Potter Springs (32 page)

Danger neared, she felt it in the moaning.

Lifting her heavy head from the pillow, she tried to make out what had scared her. Her eyes adjusted, the grains of black
and white taking shape. The clock blinked 3:25
A.M.

She’d finally gotten Marianne to sleep around ten, then made her way to her own bed, thankful for the quiet. Her own space.
A room without the odor of bodily functions.

Now it had an odd scent. An earthy smell. The air thickened.

Fully alert, she lay still, heart pounding. Hair on her arms prickled, yet she sensed no physical presence. The chair, the
desk, all appeared normal, as far as she could see. Something outside?

Pushing the comforter aside, she went to the window, the marble floor cool on her bare feet. The curtains, soft in her hand,
squeaked on the rod as she drew them wide.

Silver light poured in, carrying with it the high-pitched keen. Not imagined, but real. She tugged the heavy patio door open.
The screaming escalated. The wind slashed her nightshirt up around her thighs.

The ocean, no longer calm and tranquil, churned in its depths like a single, unified creature. The unfriendly moon cast green.
And like the underbelly of a reptile, the clouds slid across the sky.

Rain stabbed the water, dotting its skin in spikes as it crawled, advancing toward the shore. The roiling surface bubbled
in anger while the wind whipped it taller.

Amanda stood, transfixed, and watched the beast approach.

A knock sounded from far away, a frantic rapping nearly drowned by the tempest outside. Even before opening the door, Amanda
knew who it would be.

Marianne, in the hallway, her white face lit with fear. “We’re to go downstairs. The storm turned. It’s headed straight for
us.”

RAIN SLID IN
sheets down the Toyota’s windshield, blurring the opaque view. Wind slapped against the car, sometimes rocking it violently
to either side.

Mr. Chesters, free from his carrier, clung with sharp talons to the top of Mark’s head. He mauled a painful dance and made
a whimpering sound.

“It’s okay, buddy. Mandy’s just fine. Don’t worry.” Ignoring the claws needling his scalp, Mark peeled one hand from the steering
wheel and reached back to tickle the cat’s ears.

This time, Mr. Chesters didn’t bite him.

Howling wind had a strange effect on the animal. The cat’s eyes widened in the rearview mirror. His fur shot bolt upright,
and he sat frozen. His mouth, pale tongue just visible, hung open as he panted.

The radio, at full volume, competed with the tempest outside. The weatherman broke in with a drawl.

“Doppler Dan here to update you on the disturbance down south. For those of you just in from outer space, Hurricane Megan
has wreaked havoc on our Mexican neighbors for the past several hours. With winds up to 115 miles an hour before losing strength,
this storm’s tearing through the coastline, leaving mass destruction in its wake.”

Fear tensed Mark’s arms. They ached from holding the car to the road. Ached from emptiness.

“We’ve received reports of roofs ripped off buildings, trees shorn away at the roots and homes reduced to rubble. There’s
no estimate at this time on the level of damage, or of fatalities, which are expected to be great.”

No fatalities. No fatalities,
Mark repeated in a soundless whisper.

“Needless to say, roads are dangerous, blocked off in places. Safe travel remains impossible.”

Impossible. Blocked off in places.
He would not turn back. Everything that meant anything lay ahead.
Not what’s gone on before, but what lies ahead.

He would keep going. He had to get to her.

“Stay put and stay tuned to KNZT. I’m Doppler Dan.”

Mark snapped off the radio and pressed harder on the gas. Willing the Toyota to make it, praying the tires would stick to
the slippery concrete, he sped forward into complete blackness.

B
roken glass sparkled like crushed diamonds in the lobby. Morning smelled fresh, as if carnage’s stink clung to the darkest
hours and swept straight through Laguna Madre. The beach no longer resembled a bride’s white satin. Soiled, with the ocean’s
treasures laid out to dry, along with man-made wreckage displayed in chunks along the way.

Still shaking, Amanda stepped past clusters of hotel guests and found a quiet corner with a phone. Angling the prepaid card
to read the numbers, she made the call. Her second of the morning, because the first had gone unanswered.

“Mom, we made it.”

The crackly reception couldn’t mask her mother’s tears. “I tried to call, and couldn’t get through…. Oh, baby, we were so
worried….”

“I know. Me too.” Amanda’s eyes burned at the memory, the terror of crouching with strangers in the dark, hiding behind kitchen
counters in the hotel’s one windowless room. The screaming. The mindless force of the water as it crashed through the hotel
glass.

The murmur of prayers in different languages, gripping the hands of people she’d never seen before.

Even now her knees quivered. She’d tensed them through the hours, as if by clenching her body still, the earth would hold
firm underneath them and they wouldn’t be washed away in a great black flood.

“Is Marianne… ?” Katy’s voice sounded small.

“She’s fine. A little banged up. She bumped her head in all the chaos. But she’ll be okay.” Marianne stood in line at the
concierge desk, jostling for information about a flight back to Lubbock.

“Let me put your father on the phone-”

“Mom, I’ll try back later, but I really can’t talk long. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Just promise you’ll call.”

“I will. Listen, I know this is a crazy question, but have you heard from Mark?”

She tried, in the dead of night, with only the light from her emotionless cell phone, to reach him.
No service. No service.
She’d get a tenuous line, then sob through the cutoffs, frantic fingers dialed again and again. All she wanted was a chance
to say goodbye.
No service.

Minutes on the hour. She never got through, even when dawn broke and the storm whispered away.

“It was meant to be a surprise.” Katy paused, as if searching for a way to explain. “He’s coming down to get you.”

“What? He’s coming here?” Thrill raced through her. Sheer adrenaline pumped her heart and heat rose to her face. “But when-”

“Days ago.” Katy’s words came out flat, deflated. “If he left when he should have, that would put him-”

The heat chilled as horror froze her hope. Amanda finished the thought her mother couldn’t voice. “Right in the middle of
the storm.”

The lobby closed in on her, with its bright colors and animated faces. The vacuums sucked up window chips. She couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t talk. Somehow she managed to say her goodbye to Katy and hung up. Walking to the concierge desk, she spotted her
mother-in-law waiting in the irritated line of guests.

Marianne hugged her. “Did you get through?”

“Yes. Everything’s fine.”
Your son is lost. He’s swept away in the middle of a hurricane and it’s all my fault.
“I’m going for a walk.”

She left, a liar and a coward.

THE TOYOTA BURNED
to a grinding halt. Mark rested his head against the steering wheel. So weary. He’d driven through the night by sheer will.
His body felt like he’d played a Super Bowl against God. Run over, defeated. Unable to go any farther.

Miraculously, he had found Laguna Madre.

In the midst of the storm, he had stopped to pick up highway road signs flattened by the wind. His headlights gleamed on glints
of metal, twisted clues for him to follow. Rain battered him as he crouched, pouring transmission fluid into the great gaping
hole, praying for enough to keep going.

When he made it to the outskirts of Laguna Madre, it looked like scattered puzzle pieces. Houses leaned at crazy angles, clothes
dangled from trees, debris floated in rushing streams on either side.

He’d come all this way. Fought through a storm to be stopped by a failed transmission.

He was so tired. Tired of fighting. Not knowing where he was going, not knowing what awaited him around each turn. Keeping
fear at bay through determination and drive.

No fatalities.
His mantra and his prayer. He clung to it-else he’d dissolve in his fear.

You’ve come on a fool’s errand. You’re a fool. A lost fool.

“All us lost fools,” Ervin had said. “Being lost is a good way to start getting found.”

As long as she’s alive, I haven’t lost her.

He’d lost one already. The baby, gone without knowing a father’s love. Slipped away before he shared his heart.

He wouldn’t risk another by listening to pride’s whisper again. Even if she didn’t want him, she would know he loved her.
That he’d entered hell and come out broken. A fool. Her fool.

Mark released his seat belt and scooped up Mr. Chesters. He retrieved the one bag that meant anything and slung it over his
shoulder.

She’s alive,
he convinced himself.
And as long as she’s alive, there’s a chance.

Tucking the cat under his arm, he started walking.

AMANDA PICKED HER
way down the cobbled roads. She stepped past garbage, leaped over streams of rushing water. The morning sun brushed the carnage
with absurd cheer.

Mud sucked her tennis shoes and splattered against her favorite floral dress, thrown on in last night’s panic.

She rounded the corner, to the street with the old church. Its appearance was so altered, she might have missed it. The huge
tree was upended, roots like arteries torn from the earth’s heart. The leaves withered. It had fallen on her stone bench and
broken it in two.

An oversize branch blocked the entrance to the courtyard. Amanda stepped around it, bracing herself against a limb. Pointed
wood scratched at her arms, but she wiggled through.

Inside the courtyard, she paused in surprise. The gardener. He had with him a woman and several children. Together they cleared
the smaller brush away, loaded it in his wheelbarrow. The children chattered while they worked.

Once beautiful petals lay like tired confetti all around, not one bush had a bloom left on it. The plants were knotted, with
huge bunches broken and ripped away. The gardener’s clippers flashed in the light, his whistle like that of a warrior. No
longer sweet and mellow, but a fight song to battle.

She passed them, silent as a specter, and entered the sanctuary. Water puddles formed in the aisle, bare bits of sky peeked
through holes in the roof. Amanda stepped inside, nearly overcome by the damp smell and the rot. The destruction.

Still, her kaleidoscope windows shimmered in the sun.

This time, she didn’t ask questions or search for answers. This time, she knelt on the sodden floor and bowed her head.

So many blessings. Why hadn’t she seen them before? With Mark, she had all the family, all the love she ever needed. She only
needed to open her eyes and see the glory all around her.

She would journey the chosen path, she would celebrate her joy, but she wanted her favorite person by her side. And for that,
she had no power to make it right. So she poured out her heart like water. Knowing only hands bigger than her own could grasp
the power of life and death.

The storm had proven that much.

“Please keep him safe. Give us another chance. Please…” She lost the rest in her tears, but after a while, she lifted her
head with a sense that she’d been heard. Even when she didn’t have the strength, or the words, to speak.

She left the sanctuary and, for the need to help instead of hurt, to work instead of wait, she joined the gardener and his
family at their task.

MR. CHESTERS HUNG
limp under Mark’s arm. Perhaps calmed by the trauma of days on the road, the fury of last night’s storm or the physical aftereffects
of greasy eggs and bacon working through his system.

They walked miles, passing trashed storefronts and waterlogged ditches. Mark spotted a steeple in the distance. He thought
people might be gathered there after a storm. For comfort, for community, clinging to the fact they survived.

He picked up the pace, hoping to find someone there to help him. To take time for a stranger and point the way to Palacio
del Grande. The bag slapped his side as he hurried and his shoes squished blisters into his heels.

A man and his family crossed the muddy road on the other side, the children carrying rusted tools.

“Hola.”
The man smiled in a flash of white teeth.

A good sign.
“Hola.”
Mark waved a free hand and they disappeared around the corner.

He neared the church. Casing the perimeter, he found a wrought-iron entrance to the church’s courtyard, partially hidden by
a felled tree. Roots dangled overhead. Not hearing the hoped-for murmur of conversation within, disappointment sank in his
chest.