Grey Weather

Basically the newest version of a short-story with a plot and characters that came to me while I was trying to sleep. Any comments whatsoever would be appreciated, especially those relating to typos, grammer, title, or even ways to re-write the ending, wh

Grey Weather

Faith Williams

 

It was calm that day. Pleasant. Hazy and lazy in our little suburban neighborhood in Topeka, Kansas. The temperature was already rising in the early spring.  Lawn mowers roared to life, and people sat out on their front porches to nod at passersby and drink lemonade. A few clouds could be spotted off in the distance, giving a small and flimsy hope that rain would come and cool things down a bit.

My brother Jesse was doing his shift at a home improvement store where he worked part time, leaving me to stay with our youngest brother Grey. We were the only three to share the house, 674 Hornbuckle Court. No parents. Our father had died four years ago and Mom was almost always gone. Part of it was for business, attending conferences, making speeches. The other part was for sheer fun.  She claimed that she needed a “fresh start” and a change of scenery now and then. Networking involved lounging on beaches or playing a few rounds of golf with bosses and owners of partnering businesses. She stayed in touch often enough to see that we were alive, and to send a check to help us pay for groceries, gas, and medicine if we needed it.

  This left my brothers and me.  Jesse is twenty-six and the bread winner of the family in between Mom’s checks. I’m eighteen, and my main job is to take care of Grey, whose twelfth birthday will come in June. On this particular day, he sat in front of the TV, silent, game control in his hands.  As I lay on the couch reading, I heard the sinister tune that signaled the temporary death of Grey’s video game character. Then I heard him mutter something he says often: “Fresh start.”  It seemed to give him comfort that there is such a thing as a second chance.

I heard his game resume.

Grey isn’t much of a talker. He isn’t a hugger or a kisser either. He is, however, tragically beautiful. His hair is the color of wheat straw, a shade of yellow that is almost a white.  His eyes are a misty grey blue, like watered down ink.  Mom named him Grey because of them. He might look elfish, sprite-like, if he smiled or laughed often.  His hobbies include video games, drawing mad, reckless pictures of storms, and watching clouds roll by and raindrops fall. Grey is fascinated by weather; the stormier the better.

Jesse is the complete and polar opposite. He is tall, lean, and dark, with thick brown hair that he tries to keep behind his ears, but it never stays. His lashes are long, and his eyes are a deep black brown.  His skin seems perpetually tan compared to mine and Grey’s, because of his constant laborious work.  (He often works on construction sites as well.) If Jesse is doing yard work without a shirt, every female jogger within a ten mile radius magically appears on our corner. As a child I always thought Jesse was the definition of cool. He’s always been fun to be around, laid back, witty. Now he has the tired, sarcastic humor of a young man who has grown up too quickly, bits of wry deviousness hidden under exhaustion.

People say that I’m a combination of Jesse and Grey.  My hair is brown, though it is not quite as dark as Jesse’s. Mom said that Grey and I have the same eyes. It’s almost as if my brothers and I are a twilight sky, Jesse’s darkness fading into Grey’s lightness. I would be the point in between, the place where night turns to day.

It’s been hard being in the middle. Confusing.  Although he did not want it, the role that Jesse was to take had been clear. He was to be the leader, the trail blazer, the one to move us forward after Dad’s death.  Grey’s role was rather obvious as well. Although not a typical child, Grey will always be the youngest. No confusion there. He is to be protected, preserved, and cherished. He never quite lets us forget what we’ve been through together.

I’m still trying to figure out what my role is. I feel as if I am stretched between two universes, or perhaps two eras in time. One requires me to be older and a bit of a fighter, to help Jesse support us. The other requires me to be young and gentle, to stay close to Grey.  I’m caught between moving onward, and staying behind. So many times I wish I could be like Grey, and simply say, “Fresh start” when I needed to do something over. I wish I could have run off like Mom, who lives her dream of having a successful job while traveling the country, guiltless about leaving her children for months at a time. I wish that I could come back and do life all over again, like Grey’s video game character.  I wish a lot of things.

At the moment, I wished that Jesse would hurry up and get home. I felt restless for some reason. I wanted an adult in the house. Jesse had always felt like a grown person, even at the age of twelve. I still felt rather childish, and I wanted the reassuring presence of someone older than me close by. Perhaps I felt that some of my anxiety could be absorbed by him, making it less of a load for me to carry. There was an odd feeling of apprehension, that change was around the corner. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it there or not.

A pounding knock that rattled the screen door made me jump. Maybe Jesse came home early? I was a little disappointed when I saw not Jesse, but our neighbor Adam Broadwell, at the door.  He bore his usual expression of awkward hopefulness.  Adam is the kind of guy that girls look at and say, “Aww, he’s adorable!” but never actually date. You would think that they were talking about a Shi Tzu. Despite being nineteen, he still bore the desperate, frightened persona of a seventh grade boy at a school dance.

“Hey, Lilz, what’s up?” he panted.

“Adam, did you run over here?” I asked, opening the screen door and letting him inside. He had on running shoes and red shorts, and a heather grey T shirt that had the sleeves cut off. His copper hair stuck to his forehead, and a blotch of sweat the size of a dollar bill lay in the middle of his chest.

“Well, not here per say, but I was running. You know….. trying to bulk up.” He flexed a wiry arm.

“Impressive.” I said, biting back a laugh.

“Anyway, it’s really hot, and I forgot to bring a water bottle. So…… do you have any tea or something?” I rolled my eyes and smiled and went to the fridge. He was annoying and flattering at the same time. I could tell that he had planned all this, but I wasn’t going to burst his bubble.

“Why didn’t you just go home?” said a voice from the hall way. Grey stood there like a little blonde ghost. He wasn’t being rude. He was genuinely curious. Grey just doesn’t have the social filter that most people do, and he has little concept of what people should and should not say.  

But this time, he had a point. Adam lives across the street and four houses down. It was kind of odd that he should stop here instead of just going on home.

“I, ah—uhm-“ Adam clearly hadn’t figured Grey’s candor into his plan.

“Well, maybe he didn’t have any iced tea at his house, and thought that we might have some.” Grey stood there, staring somewhere between me and Adam.

“Oh,” he said, and sat down at the table to Adam’s left.  

Adam put his hands together as if he were praying and mouthed “Thank you,” in my direction. Grey stared at the wall which had many of his drawings taped to it, almost seeming to look through it.  Then he got up without a word and reached up above the pantry, where his crayons and pencils and books of paper were kept. Retrieving them, he sat down next to Adam and began to scribble with great tenacity. The black crayon in his hand had been rubbed down to a piece of wax about two inches long.

I set a tall glass of tea in front of Adam, who gulped it instantly. I made a glass for myself and tossed a package of cookies to him. He caught it with one hand, ripped it open, and popped three cookies into his mouth at once.

“Where’s Jesse?” Adam asked, one of his cheeks bulging with cookie.

Grey answered for me in his slightly monotone voice. “Lowe’s Home Improvement off of Exit 25, next to Target and Denny’s. But I don’t know where he is in the store right now,” he said, sounding a bit disappointed that he couldn’t make Jesse’s location any more specific. I made a waving gesture with my hand, as if to say, “Well there ya go.” Adam swallowed and said, “Thanks Grey, that answers my question,” amusement creeping into a smile on his face.

I watched Grey color, and was reminded of a time a couple years ago, when Mom had left once again on business, leaving us alone in the house on Hornbuckle Court. Jesse and I stood in the hallway, late at night, watching Grey draw, as he had refused to go to bed until he was finished with his picture. “Can’t we get him something else to color with besides Crayola?” Jesse whispered. ”It’s degrading.  It makes him look like he’s five.”

“No,” Grey said firmly, not looking up from his drawing. Jesse looked embarrassed that he had been overheard. Grey, however, did not seem to be offended, and with that, Jesse surrendered.

I floated back to the present tense and broke the silence in the kitchen. “So you enjoying your spring break?” Adam let his head fall back over his chair and groaned. “You have no idea. It feels so good to breath. Classes are insane, my professor’s insane… I’m pretty sure he’s on pot.”

“What class? And what does he do exactly?”

“Psychology. And for a test, he had one question: ‘Is there a way to have your cake and eat it too?’ There’s a rumor going around that his final will just be, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ “

“Yeah, that is weird.  Maybe. You hear all kinds of teacher scandals lately.” I said, holding my hand out for a cookie. “When Jesse went to college, he said that the pysch majors were some of the biggest stoners he’d ever heard of.”

“Ha. You should see some of the art majors.”  Silence fell again except for the sounds of ice in glasses, chewing, and Grey’s scribbling.

“Speaking of art majors,” said Adam, “Whatcha working on?” He tried to look over Grey’s shoulder at the drawing, but Grey glared at him and said, “Lilly can see, not you.” Adam held up his hands and pulled himself away from Grey’s death stare.

I went over to look at Grey’s picture. A long dark shape crawled across the piece of paper. It looked like Grey had simply scribbled back and forth with the black crayon, his strokes becoming smaller as the mass tapered down.

“Is that a tornado?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like a pretty big one.”

“Yes.”

Just then, the little crayon snapped in half under Grey’s iron grip. He held the pieces in his hand and stared at them, as if it were a defenseless creature that he had just accidentally killed. Adam looked from me to Grey, then back to me. He was wondering if he was about to witness one of Grey’s screaming meltdowns, and personally, I thought the same. But Grey simply put the pieces neatly on the table, got a new crayon and a new sheet of paper, and said, “Fresh start.” Adam’s chest deflated and his face relaxed. He’d seen Grey get upset before, and he had felt awkward and embarrassed, not knowing how to help, and seeing something he felt that he shouldn’t. On those occasions it was as if Grey had walked into the room naked.

I looked out the window. “It’s nice out. Let’s go outside. You’ve been indoors for a long time.”  Grey looked up briefly from his new drawing, then gathered his art supplies and went out the kitchen door and onto the porch.

Adam and I followed.  Grey was sitting cross legged on the smooth, cool concrete, his paper in front of him. I sat down on the porch swing. Adam was about to take a seat next to me on the swing, but Grey pointed at him sharply with a colored pencil, and then pointed to a separate rocking chair a couple feet away, all without making eye contact. Adam took the less than subtle hint and gingerly sat down in the rocking chair.

“So—have you heard from your mom?” he asked tentatively. He plucked a red geranium from a pot sitting next to him and proceeded to nervously pluck the petals.

“Yeah, she called today, actually.  Wanted to see how we are.” I took Adam’s lead and picked a flower myself, taking my frustration out on it and decapitating the bloom.

“You know I think you guys are really brave, you and Jesse. I know it’s been tough, and you’ve done really well.”

“Grey’s been brave too. He doesn’t see Mom much either, and he’s only eleven. That’s probably harder than it is for Jesse and me,” I said, staring at my brother. He was such a kid. So was I, in some ways, but Grey’s world seemed so far away from mine. I was a young woman and he still seemed like such a little boy. I tried to imagine what Grey would look like at my age. Other than blonde, pale, and thin, I had no idea. The fact that I couldn’t imagine Grey growing up made me angry at myself.

I felt Adam’s gaze. “You know that if you ever need anything, anything at all, I’ll help you.” His eyes were piercing, a shade of blue I normally only see in one of Grey’s crayons. He meant it. Part of me thought that Adam wanted me to need something from him, so he could rescue me, and become the dashing, confident hero he so desperately wanted to be. I stared back at him. I wondered how on earth Adam could possibly help me. He was a broke college freshman who lived with his mom. He worked as a waiter at a steak house a couple miles away, a fairly decent job. Still, he didn’t have much. But something told me that Adam was likely to help in ways that were other than material or financial.

A rustle of paper broke our reverie. Grey had started yet another drawing. This time he was drawing a cloudy sky, swirling masses of dark grey, streaks of yellow lightning slashing across the paper.  I recognized this as a super cell, the kind of storms that spawned tornados, the kind of storms that Grey loved, waited out on the porch for.

I reached down for the finished drawing next to Grey. “Can I see? Is it finished?” Grey nodded, and I picked up the paper between my fingers. I saw the same kind of scribbled tornado as the one he drew in the kitchen. He had drawn telephone poles that had been snapped in half. In the lower right corner of the drawing, directly in the tornado’s path, Grey had drawn our house.

“Adam wants to see. That okay?” I asked. Grey stopped coloring, pausing to consider the matter of sharing his private work. Then he nodded once more and went back to his picture.

I flicked the drawing under Adam’s face. He looked it over, saw the house, and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Damn.”

“There are lots of tornados in Kansas. But I still haven’t seen one,” said Grey, irritated about this injustice.

“Well I sure hope we never do,” said Adam, returning the drawing.

“I do. I’ve been waiting for it to happen.”

A gentle breeze floated over the freshly cut lawns. A wind chime jangled next door. I felt a sudden wave of sleepiness and closed my eyes. I began to rock back and forth in the swing, which made a rhythmic creaking noise. I felt I might drift off when the pocket of Adam’s shorts began to ring.

“Aw, crap,” he said, flipping open his phone. The alarm stopped and he flipped it closed once more.

“What?” I asked, opening one eye to look at him.

“That means I have to get ready for work.”  Adam got up and stretched. “Thanks for the drink and stuff.”

“No problem,” I said, giving him a hug. I guess he hadn’t expected it, because he looked a little confused, but he certainly wasn’t about to complain. I knew Adam liked me. I felt so low for potentially giving him false hope, but for some reason I really enjoyed putting that look on his face.

Grey flicked his eyes up from his drawing to give me a dirty look.

“You should come and eat when Jesse gets back.  It’s the Stampede Special!” said Adam as he flashed a cheesy grin and gave two thumbs up.

“I’ll talk to him about it. We haven’t eaten out at a restaurant in months.” Adam waved and sprinted off to his house about two-hundred yards away. He barely made it without stopping to catch his breath.

 

 

Adam’s company had soothed my jitters, and Jesse traipsed through the door a couple hours later at six o’clock.  I heard the heavy clomping of his work boots and his exhausted sigh as he walked in, the metallic sound of his keys hitting the table.

“Please tell me we have food,” he said, opening the fridge. It was pretty empty. But instead of closing it Jesse then opened the freezer and stood in front of it, the cool air curling around him like smoke.

“Not really. Snack stuff mostly, but not food food.”

Jesse laid his forehead on the bottom of the freezer and rocked it from side to side.

“Adam came by today.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d he want?”

“Iced tea.”

“Is that his code name for you or something?” Jesse removed himself from the fridge and closed the doors. I laughed.

“Yeah, he was rather obvious as usual. But anyway, he said that we should come eat at Rutherford’s tonight because there’s a special.” Jesse sauntered over to the sunken in couch and fell backwards onto it, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“Give me a few minutes. I think I could go the rest of my life without ever moving again,” he said.

“So are we going?”

“Sure, sounds good to me,” said Jesse, hunching forward to remove his boots and peel his socks off of his long thin feet. He totally has Mom’s feet.

Forty-five minutes later, we stood in line at Rutherford’s waiting to be seated. A petite girl with a little nose and chin length brown hair spoke into a microphone at a podium. “Jennings, party of two, Jennings, party of two.”

Grey looked up from his PSP. “I don’t see any party,” he said, obviously annoyed. Jesse stood beside me with clean clothes and wet hair, smelling of deodorant as opposed to sweat and sawdust.  He shook his head. If someone said to Grey, “I’m going to run to the store,” he might say, “That’s stupid, why don’t you drive a car?”

We got to the girl at the podium. Her chin was tiny and elfin, and her eyes seemed much too large for the rest of her face.

“Party of three?” she said, eyeing us. She looked at Jesse for a half second longer than Grey and me.

“Yes,” he said.

“Name please?” she said, inclining her head at Jesse. It was as if she were hoping he would give her his full name, address, and phone number.

“Cadburrey.”

 “Alright, your table will be ready in a few minutes,” she sang, writing our names down in a large book and smiling.

We sat down on a long, shallow bench next to other people who were waiting on their tables.

“Mom called me today,” I said.

“Does Ripley’s Believe It Or Not know about this?” he said. I laughed.

 “What’d she want?”

I put on my mother’s terse tone of voice. “She has decided to spend a few more days in Tampa. The beach is so relaxing, and after that loathsome press conference she needs to get away for a while.”

Jesse snorted. “Not surprising.”

The girl called our names just as a twenty-something guy with gelled up blonde hair strode up beside the podium.

“Chad will see you to your table, Mr. Cadburrey,” she said, waving a pen at Chad and smiling at Jesse.

“Uh, thank you,” said Jesse, and we followed Chad through the labyrinth of tables and chairs. He showed us to a booth with tall leather seats, and set the menus and three sets of silverware wrapped in napkins on the table.  “Your waiter will be with you in a few minutes,” he said. Chad reminded me of the football guys at school that hated mingling with the ugly people.

Grey sat down, thumbs working like mad on the buttons of his PSP.  I slid into the opposite side of the booth, and Jesse sat next to me.

“Mister Cadburrey?” I sang. Jesse rolled his eyes and shook his head.  “I gotta admit, that was pretty nauseating.”

“Yeah, too bad you’re brother’s a chick magnet,” he said, seeming rather pleased with himself while reminding me that I could have much more nauseating brothers than he.

“Speaking of nauseating….” he muttered.

“Oh shut up,” I said, and smacked him on the elbow just as Adam strode up to our table. “Ow….”

 “Hey, glad y’all could make it,” he beamed, “What can I get you to drink?”

Jesse and I ordered Cokes, and Grey just asked for water.  He isn’t a fan of fizzy drinks. He doesn’t like how they feel.

“Alright, “said Adam, writing on a pad and clicking the pen closed. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Jesse looked at his menu. I did the same.

“Grey, figure out what you want,” he said. At first I thought that Grey hadn’t heard, but after another few seconds of beeping and clicking, he set down his game and picked up his menu.

I stared down at the pictures of expensive looking food. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I thought, wondering what kind of dent this would make in Jesse’s wallet. I decided on one of the cheaper items, some kind of chicken with a special sauce.

Adam came back, carrying three full cups in one hand. “Coke for you,” he said, sliding the drink to Jesse, “Coke for you,” sending the drink into my hand. “And water for Grey.” Grey was playing his game again and didn’t look up.

“Alright, you guys ready to order?”

Jesse ordered the Stampede Special with mashed potatoes and cold-slaw, instructing, “I want this thing mooing at me when it gets here.”

I ordered my meal, without sides, saying that the chicken alone should be enough. Grey, however, spared no details when placing his order.

 “Cheeseburger with onions and lettuce on it and a spear pickle next to it. Like the picture. Nothing else.” He said. Adam raised his eyebrows again. This is one customer who is always right.

“Okay, I’ve got a Stampede Steak, rare, with mashed potatoes and cold-slaw, one sweet-and-tangy chicken, and one cheeseburger.”

“With onions and lettuce on it and a spear pickle next to it,” said Grey.

 “Right. Okey dokey, it should be ready in about fifteen minutes.” Adam gave me one final smile before dashing off.

“Okey dokey?”

“Will you leave him alone, please?” I said.

“Adam and Lilly, sittin’ in a tree--. “ I gave Jesse a look of scalding repulsion.

“What are you, eight?” I said. Honestly.

 

A low rumbling sounded. I looked around, thinking that someone had moved a table.

“Was that thunder?” Grey asked, suddenly alert.

“I think so,” said Jesse, surprised. “Huh.”

I drank my Coke as the white noise of rain pounding on the roof mingled with the conversations and food noises of the restaurant.  I thought about the little clouds that I saw in the distance. I guessed they had grown over the past several hours.

A few minutes later, Adam came back with our plates balanced precariously on his long arms.

“Is that hard to do?” asked Grey. 

“No, not after they train you. And besides,” Adam looked down at me. ”I’m actually a ninja.” And on that dramatic note, he trotted off to another table.

Grey began putting ketchup on his burger. “I don’t think Adam is a ninja.” Jesse said over a mouthful of steak, “That’s okay buddy. Neither do I.”

 

The food was amazing. I ate like I’d been starving for weeks. I had been so used to eating quick, cheap things, like pasta, or ordering a pizza, I’d forgotten how good this kind of food was. Jesse was ravenous. As he ate his steak, he looked like he might cry from happiness. The sound of the rain and low, rumbling thunder, combined with the food made me feel relaxed and drowsy once more.

Adam’s voice gave me a little start. “Can I get you anything?” Jesse had his head rested on the cushioned wall of the booth. “My man, as of right now, I don’t think I need anything else in the world.”

Jesse left Adam a generous tip, which was a big deal for a cheap-skate like him. The food must have put him in good spirits. And with that, we slid out of the booth and made our way to the door. It was pouring outside. None of us had jackets, and an umbrella was out of the question.

“Well guys, looks like we’re gonna get wet,” said Jesse. And with that, the three of us sprinted through the rain, our sneakers making slapping sounds as we went through puddles. Jesse fumbled with the keys and wrenched open the driver-side door of the truck, and leaned over to unlock the passenger-side.  I hauled myself into the cabin, and Grey hopped in with surprising dexterity. Our pants had been soaked up to the knees, our shoes were completely waterlogged, and our hair stuck to our faces.

“You had to park in Outer Mongolia, didn’t you?” I joked.

“Hey, who just bought you food?” said Jesse. I chuckled and Jesse slowly made his way out of the parking lot.

Once home, I toweled my hair to semi-dryness and put on pajama pants and an old T shirt. Jesse did the same, except he didn’t bother with his hair. Grey simply parked himself in front of the TV and switched it to the weather channel, where the weather man stood gesturing with his hands and telling us what we already knew.

“We have a long soaking rain coming up over Bridge, Dalton, and Holbert Counties, where several inches have already fallen. The rain should continue over night, getting worse for just a few hours before lightening up around noon tomorrow. Thunder and lightning have been reported, and we will continue to keep watch on that. Keep in mind that storms like this are typical for this time of year, and at this point it does not seem likey that this particular storm will be severe. This is probably going to be the first of several spring-time showers here in Kansas. Debbie?”

The camera panned from the weather man to a blonde anchor woman in a ferocious yellow pant suit. “Thank you, Jim. As they say, April showers bring May flowers. And now to Bill Chambers, who has the latest on your favorite sports.”

Grey clicked the remote and the TV went black. “Sorry,” I said. “No super-cell tonight.” Grey got up and went out on the porch, where he sat with his knees to his chest, looking up at the dark sky. I followed and sat down next to him. A glowing blue light illuminated the dark clouds, and I heard him count. “One,….two,….,three,….. four,….five-“  Then thunder rumbled across the sky, like a cosmic bowling ball knocking over pins.

“Five miles away, Lilly,” he said, turning and grinning impishly at me. Not many things made Grey smile like that. Thunderstorms always did. About five minutes later, Jesse joined us out on the porch, and together, we watched the storm roll into Dalton County. The thunder and rain and lightning seemed to put Grey into a state of deep thought. We let the thunder to the talking for us, and then Grey spoke, his human voice strange against the sounds of the storm.

“Do you think Heaven gets thunderstorms?” he asked. He seemed to address the sky rather than Jesse and me. We looked at each other, wondering what prompted such a deep question.

“I don’t know,” I said. I had always pictured Heaven as a place full of white light, with swirling clouds and filled with absolute calm and peace. I knew that it was a fanciful thing to imagine, probably inaccurate, and yet it was hard to imagine Heaven any other way. Jesse spoke for me.

“I think everyone has their own version of Heaven. Like, if a person felt really connected to the ocean, and that was the place they were happiest, then perhaps their Heaven would be a tropical beach.”

“And if they liked the snow, then their Heaven might be Canada,” Grey said, latching on to the idea. Jesse barked a laugh, and I put my hand to my face. “You could say that, I guess.”

We were silent once more, the clouds glowing blue again. “What do you think Dad’s Heaven is like?” Grey asked. He rarely had conversations like this, starting them of his own accord and then keeping them going with questions. I spoke.

“I think Dad’s Heaven….. it would be like a giant workshop, where he could build life sized versions of all his models.  Cars,”

“Sailboats. Dad always wanted a sail boat,” said Jesse.

“And model trains,” finished Grey. A thoughtful silence fell as the rain picked up, and a slanting wind began blowing, sending drops of rain onto the covered porch.

“I hope that my Heaven has thunderstorms,” said Grey, once again addressing the sky. It seemed like such a childish thing to say, and yet, it was quite profound. Though he was almost twelve, Grey didn’t seem to have much problem being childish, embracing thoughts that people tend to hide as they get older. Perhaps Jesse and I needed to learn to do the same.

It seemed like we sat there for hours. My anxiety earlier that day seemed far away, and it felt like Adam had appeared on my door step the day before. The day had dragged on, but in a slow, peaceful kind of way that makes a person appreciate time. I thought about my family of five that had essentially been reduced to three. I thought of my mother, who was hard to describe. She was a very competitive individual, which made for some spectacular fights between us.  She loved us in a primitive, animalistic way. She was not very maternal, but she was quite protective. Though she rarely cooed or cuddled, we were grateful for her ferocity.

After Dad died and Mom virtually moved out, my brothers and I banded together, giving each other emotional support for the first time in our lives. We still fought, but the fights were less and were over more important things than who took the last Popsicle.  As I sat on the porch, thunder rolling and rain pouring, I felt a new wash of love and loyalty for my brothers, and I wanted to be nowhere else in the world than where I was at that moment.

 

 

I fell asleep fairly easily that night. I gave credit to the rain, which drummed steadily on the roof. Despite sleeping deeply, I remember dreaming, and feeling as if I were being dragged through water as I went through the visions in my mind.  Mom was sobbing as she held baby Grey in her arms, and he screamed and cried, and there was nothing she could do. Suddenly Adam was there, not knowing how to help, and he turned into Jesse hammering on the wall, knocking a hole in it. Then we all were standing in the yard as rain poured down onto us, and yet the sun was shining, fat raindrops sparkling in the light. My father stood tall and very much alive, holding onto a model sailboat. Then lightning flashed and he seemed to fly into the sky, disappearing into the brightness.  More flashing lights appeared, this time, from the ambulance that took my father to the hospital as he had his annurism. I heard the high pitched keening whine of the sirens as the ambulance sped off. My mother had disappeared, and Jesse and Grey and I stood in the yard alone, the siren still blaring as loudly as if it had never left, and the ground seemed to shake under our feet.

I felt the heavy dragging sensation again as I woke. Jesse shook me. “Lilly, get up, now!” I continued to hear the blaring siren, but I realized that is was not from the ambulance in my dream.

The tornado sirens had gone off. I jumped out of bed, and went to turn on the light. I flipped the switch, but no light came. The power had gone out. I looked out my window. The outside world seemed to be a pink-grey color, early morning.

“Get shoes on,” Jesse ordered. I crammed my feet into some dry sneakers that would offer some protection.  I grabbed a heavy jacket that lay on my bedroom floor and pulled it on. Jesse was fully clothed.

“Where’s Grey?” I yelled over the siren. I heard the wind screaming around our house. I half expected to be ripped from my room any minute.

“I haven’t gotten him yet, I wanted to make sure you were awake before I left,” Jesse said. The siren continued to blare.

“The siren woke me up, I don’t know how long it’s been going. We need to move!” he shouted.

I was now running through the house. “Get a flash light, I’ll get Grey!” I said. Panic began to come over me in prickling waves. Jesse ran in the direction of his room, and I jogged up the stairs to Grey’s bedroom. It seemed so much harder to climb them, as if my feet didn’t want to leave the ground. I finally made it to his room and opened the door. I looked down onto Grey’s empty bed.

I tore down the stairs, passing Jesse as he was going into the cellar. He seemed to be gathering supplies. He had a wind up clock radio in his hand, a flashlight under his armpit and his heavy comforter was draped over his shoulder. “Where is he?” He shouted. “He’s not in his room!” I cried, my voice breaking in panic. Jesse threw the blanket and radio down into the cellar, and began searching the house with his flashlight. “Get in the cellar and stay there! I’ll find him!” Jesse shouted, his volume trying to match the  wind. I heard a splitting crack as branches were ripped from a tree outside. I was so torn. I wanted to look for Grey with Jesse. “Now!” he shouted, and he looked at me with a sternness that echoed our father’s. I obeyed and ran down the stairs, nearly tripping over myself. This is actually happening, I thought, there is a tornado on the ground and it is headed our way. I stumbled over something hard and cylindrical. Realizing it was a second flashlight, I found the button with my trembling hands and welcomed the beam of light that shone from it. I tried to control myself and remember basic emergency safety. The first rule is always to stay calm. But as the sirens wailed and the wind howled, all that went out the window. Jesse and Grey were still gone. If they aren’t here in ten seconds, I’m looking for them, I said to myself. Like Grey, I began counting. “One…. Two…. Three…. Four…. Five…. Six…. Seven….” Just then Jesse clambered down the steps, his hand tight around Grey’s arm. Grey was writhing and screaming at the overwhelming sense of touch, and above the noise, I heard him say, “NO! It’s happening! I need to see!”

Jesse virtually threw Grey down the dark stairs, where he continued to yell. “Stay here! I’ll be right back!” he said, leaping up the stairs and out of sight once more. “Where are you going?” I sobbed. It had to have been fifteen whole minutes since Jesse had shaken me awake. I heard another tree nearby being ripped apart. I covered my head, and then realized that I no longer heard Grey screaming. I shone my flashlight around the cellar, but he had disappeared, just like that. “NO! GREY, COME BACK!” I ran up the stairs, and saw Jesse going into his room once more, for what I did not know. I saw that the screen door to the kitchen was open, flapping and banging in the wind.  “No, not out there.” The words came in a whisper. I closed my eyes and burst through the door onto the porch.

The winds were so strong it was hard to stand. “Gre-eEYYY!” I called for him, and it came out as the frightened, desperate call my mother used. And then, I saw him standing there, at the edge of our large front yard , his pajamas whipping around him, his arms partially raised as if he were trying to fly. In the distance I saw the biggest, blackest cloud I had ever seen, barreling towards our house, towards the yard where my little brother stood, his face to the sky, his mouth open in awe.

I fought the wind and charged across the yard to him. I felt so tiny, so vulnerable in the storm, and it felt like I was storming the beaches of Normandy. I felt a burst of joy as I reached him, wrapping both arms around him. But the joy was gone in an instant. He kicked and struggled, and he seemed so much bigger than he normally did. “Come on Grey! We can’t stay here! We need to go inside!” I wanted it to be an order, but in fact I was pleading with him. I tried to haul him, but the winds grew stronger. I felt plants and rocks go by me, wondering what other things would turn into missiles. The neighbor’s plastic lawn chair skidded across the road. From the porch I heard Jesse yell, “Get in here! Get in here!” I was almost to the door now, and Grey seemed to have surrendered. “Jesse, go! I’ve got him!” It was so loud I didn’t think he would hear me. Jesse stood there, and then, to my great relief, turned and ran towards the back of the house, where the cellar was.

I had just made it in the door with Grey when it happened. I heard the deafening rip as some part of the house was torn apart. I slammed Grey against the wall and into a corner, covering him. He curled into a ball, and I hunched over him, shielding my own head and neck with my arms. Seconds later, it seemed that the whole world shook, and I felt the wall to the living room go.  Tears were streaming down my face as I thought of our home, our life, being torn and ripped and lost to the wind. I waited to be crushed, and I felt Grey whimper under me. “It’s gonna be okay, buddy, I gotcha.” It felt so empty. Things were not okay, and my body would be little protection if the roof caved in or the whole house got sucked up.  I closed my eyes and waited to be killed. Air ripped at me, a high pitched whistling noise along with the roar of the tornado, so much like a freight train. I hoped that Jesse was safe in the cellar. I hadn’t actually seen him go down into it. I thought of my mother, and wondered if she would come home after she heard about this. I thought of my father in his Workshop Heaven, and thought about what my own Heaven would be like.

My ears popped and I heard the glass of the kitchen window break. The shaking continued, and I felt something sharp cut my jacket, and I felt a stinging pain in my hand. This is it, I thought. The kitchen is going to go, and I am going to die. I had never heard anything as loud as this tornado. It was like a continuous explosion, one that didn’t stop in a burst of fire. I knew the tornado must be right on top of us. I heard the door of the coat closet being pulled from its hinges. It flew straight towards Grey and me, but rather than crushing us, it formed almost a triangle against the walls of the corner where Grey and I cowered, held there by the wind, offering a tiny little space of protection. There was a deafening bang and a horrible jolt as something large and heavy slammed into the door. I assumed it was the kitchen table.

And then, silence. I was dead. Or maybe I had just become deaf.  Did Jesse make it out alive? Was Grey alright?

I breathed in dust and dirt. My hair was wet with something cold and thick. I supposed that I must have been alive after all, but it was as if I had forgotten how to feel. I was afraid to open my eyes. What would I see? I had almost forgotten that Grey was curled under me. I heard him whimper. He took a shuddering breath, and then began to sob. “I want Mom,” he said, his words muffled. He was alive. I was alive.

Jesse.

My heart stopped and my eyes opened. I had to find him. But I was scared to move. What if I caused something to fall on us? I called. “Jesse-eeEE! Where are you?!” I waited, and heard nothing. “JESSE!” I sobbed, my voice sounding high and shrill, like a little girl’s. I shifted myself off of Grey, who continued to stay in a tight ball. I tried to move the door that had protected us, but it wouldn’t budge. I had very little room to maneuver, and whatever crashed into us kept the door from moving. I called Jesse again, and I thought I heard a muffled yell. “Jesse, we’re here! Under the door!”  Claustrophobia was settling in. I felt like I was in a straight jacket, and a new, wild panic came over me.

“Grey, can you stand up?” Grey continued to whimper, sobbing quietly into his knees. Not looking at me, he slowly shifted out from under me, and we stood. It was easier to try to move the door this way, and together we tried to get it off. After the third attempt, it finally loosened, creating a small space that Grey and I could squeeze through. As we stepped out of our little triangle, I saw that it was in fact the kitchen table that had flown into the door. The refrigerator had missed us my five feet.  I looked up, and instead of a ceiling, I saw the cloudy sky.

I looked at Grey. He had a large scrape on his knee, and he was covered in a fine layer of light white dust. Other than that, he seemed to be okay. My own hand was bleeding, and my jacket had a large gash in it, and the area underneath felt tender and bruised. The cold wet stuff turned out to be mud.

Our house was unrecognizable. It was hard to tell which room was which. Grey and I picked our way through the rubble, pieces of our past littered on the floor. A few of Grey’s drawings fluttered down through the air. He picked them up, folded them carefully, and put them in his pocket. My legs shook as I tried to remember how to walk, and I looked for the door to the cellar.

I came to what was left of the back of our house. Jesse’s room had been almost completely demolished, with only one wall remaining, his belonging strewn across the surrounding land. The master bedroom that my parents had shared lay in shambles.

I crawled over the couch, which was now directly in front of the cellar door. “JESSE?!” I yelled. I heard another muffled response, and I tugged at the cellar door. It was stuck.

“Jesse, the door is stuck! I’m coming!” I pulled harder, but my arms felt like wet noodles.

“Grey, find something to open the door with,” I instructed. Grey walked delicately around the pile of debris that was our house. It was impossible to find anything. “Hold on, Jesse!” I began my own frantic search. Then, stuck into the wall of the living room, I found exactly what I needed; an old crow bar. I thought about how easily it could have killed somebody flying through the air. I managed to move the crow bar up and down, and after a couple minutes, it reluctantly came free, showering me with sheet rock dust.

“Grey, I’ve got something, you can come back.” Grey hobbled to my side, limping, being careful where he put his foot. I stuck the end of the crow bar into the door jam. It creaked and groaned, and then finally, the door burst free. “Jesse!” I called. I noticed that Grey was silent. He had not called for Jesse. His only words throughout the entire ordeal were, “I want Mom.”

 “Lilly!”

“Oh thank God!” I sighed, and made my way into the cellar, which was flooded with dirt, water and mud, but much more intact than the rest of the house. Jesse lay on his side, covered up to his arm pits with splintered wood, and insulation surrounded him like cotton candy. The cellar itself was intact, but a portion of the room above had crashed down into it. Fortunately, it appeared the lethal support beams had missed him.

“Oh my god, I my god….” I said, my voice quivering. I dropped to my knees and began to throw the wood off of my brother.

“Are you okay, how bad are you?”

“I think I’m okay.  I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said. His voice was weak and without air. I freed his chest first, hoping that it would help him breath better. Fortunately, most of it was relatively light weight, but he was positioned so that it was hard for him to sit up with it on him. Dust had fallen on his hair, making it white.  He had a cut above his eyebrow that sent blood running down the side of his face. Finally, Jesse was uncovered. He lay still for a minute or two, his breathing shaky and his body trembling. I could tell that he was going to be covered in bruises. “The weather man lied,” he said, slowly and carefully getting to his feet. I was surprised and relieved when he began to walk. After a few wincing steps, he seemed to be in fairly good shape.

“How is it …… that I was the one that had stuff fall on me, and I was the one in the cellar?”

“Lilly and I had a door and a table fall on us,” said Grey.

“No,” he winced, “it fell over you. On and over can be very different things.” I thought about what would have happened if the door and table had fallen on Grey and me. Jesse was right.

Our two story house was now a one story pile of furniture, paper, splintered wood, and broken memories.  I went in to what used to be my bedroom. I found the Wizard of Oz music box that my dad had given to me when I was five. Miraculously, it was not broken. I turned the key, and Somewhere Over the Rainbow tinkled out, and Dorothy rotated on her circular base. I smiled weakly, and wished that a rainbow would come right then. I looked at the houses around us. It felt so strange to be standing in the middle of my home, and to have a full view of the neighborhood. My eyes froze upon the remains of the house across the street, four houses down. The outer wall was missing, and part of the roof was caved in.

“Adam!” I shouted his name and Jesse and Grey looked up from the ground, gathering what was left of our old belongings. I set off at a run, something I hadn’t done since I went to find Grey.

“ADA-AAM!”  I pelted across the street, and I felt the shock of the ground bounce up through my weak legs.

I called his name again. He had to be there. He had to be alive. Was he hurt? Trapped under something?

“Lilly.”

I turned on the spot, and there he was, standing in his living room, the window shattered and the side wall gone. He walked through the missing wall, and with an unusual, easy power he strode to me. He looked determined, his face stone-like, and his eyes that fierce Robin’s Egg Blue. I flung my arms around him, and what I had intended to be a hug turned into something more. His face came hard into mine, and he was kissing me. I didn’t pull away. I was covered in mud and in my pajamas, and hair was tangled. Adam had dirt on his shirt and his jeans were ripped and his leg was bleeding.  We looked the worst we had ever looked in our lives, and he was kissing me.

I finally pulled away from him, shocked at what had just happened. “I swore I would do that if I came out of this,” he said, a softer seriousness on his face. I looked up at him, awestruck. He was the dorkiest, most awkward person I had ever met, and at the same time, he seemed like the most amazing guy in Kansas. Suddenly I was crying. I put my face in his chest, and he put his arms around my shoulders and rocked me.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We made it.”

 

Jesse, Adam, Grey and I began combing the neighborhood for survivors. Our house had been hit the hardest, and because Jesse, Grey and I were okay, I was fairly confident that we wouldn’t have to dig out any bodies. But still, it was a fear that I was afraid to acknowledge, lapping at the corners of my brain like the waves of some terrible ocean.

Adam’s mom was safe. She had been in another county seeing about Adam’s grandmother, and was nowhere near the storm. Together we made an amateur rescue crew. Jesse seemed to forget his pain quickly. He had managed to find his pick-ax, and he walked with it over his shoulder as we called for the other people who lived on Hornbuckle Court.  We called and called, shoveled, hauled, and dug through ten houses’ worth of destruction. People from adjoining neighborhoods came by to help. They were high school biology teachers, ex-Marines, moms, nurses, little league coaches, and veterinarians, people I had never even met. It was then I realized that communities are made of people, and not the houses in which they live. Two boys from the high school football team stood next to Adam, crunching through sheet rock and broken glass. For the moment, the jocks stood shoulder to shoulder with the geek, equals. Fire trucks and ambulances pulled into the neighborhood, and the broken, battered and bruised were taken to the nearby hospital.  The paramedics tried to get Jesse to go, but he adamantly refused. They contented themselves with checking his vitals and treating the cut on his forehead. The clouds had gone, and now the sky shone bright and clear onto the devastation below.

I sat on the bumper of an ambulance as an EMT bandaged Adam’s lower right leg. Jesse talked to our mom on his cell phone. “Mom, we’re fine. Yes, they’re both okay. Mom…….” I could hear her frantic voice on the other end of the phone. Finally Jesse hung up.

“She’s coming home,” he said. It was hard to determine how he felt about this; his voice hadn’t shown any particular emotion.

Home. What was home now? I wondered what was going to happen. The place we had lived in was gone, and yet the feeling of “home” floated over it, like a soul that had just departed from a body. Our appliances stuck out of the wreckage like boulders, swimming in a sea of clothes, Christmas decorations, furniture, photographs, books, old toys, and wood. The truck was totaled. Jesse and I walked to the yard, where Grey stood. We stared helplessly at the mess. It seemed impossible to go back to the way things were. But Grey, who was stoically silent, reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled picture of the tornado heading towards our house that he had drawn the day before. He looked at it, and then at the remains of our home. He summed up the situation as best as anyone could.

“Fresh start.”

 

 

He was right. We had no choice but to start over.  When the manager at Lowe’s heard that Jesse’s house had been hit, he immediately organized a team to help rebuild it. The team grew into an army, and within two months, all the destroyed and damaged houses in the neighborhood had been made anew.

Adam and I started dating about a week or so after the tornado. His awkwardness seemed to subside a bit, leaving him almost suave and confident. He would hold my hand, and I liked how my fingers felt intertwined with his. He no longer has to ask for iced tea.

Mom is spending more time at home, and has begun to practice being motherly. It seems easier for her now. She wants to take us on vacation this summer. Grey suggested Canada.

When Mom came home, she hugged each of us in turn. She said to me, “You’ve done a good job, Lilly. These boys need you to keep them in line.”  

Maybe I’m supposed to be in the middle. And I guess now, I’m okay with that. I no longer feel stuck, just secure, almost like an anchor that keeps my family in place. In my  mind, I've started associating Jesse with the future, leadership, and progress. Grey reminds me of the past, sometimes moving a little slower than most, but in doing so, he teaches me how to endure hardships and persevere. I guess that sort of makes me the present, the here and now. Maybe I’m supposed to help keep us grounded, “in line,” like Mom said. I am starting to no longer think of myself as anxious or scared. Perhaps I am simply aware of how quickly things can change, and that life and love should never be taken for granted. 

 

It’s hard work, getting a fresh start, especially when it comes so unexpectedly. But had we known an opportunity for change was coming, would we have taken it? Would we have tried to hang back, trying to prevent something that needed to be done? Many times I had wanted to start over, and yet, I clung to my past as if it were the only thing keeping me alive.  I wondered if the tragedy, the pain of losing our house was the only way for me to start things anew. The storm marked a place in my life. It was as if the tornado was a bookmark, separating the place we had left off from the pages yet unread.  That part of our lives is over; the only thing we have left is the future.