you?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Looks like I’m gonna hafta keep carrying you, then, bebelle.”
“Okay.”
Jackson loads his baby sister into the pickup, rain soaking him to the skin despite the dark blue slicker and rubber fishing boots he wears. The wind slams into him, a bully’s hard, ruthless shove, and he plants his feet wide in the driveway as he fights to keep his balance. Gulf-warm water needles his face, stings his eyes, sucks at his breath.
“Get your butt in the truck, Jacks!” his mama yells over the wind’s ever-increasing shriek as she struggles to open the driver’s door and climb in behind the wheel. Her cinnamon curls, café au lait skin, and green slicker glisten with rain. “We need to get the hell outta here before it’s too late.”
Jackson gets in, and pulls Jeanette onto his lap. Shivering, she wraps her cold, wet arms around his neck. Ten-year-old Junalee sits next to Mama, her dark hair rain-soaked, wet tendrils plastered against her face and neck. She glances at Jackson, and he sees his own fear and doubt reflected in her amber eyes. Sees it validated in the worry furrowing Mama’s brow.
It’s already too late to leave.
At fourteen, Jackson’s weathered a handful of hurricanes—some in Houma, before his folks split, the rest in Morgan City—and he feels like an old hand. But not today.
Today butterflies whip up a storm inside his gut and his body thrums with the need to run, to hunker down and hide.
Hurricane Gaspard was supposed to make landfall in Texas at Corpus Christi. Morgan City only expected heavy rain and wind, and Jackson helped Mama make sure they had plenty of canned goods and bottled water on hand. Made sure the generator was primed and that bottled propane was at hand in case something went wrong with the generator.
By the time the weather service realizes that Gaspard has no intention of making landfall at Corpus Christi and has changed its course with unheard-of speed, arrowing for the Cajun coast instead, Jackson barely has time to nail plywood up over the house’s windows before the wind’s intensity makes it impossible for him to wield a hammer, let alone remain on a ladder.
Papa calls just before the landline goes out. “Get out of there. A monster’s on the way. Tell your mama to head north, cher. I’m heading your way, me. I’ll meet y’all on the road and follow until I’m sure—”
The line crackled, then fell silent.
Jackson passed Papa’s instructions to his mother, but instead of the usual argument —Dat man. Still be t’inking he can tell me what to do— she just nodded, face grim, and told the girls to get into their rain gear.
The truck rocks in the wind like a boat bobbing on rough water as Mama steers it down the driveway for the road. The windshield wipers are useless and would only be stripped from their housing if turned on, so Mama peers through the water and leafy debris sheeting the windshield, interpreting the shapes and shadows beyond it with an unerring confidence that eases a little of the tension in Jackson’s knotted muscles.
Jackson locks his arms around Jeanette, squeezing her tight against his chest, when a shrieking gust of wind catches the truck’s underside and tips it for a moment before dropping it back onto all four tires. Just as his pulse is throttling back down, another fierce gust broadsides the truck and flips it onto its side.
Jackson’s head and shoulder smack into the passenger window and then his breath explodes from his lungs when weight—Mama and Junalee—slams into him. Jeanette squeaks.
The wind shrieks in a powerful and eerie rise and fall cadence, the sound as loud as a freight train hurtling at high speed toward disaster. Jackson feels his heart pounding but doesn’t hear it even internally. The hurricane has drowned out all other sound.
Hurricane Gaspard now composes their universe. Nothing else exists.
Lightning fills Jackson’s vision with eye-slitting white brilliance. A door
“Nuh-uh.”
“Looks like I’m gonna hafta keep carrying you, then, bebelle.”
“Okay.”
Jackson loads his baby sister into the pickup, rain soaking him to the skin despite the dark blue slicker and rubber fishing boots he wears. The wind slams into him, a bully’s hard, ruthless shove, and he plants his feet wide in the driveway as he fights to keep his balance. Gulf-warm water needles his face, stings his eyes, sucks at his breath.
“Get your butt in the truck, Jacks!” his mama yells over the wind’s ever-increasing shriek as she struggles to open the driver’s door and climb in behind the wheel. Her cinnamon curls, café au lait skin, and green slicker glisten with rain. “We need to get the hell outta here before it’s too late.”
Jackson gets in, and pulls Jeanette onto his lap. Shivering, she wraps her cold, wet arms around his neck. Ten-year-old Junalee sits next to Mama, her dark hair rain-soaked, wet tendrils plastered against her face and neck. She glances at Jackson, and he sees his own fear and doubt reflected in her amber eyes. Sees it validated in the worry furrowing Mama’s brow.
It’s already too late to leave.
At fourteen, Jackson’s weathered a handful of hurricanes—some in Houma, before his folks split, the rest in Morgan City—and he feels like an old hand. But not today.
Today butterflies whip up a storm inside his gut and his body thrums with the need to run, to hunker down and hide.
Hurricane Gaspard was supposed to make landfall in Texas at Corpus Christi. Morgan City only expected heavy rain and wind, and Jackson helped Mama make sure they had plenty of canned goods and bottled water on hand. Made sure the generator was primed and that bottled propane was at hand in case something went wrong with the generator.
By the time the weather service realizes that Gaspard has no intention of making landfall at Corpus Christi and has changed its course with unheard-of speed, arrowing for the Cajun coast instead, Jackson barely has time to nail plywood up over the house’s windows before the wind’s intensity makes it impossible for him to wield a hammer, let alone remain on a ladder.
Papa calls just before the landline goes out. “Get out of there. A monster’s on the way. Tell your mama to head north, cher. I’m heading your way, me. I’ll meet y’all on the road and follow until I’m sure—”
The line crackled, then fell silent.
Jackson passed Papa’s instructions to his mother, but instead of the usual argument —Dat man. Still be t’inking he can tell me what to do— she just nodded, face grim, and told the girls to get into their rain gear.
The truck rocks in the wind like a boat bobbing on rough water as Mama steers it down the driveway for the road. The windshield wipers are useless and would only be stripped from their housing if turned on, so Mama peers through the water and leafy debris sheeting the windshield, interpreting the shapes and shadows beyond it with an unerring confidence that eases a little of the tension in Jackson’s knotted muscles.
Jackson locks his arms around Jeanette, squeezing her tight against his chest, when a shrieking gust of wind catches the truck’s underside and tips it for a moment before dropping it back onto all four tires. Just as his pulse is throttling back down, another fierce gust broadsides the truck and flips it onto its side.
Jackson’s head and shoulder smack into the passenger window and then his breath explodes from his lungs when weight—Mama and Junalee—slams into him. Jeanette squeaks.
The wind shrieks in a powerful and eerie rise and fall cadence, the sound as loud as a freight train hurtling at high speed toward disaster. Jackson feels his heart pounding but doesn’t hear it even internally. The hurricane has drowned out all other sound.
Hurricane Gaspard now composes their universe. Nothing else exists.
Lightning fills Jackson’s vision with eye-slitting white brilliance. A door
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