The Storm
A t dinner that night (chicken, of course), Dad said he didn’t trust the weather. The air had been still all day, and the weather report predicted a possible thunderstorm.
“I think we’re in for a doozy,” he said. “Those weathermen are wrong more than half the time, but I don’t like the look of the sky out there, and I haven’t heard a bird all evening.”
“Do you think we’ll have a power outage?” Mom asked.
“Could be. We’d better get the generator ready, just in case.”
Power outages occurred frequently in these parts, mostly from fallen trees bringing down power lines. Grace’s parents had a system worked out for such times. They kept flashlights stowed in different areas of the house and lots of bottled water because their electric well stopped working without power. They also had a generator for the store.
“Does the generator need gas in it?” Mom asked.
“Yeah. We haven’t used it since last year, so I siphoned the gas and used it in the car.”
“I can refill it,” Grace said. “Where’s the gas can?”
“Thank you kindly, sweetheart,” Dad said. “Would you mind setting it up in case we need it? It’s gotta be at least twenty feet from the buildings, and it has a rain tent that goes over the top. Those things and the gas can are in the garage.”
So after dinner Grace wheeled the generator out of the garage, filled it with gas, and set it up with the generator tent over it. She hoped they wouldn’t have to use it. She didn’t know how to hook it up.
As it neared bedtime the wind picked up and rain began splashing against the windows. Dad, who loved to watch storms despite his gloomy predictions, sat on the front porch in his rocking chair and watched the rain and the lightning.
“Ben, you’ll catch your death,” Mom said. “The wind’s blowing right this way. You’ll get soaked sitting there.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t get my cast wet,” Dad said. “The rain’s not coming this direction. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“You would keep an eye on a tornado.” Mom patted him on the shoulder in a way that belied her stern tone. “I’ll get you a cup of tea.”
Grace smiled. Her parents’ relationship was cute. She headed up to her room to work on National Board prep and listen to the rain on the roof. The sound was soothing. Rain had been a rarity in California, especially during the summer, and Grace missed it. She liked rainstorms, even ones with a lot of thunder and lightning. Maybe she felt that way because Dad had always been so interested in them.
She tried to read through the National Board materials, but as often happened, she found herself distracted. On this occasion, an email dinged on her phone. She had a message from Lucas, telling about more of his travels. He wondered exactly when she would be getting back to California.
July 16 th , Grace told him. That would give her enough time to settle back in and get ready for the school year before it started in August.
August had seemed far off before Grace left for Fraser’s Mill. It seemed a lot closer now. She’d better start working more seriously on the National Board stuff. She kept forgetting about it and doing other things instead, and she shouldn’t. It was the one thing she was doing this summer that would affect her future in a big way. She had to get organized and figure out how to work through the material. Maybe she could join some kind of support group. There were lots of support groups online.
Grace logged into her social media. Before trying to find a support group for the NBCT stuff, she’d better comment on that post she had made about the sale on chicken. Engaging with customers on social media would probably make the store look good in the community. Grace wrote a comment saying the chicken was sold out and thanking those who had bought it.
As Grace added her comment to the post, she had an idea. Why not make a social media page for the store? Of course, one of her parents or another store employee would have to run the page after she went back to California, but that shouldn’t be too much trouble. It was something to suggest to her parents.
The rain grew louder, coming down in sheets. Good thing Grace wasn’t out in it. This kind of weather turned umbrellas inside out.
Footsteps approached, and Mom appeared in the doorway. “It’s getting pretty windy,” she said. “Your dad thinks we ought to go down to the basement. There’s a tornado warning, and if that tree by the driveway comes down it could hit the house.”
If Dad said they should go to the basement, it must be serious. Grace closed her laptop and gathered it up with its power cord. She snagged a red-and-white blanket from her bed—the basement was chilly.
Downstairs, Mom was supervising Dad as he went down to the basement on his crutches. The basement stairs were steep, narrow, and uncarpeted. “Take it slower, Ben,” Mom warned him. “There’s no rush.”
The Murrays’ basement was half laundry room and workshop, half storage and board game area. It was furnished with a plastic lawn chair and a nubbly loveseat exiled from the living room. An old-fashioned ring-shaped fluorescent bulb provided light. Grace settled into the plastic lawn chair with her blanket, and her parents took the loveseat.
“Grace, why don’t you take a look at the weather?” Dad asked. “See how that tornado warning is doing.”
According to the internet, their area was in the center of where Doppler radar had indicated rotation in the clouds, warranting the tornado warning. The crashing thunder and pouring rain sounded loud even from here in the basement.
“Thomas will be sad he isn’t here,” Dad said. “He likes storms. Although I reckon he gets plenty of them in Florida, with those hurricanes.”
“I’ll text him and tell him what he’s missing here,” Grace said, grinning. “I’ll make him as jealous as possible. He owes us a visit, anyway.”
“It’s that internship,” Mom said. “He’s supposed to get some time off in August, and he says he’ll come visit then.”
“Aw, shucks,” Grace said. “I’ll be back in California by then. I wish we could all coordinate our schedules to spend a vacation together, or fly to see each other more often. Why do plane flights have to be so expensive?”
At that moment, the lights flickered out.
“Power’s out,” Dad said unnecessarily. “Good thing we got the generator all ready. As soon as this tornado warning’s over, I’m gonna go out and set it up.”
“Benjamin Murray, you are not going out of this house until it’s done raining. Grace and I can get the generator going.”
“You’ve never hooked it up before,” Dad said. “It’s not as simple as you might think.”
“We can figure it out, Dad,” Grace said. “You can’t get your cast wet.”
Dad sighed. “All right, fine. But nobody’s stirring out of this basement until the tornado warning is over. The big maple next to the driveway could fall on the house.”
At last, the better part of an hour later, the tornado warning ended. Grace dashed upstairs to see how things looked outside. She hit the kitchen light switch. Nothing happened. Right, the power was out. Outside the window was dark, but the storm had quieted.
Her parents followed her upstairs, Dad struggling to climb with his crutches.
“Wait for me, Grace,” Mom called from behind her husband. “I’m coming out with you to start up the generator.”
“I can go,” Dad said again.
“No, you won’t,” Mom said. “You can stand at the kitchen window and watch us do it. We’ll be fine.”
Grace grabbed a jacket from the coat closet—it was Dad’s, and the sleeves were way too long for her—and opened the kitchen door. The rain had all but stopped. The air felt cool and misty. Everything was dark; the whole town must have lost power. The maple tree Dad had been worried about still stood between the Murrays’ driveway and Doc’s.
Grace stepped onto the driveway and splashed into an ankle-deep puddle, cold water rushing into her shoes. “Yikes!” she exclaimed.
“Look out for the puddles, Mom,” she called into the kitchen. “The driveway’s full of them. I just got soaked.”
“Thanks,” Mom called. “I’ll get my rain boots.”
Grace had left her rain boots in California. She should have thought to bring them with her to Michigan, but California was so sunny she tended to forget rain existed.
Together Grace and Mom started the generator to power the store, being careful with the power cords and the wet ground. Dad called instructions from the kitchen window.
The generator finally powered on. The food in the store was safe. Grace’s shoes were dripping—those were going to take a while to dry.
§
Cozy and warm again in the living room, with the light from flashlights and a couple of non-toxic scented candles, Grace brought up the subject of a social media page for the store.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Seems to me we’ve got a lot to do around here. Running a social media page must take a lot of time.”
“It wouldn’t take too long to post something every couple days,” Grace said. “It wouldn’t have to be anything complicated. If we’d had our own page today, we could have posted about the chicken. Lots of small businesses are on social media, and I think it’s really helpful for the store owners and the customers.”
“Well, I suppose we could try it out,” Mom said. “Maybe some of the employees would help with it. They’re more tech-savvy than I am.”
“It won’t take too much time to keep it up,” Grace said. “Somebody would just have to check it a couple times a day and make posts when there’s something to share about.”
“If it’ll bring in more business, it’ll be worth a little time,” Dad said. “Go ahead, Gracie. Maybe it’ll be a good thing.”
Since Grace’s computer didn’t work unless it was plugged in, she couldn’t start a page for the store tonight. Instead, she and her parents played a game of Clue by flashlight.
If the power was back on by tomorrow, she absolutely needed to figure out a system for National Board preparation. Despite her plans earlier this evening, this became yet another day when she’d done nothing about it at all. But she couldn’t help it now. She ought to order a new laptop battery. What kind of professional teacher used a laptop that only worked when it was plugged in?
§
The power was still out the next morning. Dad said he hoped it wouldn’t stay off much longer. The generator would only run for sixteen hours, and then it would have to cool down before being refueled.
Grace went over to the store early to grab a quart of milk for cereal for herself and her parents. Mom had put dry ice in their home refrigerator and taped it shut so people wouldn’t open it by mistake.
The first store customer that morning was Ed Hoffman from the garage, shaking his head about the damage the storm had done to his wife’s garden and chicken coop. “But it’s not as bad as what happened to Walt and Dorothy’s house,” he said. “That big tree behind their house came down and hit the roof over their extra bedroom. Wrecked the whole room. It’s gonna be hard to get that fixed. We’re trying to convince Walt to let us help rebuild it instead of calling in a contractor from who knows where.”
That must have been awfully scary for Dorothy and Walt. It was a blessing the tree had fallen on a spare room with nobody in it.
During her break that morning, Grace told Mom about the situation. Mom was horrified.
“That’s terrible! We’ve got to do something. I’m gonna make a few calls and hook up the stove to the generator.”
Grace didn’t learn who Mom called, but it must have been effective. When Grace got off work at three that afternoon, Mom asked her if she would take a huge pot of chili and two pans of cornbread over to Dorothy’s house. Volunteers were there sawing the tree into firewood and beginning to rebuild the spare room.
Grace didn’t want the enormous chili pot to tip over while she was driving. She taped down the lid and wedged it in a box on the floor of Mom’s car. She put the pans of cornbread on the middle seat. If she drove slowly, they shouldn’t slide off. She also brought a box with paper bowls, plastic spoons, and napkins.
The whole town showed storm damage. Large branches littered the yards, and detached roof shingles lay everywhere. Garbage cans were overturned with garbage spilling out. The only buildings with power were the ones with generators. Several power lines were down, and it would take time for the power company to fix them.
Grace pulled up in front of Dorothy’s house, near the church, to find the driveway jammed with cars and several guys climbing on the roof. A large section of the roof was smashed in. Grace couldn’t imagine how to fix something like that, but the guys looked competent.
She lugged the pot of chili up to the front door, but nobody came to the doorbell. Everybody must be in the backyard. Grace took the chili around to the back.
Things were even busier out back. A crew of guys with chainsaws were sawing the tree into chunks. There was Doc, loading wood onto somebody’s pickup truck. Charlie stood inside the broken spare room, yelling to the guys on the roof. Dorothy stood watching, hands on hips.
“Dorothy, I brought food,” Grace called. “Chili and cornbread for the helpers. My mom made it.”
“Your mother is so kind!” Dorothy took the chili pot from Grace, ignoring Grace’s protests that she could carry it. “I’ll set everything up here. You can bring the cornbread. This smells delicious.”
As Grace came back to her car, Elaine walked up the driveway with a large bag in hand.
“Have you seen Dorothy?” Elaine asked. “I’ve brought some cookies for those guys working on the house. I thought they might like a snack.”
Grace laughed. “My mom thought the same thing. Dorothy’s out back setting up food for the helpers.”
It was amazing how the town came together to help out. Dorothy and her husband had lived in the town for forty years, so they’d come to know just about everybody. But Grace got the feeling these people would have helped a neighbor in need even if they hadn’t known him.
She hung around to help serve food and watch the progress on the house. Dorothy’s husband, Walt, who knew something about building, shouted orders from the ground.
“He wanted to help on the roof,” Dorothy said. “The idea! He’d fall off and break something. And of course he said, ‘It’s only one story high.’ I told him, ‘You’re going up there over my dead body.’”
Grace laughed. “That’s the kind of thing my dad would try to do, and my mom wouldn’t let him either.”
Dorothy ladled chili into a bowl. “But we have such kind neighbors. Ed, Charlie, Doc, Jack, Elaine, you…I can’t tell you how much we appreciate all of you. Our kids would have helped, of course, if they’d been here, but they’re all too far away and have their own families to raise. The good Lord knew what He was doing finding Walt a job in Fraser’s Mill, fifty years ago—this town is like family to us.”
Grace smiled. “That’s wonderful.”
“I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else,” Dorothy said. “Not that people shouldn’t live other places, of course. I know you’re going back to do your teaching in L.A. And I hope that works well for you. It’s important to be in the place where you know you belong.”
Grace nodded. “Thanks, Dorothy. I love my work teaching.”
Dorothy smiled. “I know you’re making a big difference to those kids.”
She went off to investigate the progress on the roof and left Grace with the food table.
Doc stopped by for a bowl of chili. He had been working hard—his T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and his face glistened. In casual clothes, he seemed bigger than usual. He must work out a lot. Did Fraser’s Mill even have a gym? Maybe they’d gotten one since Grace visited last.
“How’s the hand?” Doc asked.
“Well, it doesn’t hurt much anymore,” Grace said. “I got the bandage wet last night though—my mom and I went out to set up the generator after the storm, and I forgot about my hand.”
“Did you get a dry bandage afterwards?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it shouldn’t be too bad. Good thing your dad didn’t try to do it with that cast on.”
Good thing Doc didn’t know that was exactly what Dad had tried to do before they stopped him.
“You want cornbread with your chili?” Grace hovered a piece of cornbread over Doc’s chili bowl.
“Sure, thanks. Who made all this food?”
“My mom. She wanted to help out.”
“Tell her thanks from me.” Doc nodded at Grace and went over to talk with the guys running the chainsaws.
He must have been in a hurry—he hadn’t teased Grace about anything. Oddly, she almost missed it.
§
The power came on that evening, which was a relief, because the store was out of dry ice. All the people who had lost power had been buying it for their refrigerators. Now the Murrays could stock up before the next big storm.
As she worked on National Board prep before bed, looking for a support group of teachers preparing for the same certification, Grace got another lengthy email from Lucas. He had gone to Monterey and had a great time. Now he was making plans for a family reunion at his grandmother’s in a few weeks. He wanted to know how things were going in Grace’s neck of the woods.
“Hi Lucas,” Grace wrote. “My neck of the woods is very muddy at the moment, and has a lot of broken branches and some damaged houses. But it does have a lot of friendly people.” She filled him in on the windstorm and the people helping Dorothy and Walt.
Lucas replied almost immediately. “Wow, that sounds like quite a storm. I hope it doesn’t do that while I’m visiting my grandmother. How’s your National Board preparation going? Are you excited for the new school year?”
“I’m trying to work on some National Board stuff tonight,” Grace replied. “It’s going okay, I think.”
Hopefully she’d be able to work out a good system for the National Board prep soon, because the work she’d done so far seemed haphazard and disorganized. She’d better finish this email and find that teacher support group.
“I hadn’t thought much about school starting again,” she wrote. “Wow, that’s coming sooner than I’d realized. I usually get excited when I start lesson planning. How about you?”
Signing off, she went back to searching support groups. Lucas’s email had strengthened her in her resolve to focus on her goals.
Yet, as Grace fell asleep that night, the image that played in her head wasn’t National Board certification or the start of the school year. It was her friends and neighbors from Fraser’s Mill, coming together to help Dorothy and Walt repair their home.