The Four Winds(96)

The parking area was crowded with people now. It had become a disaster staging area. Volunteers offered food and hot coffee and clothes to the flood victims, who walked around with a dazed look.

Elsa got out of the truck, staggered sideways.

Jack was there to catch her.

She tried to pull away. “I should go to see my children—”

“They’re probably still sleeping. I’ll make sure they’re fine and tell them where you are. For now, though, you are getting some sleep. I saved a room for you.”

Sleep. She had to admit it sounded good.

He helped her up the stairs and into the room next to her children’s. Once inside, he led her straight into the bathroom, where he turned on the shower water and waited impatiently for it to get warm; when it did, he wrenched back the curtain. Elsa couldn’t hold back a sigh. Warm water. She tossed her journal onto a shelf above the toilet.

Before she fully understood what he was doing, Jack had removed her galoshes and peeled the heavy canvas duster off of her and pushed her into the spray of water, fully dressed.

Elsa tilted her head back, let the hot water run through her hair.

Jack pulled the shower curtain shut and left her.

The water at Elsa’s feet turned black with the mud. She stripped out of Jack’s clothes—probably ruined now—and reached for the soap in the dish and rubbed it in her hands. Lavender.

She washed her hair and scrubbed her skin until it tingled. When the water began to cool, she stepped out, dried off, and wrapped herself in the towel. Steam hung in the room. She washed Jack’s clothes in the sink, then draped the shirt and pants and her undergarments and socks over the towel rack and returned to the bedroom.

Clean sheets.

What a luxury.

Maybe Jack was right. A short nap might help.

Elsa thought of all the laundry she’d done in her life, the joy she’d always taken in hanging sheets to dry, but never until now had she fully, deeply appreciated the sheer physical pleasure of clean sheets on naked skin. The fresh smell of lavender soap in her hair.

She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Within moments, she was asleep.





TWENTY-SEVEN





When Loreda woke up, she didn’t know where she was.

She sat up slowly, feeling a cloud-soft mattress beneath her. Hair lay across her face in tangles; it smelled of lavender. Mom’s soap. But it wasn’t quite the right aroma, and they hadn’t had lavender soap in years.

The flood. The ditch-bank camp.

It came back to her in a flash, the muddy water rushing past them, the tent collapsing, people screaming.

Loreda eased out from underneath the covers and found Ant curled up beside her, wearing only his saggy underwear and an undershirt.

Their slightly damp clothes hung from hooks on a wooden dresser. Loreda got up and took her clothes with her into the bathroom. After she used the toilet, she couldn’t help herself: she took another shower but didn’t wash her hair. Then she put on her dress and sweater. Her coat was gone. As was all of their money and food.

“Oh, no, yah don’t,” Ant said, flinging the covers aside when she walked back into the room barefoot.

“What do you mean?”

“You ain’t leavin’ me here alone. I’m not a baby anymore. I’m starting to think things happen that I don’t know nuthin’ about.”

Loreda couldn’t help smiling. “Get dressed, Antsy.”

He dressed in last night’s still-damp clothes—all they had left now—and together they left the room, walked on bare feet down the narrow stairway to the lobby below. Halfway down, they heard voices.

The small lobby was filled with people; the air smelled of sweat, wet clothes, and drying mud. Loreda and Ant pushed their way through.

Outside, a bright sun shone on the wet street, which had been cordoned off to traffic. Several organizations had set up tents in the street—the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, some state relief organizations. A couple of church groups. Each held a table and chairs, along with donuts and sandwiches and hot coffee, as well as boxes of goods and clothes for giveaway.

“It’s like a carnival,” Ant said, shivering in his damp clothes. “But I don’t see no rides.”

“Any rides,” Loreda said, crossing her arms for warmth.

The displaced migrant families were obvious; they gathered in bedraggled groups, wearing blankets and looking dazed, sipping hot coffee.

Loreda saw a tent set back from the others. A banner hung from one tent pole to the other, WORKERS ALLIANCE: FDR’S NEW DEAL SHOULD WORK FOR YOU.

Communists.

“Come on.” Loreda dragged Ant to the tent, where a woman in a black coat stood all by herself smoking a cigarette. She wore black wool pants and a creamy white sweater and a beret. Bright red lipstick accentuated the pallor of her skin.

Loreda approached the tent. “Hello?”

The woman pulled the cigarette from her bright red lips and turned. Her dark eyes narrowed into an assessing gaze that swept Loreda from head to foot. “Would you like some coffee?”

Loreda had never seen a woman like this. So . . . elegant, or maybe it was just boldness. She was probably Mom’s age, but her style and beauty were somehow ageless. “I’m Loreda.”

The woman extended a hand. Bright red lacquer polish brightened her short fingernails. “I’m Natalia. You’re freezing.”