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Chapter Thirty-three

As the days ticked off, Tully realized they faced a new problem. Another storm, Hurricane Rita, was churning its way through the Gulf, bearing down on what everyone first thought would be the Texas coastline. As if Katrina hadn’t been enough, every day the forecasters placed Rita closer to Louisiana, and everyone in Montegut was preparing, knowing the kind of storm surge that could result from being on the eastern side of a storm of that size.

With Rita right offshore and predicted to come on land late that night or early the morning, Tully parked next to Elijah’s boat, figuring one more day of driving to the same places she’d covered would yield the same results. He was on board, folding his nets and storing them inside the cabin.

“This thing is going to churn things up around here, don’t you think?” Tully asked him, staying on land, out of his way.

He only nodded and kept up what he was doing.

“And it can permanently get rid of things that are lost.”

“What can I do for you, Tully?”

“At least tell me if I’m spinning my wheels here.”

He took his cap off and scratched the top of his head, making her think he was just going to clam up. “First, tell me why you’re looking so hard.”

“Not because I owe my ex anything and not because I have illusions of caring for Kara.”

“Then why?”

She turned her head and gazed down the road. From where she was standing she could make out the steeple of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. Behind it was the cemetery that had been used from the time the land had been settled. Evangeline had been laid to rest in one of the new sections.

“Why?” Tully repeated. “Because no matter her sins, her parents deserve the last comfort you had. They should be able to bury her and know her life is finished. It doesn’t matter how they get that knowledge, but it’s only humane to give it to them and spare them the agony that will haunt them if we don’t.”

“Wish I could help you and them, but I can’t.”

“If you’re sure you can’t, then I’ll have to accept that. I’m not here to push you into giving me something you’re not capable of, but if you change your mind you know you can count on me to help you.”

It had been worth a try. Now she had a reasonable idea of the truth and the comfort that she had tried her best. “Good luck with the storm, and if you and Simone need anything, let me know.”

“You think less of me?” Elijah asked as he jumped from the boat to the shore to follow her toward her vehicle.

“I understand you, Elijah, and I respect you. What happened to you is my worst nightmare, so no, I don’t think less of you. The burden of truth, whatever that might be in this case, might get heavy over time, though.” She opened the door to her car, but didn’t move to get inside. “I’ve found that sometimes that kind of strain leaks over into other aspects of your life. With everything you and Simone have been through, you don’t deserve any more added to your plate.”

“Thanks, and I’ll remember that. You all evacuating for this thing?”



“My father keeps telling me how that house has been there for over a hundred years and he isn’t leaving, and the kids and Libby already went through the trauma of having to leave what they knew, so we’re staying for now.” She gazed up at the overcast sky and felt the moisture in the air. Rita was shaping up to be a rainmaker, from all the reports. “I’ll keep my eye on the Weather Channel just in case. How about you and Simone?”

“I’m packing the boat just in case. If things get bad I’m going to float her up the bayou as far as I can and try and ride it out.”

They shook hands, and Tully headed on back to the house to help with the hurricane preparations. She had sent Roxanne and her family, as well as Jo, back up north with the office files, but Chase and her mother, along with Jessica, had stayed.

The first big gusts came in at ten that night, and Tully sat with her family flipping between the local stations and the Weather Channel. At its current rate Rita would really get going past midnight, and since it was coming in right at the Louisiana/Texas border her decision to stay was starting to give Tully a headache. When the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed twelve thirty, she was about to tell everyone to pack their bags to get on the road for a couple of days when there was a knock on the front door.

Waving her father off, Tully opened the door to Elijah and closed it behind her just as quickly when she saw the way he was twisting his hat in his hand.

“I’m taking Simone and my boat out of here.” He pointed across the street, which wasn’t visible because of the driving rain. “I docked by your daddy’s so I could come and see you before I headed out.”

“Need some help?”

“No, I wanted to see if you tried looking down by Jim Bob Delacroix’s place over by the pass.” The place he mentioned was ten miles farther south than where they were standing, a huge chunk of private land owned by a New Orleans oilman whose hobbies were fishing and making money. “I thought about what you said, and whatever you find, I might need help carrying the weight of the truth when you get back and this is over.”

She shook his hand. “That’s something you can count on.”

Neither Libby nor the kids were happy with her decision to go out alone, but she didn’t want them to get hurt if the storm got any worse. Tully almost caved in when Libby grabbed the front of her T-shirt.

“You better come back to me. I’ll be lost if something happens to you. I went through the pain of losing my parents and finally saw the end of being alone when I found you, so you better not let me down, Tully.”

“I won’t,” was all Tully said before she kissed Libby to show her how much she meant it. “I love you, and I’m planning on a long life with you, so I’ll be right back.”

Her own words echoed in Tully’s head as she turned onto the main road and drove almost to the end where the pavement ended abruptly in the water, her vehicle swaying from the wind the whole time. The private drive stretched for three miles, ending at one of the nicest houses on the bayou. Jim Bob used the place a couple of times a year as a fishing camp to entertain some of his bigger clients, and other than a caretaker who came out once a week, the place sat empty and secluded.

She took her time walking around searching for clues at the end of her flashlight. If the front of the house was nice, the back was spectacular. After a lot of excavating, Jim Bob had created a series of ponds in his backyard that were fed by the pass that ran alongside the eastern part of his property.

After extensive dredging, what had started as a small feeder off Bayou Terrebonne years before had turned into a quick route to the Gulf. He allowed his neighbors to use it, but its main purpose was to get his large fishing cruiser out to blue water.

The boat was gone, probably brought in because of the storm, so Tully walked slowly along the back banks of the ponds watching where she put her feet because of the local reptilian population. Not finding anything from Elijah’s cryptic clue, she was about to turn back when she spotted a flash of blue out in the distance on a small island. She put her flashlight right on it and saw Kara huddled against the trunk of an ancient oak.

Tully ran back to the mud boat she’d seen earlier and pushed it into the water. The pole in it was long enough for her to guide the boat out to the land that was rapidly disappearing in the rising water. “Kara!” Tully lost a shoe in the thick mud when she landed. If the wind and rain hadn’t roused Kara, Tully figured she was dead.

“Kara!” she screamed again, finally getting some response when she got closer. The large bruise on the side of Kara’s head made Tully grimace, but she was relieved that Kara was still alive. “Come on, we have to get out of here. The levee must be topped for the water to be coming up this fast. We don’t have much time.”

Kara shook her head and wrapped her arms even tighter around her legs.

“You can’t stay here and ride out a hurricane holding on to a tree.” Tully lifted Kara’s head to make sure she understood what she was saying.

“I can’t swim, and I’m not getting on a boat in this weather.” With that statement Kara jerked out of Tully’s grasp and turned her head to the tree trunk, as if it would hide where she was.

“I can’t leave you here, so I apologize ahead of time,” Tully said. She hated to hit her in the same place as the bruise, but if Kara wouldn’t go willingly she would have to be carried out.

With a grunt Tully slugged Kara, hefted her up, and carried her back to the boat. Before she could push off, the electricity went out at the house, cutting off the floodlights in the yard and plunging the area into total darkness. The rain was now flying horizontally because of the gusts of wind, and Tully prayed she was going in a straight line toward the shore. If she missed too far to the left they would go into the pass and possibly out to the Gulf once the current changed with the wind, if they were lucky enough to stay afloat that long.

She stuck the pole into the water and propelled them closer to the shore, but on the next stroke she wasn’t prepared for the sudden drop-off, and the wood slid through her fingers. The depth could only mean she’d aimed too far out and they were in the pass. With no way to steer she had no idea where they’d end up.

“Libby, forgive me if this doesn’t work out,” she shouted into the wind as she removed her other shoe. The rocking made it difficult to walk to the front of the boat where the tie-off rope was. When her fingers closed around it, Tully quickly found the end and fastened it around her waist.

Another miscalculation now and they would both be lost, but she could figure no other way out. She took a deep breath and jumped off the front of the boat into surprisingly warm water with a very strong current. The storm surge from Rita was driving it, but Tully started swimming in what she hoped was an easterly direction. With the weight of the boat she was dragging and the force of the water, her limbs quickly felt like lead, but she knew to give up now would lead to certain death, so she ignored the fatigue and pushed harder.

After what felt like hours, no matter how much Tully wanted to keep going, she could push her arms over only once more; then she surrendered to the current. She rolled over to her back, hoping to keep her head above water and thinking about Libby, Bailey, and Ralph. For the first time in her life she felt like a total failure for abandoning the people she loved most for something they might not understand. As her tired body started to sink, she lamented all the things that she’d left unsaid. She was sure that her words, along with the remainder of her days, would be swept away along with the debris swirling around her.

 

“Libby, you really need to move away from the window, honey,” Alma said. At Libby’s request Gaston had unboarded one of the windows facing the road so they could keep an eye out for Tully. “If something comes flying through there, you could get hurt.”

A glance at her watch showed Libby it was after one in the morning, close to an hour since Tully had gone out into the storm. It had seemed surreal to watch the taillights of Tully’s car disappear and know she was left behind with the Badeauxes and Jessica.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” Jessica asked.

“Mama, Libby answered that already,” Bailey said in an exasperated tone.

“She didn’t really say. She just said she’d be back in a little while,” Libby answered.

Alma put an arm around Libby’s waist and brought her other hand up to make her let go of the curtain.

“If she said she’d be back, she will. Tully’s good at keeping her word,” she said softly.

“Yes, she always was the white knight every girl dreams of,” Jessica added. “Until some other cause came along, and then forget it.”

“She’s coming back, right, Libby?” Ralph came up on her other side and stared at her as if begging her for reassurance. His question gave Libby the opportunity to ignore Jessica.

“We have a house to get ready, and she told me she wanted your help getting that tree out of the pool, buddy, so of course she is. You think she’d miss the opportunity to put you and Bailey to work?”

Libby turned away from Alma so she could put her arms around him, gazing over his shoulder at Bailey sitting with Chase. The house shook with a ferocious gust of wind, and Libby pressed him closer, putting her body between the window and Ralph. What had started as a bad rainstorm was turning into hurricane-force winds.

“Come on, Ralph, let’s me and you go check the house,” Gaston said.

“Do you think we should’ve evacuated?” Chase asked when Ralph and Gaston left to go upstairs. “It’s getting bad out there.”

“Jeez, Chase,” Bailey said, getting up and going into the kitchen.

“What?” Chase asked, seeming perplexed by Bailey’s reaction.

“Her mom is out there, so it’s not a good time to remind her about how bad it’s getting,” Libby said before going after Bailey, Jessica behind her.

Bailey was sitting at the kitchen table holding herself and rocking as if she was in pain. “You okay?” Libby asked gently.

“She promised,” Bailey said, not stopping her rocking.

“Promised what, sweetheart?”

“That she wouldn’t leave us and that we’d be okay—she promised. If something happens to her, what happens to us?”

“You have me.” Libby knelt down in front of Bailey’s chair and rested her hands on her lap. “And since when do you count her out so easily?”

Jessica crossed her arms over her chest. “Because she knows Tully would rather play the hero than stick around for the mundane things in life for too long. You can’t expect her to be happy just playing house. Don’t be that naïve.”

“I can’t force you to think like me, or to have my faith, but you know that’s not true, Bailey Bean.” Libby took a chance and used the nickname, rewarded when Bailey fell into her arms and cried.

Libby held Bailey until Alma came into the room and guided her back to the living room. When Jessica began to follow, Libby stopped her with a forceful, “Wait.”

“As soon as the weather clears I’m taking my children out of here and home,” Jessica told her.

“They have a home to go to after this, and they aren’t going anywhere until Tully gets back. And if you talk about her to Bailey or Ralph like you just did again, I’ll put you out of this house myself. I don’t care what the weather is.”

“Yeah, right.” Jessica ran into Gaston when she turned around to leave.

“I’d listen to her, Jessica, because I agree with her,” he said. “If I were you I’d sit down and shut up before you find yourself out the front door.”

Not expecting an answer, Libby asked Jessica, “What did life do to you to make you so angry?”

“It cheated me when it came to making choices. All the ones I’ve made up to now except for Kara were to please someone else,” she spat out.

“How sad for you that you think that,” Libby said, trying to find some reason to feel sympathetic toward Jessica. “But that doesn’t give you the right to make your family pay for your mistakes or bad choices. Tully is my choice, and I won’t stand for one more snipe at her expense.”

Jessica didn’t answer her and just walked out, leaving Gaston and Libby alone, and it was Libby’s turn to cry.

“I don’t want to add to your worry, Libby, but the water out back’s starting to come up,” Gaston said. “That’s got to mean the levee breached somewhere along the line. Even if we wanted to leave we can’t, at least not without some ferrying back and forth to the Alma Mae.”

“Do you think that’s why Tully’s not back?”

“Could be, darlin’, so you and I have to have a talk.”

“I’m not leaving without her,” Libby said, meaning every word.

“While Tully’s not here you’re in charge of those kids, and if we have to move them to the boat I need your help.”

“Do you think it’s going to get that bad?”

He unlatched the shutter to one of the kitchen windows and pointed outside. “The tide was high when the wind started, and these southern gusts are pushing even more water in. The last time that happened we ended up with eight feet over flood stage here. We’re up twelve feet, but if this is anything like what just hit New Orleans, I don’t want to be stuck in this house if we can help it.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to her family, but I won’t desert her either.”

Gaston secured the window again just as the power went out. “Just remember you’re her family too.” His smile was as bright as the beam of his flashlight as he said it.

Libby stayed behind to light some candles, remembering how her mother would do the same thing before saying a prayer in church. “Please, God, if it has to be one of us, pick me,” she said as she lowered the match to the wick. “Bailey’s right, Tully. You did give your word, and I’m holding you to it.”

 


Date: 2016-01-03; view: 577


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