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The clothes basket rested against my hip as I went back through the hallway toward the kitchen and caught my phone buzzing across the table. I clicked the green button and set the phone on the stack of clothes as I flipped open the cupboard. “Hey, Jase. What’s...”
Cutting me off, he yelled back at me over the static-y noise popping in and out of the speaker. “The tornado’s almost right on top of you. Get the boys in the tub now.”
They say it sounds like a freight train coming at you, but that’s not true. There was no sound at all that I remembered.
Like I was sitting at the bottom of the ocean, the pressure crushed me from every direction and blocked out all the noise except for that ringing in my ears. I couldn’t even breathe or lift my feet to run away from the black cloud swallowing all the trees on the next street over through the kitchen door window.
The little window above the sink exploded, sending glass all over my back and shoving me into the hall again. I held onto that clothes basket for dear life as I ran into the bathroom, tossing out my phone and clothes behind me. “Get in the bathtub now.”
The lights went out as every piece of glass in my house seemed to pelt us. The boys wedged themselves against the wall at the back of the bathtub, and I shoved the basket over them.
As hard as I could, I squeezed them inside my legs and arms as the shower curtain melted into us, and my scream for them to hold on to each other got sucked from my lungs. And that’s the last thing I remember about that.
Nothing existed in the darkness until the thumping in my ears turned my brain on again. But when the wall shifted behind me, it woke me up enough that I realized I needed to pull myself together quicker. I just couldn’t quite make my body do what I wanted it to, though.
Whatever pressed into my side moved enough that rain started misting my cheek, and I tried to say, ‘Hey, knock it off.’ Whatever gobbledy-gook came out of my mouth instead scared Carson enough that I could pick up the panic in his voice. “Hurry. Mom’s hurt bad. She won’t wake up.”
I felt like I was falling and tossed in a dozen directions with as many hands on me for what seemed like forever until someone started slapping my face. “Carolyn, please open your eyes.”
Soft red light made the inside of my eyelids glow so I could find my way back again, and I finally figured out how to make my eyelids come apart.
Wearing a ridiculous-looking flashlight thing on his forehead, Jason leaned in through what remained of the roof squished down on top of me. “Honey, talk to me. Say something.”
Little by little, the entire world started to come into focus behind him, and I understood what happened to us. “Boys?” I slapped around for them but didn’t find anything but the basket I made them keep over their heads. “Where are my boys?”
Reaching in with both hands to stop me from bringing the entire house down on us, he put them around my shoulders and brought me closer to him. “I got them already. They’re out in the truck.”
Sliding his fingers under my arms, he locked them around my back. “This place is wobbly as hell. We got to get you out of here. Come on.”
In one yank, he ripped me from the tub as the house collapsed in on itself, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him like a baby monkey as he carried me away. “Hang on, it’s a mess out here.”
I was too afraid to see the truth yet and stayed buried in his neck as he slipped and slid over the boards and toys and God knows what else littering what used to be the yard. “Are my boys okay?”
He pitched forward when he tripped, and his hand scooped up my butt in it to keep me from falling. “They’re fine. They said their big, bad momma threw herself over them right in the nick of time.” Rain poured over us from everywhere, but a few seconds later, he slid me across the truck seat. “Okay, let’s see that bump on your noggin.”
The overhead light came on, and his whole face changed color as he gasped. “Oh, no.” Cringing and sucking air through his teeth at whatever was wrong with my face, his fingers started shaking as they hovered above it. “We have to get you to the hospital.”
I just about threw up all over him from the pain when I tried to shake my head at him. “I don’t have any insurance.”
He reached behind him to close the door. “Boys, try to buckle up as best you can over there.” Pulling the center seat belt over me as gently as he could, he forced a smile as the light above us faded. “Don’t worry. It’s my treat.”
Creeping out of what once was my driveway, Jason carefully maneuvered around what I think was the neighbor’s swing set and slowly worked his hand over mine. “Okay. Everyone hang on tight.”
59
When You Need Me
Carolyn
People filled the entire emergency room from wall to wall. But since I got conked in the head hard enough to knock me unconscious, they gave me an express pass to the front of the line.
I’m not sure how much that CT scan they ordered me was going to cost, but I was already stressing about how I’d ever pay it off as the young guy in green scrubs pushed my wheelchair down the hallway.
Holding a pink plastic bucket on my lap, I closed my eyes to keep the world from spinning and making me sick again.
Not until he rounded the corner back to my room did my new reality kick in. Flashes of what I tried to avoid in the driveway popped into my head with every window we passed. Every bashed-up car and ripped-up tree reminded me of all the things I lost.
I had nothing left. No van. No clothes. All the boy’s stuff. Nothing in my life existed anymore but the four of us.
