Chapter 22 Diane
Diane
JULY
It’s just after seven when the wind begins to peel the whitecaps back from the waves, pushing them toward the shore with a newfound ferocity.
We’re already at Sara’s place, three mugs of tea growing cold on the living room table and a board game halfway set up between us.
The first bands of Hurricane Bertha’s leftovers have been lashing the coast since noon, but the sun is only now sinking behind a wall of green-black clouds, the sky thick with a static that makes the air taste like metal.
Cassie is on the floor, legs crossed, sorting the colored plastic chips into neat stacks.
While Rolo is asleep, curled up against her leg.
My attention keeps circling the window, as if the storm will make more sense if I catch it in the act.
Each gust bends the pines in the side yard until they almost double back, and every so often a burst of rain needles the glass hard enough that I flinch.
Sara doesn’t even blink. Her good hand is a blur, dealing out cards with a dexterity I wouldn’t have expected from someone whose other arm refuses to cooperate.
She’s humming, too, low and off-key but stubborn.
Every now and then she looks up at Cassie, who’s gradually become like an adopted granddaughter, and smiles in a way that’s more challenge than affection.
“It’s just wind,” Sara says, flipping the next card. “If you don’t let it bully you, it loses interest.”
Cassie snorts, eyeing her hand. “Tell that to my mom.”
I give her a look, then turn back to the window.
The sky is charcoal, the horizon lost to the sheets of rain slanting down from the heavens.
I picture Nathan hunkered in his studio, windows rattling, the paint on his easel still wet.
Then I force the thought away, embarrassed by the specificity of my concern.
Sara’s house smells like old books and oranges and, faintly, the must of rain seeping into decades of wood.
She’s set out candles, dozens, scavenged from every closet and drawer, the majority of them shaped like seashells or, in one case, a banana slug.
The overhead lights flicker every few minutes, and Sara just winks at us as if to say, Let it try.
She’s told me twice now that the power lines out here are more suggestion than infrastructure, and if the wind keeps up, we’ll be on full Little House on the Prairie mode by nightfall.
It’s cozy but also precarious. Cassie’s been bouncing between excitement and thinly masked anxiety all day, and every time thunder mutters in the distance, she stares at the ceiling, as if expecting it to collapse.
I’d considered evacuating to the mainland, but Sara had scoffed at the notion.
“We’ll be fine,” she assured us. “This old house has weathered far worse than a tropical storm.”
Sara makes a production of lighting another candle, her left hand steadying the match while the right fumbles the striker, and I have to fight the urge to jump in and help.
“I’ll get that,” I say, rising too fast from the couch. My knees bang the table and a mug sloshes, but Sara shakes her head, her mouth set in a line.
“I’ve been lighting my own candles since the Roosevelt administration,” she says, but she lets me take the box anyway.
I lean over, smell the paraffin and salt, and realize how tired she looks.
There are purple circles under her eyes, and her cheeks are hollowed out more than usual.
The frailty is new. Last week she climbed three flights of stairs at the museum, albeit slowly and with a grimace, but today, even the act of standing to fetch her cardigan left her winded.
I force myself not to hover, just hand her the matches and return to my seat.
Cassie eyes us both with theatrical suspicion. “You two need a referee.”
Sara arches an eyebrow. “What we need is for someone to shuffle without cheating.”
Before Cassie can object, a sound like the world’s biggest bass drum thunders overhead. All three of us freeze, waiting. The windows rattle, the lights pulse once, twice, then die, leaving only the orange globes of candlelight and the thin, wavering music of the wind.
A few seconds of total silence. Then, with a decisive motion, Sara pulls the table lamp’s chain and says, “Showtime.” Cassie laughs, the fear bled out by the absurdity of the moment.
We settle in, the only light now the candles Sara lined along every horizontal surface. The flicker throws moving shadows on the walls, exaggerating the wild angle of her bookshelves and making the old ship’s wheel above the mantel seem to turn slowly, as if steering the house into open water.
Cassie huddles closer to me, the board game forgotten. “Is it going to get worse?” she asks, voice pitched low.
“Probably,” Sara says, too honest to hedge. “But this house has stood through six hurricanes and at least two direct hits. You’d need a nuke to move it.”
I laugh, and the sound comes out too loud in the hush. But it helps. Cassie relaxes, curling her legs up under her, and I can see the tension smoothing from her shoulders.
Sara stands, steadier now, and starts lighting the backup candles. The matches catch on the first try, but her hands are trembling just a little, and I realize she’s not immune to the nerves, just practiced at hiding them.
“I’ll help,” Cassie offers, springing to her feet. Together, they circle the room, bringing each wick to life in turn. The effect is dramatic. The whole room shifts from cavern to theater, every book spine and trinket thrown into shifting relief.
There’s something old-fashioned about the dark and the candles and the way we’re drawn in together, the storm outside shrieking but us stubbornly human in our defiance.
A sudden, sharp knock at the front door nearly upends the mood. Cassie lets out a tiny yelp and clutches my sleeve. Sara moves to the door, pausing only to straighten her collar, and I follow, suddenly aware of every creak in the floorboards and the way the rain now pelts the windows.
Another knock, this one more urgent. Through the rippled glass, I see a shadow, tall and hunched, water streaming from every surface. I open the door, and Nathan stumbles in, trailing water and the smell of sea air.
He’s soaked through, hair plastered flat and jacket dark as spilled ink.
His cheeks are raw from the wind, and he blinks, disoriented, as if the sudden transition to candlelit warmth has blinded him.
When he sees us, his posture relaxes a fraction, but his hands are balled tight in the hem of his shirt, wringing water onto the floor.
“Nathan, what are you doing here?” I ask. “I thought you were going to ride out the storm in your studio.”
“I—well, I changed my mind,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket. “I tried to call, but nothing’s working. Thought I should check on you.” His gaze skips from Sara to me, then lingers, and the current between us is enough that I have to look away.
Sara clucks her tongue. “Sit down, you fool, before you ruin the floors.” But she’s smiling, and I catch the fleeting glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes as she steers Nathan to the couch. Cassie hangs back, half-hiding behind the door, but her expression is pure delight.
Nathan sits, dripping, and I hesitate, unsure whether to offer a towel or a change of clothes or just let him dry out by proximity. The quiet stretches, punctuated by the ticking of rain on the roof and the distant groan of thunder.
Finally, he asks, “You okay?” The question is so direct, so without preamble, that I feel myself flush.
“Yeah. We’re fine. Just”—I wave a hand at the darkness—“riding out the storm.”
“They’re saying the worst will pass by midnight. We’ll probably get a lull in a couple hours.” He speaks with the authority of someone who’s been reading the radar like a script.
Sara hovers for a minute, then gestures to Cassie. “Let’s get some towels, sweetheart.” They leave the room together, and then it’s just Nathan and me, the low flame of a single candle between us.
His eyes don’t leave mine. “I should’ve stayed at the gallery,” he says. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”
“You didn’t,” I lie, and we both know it.
He runs a hand through his hair, scattering droplets onto the arm of the sofa. “It’s wild out there,” he says, almost to himself. “Like being inside a painting before it’s finished.”
I laugh, but it comes out shaky. “That’s one way to look at it.”
He gives a crooked smile, and I’m struck by how young he seems in this light. “Sara says you’re the only one who ever beats her at Scrabble,” he says, changing the subject with a finesse that’s almost surgical.
“I think she lets me win,” I reply, grateful for the escape route.
The conversation could spiral, but before it does, Cassie and Sara return, arms loaded with towels.
Cassie hands one to Nathan, who mumbles thanks and buries his face in it, emerging with his hair standing on end.
Sara just watches us, her eyes narrowed and her mouth curved in that sly, Mona Lisa way she has.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, where were we?”
We gather around the coffee table, which is a slab of driftwood sanded to near-translucence.
Sara claims her throne, an ancient recliner with a quilt draped over the arms. Before she sits, I gently tuck a pillow behind her back.
She scowls at me but lets it happen. I catch the flicker of a smile, quickly stifled, and make a mental note of how little resistance she actually puts up.
Cassie selects the next game, an old-school version of Parcheesi, half the pieces missing and the board soft at the creases. “House rules,” she says, setting it up, “are that you have to tell a secret every time you get bumped back to start.”
Sara laughs. “You little shark.”