“Going out in public again is not simple to me. I love being with you, and the girls, and the animals, secluded up here on the ridge. Isn’t that enough, for now?”
“You don’t ‘love’ being a recluse. You’ve accepted it. There’s a difference. And I’ve made it easier for you by being here all the time. Well, no more. I refuse to live in the barn any longer. I’m going back to my cabin next week.”
I groaned. “How can you do that to me? How can you upset Ivy and Cora that way?”
“What do you think goes through their heads now? They worry all the time that you and I aren’t going to stay together. I live in the barn, Cathy. They know that’s not good. I hate the pretense of it. Either we’re together, we’re a family, we get married, or we stop pretending. No half-measures, all right? At some point, loving someone is always about taking a chance. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. You need to learn it, too.”
“I agree with you. I know I need to be stronger, braver, better. But it’s not about taking a chance on you. It’s about taking a chance on me.”
“Just tell me you’ll give that speech in the fall. Just try. That’s all I ask.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.” I got up quickly and he leapt up, too. I was crying harder, now. He had tears in his eyes, too. I gripped his arm ferociously. “Don’t tell the girls you’re moving. They won’t understand why. Don’t tell them, yet. Give me a few days to think about this. About what to say to them.”
He nodded. “A few days.”
Miserable, we went back to the house, walking side by side, not touching.
Chapter 27
Cathy At The Crossroads
“You and Thomas really like to keep things complicated, don’t you?” Delta said helpfully, as I dusted her round cheekbones with blush. “You look like you lost your best friend. And Thomas looks the same way. He won’t talk to me about it. He’s a man and I can’t crack him. But I can crack you. Talk.”
I tossed the brush into my makeup kit then slumped beside her in one of the café’s slat-bottomed dining chairs. It was a Monday afternoon, and the café was quiet and empty, always closed on Mondays. Delta had borrowed a video camera from one of her grandchildren; I’d offered to be her director and camera-person for a practice video. I’d talked her into auditioning for the Food Network.
“You’re still not talking,” she complained as I stared out a café’ window.
“It’s going to storm. Look at those clouds. A bad thunderstorm.”
Delta grabbed an eyebrow pencil from my kit and held it like a skewer. “Don’t make me use this.”
I sank deeper into the chair. “I love him. I want to marry him. I just don’t want him to push me so hard to be ‘normal’ again.”
“Aw, come on. If people waited to get married until they were normal, nobody’d ever walk down the aisle.”
“His expectations for me are too high. When you marry somebody you make a promise to be the person your spouse wants you to be. I can’t take that oath in good faith right now. I’d be lying. When I married Gerald I didn’t really believe the vows I took. I thought I did, but they were just words. I don’t want them to be just words this time.”
Delta rolled her eyes. “Married people say lots of things they don’t mean and can’t live up to, but at least they try. Sure, they’ll disappoint each other from time to time. So what? What would be the fun in it if married folks didn’t fight and sulk and worry and come back for more? The only way to stay happily married is to keep changing, to keep adjusting how you see each other. As long as the core of love is there, as long as that person is right for you, down deep where nothing changes, then the rest is just butter on the biscuit.” She waved the eyebrow pencil at me righteously. “Is anything else wrong? Don’t tell me you’re not over Gerald, yet, that mule pecker.”
“Oh, please. I wasn’t really married to Gerald. Not here.” I tapped a finger to my heart. “Gerald has nothing to do with this.”
“Okay, then have you’ve got some deep, dark secret Thomas doesn’t know? Do you turn into a werewolf when the moon is full?”
“If I did, I’d have chased Banger down and shredded him by now. Did I tell you he ate a pair of my walking shoes last week? He even ate the laces.”
“Don’t change the subject. You’re waiting for lightning to strike? Magic moments of happiness to anoint you with the shivers? Your scars to miraculously disappear?”
I looked at her for a long, tense moment, then gave up and nodded. “That last one. That’s it.”
“Oh, cousin. You know that’s never gonna happen. What you have to do is, you gotta change how you see yourself. You’ve got to stop being the Wicked Witch and be Dorothy instead.”
“Excuse me?”
“Dorothy. From The Wizard of Oz. Click your ruby slippers together and say—”
Thunder boomed over Ten Sisters. I nodded toward them with a grim smile. “Don’t disrespect the Wicked Witch of the West.” I shut my eyes and curled my hands under my chin. “Okay, I’ll be Dorothy. ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like—’”
“That’s not what you need to say. Here’s what you need to say, if you want to get back home.” Delta put her hands together, shut her eyes, and chanted, “There’s no face like mine. There’s no face like mine. There’s no face like—”
I looked at her askance. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
She cupped her chubby, work-reddened hands around my face. “Take pride in the face you have, not the face you had. Look at this beautiful face, scars and all. When you see that face in a mirror, you’ll be home.”
I bowed my head. “I’ll never see myself that way. Every time Thomas looks at me—every time for the rest of our lives—I’ll have the urge to turn away a little, to hide. And he knows it. He knows I cringe a little, Delta. He tries to pretend he doesn’t mind, but some day he’ll run out of patience. He’ll get tired of my quirks. I can’t marry him until I can look at him and let him look straight at me, until I can look at him and think only how much I love him, not how ugly I am.” I took her hands from my face, squeezed them, then stood up. Lightning flickered. “I better go see where the girls are with those flowers.”
Delta sighed.
Cora and Ivy ran into the dining room with their arms full of cuttings from the last of the café’s pink azaleas. “It’s scary out there!” Cora said worriedly.
Ivy looked concerned, too. “The clouds are moving fast, and some of them are the color of bruises. On the Discovery Channel they said most tornadoes occur between three p.m. and nine p.m. and from March to May. It’s three-forty-five and it’s the first week of May.”
Delta dismissed statistics and the force of nature with a wave of her hands. “It’s just a thunderstorm, sweeties. These old mountains rumble like a bear, sometimes. Come on. Let’s get those azaleas in some vases.” She smoothed a preening hand over her turquoise outfit. “We’ll arrange them on the ‘set’ of my show, so my kitchen looks pinkish and blossom-ish.”
She steered the girls toward the kitchen, where I’d already set up the camera on a tripod. I’d also clamped several utility lights here and there to fill in the shadows and brighten the ambience. I’d never realized how much I knew about basic stage craft before. Martin Scorsese had nothing to worry about for Oscar competition, but I could definitely produce and direct Delta’s audition tape for a cooking show.
As I followed Delta and the girls a blinding flash of lightning made me jump. Its immediate thunderclap shook the entire restaurant. Cora shrieked. I peered out the windows and halted. Storms didn’t usually scare me—even I couldn’t imagine being toasted by lightning—but the churning brew of clouds over Ten Sisters made a knot in my stomach. The parking lot had gone so dark the automatic light on the café’s sign suddenly switched on. Huge gusts of wind rocked the trees.
My cell phone buzzed. Thomas. He was building new pasture fences at the house with a crew that included Santa. “I’m coming
down there,” he announced. “Pike says a tornado’s been sighted west of Turtleville. Heading your way.”
“Relax. Delta tells me the Cove almost never gets tornadoes. Ten Sisters and Hog Back form a natural obstacle course. The funnel clouds break up trying to cross the mountains.”
“Tell that to a tornado while it’s sneaking up the hollow along Ruby Creek. I’ll be there soon. In the meantime, convince Delta to take you and the girls on a tour of the root cellar.”
“Only if you stay up on the ridge and take our construction team on a tour of Granny’s root cellar. Don’t you dare start this way in that tin can of an old truck.”
“Don’t dis my truck. Go downstairs,” he ordered. “Now.”
Click. I frowned at the cell phone, stuck it in the pocket of my jeans, then jumped again as lightning struck so close the air snapped. Boom. The café’s windows rattled. An enamelware coffee cup made a loud clatter as it fell off a display shelf. Cora squealed and came running my way. I swung her up into my arms and hugged her tightly. “It’s okay, Corazon, sssh.” Delta, with Ivy on wide-eyed alert beside her, appeared in the kitchen door waving a flashlight. “Who wants to see where my grandpa hid his liquor still?” she asked cheerfully.
We quickly followed her down a back hall toward the cellar door. Halfway there, the café suddenly began to shiver. The ceiling lights went out. Framed antique calendars and folk-art paintings of farm scenes danced on the walls. And a roar—yes, like the train people always describe—filled our ears.
“Into the toilet!” Delta yelled.
We darted into the café’s indoor restroom, a small one-seater where an old white sink and avocado-green commode vied for attention among framed photos of Delta’s celebrity fans. I found myself face-to-face with an autographed picture of Garth Brooks. “Get down!” Delta shouted. The four of us huddled on the floor. I pushed Cora and Ivy under the sink.
“We’ll be fine!” I promised them, touching their faces.
“Hang on!” Delta shouted above the noise. Everything was shaking. Everything was dark. Suddenly I was back in the Trans Am, speeding out of control. Panic blurred my brain.
The restroom door slammed shut behind me. The café shrieked and groaned. I heard Delta cry out in shared misery. Her beloved café, our beloved café, was suffering. Timbers crashed, wires ripped free, windows shattered. Suddenly the hallway collapsed against the restroom door, making it bulge inward on its sturdy old hinges. The restroom’s ceiling began to dribble plaster on us, then bits of wood. I threw my arms over the girls and burrowed under the sink with them as the restroom’s big ceiling fixture hit the sink. Chunks of glass sprayed in all directions, and the fixture’s heavy metal base bounced off my shoulder.
I heard Delta groan. Chills went through me. I flung out a hand and gripped the front of her turquoise suit.
She didn’t move.
And then it was quiet.
The train moved on, lifted back into the clouds, caught the fast track to oblivion. I began to hear Cora’s soft whimpers and Ivy’s rattled breaths. It was dark, it was hot, and the café—or what was left of it—creaked and shifted around us. A draft of damp air curled down from the attic through a foot-wide hole where the light-fixture had hung.
“It’s all right, it’s over,” I heard myself telling the girls, while I fervently patted their heads and faces, instinctively checking for warmth, life, praying for no slick texture like blood. When I fumbled one hand over Delta’s head I wasn’t so lucky. I drew back my hand at the wetness. “Delta!”
She moved a little and mumbled. “Guess I . . . was wrong. About tornadoes.”
I scrambled around and located her flashlight. With a click of my thumb, we had light. A quick survey showed Cora and Ivy were terrified but unhurt. When I trained the beam on Delta she was slumped against the restroom wall, squinting in pain. A wide stream of blood trickled down the right side of her face. I aimed the light at her scalp, probed gently with one shaking forefinger, and found a small gash in the center of a swelling lump.
“I’m not doing your makeup anymore if you insist on bleeding,” I teased hoarsely. She managed a smile. I turned to the girls. “Ivy, squeeze in here beside Delta.” I pulled a wad of toilet paper from a roll. “Hold this on her cut. She’s going to be just fine. And so are we.”
Ivy wedged herself next to Delta and pressed the toilet paper on the wound. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“I don’t like this cave,” Cora mewled.
“Come here, sweetie.” I pulled her into my lap. “We’re just fine, and all we have to do is wait for Thomas to come. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You hold the flashlight for me. Good girl.” I pulled out my cell phone, blessed the day it was invented, and started to punch the speed dial number for Thomas. But he beat me to it. The phone buzzed.
“Tell me you’re all right,” he said into my ear. I heard the deep rumble of the truck’s engine, speeding. His voice was deceptively calm. He had flat-lined his fears, his memories, his horror. Not again, he must be thinking.
“I’m just fine, really.” Casual. Relaxed. And the critics said I couldn’t really act. Hah.
“The girls? Delta?”
“Fine, too. But the café is a wreck.”
“I’m only five minutes away. I’ve got Santa with me. Jeb’s on the way, and Pike, and everyone Pike can marshal.”
“Delta’s got a scratch on her head, but it doesn’t appear to be serious. The only problem is, we’re stuck in the bathroom. The door’s blocked.” I guided Cora’s wobbly hand, holding the flashlight, and we looked up through the hole in the ceiling. “The light fixture fell, and I can see all the way through to the attic. Well . . . what’s left of the attic. Delta, your bathroom has a skylight, now. With a nice breeze.” As I aimed the flashlight through the hole, something caught my eye. A wisp of gray moving through the air. Just the faintest whirl of dust? Sure. Or just my imagination. Of course. Of course.
My skin went ice-cold. My blood retreated to my bones. Terror seeped from invisible burns submerged by scars. My body would never forget those wounds, would never forget the effect of fire.
“I smell smoke,” Ivy said in a low voice.
So did I.
Thomas
My heart stopped in my chest. Not fire. Not again. Not for Cathy, not for Ivy and Cora, not for Delta. Not for Ethan, or Sherryl, or the child that had lived inside her. Not for me. No. Not this time. Never, again.
“Call the fire department,” I told Santa, throwing the phone to him as I drove. “Get the forestry service. Get anyone with a hose and a bucket and a shovel full of sand. Get them.”
“Oh, shit,” Joe groaned, and began punching numbers.
I drove. My ancient truck roared dutifully along the creek trail. I steered around downed trees. The tornado had ripped massive hardwoods and firs from the creek banks. I swerved onto the pavement of the Trace and the truck skidded. Two wheels left the concrete. But the squat, strong old workhorse didn’t roll; it hugged the road like a friend. It knew it was still respected, still needed, it had a job to do.
I stomped the gas pedal. We careened up the road.
When the café came into view I saw a thin plume of smoke already rising from the wreckage. Bile rose in my throat. I spit it out the truck’s open window. The wind brought back the faint sound of sirens heading from Turtleville. Pike was racing from the opposite end of the county. Jeb and the crew from the house weren’t far behind me and Santa.
I stared at the smoke. Cathy, I won’t let anything happen to you, or the girls, or Delta. I swear to you. I swear. I swear to you, Sherryl, and Ethan. Not again.
It looked as if the café had been sideswiped by an enormous hand. The entire right side of the house had collapsed inward, and that end of the roof was scattered in pieces through the pasture beyond the oaks. I slid the truck to a stop inches from the wreckage of the side porch. The Privy was now just a two-foot-high pile of debris. Flattened. “I?
??ve got to get into the attic,” I yelled to Santa. “I can get them out of the bathroom through the ceiling.”
“You can’t climb into that wreckage; you can’t get up there! Hold up, wait for the boys from the fire department with the ladder truck!”
I gunned the truck’s engine, threw it into low gear, and aimed for a wall of the Privy that had tilted on the debris. I’d use it as a ramp. Santa whooped as the truck climbed the pile the way a beetle lurches up a pile of twigs. By the time the axle finally jammed on a timber the truck halted, nose up, front wheels spinning in thin air, but with its front grill snuggly set against the jagged edges of the attic floor.
“Brother,” Joe said breathlessly, “You just turned this piece-of-shit old truck into a mountain goat.”
I pulled my tire iron from beneath the seat, climbed out, vaulted onto the truck’s hood, and crawled under what was left of the attic roof.
Smoke wafted around me gently, closing like a lethal blanket over my lungs. I smelled the dust of the World Trade Center’s North Tower, I felt the impact of air weighted by doom. Welcome back to your nightmares, it whispered. Will you and Cathy beat me this time?
Cathy
I heard noises outside, but I was too panicked to analyze them. Hot. It was hot in the tiny bathroom, and the air already seemed to thicken, ready to smother, to suffocate us. “Hold these over your noses,” I told Delta and the girls, handing out paper towels I soaked in the sink. I splashed water on the front of my t-shirt and wiped my face. The acrid smoke couldn’t be ignored, now. Sweat dripped from my skin as I climbed onto the commode, furiously jabbing the wooden handle of a commode brush at the rim of the hole left by the fallen light fixture. Flecks of wood and torn ceiling tile rained down on me, Delta, and the girls.
The foot-wide hole slowly widened a little. The commode brush handle splintered and snapped. A thin shard stabbed my palm. I barely noticed. “There, done!” I called to the girls. “Cora, climb up. Ivy, you give her a boost. Then I’m going to lift you up, Cora, and you’re going to climb through the hole in the ceiling. It’s big enough for you. Once you’re out, I’ll work on it some more, and then Ivy can crawl through. Come on, now.”