Henry Franks(49)

Banks of medical equipment glowed green and red around an empty hospital bed and multiple IV stands, tubes snaking down, attached to nothing. Leather restraints lay open on the mattress and a respirator sat dormant next to them. More equipment, lining the walls, came into view as the door opened fully.

“Dad!” Henry yelled as his father’s body came into view, on the floor on the other side of the hospital bed. He dropped the laptop to the floor and worked his way around the room, stepping into a puddle of blood as he knelt next to his father. “Call 911!”

“No,” his father said, his voice choked and weak. “No police.”

Justine picked up the phone. “No dial tone.”

“No police,” his father said again.

“Why?” Henry asked. He checked his father’s throat, unable to feel, with his numb fingers, how strong the pulse was. “Justine?”

She cradled his father’s head in her lap, her fingers resting on his neck. Blood stained the front of his shirt and his face was bruised in the light from the medical equipment. Sirens continued outside and the front door crashed open once again in the wind.

“He needs a doctor,” Justine said, her eyes white as she looked up.

“Get out,” his father said. “Now, Henry.”

“We’re not leaving you. They’re evacuating the island.”

“No.” The word was too soft to hear. “No.”

“Dad!” Henry put his numb palms on either side of his father’s face, turning him to look into his eyes. “We need to leave.”

“I’m sorry, Henry.”

“Let’s go,” he said, but no one moved.

His father’s fingers fluttered weakly on his arm, scratching at the scar around his wrist. “I tried,” his father said, the words ending in a cough, a thin trickle of blood leaking out of his mouth and down his chin.

“Dad?”

The front door slammed closed, cutting off the sirens. The hissing echoed down the hall as though the hurricane was stalking them.

“Get out!” his father pushed them away, rolling onto his side to point at the door. “Now!”

Justine took Henry’s hand as the generator sputtered once and went still, plunging the room into darkness.

“The basement,” Justine said.

Henry looked toward the bedroom door, where his father was struggling to stand before it.

“I don’t think we can go that way,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” William said, using the floor lamp to get up, then holding it like an unwieldy sword and swinging it back and forth in front of the door.

A flash of lightning ripped across the sky, sending shadows around the room. Henry grabbed his father’s arm but he pushed him away.

“Your mother”—his father’s words caught on a series of coughs as the front door crashed open once again—“isn’t very happy with me.”

The sirens wailed through the house, carried on the wind and the rain as Hurricane Erika arrived on Saint Simons Island with a peal of thunder.

“I’m sorry,” his father said. “She has nowhere else to go.”





twenty eight




Justine’s hand in Henry’s was far away, the storm farther still. Memories flickered on the edge of awareness but nothing was solid, nothing was real. He let her go and his fingers grasped the air, struggling to cling to a reality that was vaguely transparent.

Breathe.

The word was almost a silent hiss drowning in the storm.

Just breathe.

“Henry?” Justine cried out, shaking his arm.

He stood like a statue, unmoving.

“No,” he said, the word a whisper. Then, again, “No.”

His father took a step toward him, but Henry backed away. “She died. In the accident.” He wiped his fingers across his face. His hand came away covered in blood from his nose. “You told me—it was raining. You said there was an accident.”

“Henry,” his father said, his hand reaching toward his son.

“You told me she died.”

The wind stormed across the island, a bitter roar slamming branches against the roof. Thunder shook the house as lightning sent shadows flashing around the room. The three of them stood there and no one said a word for a long moment.

“Henry,” his father and Justine said at the same time.

He looked back and forth between the two of them, blinking, as tears fell down like rain.

“You died, Henry, not your mother.” His father’s voice was raw as he staggered against the floor lamp, the blood pooling at his feet.

“The cancer?” Justine asked, her voice breaking on the words.

William’s eyes opened wide. “You know?”

Henry nodded.

“The cancer was killing you, yes.”

“But?” Henry asked after too long of a silence.

“You died,” his father said, taking another step toward him, “when I cut your head off.”



“Save my son,” Christine said, her dark hazel eyes almost green in the fluorescent kitchen lighting.

“He’s my son too, Chrissy.”

“I carried him,” she said. “I raised him while you worked. Save my son!”