The Last Karankawas(59)
They fall quiet again, silenced by the storm, awed and troubled into stillness so they hardly move or even breathe. Carly thinks: Galveston is lying out there, in that. Her house, her car, her hospital. Coworkers, neighbors. Jess’s mom and sisters and cousin. A sign of pride for islanders, hunkering down whatever the weather, plowing through.
But this. She swallows hard as the roof rattles. They are in Sealy, a hundred miles inland. Galveston could not have expected this. The cracked, tipping headstones and mausoleums of Old City Cemetery, the elegant towers of the Hotel Galvez, the marina with the Cig, the lot off Ferry Road where she had broken her collarbone playing football, the stretch of beach by the jetties where Magdalena liked to walk barefoot. Beneath all this ferocity the island huddles together and bends down, maybe breaking, and Carly miles away, and her grandmother, too. Alone, away, just as she wanted. Tears spring to her eyes, but she wills them back. She left; this is the cost.
“Maybe letting her light a fire wouldn’t have hurt,” she says, immediately blushing with embarrassment. Jess strokes a hand down her back.
“Maybe not.”
The seething sounds of the wind work their way into her fitful dreams, become her grandmother around a bonfire on the beach, her face lifted to the sky. She wears a wedding veil. She is screaming.
* * *
They do not open the causeway, not for days. The ferries stay shut for even longer than that; only helicopters and rescue vehicles can reach Bolivar, picking up survivors, the remnants of people who didn’t, or couldn’t, leave. In Hector’s living room they gather to watch the news reports. When aerial footage shows boats, fragments of boats, random scraps of wood tossed across a barren and churned-up stretch of beach, Carly gasps. Tall lengths of timber stick up from the sand—stilt legs that once held up houses. All empty now.
“Jesus,” Jess says softly.
Mrs. de los Santos—the old one—makes the sign of the cross and begins to murmur. Beside her, Hector’s wife slips her hand into his. His mother is weeping softly.
“Our house?” Carly asks aloud. She hears the wildness, the raw scrape of worry, in her voice. “Fish Village?”
Mrs. de los Santos bites her lip. Hector sighs. Beneath her hand Jess’s leg is bouncing with anxiety. She knows they are thinking as one: their friends, neighbors. With their mind’s eyes from high above, they skim the streets like seagulls. On Bonita, the de los Santos bungalow with the herb garden in the back where his grandmother works daily. On Marlin, the cottage owned by Carlos Saldivar’s parents, with the roses Luz pruned before they moved away, before they divorced months ago and Carlos came home. Down the street, the three-bedroom with the porch swing where Mr. Pham and his wife like to drink salty dogs when he isn’t on the bay. On Barracuda, Ram Jackson, who played football with Jess and asked Carly to prom, in the lavender two-story where he fosters stray dogs with the Filipino lab tech or the Black PE teacher or whoever his boyfriend is these days. On Pompano, the ranch house with the wide porch where Jess’s mother and three youngest sisters still live. On Tuna, the duplex owned by Yvonne and her husband, which Mercedes rents for cheap, lining the front steps with potted succulents and geraniums that she keeps overwatering.
They watch the news footage for two more days, hoping for a glimpse of Ferry Road or UTMB or their corner of the island, but the images focus on the historic Victorians on Broadway and the shattered stilt houses on Crystal Beach. Once they show shrimping and pleasure boats tossed onto the street like bath toys—Jess sucks in a sharp breath, and Carly twines her fingers into his. Ball High, missing chunks of roof. Sacred Heart, flooded. Nothing of Fish Village or their people.
“We won’t know until we go,” Jess says.
The phone in Carly’s pocket buzzes, startling them. Somehow she knows who it is even before looking at the caller ID.
* * *
She set a fire during the hurricane. A small one, but real this time. She let the palm fronds dry completely, then tore them into small strips and shaped them into a pile in her bathroom, setting them alight with the lighter she’d stolen from a resident who smokes. Jess points out her genius; she even ringed the fire with small, smooth rocks taken from the gardens in the courtyard so it wouldn’t spread. When the smoke alarm in her room started blaring, the nurses and manager had found Magdalena in her nightgown, her hands in the air, cupping the smoke as if she could lift it to her mouth and drink. Her eyes were red and streaming, but she couldn’t stop laughing. Neither could Mrs. de los Santos, Hector’s grandmother—she hooted and clapped, hearing about her friend.
They cannot make it down to League City for another day, until the city clears the tree branches and debris. Carly speaks in clipped tones to Mrs. Reyes and the skeleton staff as she apologizes, signs the discharge papers. But Magdalena has a smug smile on her face, and Jess doesn’t bother to hide his grin. Only Carly sits, icy with shame. She stays silent as they drive away from Bay Pines, her grandmother a disgraced former resident.
The causeway is still closed, so they head west, back to Sealy and their friends. Jess explains that they have no news of the house yet, that when he spoke to Yvonne he found out about the surge. “It was flooded, too, I’m sure,” he says. “We’ll have to be ready for some damage when we go back.”
“Don’t worry, Jesusmaría. I cast the protection blessing, remember? Our house is still there,” she says, with such confidence and cheer in her voice that Carly looks back, startled, before remembering she is angry and turning around in a huff. “Our island is strong. I protected her. She bent but did not break.” She gives a short laugh. “Isla de malhado.”