Chapter 2
2
Nope. I take that back.
I refuse to be trapped here. I refuse to accept it.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I ask. Desperation swims through me, but I do my best to hide it. To keep it buried deep, deep down.
Nikhil’s forehead creases, but he doesn’t say a word as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket and hands it to me.
I clutch it like a lifeline and my hand shakes a bit as I check every airline I can think of. Unfortunately, it takes only a few minutes to confirm that Nikhil was right. Almost everything is booked. And prices are sky-high for the few seats that remain—there’s a flight to D.C. going for north of $1,000 right now and really, we need stronger legislation to prevent corporate greed during a time of crisis like this—but even with those prices, almost everything is gone.
“How many hours until it gets here?” I ask, switching tracks andtrying to search for rental cars. Only it seems like everyone musthave had the same idea, because when I select “Houston” as the pickup location, the page freezes. I refresh the page, but the traffic must be overwhelming, because a 404 error alert pops up. I groan.
“Meena, what are you—”
“Your car,” I say, walking toward the garage, pausing in the hallway and swiping the keys off the hanging shelf instinctively. I don’t even think twice about it. It’s only when I reach the garage door that I register what I’ve just done. And what I just saw out of the corner of my eye.
I look back over my shoulder, a bit stunned. It’s the same hanging shelf Nikhil had installed when we first moved in. And it’s still hanging in the exact same spot. He’d made it back then, out of some leftover wood he’d brought home from a construction site. And then we’d painted it together.
Pale green. With a border made out of little vines and flowers. The colors have faded a bit with time, but the scrawled script in white is still legible.
Welcome to M&N’s
We’d debated what to put there. We hadn’t wanted to be too cringey. Like something you’d find in the discount aisle at a T.J.Maxx.
“?‘Home is where the heart is,’?” I’d joked after we’d struggled to come up with a better option.
“No, that’s too long,” Nikhil had said. “There’s not enough room on the shelf. We have to pick one of those one-word ones, like ‘Gratitude,’ ‘Peace,’ or ‘Love.’?”
I’d gasped. “It’s so simple, Nikhil. It’s been staring us right in the face. I can’t believe we didn’t see it until now. ‘Live, Laugh, Love.’ It’s timeless. A classic for a reason.”
He’d laughed, and I’d grinned.
“What about, ‘Welcome to Our Home’?”
“Or ‘Welcome to Meena and Nikhil’s’?” I’d suggested. “It’s a little more personal?”
He’d beamed and I’d basked in it, in the warmth that had radiated from him. It hadn’t mattered that the words were too long, that we’d had to shorten our names to just our initials. We’d both thought it was still perfect.
Things had been so easy in those early days. When we’d come back from our honeymoon. When we’d first moved into the house. When everything had felt so bright and possible and new.
“We can’t take my car,” Nikhil says, snapping me back to the present.
“Why not?” I ask, before I can correct him. We aren’t taking his car anywhere. I’ll be taking the car somewhere.
I mean, if he really wants to evacuate, he could come with me. I wouldn’t leave him stranded, but he’s clearly prepared to ride out the hurricane here so I’m sure he’ll be fine. Actually, I’m sure he’d prefer staying here, and he’d definitely prefer me being far, far away from him. After all, it’s how we’ve been for the majority of our marriage. He’s clearly preferred it all these years so I’m sure he’d prefer it now.
“It’s bumper-to-bumper traffic out there,” he says. “It’s all over the news. They’re saying it’s almost as bad as it was during Hurricane Rita.”
I deflate.
I’d been in middle school during Rita, but I remember the way the entire city had rushed to evacuate. Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans just weeks before, and people here had naturally been terrified. My family had somehow managed to secure a flight out, but those who had planned to evacuate to nearby Austin or San Antonio had been stuck. The resulting gridlock had been a nightmare, turning a drive that would normally take three to four hours into something that took more than twenty. Cars stalled and ran out of gas, fights broke out on the highway, and many people gave up and went back home after being on the road for nine hours and still not making it out of the city.
“When is landfall?” I ask, grasping at straws, trying to think of any other solution.
“Tonight. By the time it reaches us it’ll probably be late, but we’ll start feeling the beginnings of it around six or seven. Could be earlier or later than that though. It’s just an estimate.”
My mind buzzes, trying to think through other options. I ask to borrow his phone again, and he passes it to me.
A quick search shows that there are a few hotels close by that have remained open. I almost book one, typing all my information in, overjoyed to see a way out, but at the last moment I hesitate. I don’t have food. Or water. Or anything that would help me get through a storm like this. I don’t even have a working phone or a flashlight.
I could try to do a last-minute run for supplies, but the thought of fighting my way through a pre-storm grocery store with ravaged, empty shelves and long lines makes me recoil in horror.
I wish I knew someone who still lived here, but I didn’t do the best job of keeping in touch with childhood friends. I have no idea who stayed in Houston. And even if I could miraculously remember someone’s number from back then, I don’t think I could call them now, out of the blue, and ask to crash with them. We’d once had a robust community here. My parents used to have so many family friends, uncles and aunties whom I’d known my whole life. Who would’ve hosted me in a heartbeat. But that was before they’d had a falling-out. Well, really, that was before my parents had been pushed out, basically ostracized after everything that had happened with my sister.
At least I don’t have to worry about them right now. My parents left Houston a couple years ago and retired to New Jersey so they could be closer to my aunts and uncles, who are mostly scattered throughout the tristate area. My family doesn’t know I’m here or that I flew to Houston at all. And I’m planning on keeping it that way.
I swallow, my throat dry and scratchy. “Could I…Would you be willing to…You said you stocked up, right?”
Nikhil lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t respond.
“On supplies,” I say. “You stocked up on supplies, right?”
He nods.
“Do you have any extra? Would you be willing to give me some of it?” The words fly out of my mouth, jumbled and rushed.
A bewildered expression crosses his face. “Umm, yeah. Of course. You can use whatever you want.”
The tightness in my chest eases. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back. For whatever I take.”
His confusion only grows. “You don’t have to pay me.”
“Oh. Thanks, but I will. I’ll Venmo you. And maybe I can borrow your car? If not, I can take an Uber and—”
“You’re leaving?” There’s shock in his voice, but there’s something else too. It’s barely there, just the slightest hint of it, but it almost sounds like…he’s hurt? No. That can’t be right.
“It’ll be better this way,” I say quickly. “If I go to a hotel. But I’ll come back. After the storm. And we can sit and figure everything out then, but it’s probably best if we don’t—”
“You’re going to a hotel,” he says, his voice rife with disbelief.
“Yeah, there are a couple that are staying open and—”
He scoffs, the sound harsh and quick. “You can’t stay in a hotel during a storm like this. What are you going to do if the power goes out? You think the Holiday Inn Express is going to have a generator? What if there’s flooding? What if you get stuck there for days on end?”
“I’ll be fine,” I snap back, even though the idea of being by myself in a hotel room in the dark for an indefinite amount of time is a little terrifying.
He shakes his head, his eyes dark. Thunderous. “You don’t even have a working phone, Meena. You can’t…Do you know how bad this one is supposed to be? You think the hotel staff is going to be able to take care of all its guests if something happens?” He pauses, and some of the anger leaves his face, replaced by a flash of something raw and vulnerable. “You’d really rather be there? You’d really rather go through all of this alone?”
I’m tempted to say “yes.” To fling that word out there and stand my ground, but the idea of being by myself in a shabby hotel while violent rain and winds pound at my window has lost a good amount of its appeal.
I need to be honest with myself. As much as I hate it, escape is not an option.
“No,” I say quietly, acceptance and dread traveling through me. “That makes sense. I’ll…I’ll stay here.”
Nikhil watches me blankly for a moment. He opens his mouth, as if he’s about to say something more, but he must change his mind because he shuts it, nodding instead.
He turns away, heading farther into the house, and I have no choice but to follow after him.