TWENTY-EIGHT Clean-Up
T he trouble was so big I didn’t know where to start. For most of the morning, Wyatt and I sat on the hood of Roman’s truck and stared at the ruin of our home.
Fire would have been worse, especially here at the beginning of fall, after a dry California spring and summer. Fire would have become wildfire and taken the forest with it. Fire would have threatened more homes than ours. Fire might have threatened the town itself.
But water made such a mess . Water was like an insult: it didn’t eat what it destroyed; it left it there in a sodden, muddy heap. It made a mockery of what had been.
I guess I was still too stunned to think of doing anything. I’d watched the workers stop the flow of water and manage the dangerous levels of flooding. Then they’d left, while the land was still a swamp and the buildings soaked through.
Roman had stayed close to me until Wyatt arrived. Thereafter, I guess because he wanted to give us some time alone, he’d roamed the area, talking with workers, talking with Bailey and Catherine, making phone calls, coming back frequently to ask again if we were okay, if there was anything we needed, anything he could do.
My answer was always no. What could he do? What could I do? What could anyone do?
At some point, Catherine came up and said she and Bailey were going back to the diner to put together a good breakfast for us. When she asked if Wyatt or I had any requests, I told her she didn’t need to go to such trouble.
She didn’t entertain that notion for even a second. Instead she waved me off and said, “Pancakes! I know you love my pancakes. And Wyatt, you pretend you don’t, but you like my impossible bacon, don’t you?”
My carnivore son smirked guiltily and nodded. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
The small laugh we all shared over my kid’s wry humor was the morning’s medicine.
“Thank you, Catherine,” I said reaching out for her.
She clasped my hand and squeezed. “You’re home, Leo. You’re not alone. You never were.”
Until that moment, I suppose I’d been too stunned and overwhelmed to cry. But Catherine’s kindness made my vision go blurry.
As Catherine and Bailey left the lot, they met a red pickup, and both drivers paused side-by-side to chat for a second. Then the pickup pulled onto the lot and parked next to Roman’s truck. Peter Greyfather and his mother, Rosemary, climbed down from the cab. Four strapping young Yurok men hopped down from the truck bed and starting pulling gear out as well.
Peter gave me a sympathetic smile and a wave as he went to help with the gear. Rosemary came over to me and Wyatt.
“Hey, Rosemary,” I said, trying to sound more neighborly than confused. I knew Rosemary wouldn’t be here to gawk or gloat, but I couldn’t imagine how she already knew about this trouble, or why she thought she and her band of young men could help.
“Hi, Leo,” she said and patted my leg. I probably should have jumped down from the hood, but I was still holding Wyatt and, well, it didn’t occur to me.
Lots of things weren’t occurring to me, apparently. I’d spent the better part of the night and all of the morning confronting the massive destruction of everything I owned in the world (except my 8-year-old hatchback); it had not occurred to me that there was any kind of help I could expect, or even ask for.
“Looks like you had a rough night,” Rosemary said.
“Yeah,” I said. “How’d you hear?”
“Catherine got the word out. I think you can expect more help than just us pretty soon.”
Of course. If Catherine knew of someone who had need, she was first in line to help, and on her way, she made sure everybody else knew they were needed.
However, I still wasn’t sure what people could do. How did one go about cleaning up after a flood?
“I don’t know what you can do,” was all I could say to Rosemary. “You shouldn’t have to clean up my mess.”
“Hey, Rosie,” Roman said, coming up from the other side of the lot.
I’d never called her Rosie in my life; I hadn’t even known that was a thing. I was still working on calling her Rosemary and not Mrs. Greyfather.
Rosemary smiled. “Hi, Roman. Long night, huh?
With a sigh and a nod, he took my hand. “Yeah.”
He was dirtier than he’d been before. We’d both gotten mud up to our knees as we walked the area with the sheriff, but now Roman was dirty head to toe. He looked to me. “I’ve got an idea where to start with the work. You mind if I show Peter and the others?”
“Start where?” was all I could think to say.
“The river floods pretty often on the rez,” Rosemary told me. “We get regular practice with cleaning up after. First we got to make sure to get the standing water gone—that’s the biggest health hazard. Actually—they cut the electric, the gas, as well as the water, right?”
I had no idea, but Roman nodded. “Yeah. That was done before we made it here.”
Of course it was. Otherwise we’d all have been electrocuted, wading through all that water. I felt like such an idiot, sitting here empty-headed and helpless. Useless.
That stopped right the fuck now.
I kissed Wyatt’s head—he smelled like bonfire smoke and sweat—and hopped off the hood. “Okay. I don’t have any idea what we should do, so I will follow smarter people’s leads.” I squeezed Rosemary’s arm. “Thank you. I am eternally grateful for the help.”
Wyatt hopped down after me. “I’m ready. Let’s work!”
JESSIE’S PURPLE PEOPLE Eater was the next car on the lot, and, in addition to Jessie, it carried Erin and Daddy Ned.
“DUDE!” Jessie yelled as she strode over to the main cabin’s porch, where I was hanging throw rugs over the railing. “If you want a swimming pool, you’re supposed to dig a hole first!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at my ridiculous friend. “Damn. I knew I forgot something.”
I went down the steps, and we met for a hug.
Up close, her bravado quieted. “This really sucks, Lennie. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, letting her go after a final squeeze. “Thanks.”
Erin and her father had made their way to us, but Erin didn’t rush up for a hug. So I went to her. When I opened my arms, she didn’t deny me.
“Thank you for being here,” I said in her ear.
“Well, this is all anybody’s talking about. Figured I’d see for myself.”
I took that in the spirit of the friend I’d grown up with. All strong feelings, with the exception of anger, made Erin uncomfortable, so she got dismissive and caustic. That she was here told the truth about her feelings; we weren’t close again yet, but we were on the mend.
I turned and smiled at her dad. “Hi, Daddy Ned.”
Though he didn’t appear to recognize me, he took the hug I went in for and patted my back. “Hello, lass. Was there a storm here?”
“You could say that, yes,” I answered.
“Looks like it made quite a mess. Would you like some help? I think that’s what we came for, so put us to work.”
“Daddy,” Erin said, “I told you, I’m going to help. You can sit up on the porch and supervise.”
“ You supervise!” he snapped back. “It’s what you do best, bossing people around. I’m damn sick of you telling me what to do, Clare!”
Erin flinched. Clare was her mother, who’d died of a massive stroke less than an hour after giving birth to her. I’d never heard Daddy Ned speak about his wife with anything but love and affection before.
Standing beside Erin, I set my hand on her arm, an instinctual gesture of comfort.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “That happens a lot these days.”
“How can we help, Len?” Jessie asked.
I looked around. Rosemary and the crew she’d brought were on water detail, going cottage by cottage with a big generator-looking machine on wheels that was essentially a heavy-duty wet vac. Roman and Wyatt and I were working in the main cabin, the guys using big snow shovels I had in the shed and just plowing all of our belongings into piles.
I was gathering up all the rugs to smooth their way, and also maybe to save something from the mess. If the rugs dried, they could be cleaned, I hoped.
“Um, Rosemary’s got a bunch of guys from the rez vacuuming water out of the cottages. They probably could use a hand.” I had a thought and said it aloud—“And Daddy Ned, I could really use some help hanging up the rugs on the porch rails.”
“I’m happy to do it, lass.”
Erin gave me a little smile I read as gratitude, and my friends went off to find a way to be useful. I hooked my arm around her father’s and led him onto the porch.
I had the strangest sense of peace right then, standing amidst the mess of my home, the destruction of my livelihood. Somehow, none of that seemed terribly important just then.