July 10

I thought I knew what fear was. I thought, For the past year I’ve lived every day afraid; I must understand fear.

I understood nothing.

Last night was horrible. Matt yelled at me, told me that Alex wasn’t good enough for me, that I was disloyal and stupid. Then he and Syl got into a screaming match in their room, so loud we could all hear it downstairs.

Jon didn’t yell, at least not at me. He and Mom had a huge fight. He wanted to go with us and Mom wouldn’t let him. It was so bad she sent me over to Dad’s to bring him back to tell Jon he’d be better off staying home.

Even Charlie got in the act. He came over to talk things out with me.

“I’m glad you’re going with us,” he said. “It makes Hal so happy, and Hal’s the best friend I’ve ever had. But don’t count too much on Alex. He’s a great boy, Miranda, a wonderful boy, but that’s what he is, a boy. A boy who’s been given so much responsibility, he thinks he must be a man.”

That was last night. And awful as it was, I’d give up everything to go back to it.

Matt and Dad went out this morning to chop wood and spend their last day together. Syl hid in her room; Jon, in his. Mom and I cleaned downstairs, carefully staying in different rooms as we dusted and scrubbed.

Alex and Julie came over around ten. “Julie would like to make the food run with Jon,” Alex said. “Is that all right with you, Mrs. Evans?”

Mom nodded. She went to the staircase and hollered to Jon to come down. He did, each step taking longer than the step before.

“Julie wants to go to town with you,” Mom said. “For the food run. All right?”

Jon shrugged.

Julie took that for a yes. “Let’s go,” she said. Jon followed as she left the house.

“I’d like to go out with Miranda if you don’t mind, Mrs. Evans,” Alex said. “I’d like to look for bikes or maybe even a car.”

“It looks like it might rain,” Mom said.

“She’ll be fine,” Alex said. “I’ll look out for her.”

“I’ll get my jacket,” I said. I ran to the closet and got it, giving Mom a peck on the cheek when I returned. “Mom, don’t worry. I won’t melt.”

“All right,” Mom said. “I won’t worry.”

When we got outside, I realized I wouldn’t need my jacket. It was very muggy and close to 70 degrees. There was the smell of thunderstorms in the air. I hoped tomorrow would be better. It would be easier for Mom if I didn’t leave under stormy skies.

“We need more bikes,” Alex said. “You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we’ll need three more.”

“We only have four bikes,” I said. “Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon.”

“Your mother won’t need one,” Alex said. “She never leaves the house.”

“She will someday,” I said. “When she has to.”

“She’ll get a bike then,” Alex said. “In the meantime you’ll need a bike a lot more than she does.”

I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren’t. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.

“I want you so much,” he said, and then he laughed. “I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you.”

“You have me,” I said.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my million doubts flew away.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”

We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we really existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.

It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. “Let’s ride them back,” I suggested. “And go out again to look some more.”

“Good idea,” Alex said, kissing me again. “We’ll look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours.”

We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn’t scared anymore, just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.

We’d gotten back to Howell Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pulled him down instead, and we kissed.

What a dumb word that is, “kiss.” I’ve kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I’ve kissed other boys.

This kiss wasn’t that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.

“Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him. “In the eyes of God and the Church?”

“Does that mean you will?” he asked.

I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.

But then hail started to fall, little pellets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.

“We’ve got to get home,” Alex said as he pulled me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.

It’s been a year since I’ve seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantically down the hill, both of us falling as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.

And then I saw the twister. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.

I yelled to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn’t turn off onto the driveway. Instead he yelled something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.

In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them. And he’d shouted to me to get his missal.

I had only seconds to decide. Do I go back home, warn Mom and Syl, and ride out the tornado in the cellar with them, or do I go to Dad’s, warn Lisa and Charlie, and do the one thing Alex had asked of me?

I turned away from home, rode to Dad’s, jumped off my bike, and pounded frantically on their back door.

Charlie opened it.

“Tornado!” I screamed. “Go to the cellar!”

I didn’t stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure he understood, that he warned Lisa and led her and the baby to safety. I trusted him to do that, as Alex trusted me.

Instead I ran to the parlor and looked frantically for the missal. I went through a pile of textbooks, but it wasn’t there. I felt all the furniture, to see if it was stuffed under cushions, but it didn’t seem to be. I got on the floor, searching under the chairs and sofas. I have no idea how long I looked, maybe a minute, maybe more. But then I caught a glimpse of something in his neatly folded pile of clothes. I flung the clothes until I found the missal.

I raced back toward the kitchen, but I could tell from the terrifying sound, the way the house was beginning to shake, that there wasn’t enough time to get to the cellar. Instead I ran into the little storage closet under the stairwell, clutching the missal tightly, as though it could keep me from harm.

When we were kids, we were forbidden to go in that closet. It was the perfect size to hide in, and we’d always been tempted. But now I was grown up, and the closet was too small for me to stand. I curled up in a ball, making myself as small as possible, so the tornado couldn’t find me.

All around me I could sense the house collapsing, and I felt like a sparrow being sucked into an airplane engine. The sound was ungodly. But the stairwell held, and the tornado passed, and I was still alive.

I pushed against the stairwell door, but it wouldn’t open. I pushed harder, shoving my shoulder against it, but nothing happened. I twisted my torso so my entire chest faced the door, and I rammed my body into the door, pushing, pushing, pushing, but the door stayed shut. There was too much debris piled against it.

I was stuck in the closet, in a tiny space under the staircase. I’d survived the tornado, but now I was buried alive. If no one found me, I’d suffocate.

“Help!” I screamed. “Help!”

“Miranda? Where are you? Are you all right?”

The voice was muffled, as though it was a long way away. Then I realized it was Charlie, calling to me from the cellar.

“I’m in the stairwell closet,” I yelled. “I can’t get the door open. Are you all right? Lisa? The baby?”

“We’re fine,” Charlie shouted. “Keep still, Miranda. Don’t talk anymore. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I shook from relief. Charlie would save me. Death would be cheated, one more time.

But Charlie didn’t come. I heard thuds from the cellar and a noise I couldn’t identify, and then Lisa screamed.

I knew yelling would use up needed air, but I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?” I shouted. “Lisa?”

Lisa didn’t answer. She just screamed, “No! Charlie, no!”

“Charlie!” I shouted. “Charlie, answer me!”

But there was no answer, just the sound of Lisa and Gabriel wailing as though they’d lost their best friend.

I was too stunned to cry. Something had happened. I couldn’t be sure what, but whatever it was, Charlie hadn’t been able to get the cellar door open. He and Lisa and Gabriel were as trapped as I was. They had more room, so they wouldn’t suffocate, but unless someone came and got us out, they would die, just as I would, only their deaths would take longer.

Assuming Charlie hadn’t already died.

It was then, only then, that I realized everybody might have died. I hadn’t warned Mom or Syl. Mom could have been in the sunroom, Syl in her bedroom, when the tornado struck. Matt and Dad were outside chopping wood. And there was no way of knowing where Jon and Julie were, if Alex had gotten to them in time, and if it would have made any difference if he had.

Before I’d shook from relief. Now my body spasmed in terror and grief.

“Lisa! Lisa, are you all right?”

“Daddy!” I screamed. “Daddy, help me!”

“Miranda?” Dad called. “I can hear you, but I don’t know where you are.”

“In the stairwell closet,” I said. “Daddy, get me out. Lisa and Charlie are in the cellar. Something happened to Charlie.”

“Miranda, it’ll be all right,” Dad said. “I’m in the hallway. There’s a pile of rubble blocking the door. I’ll get Matt. We’ll dig you out. Lisa, can you hear me?”

“Hal!” Lisa yelled. “Hal! It’s Charlie. I think he’s dead!”

“Lisa, I can’t get to you,” Dad said. “There’s too much debris. I’m going to get Matt and we’ll dig Miranda out first, and then we’ll get you. All right, darling? Is Gabriel all right?”

“Please.” Lisa sobbed. “Get us out, Hal, please.”

“We will, darling,” Dad said. “You’ll be out before you know it. But first we’ll get Miranda so she can help us. Miranda, relax if you can. You’ll be out in no time.”

“Is Mom all right?” I cried. “Daddy?”

“She’s fine,” Dad said. “So’s Syl. We’ll be back in a minute. Hold on, Miranda. Just a few more minutes.”

I hadn’t heard him come in, because of Lisa and Gabriel crying. But I could hear him leave, and the sound of his moving away from me left me even more shaken.

I told myself to calm down. Dad and Matt would get me out and I’d be fine. Mom and Syl had survived. Lisa might be wrong about Charlie. Alex and Jon and Julie had to be all right. They just had to be. We all did. We’d survived worse, I told myself. We’d get through this together.

I realized then how tightly I was grasping Alex’s missal, and I thought, I can’t let Matt see this. If Matt knew I’d gone for the missal instead of warning Mom and Syl, he would never forgive me.

I knew there could only be one reason why Alex had told me to get it. The passes to the safe town had to be there.

I was in complete darkness, and I didn’t have one of my flashlight pens with me. I held the missal upside down, and an envelope fell out.

I felt it. There were certainly papers in it, and something else, something like tiny buttons.

They were pills, I realized. The sleeping pills Alex had told me about. Pills to allow Julie to sleep through her death.

I slid the envelope under my shirt and tucked the missal into the corner of the closet. Matt would never know. I’d give the envelope to Alex, and we’d go off together just as we’d planned. Dad and Lisa and the baby were fine. Julie would be secure in the safe town, and when she was, Alex could throw the pills away. He and I would make our life together. We’d have our tomorrows.

I could hear them then, Dad and Matt and Syl. When I heard Syl’s voice, I knew Mom really was all right and I would be also.

“There’s a lot of debris here,” Dad said. “Miranda, we’ll get you out, but it’s going to take a few minutes. Just let us know you’re okay, and then don’t worry about it.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I said, crying and laughing. “Take your time.”

Dad made a sound I decided was laughter. I listened as he, Matt, and Syl worked together, clearing a pathway to the door. In the background I could hear Lisa crying and Dad calling out to her, telling her everything would be all right.

I felt the envelope against my chest. I told myself Alex was alive, that I’d give him the envelope, and if he had ever needed proof of my love, he never would again.

I don’t know how long it took before I could hear Dad pull the door open. A few minutes maybe, or forever. I felt him before I could see him. Dark as it was in the hallway, my eyes still had to adjust to the dim light. But it didn’t matter. Dad grasped me and pulled me out.

“You have to be careful, honey,” he said. “There’s garbage all around, broken glass. Hold on to me, and we’ll get you outside.”

I followed him blindly, stumbling over the remains of Mrs. Nesbitt’s house, my second home. Slowly I realized there was no house left. It had collapsed all around me, only the staircase keeping me from being crushed to death.

After we made it outside away from the rubble, I held on to Dad and let his strength pass to me. Then I hugged Matt and Syl. Nothing that had been said last night mattered. Nothing mattered anymore except that they were alive.

“Jon?” I asked. “Julie? Alex?”

Dad shook his head. “We don’t know where they are,” he said. “We thought Alex was with you.”

“He went to warn Jon and Julie,” I said. “But Mom’s all right? You said she’s all right.”

“I’ll take you to her,” Syl said. “Come, Miranda, you’ll see she’s fine.”

“Come back as soon as you can,” Matt said. “We’ve got to work on getting Lisa out.”

“I know,” Syl said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.” She put her arm around my shoulders and led me toward home.

Within seconds I was standing in the sunroom, in Mom’s arms. She held me so tightly I wasn’t sure I could ever move away. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. I know she was crying, but that was all right, too.

“Miranda, we need you to help clear out the rubble,” Syl said. “You too, Laura. Come on.”

“No,” Mom said. “I’ll wait for Jon here. He’ll expect to find me here.”

“He’ll find us,” Syl said. “You can’t use him as an excuse, Laura. Lisa’s life depends on you.”

“If Mom wants to stay here, let her,” I said.

“Stop protecting her, Miranda,” Syl said. “Laura, you talk all the time about how the baby is the most important thing. Well, prove it, and come with us.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Mom said. “I know it’s crazy, but I’m so afraid if I leave this house, everything will collapse. I feel like I’m the only person holding things together.”

“Everything has collapsed,” Syl said. “You’ve done a sucky job holding things together, Laura.” She grabbed Mom’s arm and literally pulled her out of the sunroom. “See,” she said. “The world came to an end while you’ve been hiding. Now move!”

I stood absolutely still. But then Mom began running toward Mrs. Nesbitt’s, toward what had been Mrs. Nesbitt’s but was now nothing but a mountain of rubble. Syl and I followed her. I can’t be sure, but I think Syl was smiling.

The debris around the cellar door was much higher than what Dad and I had climbed over. It was taller than we were. And it wasn’t like you could take a piece from the bottom and work your way upward.

“Miranda, get the ladder from the garage,” Matt said.

I ran to the garage, glad to have a job I could handle. The garage looked completely untouched, but when I walked out with the ladder, I looked at our house. There was a tree limb lying across the roof, and I could see windows had blown out and part of the roof was missing.

Even so, we were the lucky ones.

I walked back with the ladder. Matt placed it against the rubble mountain.

“I’ll climb up,” Syl said. “Miranda, are you up to it?”

I nodded. We climbed the ladder until we were on top of the heap and began throwing what we could as far away from the house as possible.

“Shouldn’t one of us go look for the others?” I asked. “What if they need us?”

“They probably do,” Syl said. “But we don’t know where they are, and we do know where Lisa and the baby are. We have to take care of them and hope that the others find their way back home.”

I knew she was right, but I hated hearing her say it. Being outside, surrounded by mountains of debris, made me understand for the first time how devastating this tornado had been. Mrs. Nesbitt’s house had taken the brunt of it, but there was no way of knowing how things were farther downhill, closer to town. I began to shake again.

Syl grabbed my arm and squeezed it tight. “Don’t think,” she said. “Just work.”

There was room for three, and Mom climbed up also. She didn’t say anything, just worked alongside, being careful, as we all were, to toss the shingles and roofing as far as possible from where we thought the cellar door was. The mound felt solid beneath us, which was both a relief and frightening. We weren’t about to fall through, I knew, but it was going to take a very long time to remove enough of it to make a difference.

I don’t know how long we worked, throwing things down, while Matt carefully removed what he could from the outer rim of the pile. Dad worked on the side of the house, by one of the tiny cellar windows, clearing it out, so we could talk with Lisa and get things to her until we could get her out.

The hail had stopped and the thunderstorm had moved away. We could still see flashes of lightning in the distance, but it took several seconds before we heard the thunder. It was still raining, though, and it was hard not to slide as we pushed things off. Matt kept yelling at us to be careful, to Syl mostly because she took the greatest risks, but it didn’t matter. Whatever happened happened. We had to get Lisa and the baby out of the cellar before the cellar roof collapsed. Which we all knew could happen at any time.

It was Syl who spotted Jon first. From her vantage point on the mound of rubble she could see the road and Jon running up it toward us.

“It’s Jon!” she cried. “He’s all right.”

Mom climbed down the ladder so fast she almost fell into Dad’s arms. None of us could stop her as she made her way through the fallen tree branches toward him.

“Do you see Alex?” I asked Syl. “Is Julie there?”

“Just Jon,” Syl said.

I climbed down the ladder, but Syl stayed where she was and continued to work. Matt and Dad stopped, though, and we followed Mom’s path. We watched as she held on to Jon the way she’d held me earlier. Her children had survived.

“Julie,” Jon said. “She’s hurt. Mom, she’s hurt real bad.”

“It’s all right, son,” Dad said. “Show us where she is. We’ll bring her back.”

“How bad?” Matt asked. “Is she bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” Jon said. “I don’t think so. But she can’t move her arms or her legs. And she said she can’t feel anything.”

Dad and Mom exchanged looks. Only Matt continued to focus on Jon.

“What exactly happened?” he asked. “How was she hurt? Take a deep breath, Jon, and tell us everything you know.”

“We saw a twister coming this way,” Jon said. “We tried to take cover, but there wasn’t time, so we held on to a tree. I thought I had her covered, but the wind picked her up, and she must have landed wrong because she’s lying there and she can’t move. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t carry her up the road all by myself, and our bikes are gone.” He looked around. “Everything is gone,” he said, and he began to cry.

Mom took him in her arms. “It’s all right,” she said. “Your father and Matt will get Julie. Our house is still in one piece. We’ll take care of her.”

“What about Alex?” I asked Jon. “Did you see him?”

Jon shook his head. “It was just Julie and me,” he said.

“Come on, son,” Dad said. “Matt, go into the house and get some blankets. We’ll use them as a stretcher.”

Matt ran to our house, and moments later he came out with the blankets.

“Laura, you, Miranda, and Syl keep working,” Dad said. “Jon, show us where Julie is. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Be careful,” Mom said.

We watched them make their way down the road. “Mom,” I said. “Should they move Julie? What if she has a spinal injury?”

“It sounds like she does,” Mom said. “But there are no doctors, no hospitals anymore. Not here. All we can do is make Julie comfortable.”

“No, Mom,” I said. “No.”

“You have to be strong, Miranda,” Mom said. “I’m going to work by the window, where your father was. You stay on the ground. Can you do that? Can you work on the rubble down here?”

I nodded, but I could hardly hear what she was saying. Julie was badly hurt and Alex was still missing. Charlie was in the cellar, dead for all we knew. Lisa and Gabriel were trapped, and we had no equipment, nothing but our hands and our will, to get them out.

Syl had told me not to think. I did as she’d said.

It took a few minutes before Syl spotted Jon. I stopped working and raced toward him. Dad and Matt had improvised a stretcher and were carefully carrying Julie.

I didn’t dare ask, but I looked straight at Matt, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

For a horrible instant I thought he meant Julie had died. But then I heard Dad say, “Hold on, sweetie. We’re almost there.”

“Alex?” Julie asked.

I’d gotten close enough so she could see and hear me. “He’s not back yet,” I said. “He’ll be home soon.”

“I can’t move,” Julie said. “I tried to. I really tried, but I can’t. And I feel strange, like my body isn’t attached to me anymore. I’ve never felt like this, not ever.”

“It’s okay,” Dad said, bending over to stroke her forehead. “Your back is hurt, that’s all. You’ll be up and around in no time.”

She looked so small, so young. I kissed her on her cheek. “Alex will be so proud of you,” I said. “You’re being very brave.”

“He’ll be mad,” she said. “He gets mad at me when I do things he doesn’t like.”

“He loves you more than anything,” I said.

“We’d better get her inside,” Dad said. “Where’s Laura?”

“Working by the window,” I said.

“Get her and send her in,” Dad said. “She can watch after Julie while the rest of us work.”

I walked rapidly toward Mom, and for the first time I can ever remember, I cherished the sensation of movement. Hours ago I’d been trapped in the closet, and now I was outside and I could walk and run. Julie had lost that, most likely forever.

Mom seemed reluctant to go indoors. I guess after all those months, she was cherishing the sensation of sky and air and freedom. Dad took her place at the cellar window, and he insisted Jon work by his side. Matt worked on the ground, and I went back to the top of the mound and resumed throwing things down.

It got dark eventually, and Dad sent Jon to the house to get lanterns and flashlights. Hours later they broke through to the cellar window. It had blown out during the storm, but it was too small for Lisa to crawl through.

Still, Dad was able to talk to her, and when she held Gabriel up, he could hold him. Jon was sent back to our house to get food for Lisa.

Dad returned a while later to tell us what he knew.

“Charlie was pushing against the cellar door,” he said. “Trying to open it, but of course he couldn’t. Lisa isn’t sure what happened, because it was so dark, but she thinks he had a heart attack. She heard him make a funny noise, and then he fell down the cellar stairs. She went to him, but she couldn’t find a pulse. He probably died instantly.”

I thought, Charlie’s dead because of me. I told him to go to the cellar. He tried to open the door to rescue me.

I knew that was crazy. If I caused Charlie’s death, then I saved Lisa’s and Gabriel’s lives. If Charlie tried to get out for me, he was also trying for himself and for them. But I still felt the guilt, like the tornado was somehow my fault, and Julie was hurt because of me, and Alex missing.

“We’re not telling Lisa about Julie or Alex,” Dad said, much more softly. “I told Jon not to say anything. I told her Julie’s back in the house and Alex has gone to look for help.”

“How long can we keep that up, Dad?” Matt asked.

Dad grabbed him by the arm. “As long as we damn well have to,” he said. “Now get back to work.”

And we did. I’d be working there still, except Dad decided we should work in shifts, and I was sent back to the house to eat and get some rest and stay with Julie. Mom left as soon as I got here.

Julie’s sleeping, but I can’t. I’m too scared.

I wish more than anything that it was last night.