The Light Pirate(20)

Then the pain returns and she is overcome once more, on her back, on the floor, gripped with it. She watches the storm rage through the doorway, still open, and knows that she should seize the next moment of relief to separate herself from this violence. But she can’t just now. The door slams against the side of the house, flailing in the wind. She is back to existing, to simply abiding what is happening within.

Frida has never seen a birth before, but she’s read the books. She knows what the speed and intensity of her contractions means. It means she will have this baby soon and there will be no one here to help. Trying to remember any shred of information or advice that might get her through this and failing to think of a single thing, she sees the scattered oranges that were swept from the table and onto the floor when she first opened the door, the shards of the bowl they occupied surrounding them. The nearest piece of fruit is beside her head, a luminous globe not unlike a small sun, rocking back and forth in a dip in the tile as the wind comes inside. She tries to focus on this orange, inhales its ripeness, imagines that its skin, that rich flame of color, is emitting the energy she needs. She begins to push, almost involuntarily, and it is as though her pelvis cracks open. An agony not of this world floods through her. The door, she keeps thinking—The door, I have to close it. As if that matters now. It’s still open. It stays open. She pushes again. Doesn’t want to, isn’t ready, but she can barely stop herself. Is this right? Is she doing it right? Nothing about this is right. From the floor she can see the dark sky spinning, can hear the storm screaming, or maybe it’s her, or maybe it’s both of them.





Chapter 25




Inside the eye, the storm is quieter. The rain ceases to fall. The wind is almost gentle. Kirby drives as fast as he can without breaching its border. The roar of the eyewall, of its edges, seems to come from a great distance, though it isn’t far away at all.

Where there was a cacophony a moment ago there is calm. The palms on either side of the road sway back into their upright shape. The sun shines through above him. Ahead, the wall of the hurricane is enormous—a churning mass of cloud that is somehow dark and luminous at the same time. The storm moves quickly, its eye roaming over the road he needs to get home. He is grateful for this miracle. But every mile that he drives has already seen the wrath of the eyewall, and the devastation makes him physically ill. He skirts the debris in the road when he can and drives over it when he can’t. This is only the halfway mark—the other edge of the eyewall will come to bear soon enough and the destruction he’s passing through now will double. Later, the surge will destroy what’s left. There are moments when he can see the other side of the wall in his rearview mirror. He can only imagine what the destruction behind him must look like. Suddenly, improbably, the phone on the bench seat rings. He snatches it up, answers it without looking at the screen, his eyes fastened to the treacherous road in front of him.

“Yes,” he barks.

“This is Phyllis Donner, from down the street? The blue house…” The connection is bad, of course; he strains to fill in the gaps of what she’s saying to him.

Kirby is confused. “Okay…” he says, and almost drops the phone as he swerves around a tree limb in the road. “Can I…Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I have your son here. I—he’s not saying much, but he put in your number. I just want you to know he’s okay. I’ll keep him here until it’s over.”

Kirby is at a loss for words. Relief floods his nervous system. He scrambles, reaching; something is wrong with this, this tidal wave of relief has come too soon, and then he finds it.

“Where’s the other one?”

“The other…” she says slowly, not understanding.

“The other boy. Which kid do you have?”





Chapter 26




Phyllis hangs up and looks at the boy sitting on her sofa, dripping, a pink towel wrapped around his narrow shoulders. He’s still shaking, so wet she can’t tell if these are tears streaming down his face or rain. She sits down next to him.

Of course, she thinks. Where is the other one? There are always two, always together, these boys. She saw them everywhere this summer—riding their little matching bicycles, clambering down the edge of the ditch opposite her house to look for crayfish in the stream that trickles by.

She puts her arm around this tiny creature who seems to fancy himself so large but in reality is small at the best of times and smaller still in this moment.

“Where’s your brother?” she asks, as gently as she can. He stares straight ahead, either unable or unwilling to speak to her. She wraps him against her, feeling his sharp little bones against her chest. “You have to tell me, hon.” She holds his head against the drape of her breast, trying to still the severity of his shaking with her own solidness. He begins to sob. She holds him tighter.

“Gone,” the boy says, but the word is choked from him as if there is an invisible fist tightening around his throat.

“Gone where?” she asks, and lifts his chin to make him look at her. Blood drips from his nose, cut with water. She can almost taste the iron, the salt, accumulating on the valley of his upper lip and then spilling over into his half-open mouth. He is panting, unable to catch his breath. She carefully wipes his nose with the towel, observing that it’s broken. We’ll have to set that, she thinks. But for now: “Try to breathe slow, honey,” she says, and shows him. “Breathe like this. Where’s he gone?”