- -
- 100%
- +
The wet sand made the ATV’s tires a bit sluggish, but Rigo was able to get some traction and speed as he headed toward the main road leading to Gulfview Boulevard.
At the stoplight, Rigo tightened the hood of his rain jacket around the baseball cap he was wearing to keep the water out of his eyes as much as possible. This particular ATV had a sun cover on it, and while there wasn’t a drop of sunshine in the sky anymore, it did keep some of the rain out. Just not much.
Kind of like Gloria. Now that he’d seen her, had talked to her, the sound of her voice and the look of her face played in his mind like a video loop. He couldn’t shake her from his thoughts, not even with all he needed to do to finish securing the island’s beaches and providing support for water rescues before Hurricane Hope arrived.
As he jammed the ATV in gear as hard as he could, pushing the little green four-wheeler through the rising water, Rigo noticed a small waterspout twisting out of the harbor and hopping easily onto the waterlogged street. Hurricane Hope wasn’t playing games. A gust of wind knocked into the waterspout, shearing the little twister and stopping its momentum.
Thump. Thump.
What on earth?
He felt like he was just one step ahead of being swept away or blown away, but since he hadn’t seen a car on the streets since he’d left the beach, Rigo quickly stopped the ATV, knowing he needed to make sure that whatever fell on him wasn’t going to put him in any further danger.
He stood in the middle of the street, checked the cover above him and saw two sand trout on top of the soaked brown canvas. They’d been sucked up by the waterspout and dropped on top of the ATV when the spout died out.
Wow. It was raining fish.
A fishnado. He didn’t even know what to think about that.
Static crackled and then Rigo heard a voice. “Chief Vasquez, can you give me a 10-8?”
Rigo pulled his radio out of the plastic bag he usually carried it in to protect it from water while out on patrol. Service on the radio frequencies had been spotty all afternoon and was getting worse.
“This is Vasquez. I’m near Fifteenth, heading for the Park Board lot to drop off the last ATV. Can someone pick me up when I get there and take me back to my truck?”
“Not right now, sir.” Rigo could barely pick out enough syllables through the crackling to understand what the dispatcher was saying. “All of our available officers are being directed to the causeway to begin shutting it down.”
“They’re what?”
“Closing the causeway. The winds have come on much stronger sooner than anyone expected, and they are now too strong for cars to be at the top of the bridge.”
Even the pounding of the rain and the static on the radio couldn’t drown out the one thought in Rigo’s mind.
Gloria.
She’d called him to help keep her patient safe. He doubted they’d had enough time since he dropped them off to get Gloria’s things together and subsequently get off the island. With the causeway closing, they’d both be stuck here, and the young woman was in labor. Rigo had to think of something, and fast.
Rigo turned back toward the beach pavilion to get his truck, consigning the four-wheeler to wash away with the eventual tide. As he struggled to drive the little utility vehicle, he bowed his head, not just against the force of the blowing rain, but in a silent prayer that he still had enough time to rescue Gloria and get her off the island.
* * *
Gloria knew she was running out of time. But she couldn’t stop herself from looking out the window and watching the storm clouds roll in. Tanna had the TV on in the living room, and as Gloria walked past, she recognized Rick O’Connell from NWN, the National Weather News channel, reporting live from the barrier wall that ran along the beach at Gulfview Boulevard. Rick O’Connell’s presence was the sign that the storm was going to be massive. He never went anywhere that wasn’t going to be a really big deal.
A heavy mist was falling on Rick and his bright yellow raincoat. He wasn’t wearing the hood, though, and his trendy longer haircut was blowing back and forth with the gusts.
It was weird to think this was all happening right outside her window—literally—and yet, she was watching the ever-heavier lines of rain and buffeting winds on TV, as though it could have been anywhere in the world.
She’d been through a number of hurricanes since her family moved to Port Provident from Mexico when she was a child. They’d lived on the Yucatán Peninsula, so she’d seen a few there, too. Gloria considered herself a hurricane pro at this point. Go to the local big box store. Buy plenty of batteries, bottled water, a new flashlight or two, and load up on the nonperishable food. She had a great mini propane stove that she’d boiled many a pot of water on to make posthurricane ramen noodles. She knew when to fill up the bathtub and had studied the required elevation survey of her lot before making an offer on the house. She had moving things to higher ground down to a science.
But this time, it wasn’t just about her. She had a pregnant teenager in her care—and that girl could go into the next stage of labor and become a mama at any minute.
“Gloria. You’re still here.”
She jumped at the sound of a deep voice as her front door opened.
“Rigo.” Ice caught in her throat at the reappearance of the man who’d kept popping into every thought she’d had for the past half hour.
“They’ve closed the causeway early. The wind is gaining speed fast.” He shut the door behind him with a soft click, then stood near Gloria in front of her only window that wasn’t covered with plywood to guard against flying debris. Tanna got off the couch to take a look, as well. They watched in comfortable silence for a few moments as the sheets of rain beat against the small window and loose palm fronds swirled in the streets below, blowing and tumbling in the wind. Suddenly, Gloria became aware that something was very wrong.
“Rigo! You’re dripping on the floor!” A puddle had begun to collect near the sturdy work boots he was wearing.
He shrugged, a sheepish grin catching the corners of his narrow lips. “I’m soaked to the bone, but that puddle isn’t me.”
“Gloria?” Tanna’s usually soft voice jumped an octave. “I think that’s me. I think my water broke.”
Gloria’s heart sank. A crack of adrenaline to match the lightning bolts outside shot through her body. “Okay, if we can’t get her to a hospital off the island, we’ve got to get her to Provident Medical Center, then. The clinic is closed, obviously.”
Rigo shook his head. “Can’t. I heard it on the radio on my way over here. They’re near the harbor and the water is higher there than anywhere else. Their power is already down and their main generator failed. They have only the absolute bare minimum amount of backup power. It’s a good thing they evacuated all the critical patients this morning and discharged everyone who could be sent home. They’re not accepting any patients right now. I’m afraid it’s going to get more dire before this night is over.”
Gloria settled Tanna back on the sofa, then quickly checked her rate of breathing and the time between the pulse of her contractions. Everything in Tanna’s body was kicking into gear.
So was Hurricane Hope. A gust of wind shook the front windows to the house.
Gloria looked around her little home. She’d never stayed on the island through a storm as big as what the NWN reporters were now saying Hope would evolve to. She thought back to the elevation certificate she and Felipe had to obtain as part of the home’s purchase. The home was behind the barrier wall that ran behind the beach and protected the majority of the residential areas of the city, but a generous storm surge would put several feet of water into her home, without question.
She’d made a career from out-of-hospital deliveries at the birth center. She was confident in her skills, no matter where she needed to use them. She knew Tanna was at low risk of any kind of complications, but even so, Gloria always operated from the vantage point of caution where mamas and babies were concerned.
And right now, caution had been thrown to the wind and blown miles away. The little home on Travis Place was no place for Tanna to labor and give birth.
Gloria paced, three steps forward, followed by three steps back. “But if the causeway is closed, we’re trapped on the island. I don’t want to take her to the shelter of last resort at the high school, either, if I don’t have to. Too many people. She doesn’t need an audience. Stress can slow down labor and complicate it, putting us in an emergency situation. This is stressful enough. I don’t want to add to it.”
Rigo looked out the window. “I’ve got the beach patrol truck. It’s a four-by-four, so we should be able to get back to Tía Inez’s house just fine. But not if we wait too much longer.”
Gloria’s head snapped around. “Your aunt’s house? What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself. The shelter isn’t ideal. But you can’t stay here. I don’t know what kind of night I’m going to have. I figure I’m going to be rescuing some pretty stubborn people who should have already left from their homes.” Rigo smiled. “But there’s no one more stubborn than my aunt, who just so happens to live in a house that survived the Great Storm of 1910 and every storm since.”
Gloria started to shake her head. The whole thing sounded crazy. Rigo held up his hand, wordlessly asking Gloria to hear him out.
“You can stay with her and take care of each other. I don’t expect the water to get up to the second story.” Rigo raked a hand through his wet hair, sending a small stream of water down his shirt and to the floor to join the widening puddle. “You’re not going to have lights or running water anywhere you go, not even at the shelter. I thought about it on the way over here and I think Inez’s house is your best option right now.” Gloria tried to focus on making a decision, but Rigo had on a white Beach Patrol T-shirt, and the water had rendered it practically see-through and as close as a second skin.
Just for a second, Gloria stopped running birthing scenarios in her head and caught herself staring. He clearly still works out as much as he did at eighteen on the baseball team.
Gloria shook her head to clear her derailed train of thought.
“What, you won’t go? You don’t really have a choice, Glo.” Rigo’s voice sounded strained. He looked at her, then Tanna, then the door.
“Gloria, please? Can we go there? Please.” There was no escaping the mix of pleading and rising panic in Tanna’s voice.
“Okay. I need ten minutes to finish gathering my things,” Gloria said to Rigo. Tanna’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Five. I don’t think the truck will be able to handle us staying here ten. The water’s already risen two inches up the tires while we’ve been talking. I’m starting to worry about the truck starting again.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at her straight-on. “Felipe would want you to take care of yourself first and get out of here as fast as you can. Stuff can be replaced. People can’t. You know that.”
Ferocity rose in Gloria, like an angry cat who’d been out on the streets too long. “Felipe? You lost all right to speak to me of Felipe when you led him into an ambush, then didn’t even have the decency to show up at his funeral. Believe me, Rigo, I know you can’t replace people.”
Her breath came out in short bursts through flared nostrils. Her jaw muscles clenched together. She knew she was right on this, and she would not back down. Felipe and his memory belonged to her. Not to the so-called best friend who bailed. She would not back down. Not even when she saw what looked like hurt in his eyes.
Rigo turned away and looked back out the window. “It wasn’t an ambush. Gloria, it was a traffic stop gone very, very wrong. You know that. The official investigation told you that.”
She knew every word of that report by heart. “Semantics don’t matter. He should have been there at the hospital. With me. With Mateo. You knew he was on his way to us in the hospital. You should have called someone else for backup.”
“He was nearby and there was no one else I trusted like Felipe. I knew they had drugs in the car. I knew something was going on. What I didn’t know was that they had a guy with a gun in the trunk who was going to pop out and start shooting.” He paused, then looked at her, but his brown eyes were blank. “Felipe was my partner. My best friend.”
Gloria felt her heart drain, as if she’d been shot point-blank in the chest. “No. He was my partner. My best friend. My husband. And now he’s gone.”
She couldn’t control herself. She buried her head in her hands. She would not cry in front of Rigo. “The memories in this house are all I have.”
Tanna laid on the couch and gave a soft moan that jarred Gloria out of the argument and out of the past. “Five minutes. I’m going out to start the truck while you pack and gather what you’ll need for the birth. Then we’ve got to go. I’m not about to leave you here so you can drown and go join him.”
Rigo walked back out in the rain, and Gloria took in one more panoramic view of the main area of the 1930s-era house she and Felipe had loved so much and bought and spent countless hours updating and renovating.
Even years after that terrible night when everything changed, Gloria had never had enough heart to change Mateo’s nursery. So everything had remained neat as a pin, and more or less just how it had been the last time Felipe walked out the door to go on patrol and Gloria had gone out to get a quick check from her OB because her kick counts were off.
Gloria looked out the little window again and saw that her street was now best described as a river. Rigo wasn’t exaggerating about the situation getting more dire by the minute. The water covered the front yard and would most likely continue to rise, then be creeping under the front door sooner rather than later. And when that happened, her orderly little house and orderly little life—the one she managed so tightly and fiercely because the alternative was too much to bear—would change tonight. And just thinking about it made an indescribable heaviness fill her chest, like thick cement reaching slowly to all corners of a mold.
Tanna exhaled deeply from her spot on the couch. “I knew I’d be nervous when labor finally got here. I just never imagined I’d be this nervous.”
“Well, Tanna, there’s a lot going on. It’s understandable that you’re scared. But I’m here and I’m not leaving your side and we’ll get through this together.” Gloria knew she couldn’t show Tanna her own burden about leaving this house and the memories she’d shared here. Tanna had enough worries of her own today.
“Lie down while I gather my things. I’ll check your dilation and other vitals as soon as we get to Inez’s house. You’re going to do great, Mama. Babies have been born in all kinds of conditions, and the vast majority of them throughout history haven’t had electricity, either. Your body knows exactly what to do, and it’s telling us that it’s almost there.”
Gloria opened the door to the storage closet in the hall where she kept the suitcases and pulled one out along with the plastic storage bin of birth supplies she kept packed at all times. Everything she needed—even shots of Pitocin in case of bleeding and a small tank of oxygen for mom or baby—was inside.
She made herself keep going, pulling a few shirts and shorts and pairs of sturdy shoes out of the closet. She grabbed a pair of pajamas and carefully folded them on top of the stack. Then she went into the bathroom and filled her toiletries bag with a few overnight essentials.
Gloria decided to walk through the house to see if there was anything else she needed to bring. As she passed by her desk, she reached in the drawer and grabbed the folder that Felipe had always kept their important papers in. From the bookshelf, she grabbed her own 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.”
Chapter Three
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 everything to prove.
* * *
“Gloria?” Tanna’s shrill voice came from the bedroom. “The contractions. They’re stronger.” Ever since Tanna’s water had broken, all of the telltale physical signs had followed quickly one after another. This baby was coming and it wasn’t waiting for a sunny day.
Tonight, Gloria and Tanna were going to face the greatest storm Port Provident had seen in more than a century and they were going to face the greatest force Tanna had ever known as she brought her baby into this crazy, rain-soaked world.
And they would do it with no power, no modern conveniences and no medical backup.
It would take every ounce of skill and training Gloria had. She knew this test would actually take more than that. It would take every word of prayer Gloria knew to utter.
Except she didn’t know how to utter many anymore.
Since the night she’d lost both Felipe and Mateo, she’d become convinced God had better things to do than to work in her life the way He used to. He’d taken everything and she hadn’t known what to say back to Him in reply.