Rexanne Becnel - Blink Of An Eye

But I digress. Where could they possibly put people? It was one thing to pluck a terrified family from the roof of their flooded house in Oak Island or Chalmette or Pontchartrain Park, and put them on a plane to Dallas or Atlanta or Salt Lake City. It was another thing to take a bunch of uncooperative New Orleans hardliners who wanted to stay in their unflooded homes to protect them from lootings. It got so bad for a while that the locals didn’t trust anyone in military garb.

I escaped most of the military-hassle factor, thanks to Ben. He gave me a medical pass that identified me as a nurse and part of their team. Enoch and Sarah somehow managed to fly under the radar. As for Mr. French, he stayed inside with his front shutters closed. It must have been hot as hell during the day, but he was a stubborn old coot. He’d spent a lifetime collecting an impressive number of antiques, and he was determined not to lose a single item.

As busy and chaotic as the days were, the nights couldn’t have been more different. I would lie in my bed, hot and sweaty despite the open windows, alone in the vast darkness and eerie silence. You’d think after my lonely days at Sherry’s house I’d be used to it, but I wasn’t. Those hours between sundown and sunrise were the hardest hours of my day, with way too much time to think.

What did the future hold? Not tomorrow. I knew what I was doing tomorrow and for every day as long as the medical tent was functioning. But after that? I didn’t know.

Why are you worrying about this? You don’t care about the future. A few weeks ago you were going to kill yourself. You can still do it anytime you want to.

All true and all very logical. Yet these days I wasn’t really depressed enough to go through with the deed.

It was all so perverse. If my life had been in the toilet before, it was even more so now. But I wasn’t depressed in that heavy, lethargic way of the past. I wasn’t overwhelmed with sadness or even hopelessness.

Beside me, Lucky heaved a great sigh and I smiled into the dark. Maybe all I’d ever needed was a pet, something to take care of, to spoil and coddle. I used to do that with Clark when he was little. Some of the neighborhood kids used to make fun of him, until I pounded it out of them. Yeah, I’d taken as good a care of Clark as I could. But when he was eighteen, Mom had placed him in a group home where he’d lived ever since.

I’d tried to take care of lots of other people since then, and of course, I’d tried every which way to get pregnant, with no success. But Lucky was easy to care for, and he appreciated everything.

I rolled to my side and patted the bed. “Come on, Lucky. Come on.” In an instant he was up on the bed, stepping on me, turning in a circle as he picked his spot. I smiled into the dark and rolled over. Even with his hot body adding to the sweltering night, I slept better.

Until my cell phone trilled.

It was such an unlikely sound that at first I was totally confused. I nearly killed myself getting to it. “Hello? Hello?”

“Janie! Damn, girl!” It was Hank. “I been tryin’ to reach you for a week. Where the hell are you?”

I lay back on my pillow, vaguely disappointed. “I’m at home, Hank. Where else? And you?”

“Shit. I’m in a hotel in Macon, working eighteen hour shifts for the energy company.”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Eighteen-hour shifts?” He snorted. “And there’s not a beer anywhere in this whole damned state. How ’bout you? I bet Robbie’s got the bar open already. Am I right?”

“I don’t know.” I pushed up from the bed and walked to the open window. Anything to catch a breeze. “I haven’t gone down to Bourbon Street.”

“Then what’re you doing down there if you’re not workin’?”

“I’m helping out at a makeshift first-aid station.”

He grunted. “And not gettin’ paid a dime, I bet. I hear the Red Cross is down there feeding folks.”

“Now they are. But other regular people are pitching in, too.”

“Yeah. Wow. So, you gonna stay? I heard they’re trying to evacuate the whole damn city. Even the dry parts. How screwed up is that?”

“They’re trying. But I’m staying as long as I can.”

“How come?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Why was I staying? Because…there was no other place I wanted to be. Because I’d promised Bradley that I’d take care of his dog. Because after only a couple of days working at the medical tent, I felt better than I had in years.

“Because I want to,” I finally answered.

“Man, you ought to see how bad it is down on the coast.” He talked for a while, about his work and his demolished truck and his frustration with the no-liquor situation.

It’s funny, because I didn’t really miss drinking. I’d been so overwhelmed by all that had happened that any withdrawals I might have had must have blended in with all the other stresses of the past weeks. Or else it had been suppressed by my near-constant adrenaline high.

“Look, Hank,” I said, breaking into this monologue. “It’s hard to get a phone charged up around here, so I have to conserve its use.”

“Yeah. Okay. Look, I’ll try to get reassigned to a crew working New Orleans. I bet Molly’s is still open. And Johnny White’s. They never close. Anyway, I just wanted to be sure I had a place to stay.”

Now why did the thought of him showing up at my house repulse me? “There’s no electricity here,” I said.

“No duh.”

“And you can’t drink the water.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but you can drink the beer. At least the Saints won,” he added. “Ain’t that something? I’ll see you one of these days, babe. You can count on it.”

After we hung up, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t want Hank here. Not in my apartment, not in Washington Square Park, not in my life. It wasn’t his fault. He was the same man he’d always been. But I’d changed. Don’t ask me why or how, but I knew I had.

Since the phone lines seemed partially open, I decided to call the group home where Clark had been taken. It took five tries to get through, and the phone rang a long time before someone picked up. It was, after all, two in the morning.

“Bethany Group Home,” a drowsy voice answered. “This better be important.”

“It is. It is. I’m calling from New Orleans, and I’m sorry to wake you, but I haven’t been able to get through during the day.”

“That’s okay. That’s all right,” the woman said. “You have family with us?”

“Yes. My brother Clark evacuated with Community Homes. Clark Falgoust. Is he still there? Is he okay?”

“Clark, Clark. Oh, yes. Down syndrome, very sweet disposition?”

“That’s him. How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing fine. Very well. And you are?”

“Jane Falgoust, his sister.”

“Hi, Jane. I’m Alma Charles, assistant director at Bethany. So you’re calling from New Orleans. Did you stay through the storm?”

I gave her the short version. She filled me in on Clark’s adjustment. Like all the evacuated group-home residents, he’d had his difficult moments. He liked his routine and got upset when it was disrupted. But he wasn’t as difficult as the autistic residents. All Clark usually needed was a little extra attention and coddling. Then he’d attach himself to a couple of aides and be a happy camper once more.

“He’s a real sweetheart,” Alma said. “Everybody at Bethany just loves him.”

“Does that mean he’ll be staying there a while?”

“That I can’t say. But if he does get transferred, we’ll know where and when. I take it you can’t keep him with you.”

I laughed. “No drinking water, no electricity and the military powers that be are trying to kick all of us diehards out of town.” Diehard. Now that was an ironic choice of words. It described me perfectly, though not precisely as intended.