Stranger's Gift (2 page)

She couldn't help but smile at that thought. Her Mennonite faith had taught her to be peace loving and to avoid conflict, but there was indeed a battle coming in the form of a hurricane that bore her name. The only question was where the storm would focus the brunt of its attack.

Hester had lived her entire life in this area, and she knew that the city of Sarasota with Pinecraft in its midst was an unlikely target. Protected by a line of barrier islands, the mainland rarely suffered a direct hit. Most hurricanes weakened over land so that by the time the storm passed over the islands and reached the mainland, it would likely be demoted to a tropical storm. And because the Amish/Mennonite community lay another five miles inland, it was even less likely that her friends and neighbors would suffer direct damage. But Pinecraft's position on Philippi Creek always carried the threat of flooding. If the hurricane hit shore from a certain direction, it could push waters inland, and she and her neighbors living along the creek would be forced to move to shelters. Whatever the storm's path, it was due to make its move within the next thirty-six hours.

The light changed, and she pedaled on. Down Bahia Vista to Orange Avenue, past the beautiful Selby Botanical Gardens and around the curve where the road ran parallel to the bay. How she loved this part of the city. As a girl, when her friends were busy tending kitchen gardens or joining their mothers for quilting bees, Hester would slip away to wade in the calm clear waters of the bay.

She never tired of observing the wonders of sea life she saw there—jellyfish and sea anemones that looked like transparent floating flowers and the occasional and rare live horse conch, its outer shell black and almost indistinguishable from the beds of oyster shells that at low tide clacked like castanets. Sometimes as she waded through ankle-deep clear water, she would spot a flash of orange as vivid as the skin of a tangerine and would carefully turn the blackened conch shell over to reveal the strikingly colorful animal coiled inside. To this day, seeing a seashell that still housed a crab or sea animal made her smile and, as the old adage stated, was all the assurance she needed that God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. But she had no time for wading this day. She was already late for her meeting.

John Steiner leaned in closer to the battery-powered radio on the kitchen counter as it crackled and wheezed out the latest weather update. “…Hurricane watch …Prepare for evacuation of barrier islands and bay-front homes and businesses….”

Reports from early that morning had the hurricane stalled offshore and unlikely to make landfall for another day or so. He had time. Time to board up the last of the windows. Time to double-check his emergency supplies. Time to cage the chickens and get them to safety. He would ride out the storm right here on the property into which he had sunk two years of his life and most of his money renovating.

He ignored the warnings to move to higher ground. He wasn't going anywhere. Since he'd moved to Florida, there had been other orders to evacuate, and they had all come to nothing. On one such occasion shortly after he'd moved in, John had complied only to find himself crowded into some shelter with hundreds of others. For his trouble, he had spent a miserable night among crying babies, unruly children allowed to roam free, and adults who did nothing but complain. He would not leave again.

After nailing a piece of plywood over the last of the windows, he walked down to his pier and closed his eyes as the hot August wind buffeted his shirt and ruffled the red-blond hair on his forearms. It might have been any Florida summer day—hot, gusty winds from the west, humidity so thick it was like being draped in a towel soaked in hot bathwater, and a blinding sun set high in a relentlessly blue sky. It was hard to believe that in just a matter of hours this could all change to blackness and pounding waves and water walls that could topple trees and power lines, rip off roofs, and set mobile homes as well as cars and trucks afloat or flying through the air.

John was surprised that what he was feeling wasn't apprehension but rather anticipation. He was excited. He opened his eyes and saw his neighbor Margery Barker puttering his way in her small fishing boat.

“Came to see if you're ready,” she called, throwing him the rope to tie her boat up at his pier.

The woman had a voice like a foghorn and the leathered skin of a native Floridian. She ran a fishing charter business about a quarter mile up Philippi Creek around the point from John's place on Little Sarasota Bay. She'd taken it over from her husband after his death thirteen years earlier, and she'd been the first person John had met when he came to Florida. Without the slightest encouragement from John, she had designated herself his surrogate mother from that day to this. She meant well, but like him, she could be stubborn and refused to back down from her zealous campaign to get him involved in “community,” as she liked to call it.

“All secured,” John replied, catching his end of the rope and looping it around a post. He jerked his head toward the house, its windows now shuttered with plywood.

Margery had scrambled out of the boat and was standing on the pier surveying his house and the old packinghouse, her hands on her hips. “Looks good,” she said. “Where you gonna ride this thing out?”

Her question annoyed John. The two of them had discussed this when the hurricane had first started to form. “Here,” he replied with a wave toward the house.

Margery hooted. “Are you nuts or just plain naive?”

Neither
, John wanted to snap, but instead he bit his lip and glanced out across the bay to the inland shore of Siesta Key. He had learned quickly enough that it did no good to argue with Margery.

“I guess that it's unlikely you'll take a direct hit,” she reasoned, more to herself than to him. “And I suppose if you've never been in one of these things, you can't help but wonder what it'll be like.”

“I've been here through two hurricane seasons, Margery. That first year I even left for the shelter. I am not leaving again.”

She frowned and then turned back to her boat and knelt down to retrieve two large containers of water. “I figured as much, so I brought you some extra supplies.”

“I've got five jugs of drinking water,” John protested.

“Well, you might just want to wash up a bit.” She sniffed the air around him. “Truth be told, you could do with a shower now.”

“I've been working,” he protested, resisting the urge to tell her she didn't smell like lavender water herself.

Margery sighed. “You are a serious one, aren't you, Johnny? After this storm blows through, we are going to have to find some way to get you to loosen up, son.” She shook her head as if he were a lost cause and climbed back into her boat and unleashed it from the post. “I baked you some of those chocolate chip cookies you seem to like.” She tossed him a cookie tin and eased her boat away from his pier. “Stay high and dry,” she called as she rounded the point.

John used the stubs of his fingernails to pry open the tin box and took out one cookie. He bit into it, savoring the taste—and with it the childhood memory of his mother's baking. He hadn't thought to ask where Margery planned to stay during the hurricane. The houseboat where she lived would not be much protection against the winds, and her bait shack was no sturdier than a beach shack. She'd probably head for one of the shelters. He suddenly felt guilty that she had wasted precious time coming to check on him. He stepped farther out onto the pier and shouted her name. “Be safe,” he yelled.

Margery just waved and kept going.

Hester arrived fifteen minutes late for the meeting. This was the county's effort to coordinate response activities for all emergency response volunteer leaders from across the entire Sarasota County area. She was there to represent the two largest Mennonite organizations—the Mennonite Central Committee or MCC, for which she was the local representative, and the Mennonite Disaster Service, better known in the community as MDS. Her father was the local director of that agency, and with the hurricane predicted to scythe a wide swath across the Gulf Coast of Florida, both agencies would have their work cut out for them in the days following the storm. Emma would represent CAM, the third arm of a trio of Mennonite agencies.

She parked her bike in a rack and mentally rehearsed the report she was prepared to give. MCC was ready to supply food, water, and shelter for those hundreds of volunteers sure to come once the storm passed over, not to mention those poor souls who might be directly affected by the storm. She had a mobile clinic ready to go into action as a backup to the one the Red Cross was already setting up. There were three large shelters in and around Pinecraft outfitted with cots and generators and other necessities to care for those who had no place to go. Along with MDS teams, her volunteers were fully prepared to go into action helping victims of the storm recover and rebuild in the weeks and months ahead should the storm be as disastrous as was predicted. She stepped into the small foyer of the county's administrative building and took a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the change from the blistering late-August sun to the cooler shadows inside, then followed the sound of voices down the hall.

But when she opened the door, prepared to make her apologies as she took her place at the long table at the front of the room, she stopped. Emma Keller stood at the lectern delivering the report for all three Mennonite agencies. Hester squeezed her eyes closed and silently prayed for God to take away the pang of jealousy she felt toward the woman. After all, she and Emma were working toward the same goal. What was the matter with her? Emma was not her competition. There had been a time when they had been the best of friends. But God must have been busy elsewhere, for when she opened her eyes, she still felt a prickle of rivalry as she listened to Emma deliver her report. Hester slipped into a vacant seat at the back of the room and waited her turn to fill in anything Emma might have left out—a scenario so unlikely as to be laughable, knowing how thorough Emma was in tackling any project.

Reports from other local volunteer groups followed, and then the professional hurricane experts and meteorologists got up to give their reports. Hester shook off her jealousy and focused on taking notes to share with her father and other volunteers. Emma slid into the seat next to her.

“Es
tut mir leid
,” she apologized, her voice a whisper. “They called for the report from Pinecraft first thing.”

“Ich verstehe
,” Hester murmured and glanced at Emma, who was looking at her with genuine concern. “Really, it's fine,” Hester assured her and grasped Emma's hand.

Emma's smile was radiant with relief. Hester had to ask herself if she had become so territorial when it came to where her volunteer efforts and Emma's overlapped that her good friend felt she had to tiptoe around Hester's feelings.

“Kaffee?” Hester whispered conspiratorially in an attempt to break the tension that stretched between them.

As teenagers, the two of them had often saved their money and slipped away to share a cup of cappuccino at one of the sidewalk cafés that dotted Main Street in downtown Sarasota. There they would sit for hours, gossiping and giggling and dreaming about their futures as they ignored the gawkers who stopped to stare at their prayer coverings and distinctive Mennonite style of dressing. It had been far too long since they had shared such a moment—years had gone by. Emma had married Lars, her childhood sweetheart, and they had two wonderful children. Hester had gone to nursing school and then come home to find her mother dying the slow, horrible death that followed a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease.

To Hester's surprise, Emma's large blue eyes filled with tears. She smiled and nodded. “Ja, once this storm passes, coffee would be
wunderbar
,” she replied, her voice breaking.

Hester couldn't help wondering if perhaps she'd become so wrapped up in herself that she had failed to appreciate that her friend might miss her as much as she had been missing Emma. “Hey,” she whispered, gripping Emma's hand tighter. “It's okay. We're okay.” To her relief, Emma smiled.