Bible and the family Bible, given to her by her abuela in Mexico. Gloria walked robot-like through each room of the house, not seeing much, until she stepped into the small blue room and stopped. She hardly ever came in this room. Most weeks, she just ran the vacuum across the carpet as quickly as possible.
Some weeks, she still had to stop the vacuum in the hall.
The rocking chair she’d planned to rock her own baby in had never moved from the corner. Without realizing what she was doing, Gloria crossed the room, sat in the chair and started rocking.
She picked up the oversize light brown teddy bear from the floor next to the chair and cradled it in her arms, the same way she’d been able to hold Mateo after he’d been stillborn—just the one time, with his eyes closed and no butterfly whispers of baby breaths in his lungs.
Fire pushed into her throat and collected like lava. Hot, slick, overpowering. The memories burned her mind and her soul.
This room was the last connection she had to her son who had died before he’d ever had a chance to live. Her darling baby. The only baby she would ever have.
What if she woke up tomorrow and this room was gone?
What if she woke up tomorrow and the last place she could feel Mateo’s presence and see Felipe’s labor of love in every stroke of paint on these walls...what if it was all gone?
Gloria hugged the teddy bear fiercely, then leaned over and bit the stuffed ear tightly to muffle the sobs that she couldn’t muster the fight to keep inside.
Tanna waddled into the doorway. “Whose room is this?”
A cottony feeling choked Gloria’s throat and she tried to wipe the tears off her cheeks with the bear’s ear. “It belonged to my son, Mateo.”
“Did he evacuate already?”
Gloria lifted her eyes. “I guess you could say that. He’s in Heaven.” She struggled to hold her emotions inside. Tanna had her own journey to motherhood today. She didn’t need to know the details of the birth of Gloria’s son.
Gloria rose from the chair, walked a few steps and climbed on a nearby box, stretching her arms as far as she could to tuck the bear on the top shelf of the narrow closet.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Tanna frowned and looked around the perfectly arranged room, so clearly at odds with a baby being gone for years. “I just came to tell you that Rigo says we have to go.”
Rigo considered Gloria and Tanna one more rescue in a long line of them he’d be doing for another couple of hours. The 9-1-1 switchboard was overrun tonight with people who thought they’d throw bravado in the face of Hurricane Hope, then found her might thrown right back at them with wind-whipped fury. He got the two ladies dropped off safely at Tía Inez’s house and then got right back in his truck and out on the streets to do what he could.
He didn’t like that there were still people on the island, and he didn’t know how much longer they’d be able to rescue stranded citizens. At some point, those in charge would call off the rescues because they would start to endanger those conducting them.
But until that call was made, the Provident Island Beach Patrol team was on the front line. As seasoned lifeguards and water-rescue professionals, they were deferred to by even the high-ranking members of the police and sheriff’s departments at times like these.
Still, eight people couldn’t save the world.
But they’d keep trying until they were told to stop.
Conditions around the island were deteriorating rapidly. As he tried to decide where to head next, he looked in the distance to the lights on inside the Grand Provident Hotel, where city officials had set up their command center. As he watched, the lights flickered, blinked twice, then all went out, taking the streetlights and the rest of the electricity with them.
His radio popped once more with static. The command center would be running on generator power now, and like the radio’s reception, it was spotty. Rigo could barely make out the words. “Attention all units. The power grid is now down.” The whole island was now in darkness, just awaiting the full wrath of Hope. “You are mandated to take shelter.”
He’d been working the La Misión neighborhood, checking every home for people staying behind in the community where he’d grown up. Gloria and Inez were alone in a sea of water with a very pregnant woman in a house only four blocks behind him.
The command center, where he was expected to be as the storm blew in, was about twelve blocks ahead.
In his younger days, Rigo knew his reputation had been something of a hothead. And those hasty decisions had impacted Gloria’s life not once, but twice. Once when they were eighteen and he left her behind with a broken heart. And again, two years ago, when her life was shattered and he didn’t have the courage to face her.
Gloria didn’t know he’d changed, and no words he could say would convince her. Only actions and time could make up for the hurt he’d caused. He wasn’t going to leave Gloria to face one more uncertain night by herself.
Rigo knew he’d come back to follow the rules, not to hide anymore.
“This is Vasquez. I can’t make it back to the hotel.”
“10-4, Vasquez. Can you get to the shelter at the high school?” The voice on the radio went in and out as the weather conditions cut at the ties of electronic contact.
“No. I’ll take shelter at my aunt’s house in the La Misión neighborhood. I’m not far from there.”
“10-4. God keep you safe, Vasquez. Get here if you can.”
“Amen.” Rigo agreed out loud into the night and hoped that God could hear him over the howl and thrash all around.
The radio’s crackle went silent and Rigo knew this was it. The fury of nature had been building to an extreme all day, but it was now about to be unleashed in a way that Port Provident hadn’t seen since 1910.
Without streetlights, it was impossible to judge the depth or speed of the water. Rigo hadn’t been lying when he said he couldn’t make it to the Grand Provident. Conditions had been precarious for hours, but now it was definitely not safe to drive.
He pulled his truck into what was left of the closest driveway, climbed into the truck bed, and untied the small boat he carried. A flat-bottomed johnboat, it was convenient for search and rescue because the design meant he could maneuver easily in shallow water. He generally carried it everywhere in the bed of his work truck. He’d hauled it out a few times already tonight when he couldn’t reach someone begging for help. Water and waves slapped at him from the sky and the land and he struggled with the plastic boat in the fiercely whipping wind.
With a growl, he righted the boat on the surface of the water which now stood more than bottom-of-tailgate deep. He got himself inside, powered up the motor and set off in the direction of Tía Inez’s house.
Alone on the waterlogged streets, he had everything to lose.
And
