Stranger's Gift (5 page)

But just as he turned to clamor his way up the last of the stairs, the ceiling above him collapsed, and the stairs dropped away beneath him as the house surrendered to the storm.

O
n the night the hurricane was predicted to strike, Hester prepared supper for her grandmother and her father. The three of them held hands as Arlen asked God to bless the food and keep them safe through the night.

“Amen,” Hester's grandmother, Nelly, pronounced as she passed the plate of sliced rye bread to her son. Arlen took two slices and slathered each with the dark spicy mustard he liked before stacking on slices of ham and cheese.

“Und
das Gemuse
, Arlen,” Nelly instructed, handing him the bowl of green beans. “I never could get you to eat your vegetables. It's a wonder Hester and the boys are as healthy as they are, given the way you eat.”

“Sarah made sure they ate right,” Hester's father replied as he bit into his sandwich. “That was her department.”

Nelly rolled her eyes and looked at Hester's plate. “This one eats like
der Vogel
—reminds me of one of those little birds on the beach as well. All nervous energy, always ready to just fly off somewhere.”

“I'm home tonight, Gramma,” Hester assured her. “We've done everything we can to make sure as many people as possible are secure, and Grady tells us there's plenty of time to get you and the others to shelters if the creek floods after the hurricane passes.”

“We'll be fine,” Nelly assured her. “Gott
ist gut
. Now eat. Wherever that hurricane lands, I know you and your father are going to be out there in the thick of things trying to help folks recover and rebuild. You need your strength.”

Hester smiled and heaped another spoonful of Nelly's famous potato salad onto her plate.

“There's a good girl.”

Shortly after they had finished supper and washed and dried the last of the dishes, her grandmother yawned and announced her intention to get into bed and read her Bible for a bit before going to sleep. Arlen had insisted that his mother spend the night with them. Hester kissed Nelly's cheek, knowing that she would need to gently remove the Bible from her grandmother's hands before getting into bed and turning out the light.

All through the night she and her father sat together inside their secure house miles from the Gulf or even the bay. Unless the creek flooded, they would suffer little damage so far inland. Some trees down and roof tiles blown off but generally no real damage. They listened as the edge of the storm passed over them on its way inland. Her father read aloud from his much-worn Bible as the winds weakened and her grandmother slept through it all.

Before going to bed, she told her father about going to see John Steiner the day before. “I abandoned him, Dad. I let my irritation at being asked to go there get the better of me.”

Her father handed her his Bible. “Seek guidance,
liebchen
, and remember, God forgives us. You pray on the matter and I'm sure you will find your answer.”

As always she found comfort in her father's lack of censure when it came to her actions. But then her father placed his arm around her shoulder as they walked down the hall together. “You know, Hester, sometimes even I lose sight of my role as pastor to others. Being someone others look up to can be heady stuff.” He did not have to remind her that in their faith, such pride was unacceptable. “Your post with MCC is not unlike mine as pastor—we have both been chosen to show others the way, but we are no different than those who follow our leadership.”

“I can't help it if I've been given a good deal of responsibility,” she replied defensively.

“And if God saw fit to relieve you of that leadership role, to have you simply follow, do you believe in your heart that you could do that?”

“Of course,” she replied. But as she drifted off to sleep, she had to admit that a good part of her annoyance with John Steiner had been that he was keeping her from her responsibilities as director of MCC's efforts back in Pinecraft. “I'll work on that,” she promised herself—and God.

“How soon can we get started?” Hester asked Grady early the following morning as she dashed across a parking lot, dodging puddles and hoping the light drizzle falling was the last of the rain. Grady was making his rounds, checking in person with the various relief groups around the county, all of them anxious to get to work.

“We've got some serious damage,” Grady told her. “Turtle Beach is basically gone, and the entire coastline of Siesta has been devastated. There's probably not a home or business over there that hasn't suffered irreparable damage at least in the short term.”

Hester knew what this meant. People were going to need food, water, shelter, and a comforting presence to assure them that everything was going to be all right. This time of year most of the condominiums and homes on Siesta were vacant. A big part of Grady's job would be to work with owners to get the properties repaired in time for the onslaught of snowbirds—the parttime winter residents. Those folks would begin arriving around Thanksgiving, and that meant there was less than three months to get ready. The annual return of the snowbirds was a mainstay of the economy in the area. If they decided to go elsewhere, that could be catastrophic on a whole different level.

“Unfortunately, Siesta Key is not the entire story, although they certainly took the hardest hit.”

Hester thought of the sugar-white beaches that were Siesta Key's trademark and wondered what they might look like now. News reports she'd heard left no doubt, though, that all up and down the Gulf Coast, scores of homes and businesses had been totally wiped out by the storm. Those who had waited too long to leave and couldn't make it to a hotel or friend's safe haven were now crowded into shelters, including the ones set up in two schools and a large church just on the outskirts of Pinecraft. She tried not to think about what might have happened to John Steiner's place, or the man himself. “So, back to my question—when can we get started?”

“I should be hearing from the local search-and-rescue teams soon,” Grady said, shielding her from the drizzle with a large golf umbrella decorated with comic strip characters. “Crews from gas and power have been out since before dawn. But there is some positive news—a few minor injuries, but no fatalities that we know of.”

Hester nodded. “That's better than we might have expected given the power of the storm.” She knew the drill. The representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, had arrived on the scene, but they would wait for the local authorities to take the lead. County and state rescue teams would be the first out checking those places that they knew had not been evacuated. Soon the gas and power crews would be roaming the barrier islands as well as the mainland looking for downed wires and other telltale signs of problems, repairing them so that the real process of cleaning up and securing property affected by the storm could begin in earnest.

Grady removed a battered, sweat-streaked baseball cap and mopped his forehead with his forearm. He was wearing a worn T-shirt that looked as if it had seen dozens of trips to the washing machine, faded jeans, and running shoes. The thing Hester liked most about Grady was that he was not the typical government employee. He dressed in shorts or jeans instead of the more formal business attire that FEMA contacts arriving from Washington seemed to prefer. And he always looked like he was ready to get his hands dirty and get the work done. Those qualities above anything he might say gave people confidence. Since Katrina and the oil spill, folks in the Gulf area had had their fill of politicians flying down from Washington, looking around and shaking their heads, and then heading back to their plush homes and offices, leaving people like Grady to take the brunt of people's frustrations and anger.

“Still, this is a biggie, Hester.” Grady shook his head. “It's beyond bad. We've got power outages from Fort Myers all the way to Tampa and no word on when power—not to mention water—might be restored. With this heat …” He swiped his forearm over his brow.

“Well, we're ready with meals and water for the workers, and we've got generators at the shelters and in other strategic locations to keep the air-conditioning and refrigeration up and running.”

Pinecraft had suffered only minor wind and water damage. The streets were a mess, but already volunteers were out, moving branches and cutting downed trees so that the main roads were open. That morning a truck loaded with clothing, food, and other supplies had arrived from MCC's national headquarters in Pennsylvania. In calmer times most donations that Hester received in Pinecraft were shipped north, where there were warehouses set up to sort, store, and distribute the goods wherever they might be needed around the world. This time the donations would be distributed right here in Sarasota—not just to the residents of Pinecraft, but to anyone who might need their help. Hester already had a team of women working to sort through the goods and get them distributed to the shelters.

In fact, the entire Mennonite and Amish communities of Pinecraft had come out to offer their help. She glanced across the street to the assembly line of women in plain cotton dresses and head coverings that ranged from pioneer sunbonnets to small black lace headpieces to the starched mesh caps so familiar to outsiders. They stood shoulder to shoulder filling empty produce boxes with canned goods and other nonperishables, while men in their brown, navy, or black trousers, collarless shirts, and trademark straw hats were handling the work of clearing the debris. Of course, it wasn't just the residents of Pinecraft who had stepped up to meet the challenge. Hester knew that a similar scene was being repeated at churches all over the city.

She also knew that her father had called out the community's full complement of MDS team leaders, who in turn each had six to twelve volunteers they could call upon when needed. Every available crew had gotten the word, and now they were just waiting for the signal that they could get to work. They would begin the weeks of cleanup and ultimately months of rebuilding homes and businesses for those without insurance who had been hardest hit by the hurricane.

“I did a fly-by this morning, past Tucker's Point,” Grady said quietly.

Hester knew that Grady had been disappointed when she handed him the signed note and told him that John Steiner had refused to evacuate.

“And?” she asked, curious in spite of her annoyance at the man for wasting time and valuable resources by his stubborn refusal to follow protocol.

Grady shook his head. “I saw no signs of anyone, and the road into the place is even more blocked with downed trees and power lines. The only way in is by boat, and that's tricky as well.”

Hester was still wondering how anyone could be so arrogant as to believe that a mere mortal could withstand nature's fury and simply walk away unscathed. “Do you think he survived?”

Grady actually shuddered in spite of the oppressive August heat. “From what I could see on the fly-over, everything on his place is pretty much kindling except for the packinghouse—one wall down and the roof gone but otherwise standing. The main house might be okay, hard to say. The upper branches of a large banyan tree had fallen onto it and hidden most of it from view.”

Hester bowed her head. She hadn't done enough. She had allowed her irritation at John Steiner's arrogance to color her actions. She should have insisted, but the more Margery had talked about the man on the quick bumpy boat ride from her marina to Tucker's Point, the more upset Hester had become. By the time she had knocked on the man's front door, she had been seething with righteous indignation.

Now John Steiner might be dead. A casualty of the hurricane that carried her name.

“I am so sorry,” she murmured and swallowed back tears of shame and regret. “I should have …”

“Hey, easy there,” Grady said, patting her shoulder. “We don't know what happened. Maybe the guy thought better of his decision and moved out. Maybe he was able to ride out the storm—like I said, the house didn't seem to be a total loss. A good part of it was still standing.”

“You said ‘kindling,' ” Hester reminded him.

“I embellish. You know that.”

“Well, I hope you're right and he made it.”

Grady tapped his pen on the clipboard in a drumbeat. “One way to find out,” he muttered, not looking at her.

“You can't seriously be thinking of going out there with everything else you have to do,” Hester said.

“Not me. I asked your father if he might go. Maybe take Samuel Brubaker along in case there's any heavy lifting to be done.”

Her father had been up and out before Hester was dressed that morning. “And he said?”

“He'd go as long as you came along as front porch sitter.”

“You want me to …” Hester could barely get the words out. A “front porch sitter” was usually one of her Dad's volunteers who was designated to sit with the home owner in those first moments after the crew arrived. That was the time when the home owner was likely to be most emotional and not thinking clearly. The sitter would listen and offer comfort until the home owner calmed down enough to give written permission for the MDS team to start clearing away the worst of the debris. Presumably in this case, her job was to get the guy to let them escort him off the property, assuming he was alive.