Maura Hanrahan: Tsunami

Leslie said nothing but bit his bottom lip in response.

As Herbert Hillier made his way up the hill to make sure his four children were safe he made one gasp after another at the destruction that greeted him. Where his father-in-law Henry’s house had stood, there was now a barren space. Herbert stopped in his tracks and looked around; Henry’s stage was gone, too, and so was his store. Even the old man’s fence had disappeared. Herbert was gobsmacked. Henry had lived in that house as long as anyone could remember, for most, if not all, of his sixty-eight years and now there was no evidence that it had even existed.

The hairs on Herbert’s head rose and his body shook. Then his legs began moving again. He had to get up the hill to make sure the children were all right. But then he was struck with a horrific thought: where was Henry? Had he gone to the Temperance meeting that had been planned for this evening? He usually did, he was an active member. And where was Lizzie, Henry’s wife? She was Jessie’s mother, too, and Jessie had left the children with her for the night. Herbert shuddered now as he thought of Jessie and her husband, David Hipditch, racing through the darkness from the Orange Lodge meeting in Lamaline to Point au Gaul.

He plodded on with fear in every step. When he reached his mother’s house he threw the door open to hear wailing. He ran inside and flashed his eyes around to take in each of his children. He let out a whoosh of air when he saw them all, safe and warm. But the tears…

“Nan and Jessie’s mother is dead,” said his own mother. “Washed away.”

“Grandma is gone!” Ruby cried.

“But that’s not the worst of it,” old Mrs. Hillier wailed. “Jessie’s three children are gone.”

Herbert couldn’t move.

“What? The three of them?” he said. “Gone?”

“The three of them, swept away,” his mother answered. “Thomas, Henry, and Elizabeth, the baby that she was still nursing.”

Ruby emitted a great sob.

“What are we going to do, Daddy?” she cried.

Her father’s tongue was thick.

“Well,” he said finally, “we’re going to go home to your mother and help her and Aunt Jessie out.”

He went to the porch to fetch his children’s winter clothes.

Then he turned back to his mother.

“Is Henry all right?” he asked. “Did Henry get swept away too?”

“Well, that’s the only bit of good news,” came the reply. “He was at the Temperance meeting so he’s alive.”

Herbert nodded, though his heart was no lighter.

“Herbert,” his mother said. “There’s more, though.”

Herbert tilted his head in her direction. What else could there possibly be after the disaster of all disasters that had befallen Jessie and David?

“Young Irene is dead, too,” his mother said. “She was down visiting her grandmother, as you know, and she got swept away with her little cousins.”

“Good God,” said Herbert as he envisioned another of Nan’s nieces, the daughter of her other sister, Jemima. “How old was she again?”

“She was eleven,” his mother answered. “Jemima will go mad. Irene was her only daughter with all those boys. Point au Gaul will never be the same after this, Herbert.”

“No,” Herbert said as his children put on their boots. “No.”

Ruby sniffled as she thought of Irene drowning. Irene used to sit behind her in school. The girl was her favourite cousin.

“We’d best get home,” her father said, placing his hand on her shoulder.

“Good night, children,” their only living grandmother called. “God bless you.”

Nan’s grip on her tea cup was tight while she waited for the children. Chesley paced the living room. He knew something of the deaths and destruction that had visited Point au Gaul that night but he didn’t want to be the one to tell Nan; he thought that duty should fall to her husband. He thought also that the family should be together when she was informed of the many likely deaths among her kin. Silence hung heavy as they waited.

Suddenly the door burst open and Nan’s brother, Tom, ran in, his face covered in red patches.

Nan ran out to the porch to meet him.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” she asked, her heart thumping loudly again.

He pulled her to him and sobbed.

“Don’t you know Mother is gone?” he cried. “Father’s home is gone, too!”

Nan drew in air and let it out in a great cry.

“Oh no!” she sobbed. “Oh no!” The tears poured down her face as she and Tom hugged each other like survivors on a raft.

Then Tom told her that their sister Jessie’s children had all been swept away.

Nan howled at the news and fell into a chair. Jemima’s daughter, Irene, was gone as well, he said. She rocked back and forth, her arms folded across her chest.

Then Jessie and David opened the door and came in. Jessie’s clothes were drenched, even her long dark hair was dripping cold water.

“I want my baby,” she said. “My children are gone. I want to know what happened to Thomas and Henry. I’m nursing Elizabeth…”

David stood like a fencepost, his eyes sunken and blank.

“She keeps talking like that,” he said. “And I can’t keep her indoors.”

Nan took Jessie in her arms and for ten long minutes both sisters cried from deep in their bellies. Afterwards it seemed that Jessie’s babbling had ceased. But then she said that she had to nurse Elizabeth. Nan took her upstairs and began to undress her and dry her off.

Downstairs, the men stood in the living room, saying nothing. Before long they heard Jessie scream about her lost children. She demanded to know what had happened to them and why they weren’t safe. When there were silences they knew Nan was talking softly to her. Then Jessie shouted again, wanting to know every detail of how they had been torn from their grandmother’s home and why. David put his hand to his mouth and closed his eyes.

“Sit down, David,” Tom said gently.

Upstairs, Nan begged Jessie to quieten down.

By now, Herbert had returned home with his and Nan’s four children. They sat on the day bed in the kitchen, like ducks in a row, too afraid to move or say anything. Herbert sent Tom to fetch Nan’s father, Henry, so that the old man could be with his daughters and son in his grief.

Soon Henry was sitting in Nan’s kitchen with his grandchildren, listening to Jessie’s mournful cries. After awhile, Ruby went upstairs and sat outside Nan’s room where her Aunt Jessie lay. She crouched down and prayed for her dead cousins but mostly for Aunt Jessie. Now Ruby knew what they meant by the phrase “hell on earth.”

Herbert and Tom settled David in the Hillier kitchen with cups of tea and lassie bread. As he spread the molasses on the bread, Herbert felt guilty that his wife’s kitchen was untouched, that his floors were dry. But there was little time for emotional indulgences. He and Tom quickly went to the porch and put their rubber boots on. They had decided to go out and see what could be done. By now, Herbert deeply regretted going to the Orange Lodge supper in Lamaline when he might have been of some assistance to his own village. There was no way of predicting what would befall Point au Gaul, he knew, but perhaps he shouldn’t have dismissed the earth tremor as he did. It was obvious now that it had something to do with the great waves that had swept houses, fishing rooms, and women and children away.

As he and Tom picked their way through the wreckage that was strewn through Point au Gaul, Tom told him what had happened in his absence. The first wave had rolled in on the flat land of the village and lifted houses and stores off their foundations, smashing them to bits. It swept the entire waterfront clean, carrying virtually everything there out to sea. It was the first wave that had taken Henry and Lizzie Hillier’s house out to sea and with it, Lizzie, and her four grandchildren.