18. Rosa
18
ROSA
R osa had done everything she could downstairs in the shop other than board up the windows and she’d considered that, but it also seemed kind of dramatic. Standing in the front window of the flat that overlooked the street and the harbour, she watched as the sky turned dark as a fresh bruise and the boats in the harbour strained at their moorings like horses at a rodeo. The window glass seemed to shiver in its frame, and she hoped it had been fitted securely because she certainly didn’t want her front window falling onto the street below.
She put her cooling mug of tea down on the coffee table and then walked through the flat, checking all the other windows were shut tight. In the bathroom, the water in the toilet rippled, and the building seemed to groan as the wind buffeted it from outside.
And then the flat went dark as the power shut off. The hum of the fridge in the kitchen ceased, leaving behind a heavy silence that was broken only by the howling of the wind outside.
Rosa pressed herself against an internal wall, holding her breath as she listened.
When the rain began, pelting the roof and the windows like tiny pebbles thrown from all angles, she swallowed a moan. She looked up as if afraid the ceiling would fall in and covered her mouth with a hand as fear gripped her.
Thinking of Christopher and Henry, she returned to the lounge and looked for her phone. She located it on the shelf next to the book she’d been reading yesterday, grabbed it, and examined the screen. There was no signal. She was here, alone, cut off from the people she cared about.
A sudden crash from downstairs made her scream, and she placed her hands on her chest as she listened. What had happened? What should she do?
She couldn’t stay upstairs unaware of what was happening in her shop, so she opened the door, descended the stairs, and pushed open the internal door that led to The Book Nook.
It was dark, but she felt the chill of the wind on her face and arms and then the cold intensified as she reached the front of the shop. Something had broken the glass of the door and the wind and rain were hurtling in along with the debris that was being thrown around outside like paper confetti.
She looked around for something to cover the hole with, but apart from flimsy posters, there was nothing big enough. Instead, she ran to the reading chairs and grabbed the blankets from them that she’d placed there to make customers comfortable while they read, and carried them to the front of the shop. She covered the shelves that were exposed to the elements and held the blankets there as if she could hold off the storm herself.
It felt like she stood there for hours, holding blankets in place and feeling the icy sting of the rain needling at her skin and the anger of the wind as it clawed at the doorframe. But she wouldn’t give up on her shop, her books, her dream. Everything she’d had in life had been taken away from her, piece by piece, but this was hers and she wasn’t letting go. She anchored herself there, refusing to surrender.