Chapter 58

“We’re ... you see ... we don’t really have a destination in mind.” Her hesitancy seemed painful. “My ... well ... their father ... he chose to move in with a ... with my ... you wouldn’t understand ... you see ... my ex-husband sold our house, kicked us out and took up with a neighbor’s husband. He left us to move in with a man.

“My folks let us use the house in Florida and now that the hurricane is hitting I’m not sure where we’re going. There are no hotel rooms to be found, but if there were I couldn’t afford anything within two-hundred miles. I couldn’t pay three-hundred dollars for one night.

“I’m so sorry to tell you my trouble. We will sleep in the car tonight, just like last night. It’s not too bad, except for the diaper changes. That can get a little complicated, but we’re fine.,, “ She lapsed into silence, embarrassed about what she’d shared. Speaking more to herself than to me, she said, “The storms get pretty scary at night...” I could confirm that the small systems splitting off of Samuel were pretty severe.

I sighed because it was clear what the universe was up to, so I caved in without a fight.

“Ann Marie, you are in luck. My puppy and I have a lovely suite across the parking lot with two sleeping rooms. One is a living room with a murphy bed and the other has a super king sized bed. You and the babies take the bedroom. You will like it. It has its own full bath. Charger and I will camp out in the living room.

“As far as tomorrow and the rest of this week is concerned, let’s see what Samuel does over the next few days and we’ll talk about it then.” I smiled to make sure she knew I meant it and then I had to wait while she wrestled with herself, even though there wasn’t a realistic alternative.

Eventually she sort of smiled, and said, “Thank you. I hope we are not too big a problem. I can try to keep the girls quiet so you can sleep, I promise.”

“Somehow I suspect that your girls are as tired as you are. They’ll sleep just fine and Charger will love having the company.”

After the children were fed, changed and in a pretty good mood, I suggested that Ann Marie make up a list things she needed for herself and the babies. While she got them cleaned up and put down for the night, I ran out to a local big box store and bought everything on her list, along with a bunch of things I thought she might need. While I was there, I hit the grocery store side and stocked up on non-perishables, powdered milk, all kinds of easy to store and eat foods and a number of staples we might need if we were to have to hunker down for any amount of time.

That took almost another two hours.

When I let myself back into my suite, Ann Marie was nursing Sally and staring transfixed at the news on TV.

The news wasn’t very good.

Standing in front of a floor to ceiling sized monitor, a weather reporter was showing the devastation from Hurricane Samuel. The islands in its wake were basically hurricaned back to the horse and buggy days. All electricity was out across the parts of the Caribbean where Samuel had come ashore. The hospitals and government offices were all either closed, or destroyed. Most housing was either totaled, or might as well be because no one was going to be living in those dwellings until some kind of major repairs were completed.

Samuel was just coming ashore in Florida and power was already out to over a million homes. The governor had declared a state of emergency and Sam had followed up with a National SOE. That brought National Guard and, if necessary, regular troops into the relief effort. Local and state law enforcement was over taxed but the addition of soldiers to help get water and food to those in need, as well as the military vehicles that would carry the storm affected elderly and sick, would immediately start to lessen the suffering.

What had my full attention was the projected path of Samuel, which was currently bringing it straight towards us.

A quick check for available lodging further north, proved useless.

Everything everywhere was jammed full. We were stuck for two reasons. The roads were a nightmare. Local news showed five to eight hour delays traveling on any roadway heading away from the path of Samuel. The outer bands were hammering us with fifty mile per hour winds and gusts sometimes going as high as seventy and eighty. It just wasn’t safe to leave the safety of the Marriott.

Ann Marie finally tore her eyes away from the TV, and said, “We would have been stranded out there somewhere, in this horrible weather. Thank you so much...” She was trying to be strong to keep the babies from picking up on her distress, but the fear coming off of her was very plain.

“We’re going to be fine. Don’t worry about the storm. It can come right over this building and not do a bit of damage. Marriott contractors do a great job of putting up safe hotels. I’ve bought five cases of bottled water, all kinds of good things to eat and a bunch of stuff you didn’t put on your list, so there is no reason to worry about the next few days.” My smile seemed to calm her fears, at least a little bit.

We watched the carnage in real time on TV, while discussing things of no consequence and getting to know one another. “My father was an engineer at IBM,” Ann Marie said, between sips of raspberry lemonade. “He and Mom couldn’t wait to retire and move to Florida. It’s been their version of paradise ever since they bought the house in nineteen-ninety nine.” She was calmer once I got her talking about her family.

“Mom was a middle school math teacher. She HATED it. Oh, my gosh but she hated schoolrooms full of preteens entering puberty. She used to tell my father that when my sister and I entered puberty, she was sending us to Timbuktu until we were twenty-one.

“My sister was boy crazy. She is a year and a half older than me and it didn’t matter what the cool kids were doing, wearing, singing, watching, or eating. She HAD to have it, eat it, wear it, listen to it and watch it.

“Michelle was such a flirt in those days. She would wait until we were just out of sight of the house and then pull her bra out through her arm hole, tie her tee shirt into a knot above her belly button and wiggle like a streetwalker trying to get the attention of boys.”

She turned just a bit quieter. “It worked, too. She got pregnant by the son of a very important lawyer in town and his parents paid for Michelle’s education as long as she agreed to the abortion that almost killed her. That doctor was a butcher and he butchered her womb, killing her baby. She never recovered and killed herself a few years later.

“What a waste...” She went quiet for a while and I let her have quiet to remember her sister.

“I was the exact opposite,” she started up right where she left off. “Where Michelle was flirty, I was shy. Where she was loud and demanding, I was soft-spoken and pretty easy to get along with. Michelle claimed to have had sex with half the boys in our high school. I slept with exactly one boy and then married him.

“We were happy ... at least I thought so. One day we were parents and homeowners. The next day the three of us were out on the street and he was living with his boyfriend. How can life change so much, so fast?” She looked at me with such sadness. I pulled her to me and hugged her while she cried. Eventually she drifted off to sleep and I held her until she woke up, put the babies down for the night and went off to bed.