Michael Collings - The Slab

Catherine shook her head. “But after they were punished for fighting over the game…”

“Punished?”

“Having to put it away like that. We’ve never done that before. We’ve always given them at least one more chance. Then knuckling under to Sams…”

“Knuckling under?”

Catherine started. She heard anger in Willard’s voice, not right at the surface yet, but there nonetheless.

She reached out and laid her hand on his.

“Willard, what’s wrong? This isn’t like…”

“Nothing,” he said curtly. Then he took a deep breath and sighed. “Nothing, really. I guess I was just tired. First that horrendous trip home-the freeway was like glass, the rain was so hard that the wipers could barely keep up, and red lights kept flashing right and left like crazy. There were so many cars jammed together that it seemed like there had to be a roadblock or an accident somewhere up ahead, but there never was, just car after car after car creeping along like slugs.

“Then the garage door not working when I got home, and me getting drenched like that. And then the cracks…”

“Sweetie, don’t…”

Willard’s hand slammed against the table top. “Dammit, don’t tell me to…”

Startled at the hurt expression in her eyes, he stopped, placed his hand over hers, and sighed.

“It’s like all of a sudden everything is going wrong. The kids arguing like that, us arguing, the rain…and this house, falling apart and we haven’t even been in it three months. And that creep Maxwell shrugging it off like it was nothing.

“We were cheated! And then he just blows us off like it was nothing. ‘The house isn’t going to fall in any time soon. Maybe in forty or fifty years, but not tomorrow.’

“Right. Only it isn’t his kids that have to live in it, his wife that… I feel like a total failure.”

“Willard.”

He looked at Catherine, suddenly realizing that he was holding his breath in…anger? No, fury. He had never felt this way in his life, so impotent, so helpless, so…so cheated! Screwed!

“It’s not worth it, honey. Not tonight. There’s nothing we can do right now. Tomorrow we’ll call the county inspector or something, get someone out here who can help us. It will all work out. You know it will.”

Willard took several deep breaths. “Okay. You’re right. Maybe tomorrow everything will look better. Maybe the rain will stop.”

But the rain didn’t stop.

If anything, it was pouring harder when Willard struggled awake at 5:00, showered and shaved, threw on his clothes, grabbed a left-over corn muffin from yesterday’s breakfast, and shuffled off to work.

It was pouring even harder than that-solid sheets of water that almost obscured the world outside and left eerie dark patterns on the windows-a few hours later when Catherine finally had all of the kids up and seated at the breakfast, putting the finishing touches on their school lunches.

“I don’t want peanut butter and jelly,” Burt muttered. “I always have peanut butter and jelly.”

“But that’s your favorite, isn’t it?” Catherine knew that he insisted on the same thing every day for his lunch, had insisted on it since his first day in kindergarten.

“No. I hate it.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but your lunch is already made and packed and you’ll just have to eat it.”

“No!”

Catherine turned to stare at him. Will, Jr., and Suze were staring at Burt as well. Sams ignored his bigger brother, intent on destroying his bowl of Sugar Crisps and drawing circles in spilled milk on the tray of his high chair.

“Burt!” Catherine’s voice was sharper than she intended. “It’s made and you’ll eat it.”

“But…”

“Don’t argue with me.” She glared at him, unsure herself why it was so important that she win this small tug-of-wills. Usually she wouldn’t have minded, just made him a tuna sandwich like she made for Will and Suze. And peanut and butter was his favorite. The whole family knew that. Burt would almost rather have that than a bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream, his second favorite thing. But today…

“Okay,” Burt muttered, lowering his gaze to his plate. He spooned fitfully at his own bowl of cereal, complete with milk, slopping soggy bits onto the table.

“Burt! Don’t do that…” Catherine suddenly broke off.

With the part of her mind that mother’s use to keep track of everything going on around her even while dealing with her children, she had heard something on the radio that she turned on each morning while setting breakfast out. The announcer’s voice was low, almost inaudible, and rarely intruded into her conscious awareness.

“…reports the following school closures because of unexpected flooding in the…”

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Will turned to look at the radio.

“Shhh.”

“For the Newton Park area…”

“It sounds like they’re closing some of the schools today. Too much rain. Shhh.”

“…and for Tamarind Valley, Reagan Jr. High, Pitt Elementary, Redwood Heights Elementary, Greenwood Elementary, Charter Oaks Elementary…”

Hearing the name of their school, Burt and Suze broke out into spontaneous cheering. Will was quieter but a broad grin creased his face.

“No school, no school, no school…,” the younger two chanted. Sams waved his arms up and down and joined the chorus. “No school, no school, no school…”

Will restrained himself.

Catherine sighed. No school today. Great.

It wasn’t half an hour after she had herded the four kids into the back bedroom to play and settled herself down to cleaning the kitchen and finally making herself some toast and tea when the front door opened, then slammed shut.

“Willard?” She jumped to her feet and started toward the entryway just in time to see him stamping his feet and dropping his sodden raincoat onto the tile.

Oh, no. The garage door opener again.

“What happened?” Somehow he looked different than he had when he got home last night, even though he was just as drenched. Did the car break down? Was he feeling ill? After all, last night had been difficult for him.

“You’re not going to believe this.” Willard looked as if wanted to laugh and curse at the same time. She’d never seen such an expression on his face before.

“What?”

The freeway’s flooded. The freeway!”

Catherine didn’t quite know what to say.

“Just before you get to the San Fernando Valley, you know where the freeway takes that deep dip before the final hill? Well, apparently it’s flooded there. All eight lanes. Traffic both directions is stopped completely! I couldn’t believe it.”

“But you’ve been gone for hours.”

“Yeah.” Now the odd look was replaced by a grimace. “It took nearly two hours for the highway patrol to funnel everyone off the freeway and onto that little, single-lane access road heading back toward Tamarind. You wouldn’t believe the mess.

“And even that road was nearly flooded in a couple of places, so we had to slow down to ten miles an hour or so. It’s unbelievable.”

By this time, he and Catherine were back in the kitchen, sitting around the table. She was pouring Willard a cup of tea and refreshing her own.

“Then it took another hour or so to negotiate the surface roads. Half of them were either shut down completely or restricted to one-way traffic only because of mud slides along the hills. I didn’t think I was ever going to make it home.

“But that’s not even the worst of it,” he said after taking a long sip and shivering slightly at the sudden warmth. “I was listening to the radio the whole time, trying to figure out what roads to take. The freeway is shut at the northern end of the valley as well, just before the Camarillo grade, right where the eight lanes narrow to six. No way out to the north.