Ammalie felt her heart lurch upward. She was so tired of wearing the same few outfits—cars were small, after all, and so she’d limited herself to two pairs of pants and four shirts, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d come to hate the sight of them for no other reason than that they were the same. Repetitiveness was depressing. Green sweatshirt, gray flannel shirt, maroon T-shirt, thermal turtleneck, red jacket.
As she’d hoped, the box held all sorts of treasures, some ugly and some rather cute, especially a purple-blue athletic jacket, which she pulled on. She started a load of her own laundry—everything was grimy now—and then took the time to write Powell a card, one that would arrive on Vincent’s birthday, she hoped. She didn’t explain the trip or her current life, but rather just wrote a small list of favorite memories that she had of Powell and Vincent. She could have gone on and on, but she was limited by space, and besides, it would accomplish what she wanted, which was to let Powell know she was thinking of him. Then she wrote Mari and Apricot each a postcard, telling them a few of the things she most appreciated about them.
Finally, she took a quick break and checked her scalp. Her head certainly ached and had a long lumpy raised area, but the pain was bearable, and there was no more blood and no pus or signs of infection. She dabbed on fresh antibiotic ointment and gauze and pulled her tight-fitting cap over it all. Bodies and hearts were strangely fragile, and yet also strangely capable of repair.
—
As Ammalie filled the bird feeders that evening, Lulu ran out in a puffy pink jacket and hat. With sidewalk chalk in hand, she followed Ammalie around, making quick chalk drawings on the small bits of sidewalk or flagstone as they went. Together they watched the birds, particularly an acorn woodpecker, but the most amusing thing about Lulu was simply the speed at which she talked, darting around like a bird herself.
“Do you have any sisters or brothers?”
“One sister. I was just thinking about her, actually.”
“Where does she live?”
“New York.”
“What does she do?”
“She sells houses.”
Lulu sucked in her cheeks and gazed directly at Ammalie’s face. The honesty of the gaze made Ammalie want to ask about Lulu’s family, but not if it caused pain. She kept the question vague. “Tell me about your life.”
“I have a mom and dad and Grandpa Dan.” Then, “I miss my mom and dad. Sometimes at night I get super homesick, but they call at eight p.m., and I might go home for Thanksgiving.”
There was more to the story, obviously—she could hear it in the little pauses in Lulu’s tumble of words—but she didn’t press. “I’m sure they miss you too.”
Lulu singsonged on. “I’m going to be a nurse and save people. And if I like it, then I’ll go back to school and be a doctor. But also be a birder. You hear that sound? That’s a white-breasted nuthatch, I think. I call them the nasal-nose bird.”
Ammalie closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sun, feeling the simple delight of the joy of this kid. “I love that. I can think of no other profession that is so immediately helpful. My mother was a nurse. It’s a great gift, to be a good nurse or doctor.”
“My mom’s cancer is not a horrible kind. So don’t worry. But the nurses help her the most.”
Ah. Ammalie had often wondered if people went into professions strongly influenced by their parents—either what their parents had done, or the opposite of what their parents had done, or what would piss their parents off the most, or, as in this case, the profession that would most help their parents. Mari, for example, had become a physical therapist because her mother had been in great neck pain all her life, and so Mari had grown up knowing about C2 and C3 and stretches and exercises. And Vincent had become an accountant because his father’s business had gone under, and he’d always said that if only his father had given him control earlier, it could have been saved—which is why, she considered now, he’d ended up believing that bad things happened when you lost control.
Yes, it was true that Careers Were Greatly Influenced by Parents, and she decided to add that to her list of Basic Truths About Human Nature. Meanwhile, she asked Lulu if she could borrow some chalk, and knelt down on the bit of sidewalk pathway, and together they drew swirls of color.
CHAPTER 13
“Storm moving in, they say!” Rita said one day, after a series of lovely days in which Ammalie settled into the routine of this new life. “Weather is what keeps us in our place!”
Rita had just swung herself through the door with a gust of very cold air, and Ammalie rushed forward to help with the armful of firewood stacked so high that it rendered Rita’s face invisible.
“We are not the most powerful force on earth,” Rita huffed. “Not that you can trust a meteorologist! But they try. We humans just try. We need to be gentle with one another. Assume good intentions. I say just let the one cabin go today; instead, won’t you help me find all the snow shovels and bring in more firewood? Lady Shackleton is fine, by the way.”
Ammalie stacked some of the firewood and then glanced outside at the hard bits of gray snow falling, and it reminded her of the snow at Kenosha Pass, which seemed a lifetime ago. But it also made her think of Kit—please, god, may he not be out in the desert. She had planned to go back to Dart soon, with extra supplies just in case he was around, and either way, to leave them in the trailer for any future person in need.
In the meantime, she helped Rita, working as quickly as possible. They built a fire in the lounge’s small fireplace and lugged in more wood and stacked it alongside a wall. She found three snow shovels and dropped one off at each of the three closest cabins, during which time Rita shoveled the bit of snow that had already accumulated. During her lunch break, Ammalie fixed a quick grilled cheese with pesto, and as an afterthought, filled her coffeepot and water bottles and extra cooking pans with water, just in case. She was about to go fill the bird feeders when the lights blinked.
Flickered on. Flickered off. Went out.
It was so anticlimactic. No big storm, no big wind. Just no power.
Rita knocked on her door and poked her head into the dorm room. “Something must have happened up the road. I’m heading out. Rex says he’s not feeling well and I need to check on him. Before I go, I’ll knock on people’s doors and tell them what they already know, which is, the electricity is out. What they might not know is that we’re on a well. And that means there’s no water, either. So they’re going to have to save any water for drinking, and they’re going to have to flush toilets the old-fashioned way, by dumping ditch water in the bowl and relying on gravity. Snow, ditch water, whatever. I’ll need you to hold down the fort, won’t you? If the electricity comes back on, please fill every container you can. I wish I had some iodine tablets, for snowmelt. Drinking water will be the real emergency here. That, and the cold. Please calm everyone; no need for too much panic. People will rise to the occasion, eh? Because they have no choice. Humans are funny that way. And this will pass soon enough. Just a wee storm.”
Ammalie waved goodbye and glanced at the sky—thick gray, with a dark, billowing cloud bank taking over. But she was smiling. After all, she’d rehearsed the survival sequence of events a million times in her mind to put herself to sleep. Yes, water. When it wasn’t available, you had to know how to move fast, fast, fast to procure and store one of life’s most necessary elements. She remembered reading a story about 9/11, about a woman near Ground Zero who had had the foresight to fill her bathtub with water as soon as she heard the first news report, and when the water was cut off soon after, she was able to fill her neighbors’ water bottles. One small act had helped so many. And iodine tablets? She had plenty of those.
Ammalie supposed many books got read that day, by windows, and with the muted light of a sun thrumming through the clouds. Or perhaps the guests did puzzles. Or played games of Scrabble—there was a faded maroon box containing the familiar tiles on a shelf in her room, and once again, she felt a pang of not having a partner.
The snow let up, then began again, now at a slant because the wind had picked up. The house creaked, some damper started clanking, and then the wind became a howl. She picked up the landline—dead. Checked her cell—no signal. Tried the tap—no water. But worst of all, the room was getting colder. She picked at her fingernails, thinking of Kit, but she was being overly motherly. He was an adult male who had sisters and a support system, and, even though he had not shared it, it was clear he had some sort of plan.
She had to help the people here. She bundled up and, gasping with the effort, she delivered extra blankets and sleeping bags and several iodine tablets to each of the cabins that were nearby. Her idea had been to drive the golf cart to the more distant ones, but the cart got stuck in the snow after the second stop. This surprised her—there wasn’t that much snow on the ground yet, just a few inches, but apparently golf carts weren’t created for snow. She furrowed her brow and stared off toward the more distant cabins, but truth be told, she wasn’t even sure if anyone was staying in them. She didn’t have a complete list of occupants and hadn’t yet met everyone. And now she was freezing herself and the wind was taking away her breath.
Everyone she did talk to seemed worried but also sturdy. They knew that the heat was baseboard electric and that without it, it would be cold tonight. Sure, not Antarctic cold—this was Arizona, after all—but cold. She went to bed in Fluffiest Red with a hat on and breath misting out, chilled and uncomfortable, but sure that she’d wake to blue sky.
—
Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day was the thought that popped into her mind when she woke, from a children’s book she used to read to Powell, but no, this was not funny, this was not charming. It was white and a whiteout. The clanking of winds had woken her in the dark, and she’d sat up, hugging her knees and trembling with cold, and now it was howling like a live creature.
She forced herself out of her bag and looked out the window, her breath immediately fogging the glass. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, she kept muttering, as if cussing would help her move through the chill, would keep her from having to hunch over and clutch her coat around her. The cabins were not visible—nothing was visible. Squinting during a short lull, Ammalie could see the outline of big downed branches fallen into deep snow, bushes flattened, a bird feeder hanging broken near the window.
She felt alone, and she felt worried that everyone else felt alone. Dan and Lulu, for example—even if they’d wanted to, walking from their cabin across the white expanse would be difficult, perhaps even impossible. Leaving a shelter would be an act of stupidity.
She built up a fire in the main room, careful to keep it small because of the limited wood. She placed a pan of water near it, and once she saw steam, she poured the water into her thermos, which she put at her feet deep in the sleeping bag. An hour later, she forced herself up to do that again, then did a halfhearted workout to get her blood moving, windmilling her arms while looking out the window. A lone small deer stood under a pine, head down, wet, covered in white, surely miserable, and she wished she could open the door and welcome it in. She dully ate cold leftover spaghetti, was grateful for all her filled water containers. She peed in a bucket. Pulled all the extra clothes from the lost and found onto her sleeping bag next to the fireplace.
Anxiety had a life of its own, roaring and rearing, howling like this very storm. She pressed her fingers against her forehead. When she felt her throat tighten, she thought about taking an old anxiety med she had in her purse, or drinking a glass of wine, but then decided against it—those would mess with her body’s ability to respond fully to the cold. To occupy and calm herself, she listed what she’d do if the water came back on, over and over, like a mantra.
Pan in sink—ready to be filled!
