Lynda’s Makeup and Stuff.
The stenciling on my cosmetic case had faded, but I could still make out Velma’s handwriting. When I was fifteen, she had labeled it for me with blue-and-yellow marker so my nieces would leave it be. The case sat high on the shelf above the toilet, and I frowned at it, wondering why I had kept it so long, but even while I wondered, I knew the answer.
As I sat alone in my dry bathtub, fully clothed, I let my mind wander. Velma had presented the plastic bin to me for my birthday, complete with my very own stash of cosmetics. Back then I shared a bedroom with two of my nieces, and at the time, I was proud to have something that belonged solely to me.
But of course, Ansel and Velma’s children didn’t need labels to make them feel secure in their home. Unlike me. Those four words had given me a sense of ownership, because that bin belonged to me and nobody else in the house. It was mine alone, and I could hide anything in it without fearing the other kids would get it. If they had tampered with Lynda’s Stuff, they would’ve had to deal with Velma’s wrath.
I shifted in the tub, trying to find a comfortable position, but the seam of my jeans kept digging into my hip. The wind raged outside the house, and occasionally I could hear the siren wailing from downtown. That siren always went off, though, so I didn’t get alarmed. After pulling myself from the tub, I scurried to the bedroom, grabbed two pillows and a quilt, and resumed my station in the bathroom. This would be a waste of time.
Right before I left her house, Velma had cornered me about taking cover if the storm got bad, hence the bathroom hangout. No windows. No glass. Interior room. When Ruthie had been young, there were a few storms where we actually pulled her twin mattress into the bathroom on top of us, but I didn’t bother this time. Tossing the pillows into the tub, I plopped back down, pleased to discover my backside was a teensy bit more comfortable. I sat on one pillow and leaned back on the other, resting my head against the tile. Lynda’s Makeup and Stuff caught my eye again.
I suppose I had always had a private box. Even after I married, I kept my trinkets and mementos—and letters—in the firebox, where Hoby wouldn’t mess with them. At least I told myself he wouldn’t, but looking back I wondered if he had known about them all along … and if I had added to his insecurity.
Wind shifted through the attic above my head, sounding like air being let out of a tire, and when the lights quietly clicked off, goose bumps tickled across my shoulders like gnats. But it was only darkness. Nothing permanent. I reached over the tub and ran my palms across the cold tile floor, searching for my cell phone, and then I turned on the flashlight app and let its glow warm the room.
A crash of thunder reminded me of the night Clyde took me to see the windmills in the lightning storm, and I wished I were there now instead of stuffed in my tub. The wind in the rafters changed into a howl, matching the eerie shadows created by the dim light, and when a loud crash sounded outside in the yard, my heart raced. The house seemed to be breathing in and out with the storm, the walls creaking as though they might be ripped away from the foundation at any minute. Easing to one hip, I pulled both pillows over my head and squeezed my eyes shut.
This was worse than I’d thought. My family crossed my mind. Velma’s house was jam-packed without enough bathtubs or interior closets to protect everyone. And Dodd and Ruthie would be at the church building with Fawn and JohnScott. I gripped the pillows in hardened fists, trying to imagine where they would all take shelter. Dodd’s mother didn’t live too far from there, so maybe they would go to her house.
And Clyde. He had worked this afternoon. By now he would be at his trailer house, the most dangerous type of structure in high winds. But no, he would be at church with the others. Wouldn’t he?
Another blast shook the house, and the wind howled even louder. A sharp crash two feet away rattled my nerves, and I cried out. But it was only the old makeup kit that had fallen from the shelf and scattered across the floor. I shone my light and saw that the kit’s dry and hardened plastic had broken in pieces. Just as well.
I hugged a pillow against my chest. My family members were clustered in two separate places, but at least they were together. As usual, I was alone. A cramp tightened my stomach, and I wished I had stayed at Velma’s. Why didn’t I? It was just like me to run off by myself. That’s what I preferred … usually. But this time I felt like it would have been better to be with them, smashed into the little ranch house, surrounded by love.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to block out the vision my imagination had conjured. Clyde crouched in his trailer as it whirled through the air, three hundred feet above the ground. A sob shot from my throat like a volcanic eruption, and I was so caught off guard that I inhaled and sat up straight. Crying wasn’t something I did, but at the moment, it seemed like a very good idea. Another crash shook the house, this time seeming to have come from the back, and when I heard breaking glass, I assumed it was my bedroom window.
I inhaled ragged breaths as I feared for my life and the lives of my family. And Clyde. As the storm intensified, I eased back down to lay on my side in the tub. My knees wanted to habitually curl up to my chest, but the sides of the tub wouldn’t allow it, so I pulled the pillow down over my ears and began to hum. Not a melody, just notes, sounds, something for my lungs to do besides whimper.
The bathroom door rattled as though a monster wanted in, but I didn’t stop humming. Even when the commode gurgled loudly, even when the air seemed to be sucked from the room, even when I could no longer hear the sound of my own vocal cords over the fury of the storm. The oxygen I breathed seemed charged with electricity, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. Then the wind came closer, on the other side of the bathroom wall, as though my bedroom had been opened up and exposed to the rage. My humming turned to crying again, but I no longer held back the tears. My fears had given way to a primal instinct for survival, and I openly sobbed. And prayed.
God, please don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to die.
Something slammed against the opposite side of the bathroom wall and rang slightly as if it were metallic, and I hunkered down even more. But then, suddenly and eerily, I could hear the siren again, rising and falling on the wind, no longer drowned out by the storm’s anger. In fifteen more seconds, the piercing howls had stopped completely, and an unearthly silence fell over the house.
I didn’t move. Was it over? Was I safe? A low, rumbling thunder growled in the distance, but it sounded like the beast had been tamed.
The heels of my tennis shoes pressed against one side of the tub, and my elbows shoved against the other. Every muscle was taut as though I could hold myself in that slick-sided tub, just by my own willpower. In the distance I heard the wail of an emergency vehicle.
My fingers were clenched tightly into fists, but slowly I relaxed them and pushed myself up, fumbling for my phone. It wasn’t bright enough to calm my nerves, and my hands shook, sending trembling shadows jittering across the walls. On shaky legs I stood and tripped over the edge of the tub, stumbling over makeup and broken plastic.
I paused with my hand on the doorknob, imagining the wind would still be raging on the other side of it. My brain felt foggy, and I blinked to clear my head, but it only made me dizzy. Jerking the door open, I shone the light into the hallway, then stepped toward the living room. A soft breeze came through my bedroom door, sweeping past my ankles like ice water. When I shone the light in there, I could tell the corner of the room was missing, but I couldn’t see much else. It gave me the irrational feeling that the house was no longer grounded on earth but up in a tree, or on top of another house, or dangling from a light pole. I hurried to the front door, fearing the whole structure might topple at any moment, burying me alive.
The front door dragged along the hardwood floor, refusing to swing open more than a foot, but I squeezed through to the porch. I staggered down the steps and halfway to the street, where I turned back to peer at my home, fully expecting it to be visibly altered, but it wasn’t too bad. The hatchback still sat in the driveway, but the carport had been peeled away like the top of a tin can, and the tree that Clyde had trimmed after the last storm had snapped off at the ground.
My arms and legs felt numb, and my ears seemed to have Styrofoam covering them. Everything I felt and heard was dull and muffled as though I were underwater. Neighbors stumbled from their houses. Someone was moaning. In the distance a child screamed. And through it all, a light smattering of raindrops fell softly, as if Mother Nature was teasing us, claiming the storm had never happened.
I clawed at my cell phone, desperate to check on Velma and Ruthie and the others, but I had no service. Even my flashlight was getting dim, its battery low. I shut it off and stood still in the middle of the sidewalk, not knowing what to do, not knowing if my family was alive or dead, not knowing if I could survive if something had happened. To Clyde.
Headlights came around the corner. A car moving slowly to avoid fallen tree branches and other debris in the street. I squinted when the glare hit my eyes, but then I got a better look at my house as the lights swept across. All I noticed was that the roof slanted to the left, and my groggy brain registered that I shouldn’t go back inside. Not safe.
I wrapped my arms around myself, gripping my waist, and started to hum again as I rocked back and forth.
“Lynda.” A light pat on my shoulder told me the owner of the car had stopped. She now had her arm around me. She was talking, asking if I was all right, insisting we needed to go to the Dairy Queen.
“The Dairy Queen?” I asked, barely able to form the words for all the questions flooding my mind. Velma and her kids out at the farm. Dodd and Ruthie at the church. But Clyde wasn’t at the Dairy Queen. No reason to go there.
“Hurry!” She sounded frantic. “It missed the church building, and Ruthie heard from Velma. Your family is all right. They’re safe, but Clyde’s in trouble at the Dairy Queen.” She tugged on my waist. “Come with me, Lynda.”
And then my ears popped, and the Styrofoam fell away, and I was no longer numb, no longer seeing things through a fog. I was alert and adrenaline charged, but my heart tightened into an immovable mass of clay. Clyde was in danger. If something happened to him, I would be alone for the rest of my life.
I yielded to the gentle pulls of those two soft hands. The person who came to get me. The one who knew I belonged with Clyde, and the one who understood what it felt like to be alone for so very, very long.
Susan.