CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Robyn’s aftermath
Robyn and Kelly had watched the news around the clock at a women’s shelter on the north side of Wilmington for the first few nights. Her meager life’s savings had been with a large bank even though her checking account was buried in the local bank. Flushed out to sea, she thought, at least until the insurance claim is settled.
What kind of insurance could pay for an entire town?
Her savings still had a few thousand dollars available and for that, she was thankful. Alan helped them out by paying for a hotel while they looked for an apartment and for jobs. He was a cheating bastard, but not a total bastard. He offered for them to come and stay with him in the old house. She could have the master bedroom and Kelly her old room, but Kelly had been the one to balk which surprised Robyn. Robyn, who didn’t want to rely on him for anything and was relieved by her daughter’s reluctance, graciously declined. There was no other family that she knew well enough to contact for help. She had been an only child. Sheila had been an only child.
“We’ll be fine once we get started. Things will work out,” she told Kelly.
“I know we will, mom.”
It would be months, maybe years before the insurance payment and so many other plans had changed. Sheila had always wanted to leave that old house to Robyn, or to Kelly under the right circumstances. They’d talked about that at almost every visit, but now it was gone. It was all gone. Of all the things that were gone, Robyn thought she missed Rusty the most. Their relationship had been perfect. There hadn’t been enough time to argue or get fed up with each other’s bad habits. There was no time to worry about politics, religion, mortgage payments, credit cards, in-laws or health or anything petty that life throws at people who are trying to be in love. They had a few perfect days in the midst of hell opening up and choking down an entire town. She couldn’t change it all back—wouldn’t live through that again—but she was thankful for Rusty. She was thankful for the safety of her daughter. She was thankful to be alive.
Kelly sat beside her in the cab. They stopped in front of the women’s shelter where they’d been taken in that early morning after the disaster. It was serving as a support center for survivors of all the devastation. News vans were parked all over the street taking pictures and begging for interviews. Police ushered them away from the people who entered the building. Relief arrived in the form of clothing and toys, bottled water and canned food. Who the relief was for baffled Robyn. There was no one left.
Victims had come from the outskirts of town. They had lost their houses in the final explosion and collapse, a legitimate need. Some came from the ferry trip, but they were tourists who had lost a car, perhaps a loved one. Those people only needed a ride home and some time to grieve. Some were counselors or medical doctors or scientists or investigators who were looking for answers as to what happened or to provide free services to the victims but none of them seemed sincere. Robyn hated them. She didn’t want to be studied. Others still were lonely attention seekers there to soak up all of the above or freeloaders looking for handouts of food, water, clothing or federal and state funding. And some were empathetic souls there to offer prayer or to play cards or just observe and be fascinated. Welcome but not needy, not requiring support.
Robyn knew she and Kelly were the only ones in that building who had been in the middle of the madness. There was talk of searches for others. Helicopters scanned the destruction looking for signs of life, but the ruins were slick as if that piece of earth had been shaved to the bare skin. She and Kelly were the only real survivors, the only ones who had been in the shit—as front line marines sometimes said—and lived to tell about it. She wanted nothing to do with the circus. She just didn’t know where else to go.
“Are you ladies hungry? We have a dinner prepared in the large meeting room. Quite a spread,” one of the volunteers said.
Robyn was starving. She hadn’t eaten well since that night. She knew it would be a long time before she could get back to normal. She knew she might never trust another thing she saw or stop looking over her shoulder for the nightmares. Some food would be a good start.
“That would be nice,” she said. “Kelly?”
Kelly nodded.
Robyn smiled on Kelly’s behalf and said, “It will be good for us to sit with other people, too. Might make a friend.” She hugged Kelly to her side.
“I’m sure you will,” the volunteer said. “If you need anything at all, just find someone with this button on and they’ll be glad to help you.” She gripped the Red Cross button that was pinned over her breast and held it out.
“Thank you,” Robyn said. Kelly only smiled. The volunteer woman moved on to the next group of people.
“Are you okay?” Robyn said and gripped Kelly gently by the shoulder, urging her to come along. Kelly looked up at her in a daze. She nodded but didn’t speak. She hadn’t spoken since that night, not even to her father whenever he called to check on them. It would come in time.
Robyn understood the feeling. She knew if Kelly opened her mouth, she felt she might go insane. Robyn felt that way as well, but someone had to lead them back to the real world. The rest of the world, it seemed, went on as normal. TV sitcoms still aired and sports events happened and while some news stations were keeping a close eye on the event in southeastern North Carolina, most stations did little more than mention it. New films released and new music came on the radio. Email still flowed to and fro. Babies were born and old people still died of natural causes.
She hugged her daughter to her tightly and followed the signs to the main conference room where tables and chairs were lined up and something that smelled heavenly—no sign of the rot, sulfur or brimstone—loomed in the air. The young mother from the ferry was there with her two children. Her reddish-brown hair was tied in a neat ponytail and they were clean. Quite a change from the night on the ferry. The three ate gratefully and Robyn hoped those kids were young enough to put the memories behind them.
When she noticed Robyn and Kelly, the young woman smiled and mouthed the words, “Thank you,” and hugged the boy and girl to her sides. They looked up at their mother with uncertain faces.
This is what survival looks like. Devastating, heartbreaking and beautiful.
She’d seen it on television, but it was always intercut with commercials and movie trailers or a weather girl with glittery white teeth, salon-fresh hair and a curvy body. Then on to the next big story. Robyn was in the middle of it and there were no bathroom or snack breaks. She thought of Rusty and two words popped into her head.
Sonofabitch was the first one. Hero was the second.
She didn’t know if he was responsible for closing up that hole. Her heart told her he was and it was the only way. It was the only thing she could think and not burst into tears. She shuddered and tried not to think of what he might have seen after they left. She hoped his death had been merciful and painless.
She hugged Kelly again as they picked up their plates and walked down the serving line. Kelly didn’t hug her back, but that would come eventually just like her speech. All wounds will heal in time.
Robyn didn’t know if she loved Rusty Clemmons or not. There just wasn’t enough evidence. She was old enough to know it might not have worked out in the end if things had gone another way. She needed to categorize him somewhere for closure. But where? More than a friend? Definitely. Lover? Yes. Boyfriend? No, probably not after just a few days. Savior of the universe? That was possible. The man who destroyed Smithville, North Carolina? Yes, but if he hadn’t...then what? Someone she would never forget? Yes. In the end, she chose to think of Rusty as the man who let her keep her daughter and her life. That was a fair judgment in her opinion. True or not, it was fair.
One more thing was fair. She got to bury her mother. Robyn and Kelly both were thankful at least for the privilege of laying Sheila Pendleton’s remains to rest when so many others had no closure and no answers. They buried her in a plot there
in Wilmington. It was one she had purchased with her second husband and they had a simple and very lonely ceremony as all of Sheila’s friends and neighbors—the ones who would have come to pay respects—were dead. Dead and buried somewhere deep under the earth.
She cried for her mother. She cried for Rusty and she cried for everyone else that had lived and died in Smithville. She only hoped that whatever insanity had taken that place had rendered them all oblivious to what was happening. She hoped God gave them all a pass. She hoped her mother was somewhere haunting an old woman’s swingset and keeping her weird so the neighbors talked.
“Heard me? I don’t know how you could’ve heard little ol’ me,” Sheila would say, fanning herself in southern belle fashion.
“Everyone in town heard you, momma. You do make quite an entrance. And might I ask, what the hell are you wearing?” was Robyn’s line.
“Why, these are my man-catching clothes.”
After the funeral, Robyn dropped Kelly off at their hotel and walked down the street to a little salon to buy some purple hair dye.