There are funeral pyres everywhere, the bodies of the dead heaped upon one another. There was talk of giving them a proper burial, but those plans were swiftly abandoned in the name of expediency and concern over the potential spread of disease from the decay.
Aunt Alice’s body burned in one of those pyres, the desire to bury her on the land she loved taken out of our hands. Instead, we erected a small memorial between the inn and the ocean, a place where I carry flowers and share the thoughts I would have once put in my letters to her.
I hope she would have been proud of the new Sunrise Inn. It is much like the original, with a room for Lucy and me in the back that overlooks the water, a porch where I like to sit and drink my coffee in the early-morning hours.
All around us, people are rebuilding, attempting to recover from the hurricane’s aftermath.
The physical structures are the easiest to replace, the rest of it much more difficult.
More than two hundred fifty of the veterans—over half—have perished. The work camps have been obliterated. We now know at least four hundred people are dead throughout the Keys. So many more are missing, unaccounted for, families unable to grieve, to mourn, left without answers.
We will likely never be the same.
Nature has destroyed the railroad that Man spent decades building, the lifeline that was going to bring more tourists, increase opportunities for residents. Nature has destroyed that which so many men sacrificed for.
Ironically, it is those once forgotten men—the heroes who were sent down here so Washington wouldn’t have to deal with them—that have brought the most attention to our plight. Their deaths have led the charge for someone to be responsible for what was lost.
There are those who point fingers at the Weather Bureau for the insufficient warnings, for mistakes that were made. There are some who blame the men running the camps. Others, the government itself for once again letting its people down. And there are those who shake their fists at the Almighty, as if it was his hand that scooped up the sand and sea and shook it around, turning our world upside down. There have been investigations, and congressional hearings, and men fired, and to some perhaps that is its own form of justice. There is anger and there will be more; there is grief and there will be more.
They say it is the strongest storm to ever hit the United States, and for those of us who have lived through it, that fact is indisputable. People talk about wind speed, and hurricane categories, and I remember the bodies strewn upon the ground, and see the wreckage of the lives so many attempted to build here. This was an act of God, and despite the missteps the papers speak of, the mistakes that caused an even greater loss of life than expected, there is an inevitability to all of this. There is nothing we could have done to save ourselves in the face of the storm that battered our shores.
We are a blank slate now, as though the storm came in and reordered everything.
The inn isn’t ready for guests yet, but Lucy and I share the property with Matthew, who lives in a caretaker’s cottage set away from the main building. It’s nothing fancy, and there is still much work to be done, but it’s clean enough, and most importantly, it is ours.
In the evenings, Lucy and I sit on the porch and gaze out at the water, as I tell her stories of my day, as she coos in response. Each day I marvel at the changes in her, the rapid rate at which she grows. She is a sturdy, healthy child, and while there are moments when I recognize myself in her eyes, her mouth, her nose, her features are her own.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I have a semblance of peace.
In the months that have passed since the storm, the nightmares have lessened, the fear that Tom will find us a low-level hum in the back of my mind as I go about my days building a life for us near Islamorada. It’s always with me, and I don’t know that I’ll ever forget what I lived through with him, only that each day I’m working on myself, too, growing stronger, forging a new future.
Tom’s name is still listed among the missing.
I often wonder if he came up to Islamorada searching for me and was caught in the hurricane’s path, or if it was simply an ill-timed fishing trip, his belief that the storm would miss us entirely his downfall, or if he is alive and well, down in Cuba somewhere drinking his life away.
One evening, as I’ve finished clearing the plates from our dinner, there’s a knock at the door.
I cradle Lucy in my arms and walk to the front of the inn, shifting her to the side as I open the door.
A man in a gray suit stands on the porch, his hat in hand, a gold wedding band on his ring finger. And behind him—
My knees buckle in surprise, and I grab the doorframe to steady myself with my free hand.
“John.”
He steps forward, standing next to the man in the gray suit.
John is dressed in a suit himself, his skin paler than I remembered, his body less imposing than when he worked on the highway. He looks like a different man, his appearance better suited to the city than life down here, and I run a hand through my hair, belatedly realizing there is a spot of paint on the hem of my dress, the fabric not particularly fine, the flowers faded.
“Helen.”
He doesn’t say my name as much as breathe it, and the emotion in his eyes—
He is the man I remember.
“You are well?” he asks.
“I am.”
He searches my face, and I flush under his perusal.
“I wasn’t prepared for guests. We’ve been painting the inn all day, trying to get it ready to open.”
“You’re lovely,” he replies. “Just as I remembered.”
The man in the gray suit beside John—the man I realize I met at the memorial service when John and I said good-bye—Sam—coughs, a smile on his face.
John’s gaze drops from me to Lucy.
“She’s gotten so big,” he says, his voice filled with wonder.
“She has.” I fight to keep the tremor from mine, to meet his gaze. “Would you like to hold her?”
He swallows. “I would.”
I step back, allowing John and the other man to cross the threshold.
Lucy squirms as I set her in John’s arms, the lump in my throat growing at the sight of them together.
“Ma’am—”
I turn toward Sam.
“Is there somewhere we could sit and talk?” he asks. He flashes an official-looking badge proclaiming him to be a federal agent. “Since John’s my brother-in-law, and he wanted to come with me today, I said it was fine for him to accompany me, but I’m here on official business.”
“Of course.”
“It’ll be all right, Helen,” John murmurs to me, Lucy’s little fist wrapped around his finger.
Something tightens around my heart.
I shut the front door behind them, leading them to the main seating area where we will one day welcome guests. There are only two couches in the room now, and I take one, John sitting down beside me, Lucy in his arms.
“You’ve done a good job with the inn. It’s amazing,” John says.
I smile. “Thank you. Matthew has been a great help, and we’ve hired some locals who needed work. Everyone’s trying to get their life back after the storm.”
Sam takes the opposite couch, his gaze intent on me.
“Would you prefer to have this conversation in private?” Sam asks, his voice surprisingly gentle.
“No, of course not. John can stay.”
“I thought it might help to have him here. I’m sorry to tell you, but we found your husband, Tom.”
There’s a rushing noise in my ears, my heart pounding.
“It looks like there was a dispute of some kind,” Sam adds. “We don’t know when it happened or who was involved. He was shot. We found this in his pocket.”
Sam pulls out a
ring, holding it out to me.
The diamond sparkles in the late-afternoon light, the sheer size of it awe-inspiring sitting atop such a delicate band.
Who could afford a ring like this around here? How would Tom’s path have crossed with someone who owned such a stone? It must have been a tourist, or—
I blink.
Something about the ring is familiar. Or perhaps, it’s that I’ve seen a similar one before.
“Do you recognize it?” Sam asks, his gaze narrowing.
I do.
The girl on her honeymoon—Mirta.
The one who didn’t know how her husband took his coffee.
A lifetime ago at Ruby’s.
How did Tom end up with her engagement ring on him? And why was he shot?
“He might have stolen it,” Sam adds. “Pardon me, but it’s the likeliest assumption we’ve come up with. Was your husband worried about money? Did he run with a rough crowd?”
I can’t do more than nod, because who isn’t worried about money in times like these?
Who isn’t a little desperate?
I square my shoulders, handing the diamond back to Sam.
I know enough of my husband’s nature to wish Mirta well wherever she is.
“No,” I lie. “I don’t recognize the ring.”
Lucy stirs in John’s arms, a soft sigh falling from her lips, and he passes her to me wordlessly, as though it is the most natural thing in the world.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am; I have a few more questions and then I’ll go,” Sam replies. “I’ll be honest with you; I work on an organized crime task force. Rum-running was a real big industry in these parts during Prohibition, and some of these fisherman got involved with some nefarious creatures—smuggling and the like. Some of them didn’t break those ties when Prohibition ended. Was your husband involved in anything like that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t talk to me about what he did.”
“Is there anyone who might have had a grudge against your husband?” Sam asks. “Who might have had a reason to shoot him?”
I meet his gaze, and I no longer see the agent in front of me in his natty little suit, but the girl from Ruby’s in her elegant dress, the fear and hopelessness in her eyes, and then that flash of fire.
“No one I can think of.”
The agent takes a deep breath, bracing himself to deliver an invisible blow, like a man’s fist in that moment right before impact.
The prayer runs through my mind again over and over again, the dream of the little boat bobbing in the water, of my husband tipping over the side.
And then—
“Your husband is dead.”
* * *
—
After Sam is gone, after I’ve fed Lucy and put her down for a nap, I stand on the front porch of the Sunrise Inn and stare out at that blue expanse of sea that months ago brought such destruction. Today, the ocean is calm, the sun glittering off the water as far as the eye can see.
In this moment, it’s beautiful.
I remember the boy I married who loved the sea, the boy I fell in love with when I was little more than a child myself. Maybe Tom was never a good man and I couldn’t see it. Maybe he did the best he could and life knocked him down until he became someone unrecognizable. And maybe the truth is somewhere in between. I don’t know. I hope wherever he is, he is in a better place.
I know I am.
Footsteps sound behind me, and then John’s hand is at my waist, resting there lightly, a question in the gesture.
John stayed behind after Sam left, citing his need to return to his new wife and their honeymoon down in Key West.
I take a deep breath, praying for courage now. “How is New York?” I ask.
“The same as it always was. Too big, too noisy, too hectic. It was good that I went back, though. Elizabeth’s married now. She and Sam are happy together. Her mother is settled with a nurse. Things are as they should be.”
“And you?”
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
The words knock the wind out of me.
“Missed Lucy. Missed this place, if you can believe it. When Sam told me he was coming down here, that they’d found your husband, I insisted on coming with him.
“You’ve built a life for yourself and for Lucy,” he continues, “and I understand if you need time, but if you could ever see yourself having a life with me, I would like nothing more. I want to spend the rest of my days making you happy, building a future with you and Lucy. I would like a family. I would like you both to be my family.”
I move into his embrace, hesitantly at first, leaning up on my tiptoes and pressing my lips to his. John freezes, and then it’s as though he comes to life, his arms wrapping around my waist gently, returning the kiss.
It’s strange how your life can change so quickly, how one moment you can barely eke by, desperation filling your days, and suddenly, out of the unimaginably horrific, a glimmer of something beautiful can appear like a bud pushing through the hard-formed earth.
There’s so much broken around us; maybe all we can do is try to fix each other, do what we can to preserve these precious moments in a world where there is so much sadness and loss.
The dream I used to have when I lived in a cramped cottage, in a strangling marriage, disappears, and another takes its place. I’m filled with an emotion I haven’t felt in such a long time that I almost don’t recognize it, the taste of it sweet and tangy in my mouth—
Hope.
A little house somewhere quiet. A child’s laughter. An arm wrapped around my waist at night, a hand holding mine. A future I dreamed of years ago that I thought I’d lost somewhere along the way.
Maybe some would say my dreams are too small. Perhaps they would dream of railroads that go over the sea, great, wonderful things. Maybe others want riches and jewels, a chance to travel the globe.
For me, this is enough:
A corner of paradise in this wretched world that I am able to call my own.
Author’s Note
In the late summer of 2017, I was nearly finished drafting When We Left Cuba, and I was beginning to brainstorm my next project. It was hurricane season, and as a Florida native, I was all too familiar with the sense of uncertainty and fear nature can conjure. In the hurricane coverage, there was a story of a hurricane I was unfamiliar with—the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, one of the strongest and deadliest storms to strike the United States. It wasn’t the hurricane itself that caught my eye, though; it was the story of World War I veterans who had been sent down to work on the highway and whose lives were tragically lost. The more I researched the story, the more it called to me, and I soon began to envision the women who would populate the book and how their lives would intersect.
In my research, Storm of the Century by Willie Drye, Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane by Thomas Neil Knowles, Hemingway’s Hurricane: The Great Florida Keys Storm of 1935 by Phil Scott, and Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford were all invaluable resources, and I highly recommend them if you’d like to learn more about the Labor Day hurricane.
The hurricane of 1935 that struck the Florida Keys is one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in history. While the death toll is disputed, numbers range between approximately four hundred and eight hundred lost souls. More than a third of the veterans who were living on Windley and Matecumbe Keys were killed by the storm, and it is generally accepted that more than half of the residents and workers caught in the hurricane lost their lives.
The Overseas Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway—once referred to as “Flagler’s Folly”—was destroyed and never rebuilt, and in 1938, the new Overseas Highway was opened using stretches of the destroyed Overseas Railroad. After World War II, Key West became a thriving tourist destination, and remnants of “Flagler’s Folly” can still be s
een off in the distance.
Acknowledgments
The past few years have been a dream beyond anything I could have imagined, and I am so grateful to all of the booksellers, bloggers, librarians, readers, and reviewers who have embarked on this adventure with me. Thanks for embracing my characters and their stories.
Thank you to Reese Witherspoon and the amazing team at Hello Sunshine for all of your support for my books and for sharing my work with your fabulous book club family.
To my editor Kate Seaver and agent Kevan Lyon—I couldn’t do any of this without you, and I definitely wouldn’t want to. Thanks for championing my work and for making this dream come true.
I am so fortunate to work with an incredibly talented group of people who make my job possible. Thanks to my publicist Diana Franco and marketing representative Fareeda Bullert for working so hard on my behalf. Thank you to the extraordinary team at Berkley: Madeline McIntosh, Allison Dobson, Ivan Held, Christine Ball, Claire Zion, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Craig Burke, Tawanna Sullivan, Sarah Blumenstock, Mary Geren, and Stephanie Felty, as well as the subrights department and the Berkley art department, and all of the others who support my books. Thanks to Patricia Nelson and Marsal Lyon Literary Agency for your work on my behalf and to the team at Frolic Media.
To my friends and family—thanks for all of your love and encouragement. You’re the best.
Questions for Discussion
1. At the beginning of the novel, Helen says, “People are what circumstances make them.” Do you agree with her statement? Why or why not? Are there places in the book where this sentiment seems to be true? How do the characters demonstrate this?
2. The hurricane hits Key West in 1935, during the Great Depression. What effect does the Depression have on the characters, on the setting? How do larger world events shape characters’ lives in the book?
3. What parallels do you see between the effects the hurricane has on the characters and that of fighting in the Great War?
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