The Promise (30 page)

I cupped Andre’s face in my hands. ‘Your father isn’t in the barn. He had been but then he left to come home. But something must have happened, and I don’t know where your father is. I wish I did, but I don’t. So we’ll have to wait and see.’

‘Something happened? To Daddy?’

‘I’m not sure. But, Andre, I’m here. You aren’t alone.’ I stroked his cheeks with my thumbs. I couldn’t read his eyes in the dark, and I was glad that he couldn’t read mine. ‘Do you understand?’ I said.

He shook his head.

‘Nor do I. But here’s what I do know. You’re thirsty and hungry. Let’s see what we can do about that. How would that be?’

He didn’t say anything.

I said, ‘Things will be better in the morning.’

‘They will?’

‘Yes,’ and I wanted that to be true.

I tried to lift the icebox from the floor, but it was waterlogged and I couldn’t raise it more than a few inches. I fumbled in the dark and managed to put together a meal of canned peaches and water from one of the buckets that was on the table. Andre and I sat on a bench and faced the dark hole in the wall so that I could keep watch. We drank the water quickly, both of us parched. Andre asked for more. ‘Just a little,’ I said, my own mouth still dry. There were only five buckets.

When we finished the peaches, I took him to my bedroom and using as little water as possible, I washed his face, hands, and legs. I put him in one of Oscar’s shirts; his nightshirt was a muddy heap on his bedroom floor. Andre was limp with fatigue, and his chin nodded close to his chest. Floodwater had come partway up the bed but the surface of the feather mattress was dry enough. ‘I’m right here,’ I said to him as I helped him into my bed. ‘I won’t leave you.’ He mumbled something. By the wardrobe, I took off my soiled clothes, wiped my face and hands, and put on a clean shirtwaist and petti-coat. I closed the bedroom door as though that would shelter us from all harm. I longed for another drink of water but instead, I lay down beside Andre, my arm around him. The mosquito netting was gone and above us, the torn cloth in the canopy seemed to float in the wind, sweeping over us.

‘Hail Mary, full of Grace,’ I said as I held Andre close. This was his prayer before bedtime. ‘The Lord is with thee.’ I could not remember the rest of the words. ‘Do you know the next part?’ I said. He didn’t say anything; he was falling asleep. I started the prayer again but said only the first two lines, over and again until his breathing settled into the soft, shallow rise and fall of sleep.

Throughout the house, rainwater dripped from leaks in the ceiling and splattered into the mud. Oscar, I thought. Where are you? I closed my eyes, but I kept seeing him floundering in the waves. My heart racing, I sat up, then put on my shoes, and went out onto the back veranda.

The wicker chairs were in pieces, and above, the clouds were thin and shredded. The night sky glimmered white under the full moon. The land was patched with its light, and there were ponds of standing water. The wind was still strong, but it came from the gulf and the breeze was light at the back of the house. I looked for signs of life and listened for a voice that was stronger than the wind and the crash of the waves. If Oscar had found shelter at the Ogdens’ or at other neighbors’, he’d be on his way home. He must be frantic with worry about us. Nothing could keep him from getting home as soon as he could. Unless he were injured, suffering, and alone in the dark.

The storm had been vicious and cruel. Anyone small or weak could have been hurt. Or worse. But not Oscar; he’d be home by daylight. If he wasn’t, I’d summon help. I’d find the Ogdens or other neighbors, and we’d search for him.

The moon went behind the clouds, and rain showers came and went. Something pressed against my skirt, frightening me. It was one of the dogs, then all four were on the veranda. Their panting was labored, and listening to them made me thirsty. So little water, I thought. I had to make it last. Oscar, though, would be home in the morning, and he’d know what to do. At this moment these dogs were perhaps as parched as I. They were Andre’s pets, his friends, and I couldn’t let anything happen to them. Andre had been through enough.

I went inside and poured water into the two bowls that Andre and I had used for our peaches. A few days ago I would have been appalled at the lack of sanitation but there was nothing sanitary about the storm. The dogs crowded around the bowls and licked them dry. I filled them again. Listening to the dogs as they lapped the water made me all the thirstier. Only five buckets, I reminded myself. And the water in the bathtub and in the cistern.

I went back out onto the veranda. When my legs began to tremble with fatigue, I came inside, sat on the edge of the bed, and took off my shoes. I lay down beside Andre and curled around him.

I awoke with a start. For an instant, I was lost: the torn canopy overhead, the dank earthy smell of mud, and Andre beside me, stirring. Daylight showed through the broken storm shutters, and the memory of the storm returned. Outside, the dogs barked and yipped. From a distance, someone shouted, calling.

Oscar. Joy drove me to my feet, the cold mud on the floor momentarily stunning me. Barefoot, I hurried, slipping, to the back veranda. Oscar was midway between the house and the bayou, on foot and skirting around a pond of standing water. The dogs circled him, their tails wagging. I waved and went to the back steps. The veranda bounced as though the stilts had come loose, and all at once, my joy buckled and collapsed.

This wasn’t Oscar. He wasn’t tall enough, and his gait was wrong.

‘It’s Mr Wiley,’ Andre said. I hadn’t heard him come outside. Wearing Oscar’s worn blue shirt, he looked all the smaller. He said, ‘Mr Wiley’s walking. He don’t like to walk, not if he can hitch up a wagon. Or ride a horse.’

Wiley Ogden. The skin below my left eye twitched. I touched it. It wouldn’t stop.

‘Mr Wiley!’ Andre shouted. ‘How come you’re walking?’

Wiley put his hand to his ear.

‘He can’t hear you,’ I said. Andre looked up at me and there was Oscar in the shape of his jaw and in his eyebrows. ‘Stay with me,’ I said. I took his hand, the image of Oscar in the water so vivid that it was as though it were happening again before my eyes.

‘Something’s wrong with the cows,’ Andre said. ‘They look funny.’

The grass in the back pasture was flattened with mud. A shovel near the foot of the stairs lay abandoned and farther away, a wheelbarrow was upright as if waiting for someone to push it back to the barn. In places, boards were piled in heaps, and pieces of cloth caught in crushed bushes fluttered in the wind. Steel milk canisters were strewn in every direction and throughout the pasture, cows and horses lay on their sides.

Andre said, ‘That one over there, see her? Her neck is twisted funny.’

Wiley was hatless and even from this distance I was able to see that his pale forehead was drawn with concern. There was something else about him, a sense of reluctance perhaps, his pace slowing as he looked up at us. Wiley had news about Oscar, I thought. Bad news.

‘Why’s her neck like that?’ Andre said.

It was morning, overcast and gray but daylight. It was windy but the storm was over. Oscar should be home. A suffocating pain gripped my heart.

‘Why?’ Andre said.

‘She’s not well,’ I heard myself say. ‘Something happened to her.’

‘She’s sick? Is that what you mean? They’re all sick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Over there, by that big puddle of water,’ Andre said, pointing to one of the horses. ‘That looks like Maud. Her leg is bent wrong. It’s sticking up in the air.’

Wiley quickened his stride, and as he came closer, I saw his alarm. His glances darted from the barn to us, then past the house toward the shoreline, skimming the land before returning to us. ‘Mrs Williams,’ he called. ‘Andre. You all right? Everybody there all right? Everybody?’

‘Mr Wiley,’ Andre shouted. ‘The cows and Maud aren’t right. They ain’t moving.’

‘They
aren’t
moving,’ I said, my words hollow and flat.

‘I know. It’s all wrong.’

I pressed my hand against my breastbone to ease the suffocating pain. I had been certain that Oscar had been swept to the Ogdens’. I had pictured him safe in their stairwell. I had convinced myself of this; I needed it to be true. But Wiley, here and alone, and his question – ‘Everybody?’ – meant only one thing. He knew nothing about Oscar.

Wiley’s upper lip was split in the middle and crusted with blood. One of his eyes was swollen and bruised. His trousers were torn at the knees, and the buttons were missing from his shirt. He couldn’t meet my eyes when I told him Oscar wasn’t home, the three of us on the back veranda and Andre holding his hand. Wiley’s gaze jittered from my bare feet to the bayou and then toward the barn, taking in its collapsed front wall, the piles of boards, and the overturned water trough. My words were edged with a tremor, an undercurrent of panic ready to surface. I said only what was necessary: Oscar had let the cows and horses out of the barn, and the water was swift and deep. I couldn’t say more. Andre had acquired a puzzled, troubled look, and kept looking off at the pasture. I felt myself teetering toward despair, a dangerous bottomless place. To describe Oscar in the water, the waves and his struggle, to say any of that out loud was to relive those moments again.

‘We’ll find him,’ Wiley said. ‘And Frank T.’

‘Frank T.?’

‘Me and him was in the city,’ Wiley said. His words lisped and there was a tremor in his voice, too. ‘We was delivering milk, doing it quick. Him on his route, me on mine. Water came up, it was fast, I’ve never seen nothing like it. It came to the necks of Blaze and Mike. My horses. I looked for Frank T., couldn’t find him nowhere. I had to ride out the storm with the Browns on Broadway. When the water went down, I headed for home. On foot.’

‘How come?’ Andre said. ‘What happened to Blaze and Mike?’

He shook the question off.

My throat tightened. Frank T. The man who had strutted when we danced together at the pavilion, the brother who Nan scolded every time he spoke to me.

‘Parts of Galveston are gone,’ Wiley said. An odd flatness had crept into his eyes and it was in his voice, too.

‘Pardon?’ I said.

‘Blocks of it gone. The ones close to the beach.’

Andre said, ‘Gone where?’

‘Washed away.’

‘Dear Lord,’ I said. I couldn’t imagine it; it wasn’t possible. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Plenty.’

‘Buildings? Is that what you mean? Homes? Gone?’

‘It ain’t good.’

A storm powerful enough to destroy houses, and Oscar had been in the water. My panic bubbled; I pushed it down. ‘Your family?’ I said. ‘Other than Frank T.?’

‘They’re all right.’

‘Thank God.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ His voice shook. He swallowed. ‘We’ll find them. Frank T. and Oscar. Me and Daddy, we’ll get the neighbors to help.’

A search party. I turned toward the pasture and looked for signs of life, trying to see past the dead cows and horses. Their positions were grotesque, their necks and legs bent and twisted. The cows’ udders looked even more swollen than before.

‘They could be hurt,’ Wiley said. ‘Broke legs.’

‘Hurt,’ I said. It was an instant before I realized he referred to Oscar and Frank T. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I agree.’ My hopes rose. They were injured and waiting for help. Oscar was injured but alive.

‘Mrs Williams,’ Wiley said. He cocked his head toward Andre, whose eyes were glassy. ‘It could be a while. You and Andre, you best come on home with me. Wait with Mama and Nan.’ His gaze slid over me and I saw myself as he did. I was disheveled, barefoot with mud to my ankles. My hair was tangled and loose, and I wore only my shirtwaist and petticoat.

He said, ‘Ain’t good for you to be here. Not right now.’

‘Mr Ogden, no,’ I said. ‘I can’t leave. Oscar could be on his way home this very minute. If he got here only to find an empty house, he’d be frantic.’

‘But—’

‘If you could take Andre, I’d be for ever grateful. He needs breakfast.’ My words were rushed, the undercurrent of panic rising. I willed myself to slow down. ‘You see,’ I said, ‘the icebox fell over and is filled with seawater. And yesterday, I had not thought to get the sacks of flour up off of the floor. Even if I had, I’m not a cook. But your sister is. And your mother. Please take Andre. He’s better off there for now. But I need to stay here and wait for Oscar.’

‘Oscar ain’t going to like it, me going off without you.’

‘I’ll tell him that I insisted.’

A tired smile showed at the corners of Wiley’s mouth.

‘Thank you,’ I said. I whisked Andre to his room to help him get dressed. I sorted through his clothes but he had so few and everything was wet and muddy. Finally I found a shirt and short pants that would have to do. I got him out of Oscar’s shirt and into his own. I said, ‘Miss Nan will be so very pleased to see you.’

He didn’t say anything: his teeth chattered too hard. He was cold with fear, I thought. Wiley and I had said too much about Oscar. I rubbed his arms and told him that things would get better.

‘When?’ he said.

‘By tomorrow all of your clothes will be dry.’ I forced a smile but Andre’s eyes were flat. I fastened the buttons on his short pants; I put his stockings on him, then laced his muddy boots. I tried to smooth his cowlick with my fingers, but it had a will of its own. From the front of the house, I heard Wiley move the furniture back into place. The parlor chairs thumped as he righted them. So did the icebox and the stove. The upright was more difficult. I heard his groans as he pushed it back against the wall. When Andre was as presentable as I could manage, we went to the back veranda where Wiley met us. There, he pointed toward the bayou and to the west.

‘We’re that way, if you need us,’ he said. A small grove of trees, or what was left of them, marked the Ogden home. I crouched and embraced Andre and as I did, he put his arms around my neck and his cheek to mine. Fighting sudden tears, I kissed him and his kiss in return was loud and sweet. ‘You’re a brave young man,’ I whispered. ‘I’m proud of you.’

‘You are?’

‘Immensely.’ I tightened my embrace, then released him and said, ‘Now mind your manners and listen to Mr Wiley and Miss Nan. And to Mr and Mrs Ogden. I’ll see you soon.’