Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) (17 page)

Boy, howdy.

He was still holding out his shirt, and I understood his plan. I couldn’t put the kittens next to me without the protection Keith’s shirt offered because my shirt was covered in brown fibers from the bamboo husks. Those fibers gave off a powder that made sensitive skin itch like crazy, which was why I was wearing gloves to my elbows. I wasn’t sure the powder affected kittens the same way, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I stripped off my gloves, took the shirt from Keith, and knelt to pick up the kitty. I placed it gently in the shirt. Its blue eyes were open; I thought that meant it was at least a week or two old, but I wasn’t sure. The mother cat strutted up with the second kitten and dropped it right into the shirt, next to its sibling. I waited while she got the third one. Once I had all three kittens, we set off toward the house, the mother cat following me and Little Boy trotting along behind. I sent Keith in first, telling him where the canned cat food was and instructing him to bring some on a plate to the patio. If I could coax the mother cat into the house for food, that was all I’d need to do.

Ten minutes later she, along with the kittens and Little Boy, was in the house, and Keith had his shirt back. I shut off the bedroom doors until I could figure things out. Now I had even more to do to get ready for the hurricane, but I wasn’t complaining. Instead, I was thinking that if the bamboo had been picked up on Monday, I might never have known about the kittens and they would have perished.

It was true that God worked in mysterious ways. As the sky darkened and the wind and rain took turns battering my house, I could only hope that God had a plan in the works for me too.

I
was scared shitless, and the worst wasn’t upon us yet.

It was Saturday, early afternoon, and the house was dark. I’d lost my electricity a couple of hours earlier, as had everyone else on my street. I knew this because our neighborhood had an agreement to keep porch lights turned on during storms. That way, we could tell who was with or without electric. When my power went off, I’d walked outside and peered down the street. All the porch lights were off, just like mine. As far as I knew, everyone on our street, except Sheila, was home. Sheila had gone to New Jersey to join her husband, but as she always did when she traveled, she’d left her porch light on.

I’d noticed earlier that Hank’s porch light wasn’t on. I guessed no one had told him of the rule. The thought of Hank led to one of Bryan Rossi, and I wondered if he was also spending the hurricane with a woman. Everyone was spending it with someone they were close to except me; I was spending it with stray cats.

The squalls from the outer bands of the hurricane had already started sweeping through periodically, and with my windows boarded up, the house was a tomb. The only room with any natural light was the family room, since neither the sliding glass doors nor the window were covered by plywood. So that’s where I was hanging out. A trip to any other room required a flashlight. Now I understood the purpose of hurricane lanterns. Trying to search one-handed for an item in a pitch black room while hanging onto a puny flashlight with the other hand was a nuisance.

I’d called all my sisters hours ago to check in one last time. Nicole and Steve and their ten-year-old son, Hunter, were staying at their new home in Summerton, five miles away. Hilary and her kids, Chase and Sara, were hunkered down too. Hilary lived ten miles west of me, and though her property was somewhat isolated, she had two generators, and the electrical panel was hooked into them so she could keep things running. She also had a safe room designed for hurricane shelter. Chase was eighteen, a big, strapping kid with a level head, and Sara was two years younger and the same—without being big and strapping. They had a Jeep and one of those swamp rovers, so I figured they’d be fine.

Katherine, Marci, and my mother had chosen to evacuate. Katherine and her husband, John, lived on Manatee Island, as did my mother. Manatee is what we call a barrier island. The barrier islands lay between the Florida mainland and the beaches, and causeways stretch over the rivers between the bodies of land. The barrier islands were always put under evacuation during hurricanes, mainly because they had no hospitals of their own. If the causeways were damaged, emergency vehicles couldn’t get to residents.

My mother would have evacuated without the mandatory order since she feared she’d have a heart attack and no one would be able to get to her. I suspected Katherine and John would have preferred to ride out the storm at home. They didn’t have to worry about their kids. Jack, who was almost 22, and Janice, who had just turned 20, attended college out of state, where they went year-round. But someone had to evacuate with Mom. Being the family martyr—I mean, caretaker—comes at a high price.

Marci had fled to Las Vegas with friends after dropping her daughter, Erin, off at her ex-husband David’s house. Erin’s birth certificate listed David as her father, but he wasn’t. David, who’d married Marci thinking she was pregnant with his child and only found out the truth two years ago during the divorce, didn’t care. He loved Erin as much as anyone could love a child, and he continued to pay child support for the privilege of pretending. I was the only person in the whole wide world who knew Erin had learned the truth. I’d been flabbergasted when she told me.

“Aunt Jane,” she’d said in that grown-up little girl’s voice, “do you think my daddy would love me less if he knew I wasn’t really his little girl?”

She didn’t even look over at me when she asked the question. We’d been sitting in the back of my fourth lot with twin easels holding sketch pads and a tray of charcoal between us. We were drawing the wax myrtle that was now history. Each of us wore a large-brimmed hat to protect us from the sun. She looked darling in hers with her tiny face ensconced by dark curls under the big white hat.

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure what she knew and anyway, what did one say in such circumstances? It wasn’t as if I’d had any experience. I didn’t have kids and I felt, emotionally at least, a kid myself. I was afraid that whatever I said might cause some kind of psychological damage.

She put down her piece of charcoal and wiped her hands carefully on the antimicrobial wipes as I’d taught her to do. She swung her head around to gaze up at me through long sweeping lashes with her big blue eyes. “I heard Mommy tell Aunt Hilary that she didn’t have to let Daddy see me since I wasn’t really his little girl and that if he didn’t come through for her, she wouldn’t.”

Oh, Marci,
I thought.
Do you have a clue what you’re doing?
In Marci’s defense, I was sure she had no idea Erin was listening, but still. Why did no one ever see the toll their post-divorce pettiness took on their kids?

“No, sweetie, I know for a fact that your daddy wouldn’t love you less because he already knows about that and it doesn’t make a bit of difference to him.” There. I’d done it. I’d told Erin something that Marci should have told her, and if Marci didn’t like it, that was too bad.

I didn’t condone that kind of decision—it was the sort of thing Katherine did—but in this case, I didn’t see how I could keep from telling Erin the truth. She needed to know that David knew and it didn’t matter.

“He loves you dearly and considers himself your daddy. He’s the one who’s been there for you since the day you were born, and he will always be there for you, no matter what.”

Erin smiled, a huge, gap-toothed smile, since both her front teeth were missing. Her face was lit up with joy, so I blinked away my tears and smiled back. I told her how lucky she was to have a daddy who loved her so much, and then we went back to our sketches.

Today I was glad she was with David, though I didn’t know if David had evacuated or not. Either way he’d make sure she was safe.

Granny would be safe too. Her assisted living building was made of concrete block and was fully equipped with hurricane shutters and generators. Old people couldn’t live without their oxygen—or TV. Sue lived beachside, so she evacuated with her parents. Mark and Jill were still in the hospital. Mark’s recovery was going well; he’d be out in a couple of days, and Jill would be out soon after that. I’d suggested the hospital move Mark into Jill’s room so they’d be together for the hurricane, and to my surprise, they did.

It occurred to me that I was the only person who didn’t have anyone to be with and for a minute I tried to start a pity party for one. It didn’t work because I knew I could have evacuated with Mom. Heaven help me if being alone ever looked scary enough for that.

I was sitting on the area rug in the family room, stroking Little Boy and his girlfriend in turn. The cats were antsy, and I couldn’t blame them. The momma wasn’t really wild. She belonged to someone—she was well groomed and wearing a rabies tag—but whoever owned her evidently hadn’t gotten her spayed. I hoped they weren’t worried about her, but I couldn’t think about that now. The tiny kittens were
so
adorable. One looked like a Maine coon and was bigger than the other two, especially in the paws. Momma had been two-timing Little Boy. The other two were probably his. At least they looked like him.

Little Boy didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the kittens, but he was quite interested in Momma, and she, likewise, in him. I wondered how I would keep them from doing the dirty deed if we were stuck in a closet together. The fierce shrieking of the wind was about all the shrieking I could handle.

I gazed out of the sliding glass doors into the backyard one last time before the light of day was completely gone, and then wished I hadn’t. The rain was blowing in sheets parallel to the ground, flinging objects I didn’t recognize across my line of sight. I couldn’t make out my fence or any of the trees in front of it.

When the wind started to pound against the plywood on the windows, I got into the closet. Hank had warned me that since my plywood sheets were warped, they might flex during the storm, and he was right. What he didn’t mention was that the flexing would sound like sonic booms. At about the same time the plywood started flexing, horrific pounding thundered from the roof.

I found I didn’t have to worry about a mating ruckus with the cats because Little Boy would have none of our safe place. Though I tried to get him inside the closet, he took off and hid on his own. Momma stayed with the kitties and they were with me.

There was one thing I hadn’t thought to hunt down, and that was earplugs. I needed them too. Between the roaring roof, the pounding windows, the shrieking wind, the howling cat, and the hissing kittens, I thought I would lose my mind.

I sat there with fingers in my ears and prayed, hoping to gain a sense of peace in the midst of chaos. It could have worked except every now and then, a bad thought sneaked through, stealing any peace my prayers might have brought me. Maybe a microburst would topple a tree into my roof or a tornado would rip the roof right off. The realization that I could be a victim of Mother Nature—dead before morning—hit me, made it hard to breathe. I wanted to chant my favorite mantra, but I had no idea when it would all be over. It was the longest night of my life.

*****

All day Sunday the wind howled and the rain pelted. According to my weather radio, the western eye wall of Flossie had come ashore before midnight Saturday but because of the eye wall size and the slow movement of the storm, it took almost twelve hours for the eastern side to move ashore.

To make matters worse, landfall was just south of us, which meant we were in the northeast quadrant, the most dangerous area of a hurricane. Once again my goose bumps had been right. If only they could predict other approaching problems as easily.

The storm took as much time to move out as it did to move in. I was able to check in with my sisters to find everyone alive and well. Katherine, John, and Mom had fled to Panama City, where John’s parents lived, but after just one night had to flee back since Flossie was predicted to make a second Florida landfall there. A lot of the people who’d evacuated were in the same mess; they’d be stuck on the roads for some time.

I didn’t venture out until Monday. When I did, I wanted to weep. A good third of the shingles were missing from my roof. Some of them were in pieces on the lawn, some were stuck in my trees and shrubs, some were littering my neighbors’ properties.

I patrolled my property as best I could, considering that half my trees lay on it, or at least that was the way it seemed. I wouldn’t have to worry about removing the wooden structures anymore because they’d been removed for me. All that was left of the shed where the kittens had been born was a concrete pad.

Debris was everywhere, some of it mine and some not. I had no idea where the twenty by ten foot aluminum roof that was wrapped around one of my light poles had come from, but it didn’t belong to me.

My privacy fence had escaped damage, so that was something to be thankful for, but bamboo was everywhere. Not just the pieces we’d dragged into my little woods, but bamboo trees that Richard and I had left standing, that hadn’t appeared to be in any danger, had been blown over, broken in two about eight feet up, and were now parallel to the ground. I couldn’t believe winds had blown through at a force capable of doing that yet had left my house standing.

As I circled my house to the other side, my heart dropped. A large oak had been wrenched right out of the ground. It had toppled onto the electrical lines, and the weight of the tree had stretched the wires to my house so tight that the electrical mast and pole had been ripped away from the house. Great. I’d be out of electric for a while. A long while.

I had to go through the house to get to the garage since the garage door was electric. I turned off the main line to the house, and then I called Florida Power and Light. Yes, the automated line said, they knew my power was out and they had no idea when it would be restored. I followed instructions to let them know that a power line was downed by trees. I hoped this meant they would send someone to my house.

I wondered what the rest of the area looked like and remembered I had a battery-operated television, so I spent an hour hunting for it with a flashlight. I flipped it on, expecting it not to work, but it did. The news station kept flashing a number for FEMA, so I called them, and my insurance agent, and left my information.

Now what? I had cases of water plus cans of tuna and loaves of bread. Even after the mayonnaise went bad, I could still live on plain tuna from the can. At least I wouldn’t have thawed meat to throw out; I never had enough money to buy more than I could eat right away.

While I was trying to figure out what to do next, Richard showed up. Impressive, considering it had started raining like hell again, and the street drains didn’t seem to be doing a great job. I knew that the roads in town had to be blocked by downed trees and, of course, the streetlights would be out. Yet he’d driven through that to get to me. One point for Richard. Heck, maybe even two.

As he was entering via the front door, Little Boy flew past him to get outside, almost knocking him down.

“Jesus! When did you get a cat?”

I explained about Little Boy, his girlfriend, and their three kids.

“I’m allergic to cats,” Richard said with a sneeze.

It occurred to me that I should quit keeping score. I didn’t see how Richard could end up with points on the positive side of the meter, and who cared anyway? A guy who couldn’t put up with a couple of cats was no guy for me. Not that I’d ever had a doubt.

I told him about the electric, and he insisted on taking a look for himself, saying maybe the mast hadn’t really been ripped off. I clenched my fists to keep from smacking Richard and took back all the points I’d ever given him. I mean, wasn’t he basically saying I couldn’t tell if something had been ripped from my roof? And it wasn’t like anyone with eyes couldn’t tell from looking at the damned pole, which was pulled six feet away from the house. I didn’t bother to go out with him, thinking there was no point in my getting wet again just for the opportunity of making a couple of sarcastic remarks. That was a decision I would come to regret.