Summer's Child

  Shelly did as she was told, then ran outside to the pier, the wind nearly blowing her off her feet. The boat was barely visible, a great, beached whale on the pier, but she could hear the screams of the little boy beneath it. There was no sound, though, from Julie, at least none that could be heard above the howling of the wind.

  “Help us, Shelly,” Andy said.

  She could barely see the shapes of Andy and Jim standing at either end of the boat, trying to lift it off its victims. She ran to the side of the boat and tried to slip her hands beneath the rim. She could not budge it, not an inch, and her hands slipped off the wet fiberglass again and again. From beneath the boat, she heard Jack’s screams turn to whimpers, and she started to cry herself.

  Andy ran toward her, grabbing her arm again. “Go into the house and call 911,” he shouted. “My cell’s on the counter. I’m going to get Daria.”

  Then Daria will know, she thought, but they had no choice. They needed help, and they needed it right away. She fought against the wind and rain into the house as Andy ran up the road toward his van, where he’d parked it away from the threat of the sound.

  In the kitchen, Shelly found Andy’s phone and began to dial. Her fingers shook so violently that she could barely press the numbers, and it wasn’t until she’d tried dialing them for the third time that she realized why her call wasn’t going through: the cell towers were down.

  40

  “WHAT’S THAT?” DARIA STARTED AT THE THUMPING SOUND. She and Rory were still talking in the Sea Shanty living room, but the sudden pounding from the front porch had interrupted them. Standing up, she walked toward the door.

  “Maybe one of the shutters came loose,” Rory suggested, following her.

  Daria saw someone open the screen door and step onto the porch. She thought it might be Don Tibble with news about Shelly, and her heart picked up its pace. Only when the man burst through the living-room door did she realize it was Andy. He was shirtless; his long hair was loose and soaking wet, and water streamed over his face.

  “Andy!” she said, alarmed by the sight of him. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you evacuate?”

  “I need you and Rory.” Andy was winded, gasping for air. “There was an accident next door to my house. My neighbor’s boat flipped over on the pier and his little boy and wife are trapped beneath it.”

  Daria froze. I’m not an EMT anymore, she wanted to say, but knew there was no time for her to surrender to her fears. She ran back into the living room to get her sneakers, crouching to tie them on her feet. “Did you call 911?” she asked.

  Andy nodded. “It’s taken care of,” he said.

  “Then let’s go.” She grabbed two flashlights, handing one to Rory, then clipped her cell phone to her waistband.

  Stepping off the porch was like walking into a wind tunnel. “What’s the wind speed, do you know?” she asked Andy as they battled their way to his van. He didn’t hear her; the question was swept away by the wind. If the wind was over sixty miles per hour, they would be on their own. Emergency Medical Services wouldn’t send an ambulance into wind that high.

  They piled into Andy’s old van, and the wind buffeted the vehicle as he drove out of the cul-de-sac.

  “I think the wind is too high for them to send out a rig,” Daria said. “Do you know what the wind speed—”

  “Listen, Daria,” Andy interrupted her. “You need to know that Shelly is at my house.”

  What? For a moment, Daria couldn’t speak. Shelly was safe. But how had she ended up at Andy’s? “She’s at your house?” she asked. “Why would she go there?”

  “Is she all right?” Rory asked.

  “She’s fine,” Andy said. “I left her there to call 911 while I came over here.”

  “I don’t understand why Shelly would go to your house,” Daria said. “I’m sorry she put you in the position of having to…hide her, Andy.”

  Andy glanced at her, then returned his gaze quickly to the road. “It’s not like that,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Daria asked.

  She felt Rory’s hand on her shoulder. “We can talk about that later,” he said. “The important thing right now is that Shelly is safe.” Daria had the feeling that Rory understood something she was not ready—or willing—to understand herself.

  They pulled into Andy’s driveway, and Daria looked toward the pier. Something was going on out there, she could see the light from a flashlight, but other than that she couldn’t tell where the pier ended and the sound began.

  “Can you pull your car closer to the pier?” Rory asked Andy. “Shine your lights on it?”

  Andy drove over the packed sand that formed his yard, until his headlights illuminated the pier and they could see the drama playing out on its surface. The boat was upside down and fully on the pier. Two people stood next to the boat, waving frantically at them, and although she could not see them clearly, Daria guessed one of them was Shelly.

  She and Rory followed Andy out to the pier, trying to run, although it was like running through mud. It wasn’t just the wind that made Daria’s legs feel like lead; it was fear. She was afraid of what she would find on the pier. She used to meet emergencies with courage, confidence and a rush of adrenaline. The adrenaline was still there, but she’d left the courage and confidence at the scene of that April plane crash.

  “The phone was dead,” Shelly screamed the words at Andy. “I couldn’t call 911.”

  Daria pulled her cell phone from her waistband and pressed it into Shelly’s hand. “Go in the house and call,” she instructed her, trying to make her voice heard over the wind. “Tell them we need to extricate two people from beneath a twenty-two-footer.” She knew they would be lucky to get anyone to respond to this call, much less the equipment they might need to extricate the victims.

  “No, don’t go!” Andy’s neighbor yelled at Shelly. “We need all of us to lift the boat.”

  Daria gave her sister a little shove. “Go, Shelly,” she said. Then she turned to the neighbor, whose dark hair was plastered to his head, his face creased with fear and worry. “We can’t lift the boat until I assess their injuries,” she said. “We could make things worse.” She shined her flashlight into the water. It was lower than normal. “Is the sound on its way down or up?” she asked Andy. She knew that during the first hours of hurricane, the sound could nearly empty itself, only to come back with a ferocious roar and serious flooding.

  “Up,” Andy said.

  “That’s what flipped the boat,” the man said.

  The rising tide could be either good or bad, Daria thought. The higher water might lift the boat from the pier and free its captives, but it could also make their work far more difficult.

  She dropped to her knees, shining her flashlight beneath the boat. The tiny boy, pinned beneath the center of the boat, let out a wail when the light hit his eyes, and he reached toward Daria with his one free hand. She slipped her fingers into his. “Where do you hurt?” she asked him.

  The boy only cried in response to her question. It looked as though the frame of the short, angled front windows was across his chest, probably breaking some of his ribs, and she could see a gash on his thigh. A small amount of blood had pooled on the pier beneath his leg. She squeezed the boy’s hand. “I’ll be right back, honey,” she said. “I want to check on your mommy.”

  She crawled on her stomach toward the stern of the boat where the woman was pinned. She could not quite reach her, but managed to get her arm under the boat far enough to touch her fingers to the woman’s throat, where she felt for a pulse. Beneath her fingertips, the pulse was faint and irregular, but at least the woman was still alive. How she was pinned, though, Daria couldn’t determine. If her legs were crushed and they raised the boat from her body, she could die within seconds. But they had little choice at this point. They had to lift this boat, or both the woman and her son would perish beneath it.

  “They’re both alive,” she shouted as she slipped from benea
th the boat and raised herself to her knees. Rain whipped against her face, and when she spoke, the three men leaned close to hear her. “You guys try to lift the boat enough for me to pull them out, okay?” She saw Shelly running from the house toward them. “What did they say?” Daria called to her.

  “It’s too windy, they said. If it dies down, they’ll send an ambulance.”

  “What do they mean, it’s too windy?” Andy’s neighbor said. “They’ve got to send one!”

  “Right now,” Daria said to the man, “put your energy and your anger and your fear into lifting this boat. Come on, Shelly. You can help, too.”

  She had seen it before, even in herself, that superhuman strength that coursed through otherwise normal men and women in the moment of crisis, so she wasn’t surprised when the three men and Shelly were able to lift the boat by a few inches. Daria dived beneath it, grabbing the little boy and pulling him clear of the boat. “Can you hold it up another minute?” she asked as she scrambled toward the stern for the woman.

  “It’s coming down!” Andy yelled. “Get out, Daria. Get out!”

  Daria quickly retreated from beneath the boat just as it rocked back onto the pier. It caught her right index finger, and she stifled a scream. Her finger would be badly swollen and bruised within minutes, but that injury was nothing compared to what this boy and his mother were enduring.

  She felt torn between attending to the boy and trying to extricate the mother, but the light of her flashlight on the boy’s pale face told her how desperately he needed her attention. The pressure of the boat must have been serving as a tourniquet of sorts, and now the blood gushed freely from his leg.

  “Shelly!” She tore off her windbreaker. “Come here and press this against his leg.”

  Shelly knelt next to the boy, her hands over the windbreaker.

  “Press hard,” Daria said. “Really hard. It’s the only way to stop the bleeding.” She turned back to the boat and positioned herself near the stern.

  Rory grabbed her shoulder. “You can’t go under there again,” he said. “It’s too hard for us to hold the boat up. You nearly got crushed last time.”

  “You just have to hold it up longer.” She dropped to her knees and realized she was kneeling in several inches of water. Panic coursed through her. The sound was rising far too quickly for comfort.

  “On the count of three!” Rory shouted. “One…two…three.” Daria saw the hull of the boat rise up in front of her. She dived beneath it, grasping the woman’s clothing with her hands and tugging backward, but suddenly the water poured over the woman’s face, trapping her. Drowning her. Daria found herself in the middle of one of her nightmares. She could not truly see the woman’s face, could not see brown eyes or a widow’s peak, but in her mind the woman became the young, dying pilot. Thrashing with her arms beneath the boat, she reached for the woman’s clothing once more. Water splashed into her own face just as she was taking a breath, and she had to let go, choking and coughing. Someone’s hands were on her, pulling her out from beneath the boat, and she gagged as she struggled to catch her breath. In an instant, a wall of water swept onto the pier, lifting the boat, and Daria saw Rory plow beneath the stern, pulling the unconscious woman to safety before she was dragged into the sound.

  “Get them off the pier!” Andy said, and Daria saw that Shelly was already doing that, carrying the little boy in her arms, through the rising water on the pier, to the driveway and away from the sound. Daria struggled to get to her feet, and could only do so with Andy’s help. Rory or the husband, she wasn’t sure who, carried the woman to the driveway. Daria ran after them, moving as quickly as she could through the water on tremulous legs. She knelt down next to the woman, feeling again for a pulse.

  “There’s blood everywhere, Daria,” Shelly called to her from the side of the little boy. “I’m pressing hard, but it’s not stopping.”

  The woman had no pulse, nor was she breathing. “I know CPR,” Rory said. He was suddenly kneeling on the other side of the woman. “You take care of the boy.”

  Daria called to Andy. “Do the compressions, Andy,” she said. Andy had never been put to the test, but she knew he could do it; she’d taught his CPR class. “Rory can do the breathing.”

  She ran over to the boy, who was unconscious, but breathing. Shelly’s hands were covered with his blood, and Daria said a quick prayer that the boy had no blood-borne diseases. “We need to get them to the ER,” she said. She was wondering exactly how they were going to do that when she heard the sweet call of a siren somewhere on the other side of the wind. “Thank God,” she said out loud.

  “I hear a siren!” Andy’s neighbor said. He was sitting near the boy, looking dazed and helpless.

  Within a minute, the ambulance pulled into the driveway. It was staffed by only one paramedic—Mike—and an EMT, who was driving. But it didn’t take long before they had the woman intubated and the boy bandaged, and both of them placed in the ambulance.

  “Rory and I will go with them in the rig,” Daria said to Andy. “You take Shelly back to the Sea Shanty, please.”

  “No,” Shelly said. “I’m staying with Andy.”

  Daria turned to Andy. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “There’s no time to talk about it now,” Andy said. He was pushing her toward the ambulance, but Daria held her ground. “Tell me,” she said.

  “Shelly and I have been together for a couple of years,” Andy said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. She was afraid you’d try to break us up if you knew. Okay? Now get in the ambulance.”

  Daria backed away from Andy, stunned.

  “Daria?” Mike called from inside the rig. “Let’s go!”

  With one more glance at her sister, she turned and ran toward the ambulance.

  41

  DARIA WALKED OUT OF THE TREATMENT ROOM IN THE NEARLY empty ER. Rory, who had been waiting on one of the chairs in the hallway, stood when he saw her.

  “They’re going to be all right,” Daria said, walking toward him.

  “Both of them?” Rory asked.

  Daria nodded. The woman had not looked good in the ambulance, but after two hours in the treatment room she was breathing on her own and alert enough to ask about her son.

  “Thank God,” Rory said, and he drew her into a hug. Daria closed her eyes, resting her cheek against his shoulder for a moment before pulling away.

  “You’re soaking wet.” She brushed her hand over the damp front of his shirt.

  “How can you tell?” he asked. “So are you.”

  Her wet clothes clung to her body, but she had not given them a thought until this moment. Suddenly, she felt cold.

  “There’s nothing more we can do here,” she said. “Woody—the EMT—said he can give us a ride home.”

  She sat in the passenger seat of Woody’s car, barely noticing how the wind pushed them around on the deserted roads. Shingles and twigs flew against the car’s windows, and she didn’t even blink when they hit the glass in front of her face. Woody and Rory were talking, about the storm or the hospital; Daria didn’t know or care. She felt shaky and strange. She still hadn’t absorbed all that Chloe had told them earlier that evening—that conversation seemed like a bad dream from weeks ago. And then there was the revelation about Shelly and Andy. She did not truly know either of her sisters.

  Woody let them out in front of the Sea Shanty. At least two of the porch screens were torn, flapping wildly in the wind like a trapped bird.

  Rory leaned close to her ear. “I should check on Poll-Rory while I’m out here,” he said.

  Daria stared at the front door of the dark Sea Shanty, not wanting to go inside, not ready to explain the past few hours to Chloe, if she happened to be up. “I’ll go with you,” she said, shouting above the wind.

  Rory nodded. He put his arm around her and they plowed their way across the cul-de-sac.

  Inside Poll-Rory, the darkness was disorienting, and the wind groaned and whistled. Daria stood in the l
iving room, feeling lost and cold. The storm had brought frigid air with it, and she shivered in her wet clothes. Her sore finger throbbed. Rory tried the switch for the overhead light, but the power was, of course, still out.

  He shined his flashlight toward a cupboard at the rear of the room. “I have a lantern in that closet,” he said. “And matches in the drawer in the kitchen. Why don’t you take care of that, and I’ll find us some dry clothes to change into.”

  He disappeared into one of the bedrooms, and, by the weak, yellow beam of her own flashlight, Daria found the lantern, checked the oil and lit the wick. In a moment, Rory reappeared. He handed her a bundle of soft fabric and pointed toward another bedroom. “Why don’t you change in there. There are towels in the bathroom.”

  The wet clothes stuck to her body like a thin layer of cold plaster. She peeled them off, underwear and all, and hung them over the shower rod in the bathroom. Rory had given her one of his sweatshirts, either navy blue or black, she couldn’t tell which in the fading glow from her flashlight, along with gray sweatpants that were way too large for her. She put the clothes on over her bare skin, tried unsuccessfully to run her fingers through her wet hair and walked into the living room.

  Rory, too, was in sweatpants and sweatshirt, standing in the middle of the room, holding the lantern. He smiled at her. “Feel better?” he asked.

  “Physically,” she said, sitting down on the sofa. “But I’m…still pretty shaken up by everything that happened tonight.”

  “How about something to drink?” he asked. “Power’s out, so I can’t make anything hot. There’s iced tea. Wine. Beer.”

  “Wine.” She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes while he carried the lantern into the kitchen. A moment later, he handed her a glass of wine, and she took several sips from it before placing it on the coffee table.

  Setting the hurricane lantern next to her glass, Rory sat down near Daria on the sofa. He looked toward the boarded windows, which rattled in the wind. “I have a feeling there’s still more to come,” he said. “I wonder what part of the storm is over us now?”