Whipping Trees

So far, Heddy has discovered a German man hiding out at Dr. Monroe's abandoned house. A new boy, Lester comes to the island to stay with his aunt and uncle. Heddy gets her first kiss. Her brother Willis is home from the war and he's changed. Now, the family has to wait out a hurricane.

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I wake up to hear the house shuddering and creaking under the wind's attack. The sound of hurricane winds is something you really can't describe, except to say its more of a rumbling sound. Every once in a while you'll hear a distinct crack and a thud of a trunk snapping or a branch breaking and falling to the ground. I sit up from where I was laying on the little rug beside Willis's bed. He's moving around the room, getting dressed and putting his shoes on.

"Let's go downstairs. I heard a lot of limbs cracking. Bet we lost that old live oak in the side yard."

I wipe the sleep from the corners of my eyes and follow him out of his room and down the stairs.
Momma is standing behind my daddy at the one window with no shutter. She bites her nail nervously. "We've lost two trees," she says to Willis and me. "Can't see anything past those two but that's bad enough. This storm's bad."

"I hope Lester is okay," I say more to myself than to anyone else. As much as I like a good storm, I always forget about the random things that can happen. I liked those trees. I used to climb the live oak. It had twisting branches that made it easy to climb higher and higher. It shaded the side of the porch in the summer.

"Wayne and Nancy are old hands at storms. He's fine," Daddy says with a wink in my direction.

A big gust shakes the house, and the windows rattle and a two foot long branch gets tossed on the porch. "Let's get away from this window. We should probably make breakfast while we still have electricity," Daddy says and guides my momma by the shoulders away from the window.

Willis nods to the stairs. "I'm gonna go clean myself up. I'll be down in a few minutes." He goes back upstairs and as soon as we hear the bathroom door close and lock, Momma ushers me into the kitchen. "I see you slept on the floor beside Willis's bed. Did he have another," she pauses before continuing. "Another bad dream?"

"No. I just heard him up and figured he needed company. So, I went in and we talked." For some reason, I don't want to tell them he was afraid. He was ashamed of it and my thinking is he wants it kept private.

"Storms will do that to a person. Makes it hard to sleep," Daddy says. "I had a pretty rough night last night, myself."

Momma melts the butter in the frying pan and another gust shakes the house. The kitchen light flickers for a few seconds but doesn't go off. She waits, staring up at the ceiling before going ahead and cracking the first egg. "Sweetheart, will you put some butter on the bread and put it in the oven?" she looks at Daddy and he carefully cuts the butter thin so it will last until we get more rations.

He let's a piece of cut butter stay on the end of the knife and displays it proudly. "Look at that, Ladybug, so thin you can read the paper through it. Your daddy has the skill of a surgeon."

Willis returns as Momma is plating up the eggs, sunny side up. She moves aside so that Daddy can open the oven door and pull out the toasted bread. "You want any marmalade or honey on your bread?" Daddy asks as he lifts the hot bread up off the metal sheet. He almost tosses it onto the plates as his fingers burn slightly. "Ouch," he mutters, sticking his fingers in his mouth.

"I'm gonna fill up both sinks. I'm afraid the pump on the well is gonna quit." Momma puts the stopper in both sides of the sink and puts dish soap in one side and just plain water in the other. "I just can't have dirty dishes lying around everywhere."

As we all sit at the table, Daddy says grace. The lights flicker on and off several times, before the room is dark. The small window in the back door is all the light that can filter in. Momma goes to the dining room and brings back a white candle. She pulls a box of matches out from under the sink and lights it. "Well, y'all enjoy. This might be the last hot meal for some time."

The conversation dies off as we eat the eggs and sop the runny yolk with our toasted bread. When we have all finished, Momma carries the plates over to the sink, washes them then places them on a dish towel to dry.

I peek out of the window on the kitchen door. I can just make out the ocean in the distance. The sky is the same color as the water, huge whitecaps and sprays that shoot up high in the air the only thing that divides the two.

I wonder how Artie is doing. Did he even know the storm was coming? Once it's over I'll go check on him. I hope he has water, at least. As much as I like storms, I don't think I'd like to be alone in one.

I'm about to get a glass of water from the sink when I hear Willis calling from the living room.

"Hey, somebody's out there. Somebody's in front of the house, down by the road." He's peering out of the unblocked living room window. "What the devil?"

All of us go running towards the spot he's at. "Who is it? You recognize them?"

Willis presses his face closer to the glass. He squints and wipes the foggy condensation from his breath from the pane. "Jesus, I think it's Lester."

I run for the door, only to be grabbed back by the shoulders. "No you don't. I'll go out there," Daddy says, as he grabs his coat from beside the door.

"Be careful," Momma says. She turns to me and Willis. "I hope nothing has happened to the Collettes."

I push my way over to the window and watch. My daddy bending down, his arm around Lester as he steadies him against the jarring wind. Then he and Lester run towards the house. But as soon as I can see Lester more clearly, I know something is wrong.