  “That day in the library—”

  “That day in the library was the first time we talked, but it wasn’t the first time I saw you. The first time I saw you was outside my hotel. You were walking with friends. In this dress I won’t ever forget.” He pauses as though the memory deserves a moment of reflection.

  “What color was the dress?” I ask, wanting to be a part of this history he has that I was unaware of until now.

  “Blue.”

  The moment is hazy, a night of innocence and splendor in a long string of them like a rope of pearls around my neck.

  Anthony’s hands drift down to my waist. “It was fitted here, and when I saw you, I thought I could span the width of you.” I stare down at his hands encircling me. “Just so,” he adds with a swallow.

  “The skirt fell away from you—” His hands drift lower, skimming my hips, cupping, caressing.

  “I remember the dress,” I reply, a little faint.

  “I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

  “You didn’t approach me.”

  “No, I didn’t. It would have hardly been appropriate with my reputation. I never thought our paths would cross again, but then there you were. Turning up when I least expected it, flashes of you around Havana—an elbow here, the curve of your neck there, the whirl of your skirts passing me by—the idea of you getting stuck in my head like a tune I couldn’t shake.”

  “More romance,” I tease, even as my heart thuds in my chest, because it is starting to sound romantic, and the idea of this man watching me dash around Cuba sends a thrill inside me even though I realize that such things are not enough of a foundation for a happy marriage, for a partnership.

  “You want romance, I’ll give you enough romance to make you blush.”

  I want more.

  “One day, your father sat down across from me at a poker table.”

  This is the part of the story I didn’t get. The whispers I heard—Mirta Perez’s father sold her over a card game.

  “Did you know when he sat down what you intended to do?”

  “No. I don’t believe in much, but something kept throwing you in my path, and I’ve never been one to miss a shot at what I wanted.”

  “So you struck a deal for me.”

  “I offered to marry you, yes. It seemed a solution to everyone’s problems. Your family needed help—extra funds and favor with Batista—and I wanted, needed—”
>
  He doesn’t say it aloud, but I can finish his thought anyway.

  You.

  Has anyone ever needed me in all my life until him?

  Anthony’s grip on me tightens. “That night in your father’s library, the first night we talked . . .” His eyes gleam. “I wanted to do this . . .”

  It’s all I can do to remain still, my throat thick with some emotion I cannot name.

  The family I want, the marriage I crave, is within my grasp.

  We could be happy together. I could be happy with him.

  Now I am the one who is greedy. He speaks of my beauty, my body, but I want all of him.

  I want his heart.

  Anthony’s cologne fills my nostrils, his body hard in all the places I am soft, evidence of a man who has gotten through life using brute force and brawn.

  His lips catch mine as I tilt my head toward him, his tongue parting the seam of my mouth, and I open to him, easing into the kiss.

  Nothing in my life so far has prepared me for this. For him.

  “Breathe,” he murmurs against my lips, stroking my hair.

  I take a deep breath, his ministrations unspooling something tightly wound within me as I grasp my future.

  My nightgown drops to the floor, and the look in his eyes sends a thrill through me, my name escaping his lips on a strangled breath as I move toward him.

  By the end of the night, I’m officially a wife in every way.

  Twenty-Eight

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1935

  Elizabeth

  I used to be utterly consumed by the thought of death. My mother said it was unnatural for a girl of my position to be so preoccupied with such things, but given my family’s history, I couldn’t help but wonder what my father’s and brother’s final moments were like, whether they knew they were going to die, if there was an instant when they wished they could undo the decision they made, a flash of regret. In my more fanciful moments, I expected warmth, and white light, and angels heralding them to their final destination.

  When I died, I felt cold. And darkness.

  One moment, I was in the train, holding on to Sam, and the next, I was gone, one thought flitting through my mind before everything went dark—

  I don’t want to die.

  When I wake, a woman leans over me, her outfit a bright white, a light shining in my eyes. Her voice rings in my ear over and over again.

  “Elizabeth—Elizabeth—”

  There’s a dull ache in my head, my throat scratchy and dry. My body throbs, an ugly bruise on my hand. Another one on my wrist. I try to lift my arms, but I can’t move, I—

  Panic fills me.

  “Elizabeth.”

  I swallow, blinking, gazing beyond the nurse to a spot over her shoulder, a now familiar voice.

  Sam.

  He takes my hand.

  The nurse speaks, but it sounds like she’s far away, as though I am submerged in water.

  The train—

  “Water—”

  “Do you want some water?” she asks.

  I shake my head, trying again, the words a jumble in my mind. “Water. There was water.”

  “The storm carried us away,” Sam interjects. “A wave came. It flooded the train car. You were tossed around when the wave crashed over us, and you hit your head against the side of the car. You were unconscious.”

  “I was underwater.”

  “You nearly drowned.”

  “Where am I?”

  “A hospital in Miami,” Sam answers. “A Coast Guard cutter brought us up here. They’ve been evacuating people from Matecumbe Key to the mainland. They took you out as soon as possible because you’re injured.”

  “I’ll give you a few moments,” the nurse says, her heels clipping against the floor until the door shuts gently behind her and we are alone.

  “It happened so quickly.” He squeezes my hand. “The storm surge overtook the train, and the cars filled with water. I held on as best as I could, tried to hold on to you. All around me people were doing the same thing. One minute you were with me, and then you were gone. The current was too strong. It ripped me away. It’s a miracle we didn’t drown.”

  “I don’t remember any of it.”

  “I’ve never been so scared in my life. The evacuation train . . .” His jaw twitches. “It was swept off the tracks. Some people made it out through the windows, some held on to the tracks and the train, but many were swept up by the ocean and drowned.”

  “All those people—the children.”

  “No one knows yet how many died. They’re still trying to locate survivors, uncover bodies.” He pauses. “It’s bad out there. The recovery is going to be a long and arduous process. It seems like the storm swept in and took everything with it. It’s a wasteland.

  “I found your body lying on the ground a few hundred yards away from the station. I don’t know how you got there, but when I discovered you I thought you were dead. You wouldn’t open your eyes, and I couldn’t feel a pulse at first.”

  “The veterans—” My brother.

  “I don’t know. The camps are gone. Destroyed by the storm. Not everyone evacuated, and the ones who did—”

  The expression on his face, the sheer horror there—

  “What about the guests who stayed at the Sunrise Inn and didn’t evacuate with us?”

  “Most of the structures are gone. I’m not sure if any are still standing. I don’t know what happened to everyone else.”

  Tears fill my eyes, running down my cheeks.

  “You have a concussion,” Sam tells me. “They want to monitor you for a few days to make sure you’re fine. You were pretty banged up. Maybe your body got tangled up in something that kept you in place. That’d explain the bruises, at least.”

  “How were you hurt?” I ask, gesturing in the direction of his face. There’s a nasty laceration near his eye.

  “Flying debris, I think. It’s all a blur, pieces of it I don’t remember, but at least I only have some cuts and bruises. Nothing too bad.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “They checked me out when we first came up here. They had far worse injuries to tend to than mine. I’m fine.”

  “How long have we been in Miami?”

  “A day. Some people came down with boats to get the injured out. There are still rescue efforts to help the rest of the survivors.”

  “Is there a list of names somewhere? I need to locate my brother.”

  “I’ll talk to some of the officials. See what I can learn. Right now, you worry about getting better. The doctors said the most important thing is for you to relax.” He swallows. “I thought you were dead.”

  The emotion in his voice surprises me.

  “Things are complicated,” I say. “What you told me at the inn, the papers I found, I don’t know how I feel about it.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m grateful to you for what you’ve done for me, for coming here with me, but I deserve more answers than what you’ve given me so far.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I can, whenever you’re ready.”

  I want to believe him, want to think there’s loyalty between us after everything we’ve been through, but something holds me back. I’ve been burned by other people enough times to learn that my trust shouldn’t be so easily won.

  My gaze drifts to the table next to my bed, a fat red bouquet of roses perched on top.

  “They’re beautiful. But you didn’t have to send me flowers.”

  “I didn’t.”

  A white card sticks out from the overabundance of red, and Sam plucks it from the bouquet and hands it to me wordlessly.

  A chill slides down my spine as I read the words scrawled in black ink.

  The card slips from my hand, fluttering to
the hospital room floor.

  I was very sorry to hear of your accident. Frank.

  Twenty-Nine

  Helen

  The rescue boat takes us to Riverside Hospital in Miami. The doctors examine Lucy and proclaim her healthy, clearing me as well, and tuck us into one of the empty rooms. I try to answer their questions as best I can, fill out the paperwork they put in front of me, but before I realize it, my eyes are drooping, the lack of sleep from the baby and the hurricane catching up to me.

  When I wake, a nurse mills around the room, John seated in the corner in a rocking chair, Lucy in his arms. A lump forms in my throat at the sight of them, at the sound of him singing softly to the baby, a hint of a melody I remember from my own childhood, his voice surprisingly pleasant.

  John glances over her head, and our gazes meet.

  I smile, relief filling me. “You’re back.”

  “I got a boat out this morning. I wanted to come check on you. How are you?”

  “Tired,” I admit, already reaching for the baby as he settles her in my arms.

  Lucy searches for my breast, nuzzling my skin, and I don’t have it in me to be embarrassed by sharing this moment with him, not after all the other intimacies we’ve experienced. Facing death has a way of bonding you with another.

  “I read your chart,” he says. “Everything seems good. You’re healing nicely. They said you should be able to go home in a day or so. Lucy is doing well, too.”

  Home.

  I don’t even know where that is anymore. I’ve given the hospital staff Aunt Alice’s information to see if she’s been admitted, but so far she hasn’t turned up.

  “Do you know if the storm hit Key West?” I ask.

  “We bore the brunt of it. They’re saying Key West is mostly fine. But power is out, communication lines down, people missing, taken to various locations to get help. They’ve evacuated all injured who wished to leave the Keys. The National Guard has been called in.”

  “I can’t help wondering about Tom. Did he head south to Cuba to go fishing? Or did he head north? Was he caught in the storm? Is he even alive? I keep waiting for him to walk through the door. If he is searching for us, the hospital has to be a logical place he’d look.”