Previous chapter list:
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Years later, the Rosenfelds would only remember the week after the storm in fragments. Distant memory took dream-like shape.
As the kids became adults, they remembered the safe harbor of their grandparents’ house. The short ride into town along the river, shopping at the outdoor market with Nana, or visiting the library that used to be a shoe store on Main Street. How Eve would grab her mom’s hand and say, “You could work here,” and Frankie would smile and kiss her hair.
It was the little things they remembered. Like visiting Uncle Terry at the clinic. Or dropping in at Walmart. How Pop always smelled of cigar smoke. The harmonica he kept in his back pocket. The sound of it filling the house in the evening before dinner.
Eve would remember the smell the musty pages in Aunt Betty’s Nancy Drew books. Noah would remember coughing from the dust in the Other Uncle’s room. Jacob mostly stayed quiet, always near the main group, not hiding, but observing. Documenting. In his sketchpad, he captured Pop snoozing in his chair that faced the television. On another page, Nana doing crochet, her spectacles sliding down her nose. His parents talking quietly to each other, in serious conversation mostly but every now and then, Jacob would notice the spark between them, smile that reached their eyes as they looked at each other. Jacob worked hard to capture that smile, that look in his picture. That’s what Jacob wanted to remember.
Jeremy would always remember the stillness of that week. After the storm but before the move. Absolute stillness. No rushing around, no emergencies. The worst complaint from the kids was that the house held no internet. Just landlines. Rotary phones. His priority that week was reminding Frankie to stay calm and reminding himself to just be patient.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Heavy Crown Press to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.