Debrah Williamson

The storm struck with take-no-prisoners fury. Sparking thunderheads swallowed the milk-thin sun and turned the uneasy dawn back into night. Cold wind chased a lone girl down the dark, empty streets. She hunched into her thin jacket and ducked beneath the awning of a store that would not open for hours. Overhead a hanging signboard groaned. The air was heavy with the threat of rain. Like any wild creature caught out in the open in unfamiliar territory, Chancy Deel was desperate for shelter.

She was new to the Midwest's violent rites of spring and had only seen twisters in movies. Given her current location and recent run of bad luck, she could not rule out the possibility of flying cows. The heavy sky rumbled and cracked, beading her face with the first cold-flung drops, spreading chilly panic to her gut. She hadn't become a juvenile in need of supervision because she'd made good choices, but hitching across the country to shiver in the rain with no Plan B in her pocket might be her all-time worst.

The town she'd landed in was small and surrounded by crop land and wide, flat pastures. Cows, though potentially aerodynamic, could not mow lawns into neat green squares or wheel hippo-sized trash bins to the curb. So where were the people? Deserted downtown Wenonah, Oklahoma could be the setting for a bad end-of-the-world movie with a weird rural twist.

Alien death rays vaporize all human life forms. Nothing left standing but livestock and one idiot girl.

An orange neon OPEN sign flickered to life at the far end of the block. Chancy's heart surged. OPEN meant a dry hole with a door to keep out the rain. Clutching her backpack's wide straps, she ran through the downpour toward the warmth and was soaked by the time she blew into the Tip-Top Café. The door swung open with a friendly tinkle, then slammed shut in the wind. She stood blinking in the fluorescent glare, intoxicated by the aroma of coffee and frying bacon.

Country music warbled from a mini boom box next to the cash register. A string bean in overalls was seated at the counter. He glanced up from a plate of runny eggs, and with no change of expression, forked in another bite. The sixty-something waitress filled his coffee mug and turned to set the pot on the warmer. Her T-shirt, the same color as the yolks, sported the Tip-Top logo--a teetering stack of cups and saucers.

"We don't have a hostess or a smoking section, hon,' she called over her shoulder. "Pick a spot. I'll be with you directly.'

"I think she's lookin' for the drowned rat section, Corl,' the farmer said in an everyday matter-of-fact voice.

The woman scolded with a friendly shoulder shove. "You hush, Elman.'

Shifting the heavy backpack higher on her shoulder, Chancy dripped and squished past the long counter and escaped into the public restroom. Drowned rat was right. She could handle being stranded, alone, hungry. But smelling like a wet dog violated even her low standards.

She yanked a handful of brown paper towels from the wall dispenser and wiped her face. A pale, big-eyed stranger peered out of the grainy mirror. All cheekbones and hollows and sharp chin. Dark hair plastered to her skull like a drowned corpse. Too much time between showers had left her moldy in places that didn't show, grimy in places that did. No wonder the farmer had stared. Probably didn't get too many scary-looking ghost girls around here.

She swayed on her feet and white-knuckled the lavatory. What was she doing, trying to lose herself in a place where cows outnumbered people? Her chest turned to stone. Breath jammed in her throat. The floor tilted. Panic attack. Chancy had believed the choking, out-of-body moments were mini-rehearsals for death until a ruddy-faced therapist in Pittsburgh had set her straight. Panic was only unreasonable fear. Imagined terror. Not the real thing.

Take control. Find the stillness. Breathe.

Chancy grabbed another wad of towels and blotted the rain from her hair. She'd figure out something. She always did. The road-worn girl in the mirror glared back, a mocking reminder of how badly she'd screwed up. Because she expected too much and asked for too little, the only person within a thousand miles who knew her name was speeding away as fast as his rusty old Civic could take him.

Alone was what happened when leaving was more important than arriving. Chancy trembled. Not from the cold. Or from the shame of being dumped like litter in the middle of Nowhere, America. She was angry. With B.J. for being the kind of mother she had to escape. With people who wouldn't leave her alone and with Kenny Ray Kane for leaving her behind. Mostly she was mad at herself. For hoping that things could ever be different. Hot grease vapors fogged under the door and her stomach twisted. It had been more than eight hours since she'd jacked a snack cake and stick of jerky from a truck stop in Arkansas. Food first. Decisions later. She fished out the crumpled guilt bills Kenny Ray had stuffed in her jacket pocket. Two fives, a ten, three singles. All he could spare and more cash than she'd seen in a while.
Chancy used the toilet and tried to scrub off the visible grime. She brushed her hair into a limp ponytail, shrugged off her denim jacket and changed into a dry shirt. When she returned to the dining room, Egg Man was gone, the eight stools at the counter vacant.

She angled herself into a booth near the door. Main Street was a field of water. Only a few big-wheeled pickup trucks were brave enough to plow its length. Bucketing rain sluiced off the dark green canvas awning. Pea-sized hailstones pinged like buckshot against the glass and bounced on the sidewalk into the gutter. On the radio, a weatherman interrupted the country crooner's love-hurt-me-bad song to issue a county-wide severe storm warning.

"Coffee?' The smiling waitress set ice water and a laminated menu on the table. Bright pink lipstick bled into the lines around her mouth. She was too blonde for her age and too cheerful for six o'clock in the morning.

"Thanks.' Chancy's hand trembled as she turned over the thick white mug. Diner coffee smelled better than it tasted, but she would drink it anyway.

"Hoo-boy, it's really pelting down out there.' The woman stood by the table, hip cocked, coffee carafe in hand. "Good news is, storm should blow over in a couple of hours.'

"Okay.' Chancy never encouraged conversation. Chatty didn't seem to need any.

"Chilly for May, though. Predicted high of seventy-eight. 'Course, you know what we say about Oklahoma.'

Her shrug said it all. What mattered was how far Oklahoma was from Pennsylvania.

"If you don't like the weather, stick around a minute.' The waitress laughed and paused as though expecting Chancy to laugh too. "I'm Corliss, by the way. You ready to order, or do you need a minute?'

Chancy glanced at the menu. Her mouth watered at the prospect of eating food that was cooked, not mummified. Served on a plate, not wrapped in plastic. Purchased instead of pilfered. She couldn't choose. She wanted everything. Eggs and ham and bacon. Biscuits drowned in sausage gravy. A three-egg western omelet with extra cheese and hash browns on the side. Buckwheat pancakes and strawberry waffles and thick French toast drowned in syrup and sprinkled with powdery sugar.

She blinked away the satisfying images, searching for the least expensive item. "English muffin, please. Toasted.' If she piled on jelly from the tiny tubs in the condiment basket, her hollow belly might be tricked into fullness.

Corliss tucked the menu under her arm and scoffed in her extra-hearty way. "Girl, chiggers on a hunger strike eat more than that. How about you try our, uh, Rainy-Day-Early-Bird Special?'

"What's that?'

"Two eggs, two sausage patties, two biscuits. Coffee included, for,' she looked up and pulled a number off the ceiling, "two bucks. What do you say?'

Chancy hadn't noticed a special on the menu but could already taste promise in the words. "Okay.'

"How do you want your eggs?'

"Scrambled.'

"Coming right up.'

The waitress slid the order pad into her change apron and
squeaked away in white Keds. Chancy marveled at the engineering skill required to pack a backside that broad into granny-waist jeans that tight.

Corliss slapped down the ticket at the pass station. "Order up!'

The cook's round black face filled the window, and his voice rumbled over the sound of sizzling grease. "Since when we got a Rainy-Day-Early-Bird Special?'

"Since you started minding your own business, Tyree.'

"You know, Cat Lady,' he groused with a head-shaking half grin, "you keep feedin' strays, they don't ever move on.'

Chancy concentrated on the rain music beating on the glass until Corliss swung by to warm up her coffee and leave a folded newspaper. "Thought you might want to read the Sunday Sentinel while you wait.'

"Thanks.' Chancy avoided the woman's eye. Look down. Don't challenge. Never give anyone reason to remember. Wary of kindness, she didn't know what to make of someone who couldn't possibly expect a tip and was nice anyway.

Back in St. Louis when Kenny Ray offered to let Chancy ride along as far as Wenonah, he said she would be safe in the country town. She'd taken him at his word. Not because she believed safe places existed, but because she had ripped through her options. She needed to disappear for real, and riding to the west edge of nowhere had become another why-not decision.

Kenny Ray Kane, almost-friend and nineteen-year-old dropout dreamer, minded his own business. He didn't ask questions or offer advice and knew more song lyrics than regular words. The music in his head crowded out everything else. His tin can car had zipped down the highway vibrating with bass, and Kenny Ray had stared at the yellow line, drumming crazy rhythms on the steering wheel to stay awake. Behind schedule and arriving in Wenonah in the deepest part of the night, he'd loaded up his impatient girlfriend, her tattooed brother, their instruments and three bulky amps. Kenny Ray and the Kane Raisers were headed south to the Austin music scene, and since Chancy couldn't sing a note, play a chord, or even hum on key, there'd been no place for her. Not in the band, and not in the over-stuffed Civic.

Chancy sipped the strong coffee and thumbed through the Wenonah Sentinel. Today was Mother's Day. Definitely not a good sign. Opening the Trend section, she scanned an article about local mothers and daughters. Successful catering business partners. Two third grade teachers at the same elementary school. Study buddies set to graduate from Wenonah State College next week. Best friends. Heart connections. Love and devotion. The newsprint blurred and Chancy's hands shook as she refolded the paper. She'd believed in mother love once. Tooth fairies and unicorns too.

At eleven she'd given up on Mother's Day for good and ever. A social worker with onion breath had agreed to take her to visit B.J. in the state hospital where she'd landed after choking down all her pills at once. Upstairs on the dead-end ward, a few listless, frowzy-haired women shuffled around the dayroom with tissue paper corsages pinned to their sweatshirts. Others sat on plastic couches, their eyes glued to the door as though hoping some of their own abandoned, abused, or unaborted offspring might make the trip.

Chancy shouldn't have asked to go, but back then she'd had trouble separating the real B.J. from the capital M Mom who lived in her longing. She should have stayed at the shelter and eaten stale cookies with other unwanted kids. At least helpers were paid to pretend they cared. That day, Onion Breath had urged her over to the corner where her mother slumped on a folding chair, sedated and staring at the floor. When B.J. reached out a cold hand, Chancy flung down the crayoned card and ran from the room. Too late she had realized that being motherless was not always a bad thing.

Bucking for Wait Person of the Year, Corliss slid a workman-sized platter of food onto the table. "I had Tyree throw on some gravy and grits. No extra charge. You like grits, hon?'

"I don't know.'

"Don't they have grits where you come from?'

Chancy shook her head and swallowed a rush of anticipation. She picked up her fork and fell into the food, afraid to surface until she'd filled the black hole that was her stomach. She stole a glance at the waitress behind the counter. Corliss would be a capital M kind of Mom whose grown children would drop by later with hugs and pretty cards. Chancy imagined a younger Corliss placing good luck notes in her kids' lunch sacks on test day and adding candy sprinkles to cupcakes baked for school parties. Now that they were older, she probably handed over tips to make a son's overdue car payment and gave good advice to a daughter with man trouble.

The rain pounded down, and Chancy lingered in the booth long after her plate had been whisked away. A few customers drifted in and out, trucker-looking men in advertising caps, wowing about the storm, joking with Corliss, sopping up gravy and guzzling coffee. When heads swiveled in Chancy's direction, she wrapped herself in stillness. Thanks to B.J., she knew how to disappear. She'd learned early that when there was no way out and no chance to fight, the only refuge was the one deep inside.

Maxwell Boyle stood in the doorway of his enclosed back porch and watched the storm lash new leaves off the yard oaks. Mother Nature knew how to pitch a proper fit. Beside him, his aging retriever whined at the hammering deluge. Alfie hated getting his head wet even more than he hated thunder.

"Don't blame you, boy. Too damp for ducks this morning.'

Bad weather had blown down from the north, dumping hard rain like gangbusters for the last couple of hours. Standing water pooled in the pitted driveway and turned the yard into a rice paddy. Lightning sizzled across the horizon, followed by a crash of ear-cracking thunder.

Alfie backed away from the door and gave Max his sky-is-falling frown. Not all dogs could frown. Or smile. Alfie could do both. He might be right about the sky. Looked like the whole world was fixing to blow away. Good riddance. Last Max looked, it was going to hell anyway.

Alfie whined again.

"No walk this morning, buddy. Maybe later.' Max was eighty-three, and the romance had gone out of rainy day strolls. Alfie was holding his water. If he didn't act fast, the dog would simper and fret until his obedient bladder burst. If ever an animal was too well-trained, Alfie was it. Max stooped past the early morning crick in his back and spread old newspapers on the floor. Alfie sniffed and backed away.

"Best I can do. Take your pick. Pee on the paper or start building a boat.'

Alfie nudged the door with his nose. Not to go out; just to see if the downpour had stopped. Dogs had no concept of meteorology.

Max opened the door. "Weather bad. Paper good. You gotta go, so go!'

Alfie didn't like Max's tone and barked back.

Whoever heard of a dog with privacy issues? "Oh, for Pete's sake. If it bothers you so danged much, I won't watch.'

Max lumbered into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. When he reached for the filters, his hand was stilled by the thought that shuddered through him each time he performed the simple task or drew a breath or felt his heart trip.

I miss you, Hanna.

Hard to believe she was gone. Nine years his junior and fit as any fifty-year-old, she wasn't supposed to die first. He was the one with the bum ticker and a medical chart as thick as War and Peace. Always healthy and strong, Hanna had stood by him through illnesses ranging from the merely annoying to the truly life threatening. Any bookie with a brain would have stacked the odds against him, not her. She should have been a merry widow, blowing the insurance money on a summer in Venice with some Italian Lothario. But then the cancer had grown. Rot Blossom, she'd called it with the cheerful sarcasm that had made her a favorite with hospice nurses.

He often wondered if Hanna had known she would go first. That would explain the certainty with which she'd brought Alfie into their lives. Eight years ago when their nearly new coffee pot mysteriously shorted out, they'd headed to the shopping center for a replacement. The local animal shelter had set up cages of barking dogs in center court in an outreach adoption program. Hanna had barreled past the cute, the ugly, and the peppy to zero in on a dignified golden retriever. A quiet observer in a pack of frenzied woofers. Most people wanted puppies and turned their backs on an old-timer with a faded muzzle, but not Hanna. With the over-sureness that had been her best quality and worst flaw, she had chosen her canine soul mate.

Max's hand shook as he measured premium blend into the basket. He'd tried to talk her out of the impetuous act, reminding her they'd agreed not to get another dog after Bunsen died. She hadn't listened. She'd declared Alfie special and deserving of more than a crate on doggy death row. Then she'd nudged Max in the ribs.

Old things can be devoted, as an ancient love machine like you should know.

While Max blustered, Hanna sealed the deal, claiming it was no coincidence that the coffee pot had gone kaput on Adopt-A-Pal day.

Some things are just meant to be, Professor.

God, I miss you, Hanna.

He missed her bossiness and her outspoken opinions and her need to always be right in arguments, both big and small. He missed her calling him an absent-minded professor who'd lose his head if it weren't stapled on, and the annoying way she read newspaper articles aloud. It had been just the two of them for half a century. Two bowls of oatmeal on the breakfast table. Two yellow mugs on the cup tree. Two toothbrushes in a glass. How would he get used to seeing only one of everything? After six months, he still listened for her off-key humming in the morning and plumped her pillow at night. When he walked into a room and caught the faint, familiar scent of White Shoulders, his chest tightened. He thought he might be losing his mind, but his mind was of a piece. It was his heart that was broken.

He gazed out the window and watched rain pound Hanna's derelict flower garden. She'd made him promise not to let weeds reclaim the plot she'd lovingly nurtured through hot, dry summers and frigid winters. He had never cared about the yard, preferring to stay inside with his books, planting ideas instead of seeds. He'd let her down. Grief, as pervasive as strangling weeds, had kept him out of her haven. Max turned away from the window but could not escape regret. Summer was on the way, but his own cold winter was just beginning.

He laced his cup of strong coffee with real sugar and thick cream. None of that fake stuff. Hanna had nagged him about the triple threat of caffeine and calories and artery-clogging cholesterol. No matter. Cardiac valve disease would probably fast-pitch him out of the game at the bottom of the ninth anyway. He sat at the kitchen table, and Alfie trotted in to place a comforting paw on his thigh. "Poor old fella. You're lost without her too, aren't you?'

Hanna had claimed Alfie was an old soul who'd finally found his way home. During her last days, the old soul had slept on the floor beside her bed, summoning Max whenever she stirred. If not for Alfie's gentle alert on that last dark night, Max would have been dozing in the chair when she slipped away instead of holding her hand. He would have missed his chance to say goodbye.

He glanced at the business card stuck to the refrigerator under Hanna's bear-with-me-I'm-on-a-diet magnet. Shevaun Wooten, MSW. Adult Protective Services. Social worker by profession, zealot by nature. The young woman had stormed onto the scene a few weeks ago and had been stirring up trouble ever since. Max wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his upper arm as he did every morning, pumped the bulb and waited for the digital readout.

High, and no wonder. Wooten's well-intentioned interference was enough to make him blow a new stroke gasket or spring another leaky valve. Do-gooders! Thought they knew what was best for everyone. When she had called on Friday, he'd told her plain and simple he wasn't interested in assisted living, but he might as well have been speaking Martian for all she'd listened. Insisted on dropping by first thing Monday morning to "chat' about elder care options.

Since when had a long walk off a short pier become an option?

The storm's turmoil matched the tempest brewing inside Max since Ms. Wooten's call. In a dim kitchen illuminated only by lightning and a bulb over the stove, he sipped coffee, ate toast, and chewed on the problem. A man hadn't ought to sweat bullets to convince some dynamo agency girl he could take care of his own damn self. In less than twenty-four hours, hard-working Shevaun Wooten would loom onto his doorstep. She thought she could back him into a corner and force him to make decisions about his future, but she had no idea who she was dealing with.

He wouldn't leave this house. It stood to prove the last fifty years had happened. That Hanna had existed. Max wanted no part of the new life Ms. Wooten promised. A crate on codger death row.

A flash of lightning silhouetted the bear cub salt and pepper shakers in the window. Hanna had toted them home from Yellowstone in 1967. She'd parked the silly things on the sill over the sink, and there they had remained, never once containing a grain of salt or flake of pepper.

Not everything has to be practical, Professor. Some things exist only to make us smile.

Max hoped he had made Hanna half as happy as she'd made him.

Her rack of useless souvenir spoons recalled summer travels. Sightseeing in the sun, making love in musty motor courts. No need to read the place names. Max knew them by heart. Glacier National Park. Carlsbad Caverns. Royal Gorge. Mt. Rushmore. Pike's Peak. The mementos were tarnished, but the memories were as clear as the endless snapshots they'd taken.

Max swallowed an extra blood pressure pill in honor of Ms. Wooten's visit. The storm would blow over, but Adult Protective Services would not go away. He needed a plan but couldn't think about the future in a house so full of the past. Hanna had warned him about sitting too long in one place.

Dwelling is bad for minds and arthritic joints.

When the rain stopped Max pulled on his galoshes and clipped Alfie's leash to his collar. The dog picked his way gingerly down the driveway and nosed onto the sidewalk leading to the park. Across the street, Max's neighbor stooped to retrieve the plastic-wrapped Sunday paper in her yard. She shook the sodden bundle and scattered drops sparkled in a stray ray of sunlight.

"Quite a storm, Dr. Boyle,' she called.

He waved and nodded. Few people called him doctor these days. When he retired from the college, he'd gone back to being plain old mister. Old being the operative word.

Mrs. What's-Her-Name edged down to the curb and waited. For him to do what? Converse? They'd spoken before. She'd certainly introduced herself, but damned if he recalled her name. Alfie strained toward the young woman, ever ready to make a new friend, but Max waved without slowing down. He knew what Hanna would say.

At least the dog has manners.

Social graces be damned. He'd earned the right to be crotchety. Max shortened the leash and kept walking, leaving Mrs. Neighbor in her yard.

Marrowless old chicken shit.

He wasn't afraid. He was cautious. Shevaun Wooten was gunning for him, and he wasn't about to give her ammunition. He'd rather Mrs. Neighbor think him anti-social than reveal how rusty he was at talking. Speech therapy after the stroke had helped, but without Hanna, he had no reason to practice.

He was not a coward. At twelve, he'd run away from the orphanage. He'd ridden the Depression rails as a lean, hungry boy, and had walked into enemy fire in Italy before he was twenty. He'd dodged every bullet bearing his name. Made a good marriage. Led an honorable life in academia. Buried four tiny children and the woman he loved. He woke up every morning knowing he was
alone except for an ancient dog, whose own days were numbered, and he climbed out of bed anyway.

Let a coward do that.

Max stepped around a heavy limb that had fallen in the storm. Every big
wind that blew through life left broken boughs and flattened flowers. Max had weathered many squalls, but Hurricane Shevaun might be the force that finally uprooted him for good.

They neared their destination and Max gripped the leash, huffing along at the dog's hurry-up pace. "Slow down, boy. You know I creak after it rains.'

Alfie obeyed, but didn't stop to sniff the pee-mail on every bush and hydrant as usual. Instead, he pointed his relentless nose toward the park as though he had an appointment he couldn't miss.