Diane Chamberlain - Before the Storm

Above my head, a helicopter thrummed as it rose from the beach.

“Andy!” I shouted to the helicopter, only vaguely aware of how irrational I must have seemed.

Reverend Bill was clutching my arm, tugging me across the street through a maze of fire trucks and police cars to an area lit by another floodlight and cordoned off with yellow police tape. Inside the tape, people stood shoulder to shoulder, shouting and pushing.

“See that girl over there?” Reverend Bill pointed into the crowd of people.

“Who? Where? ” I stood on my toes trying to see better.

“The one in uniform,” he shouted. “She’s taking names, hooking parents up with their kids. You go see—”

I pulled away from him before he could finish the sentence. I didn’t bother looking for an entrance into the cordoned-off area. Instead, I climbed over the tape and plowed into the clot of people.

Parents crowded around the officer, who I recognized as Patty Shales. Her kids went to the elementary school in Sneads Ferry where I was a part-time nurse.

“Patty!” I shouted from the sea of parents. “Do you know where Andy is?”

She glanced over at me just as a man grabbed the clipboard from her hands. I couldn’t see what was happening, but Patty’s head disappeared from my view amid flailing arms and angry shouting.

From somewhere behind me, I heard the words “killed” and “dead.” I swung around to see two women, red eyed, hands to their mouths.

“ Who’s killed?” I asked. “ Who’s dead?”

One of the women wiped tears from her eyes. “I heard they found a body,” she said. “Some kids was trapped inside. My daughter’s here somewhere. I just pray to the Lord—” She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence.

I felt suddenly nauseated by the smell of the fire, a tarry chemical smell that burned my nostrils and throat.

“My son’s here, too,” I said, though I doubted the woman even heard me.

“Laurel!” Sara Weston lifted the yellow tape and ducked under it, running up to me. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“Andy’s here. Is Keith?”

She nodded, pressing a trembling hand to her cheek. “I can’t find him,” she said. “Someone said he got burned, but I—”

She stopped speaking as an ominous creaking sound came from the far side of the church—the sort of sound a massive tree makes as it starts to fall. Everyone froze, staring at the church as the rear of the roof collapsed in one long wave, sending smoke and embers into the air.

“Oh my God, Laurel!” Sara pressed her face against my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her as we were jostled by people trying to get closer to Patty. Parents stepped on our feet, pushing us one way, then another, and Sara and I pushed back as a unit, bullish and driven. I probably knew many of the people I fought out of my way, but in the heat of the moment, we were all simply desperate parents. This is what it was like inside, I thought, panic rising in my throat. All the kids pushing at once to get out of the church.

“Patty!” I shouted again, but I was only one voice of many. She heard me, though.

“Laurel!” she yelled. “They took Andy to New Hanover.”

“Oh God.”

“Not life threatening,” Patty called. “Asthma. Some burns.”

I let out my breath in a silent prayer. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“You go.” Sara tried to push me away, but I held fast to her. “Go, honey,” she repeated. “Go see him.”

I longed to run back to my car and drive to the hospital in Wilmington, but I couldn’t leave Sara. “Not until you’ve heard about Keith,” I said.

“Tracy Kelly’s parents here?” Patty called.

“Here!” a man barked from behind me.

“She’s at Cape Fear.”

“Is Keith Weston on the list?” Sara shouted into the din.

I was afraid Patty hadn’t heard her. She was speaking to a man who held a pair of broken glasses up to his eyes.

“Keith Weston was just airlifted to New Hanover,” Patty called.

“Oh, no.” Sara grabbed my arm so hard I winced. I thought of the helicopter rising into the sky above me.

“Let’s go,” I said, pulling Sara with me through the sea of people. Tears I’d been holding in spilled down my cheeks as we backed away, letting other parents take our places. “We can drive together.”

“We’ll go separately,” Sara said, already at a run away from me. “In case one of us has to stay longer or—”

“Mom!” Maggie suddenly appeared at my side, winded and shivering. “They told me Uncle Marcus is here somewhere, but I couldn’t find out anything about Andy.”

“He’s at New Hanover.” I grabbed her hand. “I’m parked over by Jabeen’s. Let’s go.”

I took one glance back at the smoking church. The ragged siding that still remained standing glowed red against the eerie gray sky. I hadn’t thought about my former brother-in-law being there, but of course he was. I pictured Marcus inside the church, moving slowly through the smoke with his air pack on, feeling his way, searching for children who never stood a chance. Could he have been hurt when the roof collapsed? Please, no. And for the briefest of moments, I shifted my worry from Andy to him.

Maggie and I barely spoke on the way to Wilmington. She cried nearly the whole time, sniffling softly, shredding a tissue in her lap. My eyes were on the road, my foot pressing the gas pedal nearly to the floor. I imagined Andy trying to make sense out of the chaos of a fire and its aftermath. Simply moving the lock-in from the youth building to the church had probably been more than he could handle.

“Why did you say they moved the lock-in to the church?” I asked when we were halfway there.

“The electricity went out in the youth building.” Her voice broke. “I heard some kids died, ” she said.

“Maybe just rumors.”

“I’m so sorry I talked you into letting Andy—”

“Shh.” I reached for her hand. “It’s not your fault, all right? Don’t even think that.” But inside I was angry at her, at how cavalierly she’d told me, Oh, Mother, he’ll be fine!

I tried to pull my hand from hers to make a turn, but she held it tightly, with a need that was rare for Maggie, and I let our hands stay locked together for the rest of the trip.

The crammed waiting area of the emergency room smelled of soot and antiseptic and was nearly as chaotic as the scene at the church. The throng of people in front of the glass reception window was four deep. I tried to push through, carving a space for Maggie and myself with my arms.

“Y’all have to wait your turn,” said a large, wide woman as she blocked my progress.

“I need to find out how my son is.” I kept pushing.

“We all need to know how our children are,” said the woman.

A man in the waiting area let out sudden gut-wrenching sobs. I didn’t turn to look. I wanted to plug my ears with my fingers. Maggie leaned against me a little.

“Maybe it was the electrical,” she said.

“What?”

“You know, how the electricity was out in the youth building? Maybe that’s connected to the fire somehow.”

The woman ahead of us left the window and it was finally our turn. “They told me my son was brought here,” I said. “Andrew Lockwood.”

“All right, ma’am. Have a seat.”

“No!” I wailed, the sound escaping my mouth like a surprise. “Please!” I started to cry, as though I’d been holding the tears in by force until that moment. “Tell me how he is! Let me go to him. He’s…he has special needs.”

“Mom…” Maggie tried to pull me away from the window.

The receptionist softened. “I know, honey,” she said. “Your boy’s okay. You take a seat and someone will come get you right quick.”