Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

“What do you want to see instead?”

“Daddy. And pancakes.”

Annabelle decided not to ask for trouble by explaining that Hugh-Jay wouldn’t be home for a while yet, and maybe not for a day or two.

“Do you want to see butter, too?”

“Yes!”

“Maple syrup?”

“Yes! And Mommy.”

“That we can handle.”

As Annabelle sped up again, she had the thought that everyone she knew would be gone long, long before the Testament Rocks fell down. That’s what she hoped, because that should be the natural order of things.

Along the rest of the way there were manifold signs of storm damage: trees sundered by lightning, branches and fences down, water standing in ditches, a few telephone poles on the ground. Distracted by the evidence of other people’s problems, Annabelle forgot her own disquieting dreams.

WHEN SHE DROVE into Rose, she saw branches down there, too, and streets carpeted with wet leaves. It was clear the power was still out, but otherwise the town seemed to have escaped without major wind damage. How their basements looked this morning was probably a different story, she knew. There could well be dozens of people with their sump pumps turned on, or bailing out water by hand, by the bucketful. She saw one large tree split in two, burned streaks down the inside announcing that the lumberjack had been lightning.

She went to the Rose Motel first and parked in front of the office.

“Where’d you stash them?” she asked the proprietor, whom she’d known for years.

“Your husband’s in Seven,” he told her with a smile, “and your boys are in Nine. How’s the highway from the ranch?”

“Clear. Water was very high, though.”

“I heard. We’re lucky nobody got washed away.”

“We sure are lucky. May I have keys to their rooms?”

With a cheery wave and keys in her hand, Annabelle left him to his paperwork. Taking Jody by the hand, she walked past the long row of rooms. She marched past Room 7 to pound on Room 9, and then to unlock it, making as much noise as possible to warn the boys to get decent. Before she did that, however, she gave Jody some instructions. Then she stuck her head in, with her face averted, and they both called out, “Pancakes! In half an hour! At the truck stop! See you there!” Jody didn’t get all the words out, but it did achieve Annabelle’s goal of giving her the giggles. The room smelled of wet leather and sons. She slammed the door to the muffled sound of “Mom?” in two deep voices, as if she had shocked them awake.

At home they’d have been up much earlier, and already working.

This felt like a vacation day, a special day for sleeping in and eating out.

As quietly as she could, Annabelle slid the key for Room 7 into its lock and turned it, after giving Jody certain other instructions. When the two of them slipped in as quietly as possible, they found it dark. Annabelle saw by the lump of covers that her husband was still in bed. She could barely remember the last time Hugh had slept so late, and although she knew he’d complain about it, she was glad for the extra rest for him.

Grandmother and grandchild ran to the bed and hopped onto the covers.

“Wake up, Grandpa!”

Hugh Senior jerked awake as if somebody had stuck a gun in his spine.

“Wha? Wha?”

Annabelle sprawled on her back and Jody jumped up and down on the bed, both of them laughing so hard that Jody got the hiccups and Annabelle had tears running down her cheeks. When he finally saw who had invaded his room, he started laughing, too, grabbed Jody with both strong hands and lifted her above him. “I should keep you up there all day!” he said with pretend ferociousness. “You woke up the grumpy old goat.”

Jody was breathless, so he put her gently down again.

Annabelle got off the bed and said, “I told the boys to meet us at the truck stop in half an hour. And Jody and I are going over to Laurie’s now to get her, too.”

“What about Belle?”

“Oh, my lord, I forgot about Belle.” Pangs of mother-guilt shot through Annabelle. “Where is she?”

“With Laurie. Or else she’s at the bank.”

“Museum,” Annabelle reminded him absently. “You can stop by and pick her up.”

“I’m starving!” Jody told them.

“Well, then let’s go get your mother!”

WHEN JODY SAW Chase and Bobby emerge yawning from their room, she got excited and begged to go with them and her grandfather. And so Annabelle arrived alone at her son and daughter-in-law’s home that morning. As she pulled halfway up their drive, she noted that her son would have some yard pickup work to do when he returned from Colorado: the big old pin oak tree in the front yard, the only oak in Rose, had lost some branches. Annabelle smiled, guessing what her optimistic oldest child might say about that: Well, good. Now I don’t have to risk life and limb climbing that tree to prune it with my chain saw. And then he’d laugh, acknowledging the humor of his absurdly rose-colored glasses.

She saw no lights in the big stone house; their power was still out.

So glad I never had to live here, she thought.

Big old spooky monstrosity full of ghosts and dust. Mostly dust.

At the massive front door, Annabelle turned the old brass doorknob, expecting the house to be unlocked, but it wasn’t.

“Locked?” she asked the door, in surprise.

Had Laurie been afraid to stay alone while Hugh-Jay was gone?

She rang the bell and then knocked on the door.

When that raised no reply, she did it again.

“Are you still asleep?” she asked her daughter-in-law, looking up to their bedroom. Why did the idea of Laurie sleeping in annoy her, she chided herself, when just a few moments before she’d been happy for her sons and husband to do the same? It wasn’t because they worked hard and deserved it and Laurie didn’t; any woman with a three-year-old and a house this size worked hard unless she had a nanny and a house cleaner, and Laurie didn’t have either.

Annabelle walked back down the front steps and around to the back.

The kitchen door was also locked, and the windows were all pulled down, probably to keep the rain from spraying in during the storm last night.

She knocked, and then pounded on the back door.

“Laurie Jo!” She felt frustrated. “Answer the door!”

Maybe she had gone out in search of breakfast, too.

Annabelle turned to go, and it was only then that she realized her son’s truck was parked in the backyard.

Was Hugh-Jay home already? Or had he driven Laurie’s car to Colorado?

This was all very strange, she thought, feeling cranky about it.

And then she realized how she might get into the house.

Hoping that Laurie had forgotten to lock the basement door, Annabelle went around to the side of the house and descended the old cement steps to the basement, where they’d only recently cemented in the dirt walls. She had to stand in dirty water from the backed-up drain at the bottom to test the door, but when she did, it budged. She put a shoulder to it, and it gave with a cracking sound that she hoped didn’t mean some kind of expensive repair.

The basement smelled as if it had flooded, as indeed it had by a couple of inches. The water was gone, but mud coated the concrete floor. Annabelle grimaced as she stepped across it, moving carefully so she wouldn’t slip and end up lying in the muck. That was some rain they’d had last night!

She saw residue around the clothes washer and dryer.

“Hope they’re not shorted-out,” she said aloud.

When she climbed the wood steps, treading cautiously on her now slippery soles, she hung onto the banister and prayed the basement door upstairs wasn’t locked from the other side.