“Ryder, we can’t leave Nantucket! At least, I can’t. I’m joining a bunch of people taking sandbags out to Our Island Home. The salt marsh is already swollen with all the water it can hold, and the waves are making inroads onto the lawn.”
“Can’t they evacuate to the high school?”
“It’s the nursing home, Ryder. Some of the people are ambulatory, but most aren’t. Some of their relatives are coming to take them to safety, but many are bedridden and don’t have relatives nearby. They’re hooked up on IVs or can’t walk without a walker. The best we can do is get the sandbags out there, and that should protect the building.”
“Why not let other people do this, Juliet? There must be a lot of strong men who would be better than you at lifting sandbags, and I’m not being sexist, it’s a fact about upper body strength.”
“Ryder, you really don’t understand. We’ve got a lot of people we love in that building. People who taught us in school or worked to raise money to build our skating rink or sold us tickets to the plays, or directed our school plays…these are our people. This is Our Island Home. No one who’s grown up here is going to just fly off in a fancy plane to Boston and pretend everybody else will take care of the problem. We all have to take care of the problem.” Juliet was crying from frustration and anger. What kind of guy was Ryder Hastings that he would run away at the first sign of trouble?
“Juliet—”
“Goodbye, Ryder.” She clicked off and jammed her phone back in her pocket.
“Where is he?” Lisa asked.
“At the airport. With his very own private jet. What a douche.” She was trying to sound tough, but her voice cracked when she spoke.
“It will be okay,” Lisa said soothingly, like she used to say so often to her children. “It will be okay.”
But as they headed to lower Orange, Juliet stared out the window and wondered if her mother was right. Small missiles—leaves, bits of paper, feathers, plastic bags—zipped through the air as if propelled by a slingshot. Brownie had to keep his windshield wipers on at full speed, and still the rain washed down the windshield as if they were driving inside a waterfall. Other cars on the two-lane road crept past, not wanting to stir up the deep puddles and spray their cars and everything else with muddy water.
They turned onto the Island Home road and sped down the street, right into the face of the storm. People were already there, some wearing high rubber boots and raincoats, others, mostly young guys, in jeans and sweatshirts and sneakers, everything thoroughly soaked. Juliet looked toward the harbor and saw waves someone could surf on rolling toward the building. Our Island Home was famous for having great views of the harbor that their residents enjoyed, and that was good, except now, when it was obvious that the building’s length stretched almost the length of the salt marsh. More sandbags were needed if the waves kept coming.
“It’s not going to stop for hours,” Lisa yelled at Juliet.
“Okay!” Jim Snyder, one of the local firefighters, approached them. “Thanks for coming. Here’s how we’re doing it. We’re making a bucket brigade. So there’re four of you, good. Harry, you stand here and lift the sandbags off, and, Lisa, you stand here, take it and pass it on to this young woman here, and she’ll pass it on…” He positioned the recent arrivals so they linked in with several others waiting to hand the sandbags to the battalion of firefighters, police officers, DPW workers, and twenty other people, their identities obscured by their rain hoods.
“Damn, these are heavy!” Juliet yelled at the man she passed a sandbag to.
He nodded but didn’t reply. She realized he was out of breath, saving every breath for the job of passing along the sandbags.
In a few more minutes, she was out of breath, too. The sandbags were heavy, but the real problem was the force of the wind. She stood like the others, with her legs spread for stability, and she stopped talking. She stopped thinking really, as her arms received the weight of the sandbag and passed it along and the wind screamed and the rain soaked through her raincoat and down the back of her sweater. About thirty feet away, she saw guys stacking the sandbags against the side of the building. She saw three physical therapists from Jo Manning’s office and grinned to think that after this, they’d need physical therapy, too. Her mother’s best friend, Rachel, was there, and Juliet’s high school math teacher.
And suddenly, Ryder was there, too.
“Let me take your place in line,” he said.
For a moment, Juliet stalled, confused and amazed. Ryder was in jeans and a flannel shirt, with no rain gear except for rubber boots. He was already soaked through and water dripped off the bill of his scalloper’s cap.
“You came,” she said, smiling.
“Of course,” he said. “Now, let me take your place in line.”
“I’m staying right here,” Juliet said. “But you can take my mother’s place.”
Ryder nodded. He spoke to Lisa, who let him in the line. Lisa joined the others who were taking a break inside the building as newcomers arrived to take their places. Ryder was tall and strong and long-limbed, and he passed along the sandbags as if they were filled with feathers.
No one was talking because they didn’t have the breath in them, and besides, the wind whipped away their words. But Juliet was so happy she was crying, unabashedly, and her tears mingled with the rain.
thirty-one
He’d been an idiot to attempt to drive even partway into town. The line of cars stretched from Main Street down to Flora, with more cars joining the line every minute.
“You idiots!” Theo yelled, even though the windows were rolled up and no one could hear him. “You should be driving up toward higher land!”
Possibly, he thought, they were all trying to get to someone they cared for, to take them to safety.
The line didn’t move. Main Street was probably packed bumper to bumper, too.
Frustrated, he pounded his hands against the steering wheel. The wind shrieked as it forced itself between the houses on Union Street. Above him, trees bowed and shook with the wind. Something cracked, and a limb crashed down from a maple, barely missing the car in front of him.
Anger coiled with fear in his chest. The fear was because of the storm, this freak storm that no one had predicted, that was battering the island, invading the island like a battalion of crazed monsters with giant waves as shields. But he was sure they’d get through this. Of course there would be loss of property, but he was certain there’d be no loss of life. Lives were lost because of storms farther south, in Florida, in the Carolinas, even in Rhode Island, but not here on Nantucket.