Kristina Knight - Breakup In A Small Town

But there was nothing normal about waterspouts, and the radar on his phone had showed a solid blob of red over the entirety of Slippery Rock and the lake area. This was no normal storm. He had to get them out of there and into the shelter at the police station.

“Kids!” Adam called. The door to the baptismal area was lodged shut and he battered his shoulder against it. A long howl of wind seemed to shudder through the church and then the old door gave way. Adam stumbled into the empty room. No kids. And he had no idea where to look next.

Another loud wail of wind shrieked by, rattling the glass in the windows and seeming to make the entire building shake. A loud crack sounded, louder than the wind. The building shook again, and Adam flattened his back against the wall as part of the roof was ripped away.

He could see a green-gray sky where there had once been dark beams of cedar. Other bits of debris sailed past—tree limbs and what appeared to be hubcaps, and—Adam caught his breath. That looked like a telephone pole! And far, far above that, the steeple twisted and turned in the wind, swaying left and then right and then seeming to bend over the gaping hole where the roof used to be.

Pressing his back against the wall, Adam made his six-foot-two-inch body as flat and small as he could. There was nowhere else to go, and at least the kids weren’t here. Wherever they were, they were safer than he was now. The steeple bent back, and he watched more debris from the tornado whizz past through the sky above. The steeple surged forward and another loud crack sounded over the noise of the storm. When it bent back again, he’d go. He could make it to the police station, see if the workers got the kids over there before the storm began. If not, he’d figure out where they’d taken them and he’d make sure they were safe.

One. The steeple began twisting again, this time pushing toward the rear of the building.

Two. Just a little more. Just get out of his line of sight, he thought, give him enough space to escape from the baptismal font and slip out of the church.

Three. The steeple disappeared from view and Adam pushed off the wall, running through the old church. Hail pelted him through the ruined roof. He hit the front door with his shoulder, pushing as hard as he could against the winds holding it closed. Stained glass shattered, hitting his legs, back and shoulders in hot little explosions of pain, and still he pushed. The door opened a few inches and he pushed harder.

Another crack sounded and Adam looked up. The steeple bent forward at a weird angle, teetered precariously, then twisted left and began to fall.

Another gust of wind pushed Adam back through the door, slamming the thick oak panel against his knees as the steeple came crashing through what was left of the roof.

And then the world went black.

CHAPTER ONE

ADAM SAT IN his wheelchair, watching life happen outside the picture window of his house. Old Mrs. Thompson carried her gardening basket to her mailbox, talking to Mr. Rhodes as she plucked a few errant weeds from the butterfly bushes lining her walk.

Adam’s wife, Jenny, had left the windows open today, so he could hear kids chattering as they walked home from school, and the sound of a passing car up on the main road. And here he was, stuck in the wheelchair that had become his main mode of transportation since he’d woken up in the hospital nearly a week after the F4 tornado tore downtown Slippery Rock to shreds. Not because the crashing steeple had paralyzed him, but because it had messed up his brain. While the doctors adjusted medications to control the epilepsy he hated, Adam was stuck in the chair. Watching the world go by.

God, he hated watching. He wanted to be doing. Working with his tools in the workshop at Buchanan Cabinetry, playing with his kids in the yard or taking a walk with his wife. The woman who’d been stopping his brain from functioning properly much longer than the epilepsy.

The woman who now looked at him only with pity in her eyes.

He hated the pity more than he hated the chair.

Adam had no idea how to deal with either one, so he sat, and he watched, and he wondered if they would all be better off without him. Better off without worrying about when the next seizure would hit, better off because then an able-bodied someone could take his place.

He flexed his fingers against the armrests. The thought of Jenny being with another man, of another guy teaching Frankie how to hit a curve ball or push Garrett higher on the swing set had the pretty blue sky outside the window turning red. He didn’t want another man taking over any tiny, little piece of the life he’d loved before the tornado. Adam sighed. Did it really matter what he wanted? Letting Jenny and the kids move on with their lives, since his was stuck in the wheelchair, was the adult thing to do.

Jenny wouldn’t tell him to leave. If he wanted his family to have a better life, he would have to be the one to leave. Pressure in his chest built up, making it hard to breathe. It was the best option, one that would allow them to heal in a way that his presence never would. Jenny would keep crying herself to sleep. Frankie would still be afraid to so much as hold Adam’s hand, and Garrett... God, Garrett would keep looking at him through green eyes filled with terror.

Adam didn’t want his kids to be afraid of him. He didn’t want his wife to pity him. He just wanted things to go back to normal. To a time when he and Jenny would walk the four blocks to Buchanan Cabinetry together in the mornings. To a time when he’d play with the boys in the backyard before dinner, and wrestle with them before bedtime.

To a time when his touch could soothe whatever troubles made Jenny cry, instead of making those troubles so much worse. He’d been lucky that she fell in love with him before; now it was time to admit that she deserved better. More.

Pushing his hands against the hated wheels, Adam turned the chair from the window and propelled himself to the kitchen. At the step between the kitchen and the living area, he got up, feeling the sharp pain in his knee as he stood. He smiled at the feeling. Pain he could deal with. Pain he could use. He limped across the room, got a glass from the cabinet and poured a beer into it, not caring that he wasn’t supposed to mix alcohol with the medications. He held the glass up, closing his eyes as he let the smell of barley and yeast and hops wash over him.

God, he loved a cold beer.

The back door slammed and Adam dumped the full glass down the sink as his kids rushed through the mudroom, chattering about the Panama Canal and the best way to mix paints in art class. The conversation didn’t make any sense, but then, his kids’ conversations rarely made sense. Frankie, three years older, talked over Garrett, who chattered on whether anyone was listening or not.

Their noise stopped abruptly and Adam turned. His sons stared at him with eyes as wide as quarters.

“Daddy, you’re not s’posed to be out of the chair,” Garrett said, taking a step into the kitchen. He dropped his little backpack onto the tile.

“I was just getting a drink,” he said, rinsing the glass in the sink as he surreptitiously pushed the empty beer bottle into the recycling bin. He limped back to the chair, his injured knee screaming in pain as he went.

“Can I have a snack?” Garrett asked, putting his empty lunch box on Adam’s lap, looking at him expectantly. “I ate all my lunch, even the crusts off my PBJ.”

“Sure. How about a cookie?”

“Mom doesn’t let us have cookies after school, Dad,” Frankie said, rolling his eyes as he spoke in that husky voice that made him sound so much older than seven. “Healthy snacks first. Sweets for dessert.” He motioned to his younger brother. “How about an apple?”