When the Wind Turned (8)

A Katrina family story (Chapter Eight)

PREVIOUSLY ON When the Wind Turned (Chapter Seven)

Jeremy was still trapped inside a flooded Charity Hospital, performing surgery by flashlight as the storm shredded New Orleans around him. He wrote his family’s initials on his gloves like a superstition, a tether, a prayer.

Frankie and the kids reached a Baton Rouge hotel after escaping New Orleans on a National Guard truck. Tired, shaken, but safe. Jeremy remained trapped inside Charity Hospital, performing surgeries by flashlight as the levees failed and the city flooded. The National Guard finally reached the hospital with plans for a medical evacuation. For the first time in days, both halves of the family felt the faint, impossible return of hope.

Word reached both ends of the broken line:

Medical staff would be pulled out of the city.

Jeremy was alive.

And the waiting began.

CHAPTER EIGHT — Reunion

Date: September 1, 2005

(the day medical staff begin evacuating Charity Hospital)

THE CYPRESS CROWN HOTEL — 6:14 AM

Frankie has slept only an hour.

Every time she closes her eyes, she sees the flooded stairwell described by the Guardsman. She sees Jeremy climbing through pitch-black hallways with only a headlamp. She hears the word evacuation over and over.

Maisie shifts closer to her, her small warm body providing the gentlest pressure against Frankie’s hip through the covers. Frankie lightly touches the dog’s soft hair with her fingers. A low growl, while the dog remains asleep and otherwise still, makes Frankie smile and she retracts the offending hand. It’s a small moment, just prominent enough to stir her into presence.

In the other bed, Jacob is awake, laptop open, quietly researching Hanford Academy again.

Noah, beside him, stares at the muted TV coverage.

Eve is steady in sleep next to Frankie but turned away from her toward the wall. Frankie is glad her youngest finally gave up checking AIM every two minutes. It had been hard watching Eve cling irrationally to the hope that Jeremy could be reachable in such a way. Frankie had tried telling her once that it was very unlikely Jeremy had internet access. Eve had stared at her with horribly desperate eyes: But, Mom, what if he does reach out and I don’t see the message?

When Frankie’s phone vibrates, she snatches it up so fast she nearly drops it.

TWO TEXTS.

The timestamps might as well be centuries old.

Both from Jeremy’s number.

Both arriving at once.

Both delayed by the collapse of the cell networks.

JEREMY (11:03 PM): I’m okay. Don’t know when I can call.

JEREMY (11:17 PM): Tell the kids I love them.

Frankie presses both fists to her mouth to hold in the sound she almost makes.

Jacob and Noah are both staring at her. Eve stirs but doesn’t quite wake.

Frankie stares at the bars on her flip phone, alternating between one and none.

“Come on,” she whispers. “Please.”

Nothing.

But he has tried.

He has reached for them—even across the broken wires of a broken city.

Noah crawls into the bed beside her. The motion stirs Maisie awake; the dog grumbles and shifts further down toward the end. Frankie puts her arm around Noah who rests his head on her shoulder.

The waiting no longer feels impossible.

It feels like purpose.