Deirdre’s smile was rueful, her tone almost wistful. “I told him that I wasn’t ready to settle down—I was barely twenty-one—and that I didn’t feel the same way he did, that I wanted to go to Hollywood and have a design career. Oh, I was brutally honest.
“I told him I didn’t want to be a mother; my mother was appalling at it. I didn’t even know how one was supposed to behave. But he thought that the way he felt about me trumped all that. ‘It’ll all work out,’ he said. ‘I love enough for both of us.’ That’s what he said.”
Deirdre looked down at her hands, which were clasped around her phone. For the first time since Maddie had met her she didn’t look remotely “together,” and it had nothing to do with the hurricane or the dim glow from their cell phones. “But it doesn’t work like that. Not even when you want it to. It has to be equal. Or at least somewhere close.”
She blinked back tears. “I was too young and far too messed up to handle things as I should have. And it didn’t help that I got pregnant on our honeymoon. When you were born I loved you more than I’d ever loved anything. And you scared me to death. I was so afraid I’d screw everything up, that I’d screw you up.”
She paused, searching Avery’s face for something. All Maddie saw on it was horror and dislike.
“I stayed because you were mine and I loved you. I did my best to settle in and make things work. But I never loved your father to the exclusion of everything else, like he wanted. And I just didn’t know how to be a mother.”
Deirdre paused and the silence in the bathroom was in stark contrast to the howl of nature outside. Sirens blared. There was a crash of something large onto metal. None of them moved.
“Your father was born to be a parent,” Deirdre said, staring into Avery’s no-longer-averted eyes. “Your parent. I just got out of the way.” She sighed. “And, of course, by the time I realized I’d done the absolute wrong thing and desperately wanted to beg your forgiveness, you wouldn’t have anything to do with me.” She paused for a moment, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m so sorry, Avery. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Maddie drew her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. She felt Deirdre’s pain and Avery’s deep down into her skin. Although she felt as if they’d been intruding, she was glad Kyra had heard Deirdre’s story. She hoped that Avery would find it in her heart if not to forgive, then at least to forge some sort of . . . something. The reality was, they were all each other had.
Forty
A little later came what sounded—and felt—like all hell breaking loose. The wind whipped and howled and the rain pounded down. Unseen things collided. As they cowered in the bathroom, Avery’s emotions kept pace with the storm. She felt as if someone had grabbed hold of everything inside her, shaken it around for a while, and then tried to wrench it out of her. Deirdre was self-centered and she had used their desperation to her advantage. But she was not completely unthinking or unfeeling and her apology had seemed stunningly sincere. The fabric of Avery’s hurt and anger had been ripped into tiny shreds and brutally rearranged—still there but unrecognizable. Her last coherent thought before her eyes fluttered shut was that it was so much easier and cleaner to hate from afar.
Avery roused about five A.M. when the electricity finally flickered on. She’d fallen asleep with her knees folded up against her chest, Kyra’s head on her shoulder, and her cell phone clutched in one hand. When they emerged from the bathroom a short time later, they discovered how lucky they were. The parking lot was strewn with debris. A tree on one edge had fallen across the roof of a small SUV and another had smashed into a unit at the opposite end. But Maddie’s van was undamaged. All of them were rattled but unharmed.
Inside, the TV stations were filled with reports that large sections of the Tampa Bay area were without electricity and would be for some time. The beaches had been hard hit as Charlene, erratic to the end, skimmed up the west coast of Florida then skittered westward.
“Can we get back onto St. Pete Beach?” Maddie asked as they watched the images on the TV screen.
“Go to one of the local channels and see if they’ve got that info posted.”
Maddie passed the remote to Kyra and the channel surfing, with intent, began.
“Charlene is headed toward the Mississippi coast. They think she may make landfall there.”
“Jesus,” Deirdre said. “That’s the last thing they need up there after Katrina and the oil spill.”
“They’re reporting torrential rain up and down the western half of Florida,” Kyra said. “Which could be impacting anyone trying to drive down from Georgia or North Carolina.” She looked at her mother. “That means Dad and Andrew might have trouble getting down here.”
“If they’re coming,” Maddie said.
“Mom, you know they’ll come.”
Maddie didn’t comment. Avery couldn’t help remembering how certain Kyra had been that Daniel Deranian would come and take her away. She’d been half right.
“That could mean the Hardins might be having trouble getting back, too,” Kyra said moments after Avery had thought it.
“If Chase were here, we could maybe go by boat and take a look from the water.” Avery wished he were here right now, though she wasn’t about to admit it. She felt someone’s gaze on her and looked up to see Deirdre watching her. Avery looked away, hoping Deirdre hadn’t been able to read her thoughts.
“I can’t even imagine what the bay and Gulf are like right now. I don’t think I’d want to be out in a boat at the moment, even if it were possible,” Maddie said.
“Have you tried to reach him?” Deirdre asked. “Or heard anything at all from the Hardins?”
Avery looked down at her phone. “No bars.” She lifted it to her ear. Nothing. “Has anybody got a cell phone signal?”
No one did.
“The land line doesn’t work, either.” Nikki held the receiver to her ear. “No dial tone.”
They looked at each other.
“I need to see Bella Flora,” Avery said. “I need to make sure she’s still there and intact.” Her pulse quickened at the thought of the abuse that must have been heaped on her.
“Why don’t we see if we can get something to eat first?” Deirdre suggested. “Now that my heart’s not in my stomach anymore, it’s feeling kind of empty. Hopefully by then there’ll be more information.”
“Deirdre’s right,” Maddie said, surprising them all. “Nikki, can you talk to your friend at the desk and see if there’s anything close enough to walk to and where the closest gas stations are?”
“I’m on it.”
A few minutes later they were at a Waffle House two streets over. Only the cook and one waitress had made it in that morning, but there was electricity and that meant food. They wolfed down their breakfasts as other customers trickled in. There was a TV mounted nearby and as they ate they learned that five people had died and twelve were unaccounted for. Reports about which beaches had been hardest hit and who did and did not have electricity continued to pour in, but those reports seemed conflicting.
A photo of Malcolm Dyer flashed on the screen for a few brief seconds along with the caption “Financial Schemer Captured,” and Avery let out a whoop. They all stopped eating to watch footage of Dyer being led toward a police car in handcuffs while a knot of people wearing FBI windbreakers looked on.
Nicole’s gaze remained riveted on the screen even after the images faded and were replaced by a radar map that showed Hurricane Charlene roaring toward Biloxi. Her face reflected both regret and resignation. A few moments later she turned her attention back to her plate.
Avery could hardly sit still long enough to swallow. All she wanted was to get back to Ten Beach Road and see Bella Flora for herself. But it was two days before they were allowed back across the Howard Franklin to St. Petersburg.
Avery rode shotgun and noted the things in Tampa Bay that didn’t belong there—things like half-submerged cars and a hotel roof. A palm tree, apparently uprooted, floated against a piling. A power- and a sailboat sat aground, rammed up against a tree on the side of the causeway.
Traffic moved slowly, but it wasn’t the agonizing inching along of evacuation. It felt as if far fewer people were returning. Avery wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
Traffic lights were out on Gulf Boulevard and crews from the power and phone company worked in pockets everywhere they looked. Trees were down and buildings were sorely damaged. Drifts of sand covered the asphalt, many with dark clumps mixed in.
“Is that seaweed?” Kyra asked. She’d been filming out the window since they’d first rolled onto the Howard Franklin. “Oh, my God, there’re fish over there.” She swung her lens toward a crosswalk where several fish lay belly up. The aroma promised many more as yet unseen.
“It kind of makes you wonder how much sand is left on the beach given how much of it is here,” Deirdre said.
No one mentioned Bella Flora, though Avery knew it had to be at the forefront of all of their thoughts. Would she still be standing? Could she be, considering her precarious position at the southernmost tip of the narrow barrier island?
Just before the Don CeSar things slowed further as identification was checked and those who’d returned via the Pinellas Bayway merged into the two lanes of Pass-a-Grille Way. “Oh, my God, look at the Don.” Kyra panned her camera up the stained pink façade. Two of the bell towers had broken off and fallen to the pavement. A whole section of windows was without glass. An employee was already busy sweeping the shards into piles on the sidewalk. Despite the traffic behind them, they slowed to gawk. “I can’t believe it. Imagine what things would look like if Charlene had come ashore anywhere near here.”
All the way down the narrow twist of road, debris cluttered their way. They gasped at the damage, which often seemed arbitrary. One minute Avery believed Bella Flora might have gotten through unscathed, the next she feared they’d find nothing waiting for them but an empty lot.
Without asking, Maddie stayed on Pass-a-Grille Way, hugging the bay rather than jogging over and paralleling the Gulf. Avery knew then that Maddie’s fears mirrored her own. At the corner of Beach Road, Maddie pulled the van to a complete stop. Cottage Inn’s cottages still stood, though they looked the worse for wear. Maddie and Avery considered each other. Kyra crouched forward so that she could shoot both out the windshield and over her mother’s shoulder.
“Are we ready?” Maddie asked.
“I’m rolling,” Kyra said as if that was all they were waiting for.
Maddie drew in a deep breath. Avery did the same.
“I’m not sure I can take this,” Avery said.
“All I want to do is close my eyes and not look until someone tells me it’s okay.”
“That might work if you weren’t driving, Maddie,” Nikki said. “Not so good as things stand.”
There was nervous laughter and a collective drawing of breath. “All right,” Maddie said, pressing down on the gas pedal. “Here we go.”
They turned onto Beach Road and headed toward number ten.
At the end of the road John Franklin’s Cadillac was bellied up to the curb. The Realtor and his wife stood in front of the white garden wall in the middle of what might have been a small sandbar. Renée Franklin was crying.
“I’m not getting a good feeling about this.” Maddie pulled the van to a stop and they clambered out, craning their necks, turning as one for a first glimpse of Bella Flora.
Avery was swept back to the first time she’d seen it and her partners all those months ago. The garden had looked bad then, but it was far worse now. In fact, it was decimated. Trees, plants, and bushes had been torn up by the roots and flung around; sand and seaweed were everywhere; the fabulous concrete fountain had toppled and smashed into far too many pieces to ever be put back together again.
But the front façade of the house appeared intact—chipped up and still damp, but all there. Even the windows seemed all right. Until Avery tilted her head up just a bit. And realized that from the doorway over there was no red tile, angled or otherwise. Because there was no roof for it to cling to.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “Not the roof.”
John Franklin looked helpless. Renée was in mourning. “My poor triple hibiscus,” she breathed. “That lovely jasmine and frangipani. And wait until you see what’s happened to the reclinada.”
“This doesn’t look that bad,” Deirdre said. “If it’s just a few sections of the roof, we can . . .”
The Realtor shook his head sadly. “This is the only exposure that doesn’t face water. It gets worse.”
Numb, they followed him around the west side of the house where pretty much all of the windows were either shattered or missing. Puddles of broken glass lay on the ground. There was no red tile poking over the edge of the house here, either. The western half of Bella Flora’s roof had been torn off by the wind, leaving jagged pieces of the frame poking into the sky. Shards of barrel tile lay everywhere as did pile after pile of debris, some of it mundane, some of it—like the crumpled baby stroller and the volleyball poles and netting—especially troubling.
They rounded the house, their gazes glued to the battered walls. The master bedroom’s wrought-iron balcony and spiral staircase hung crookedly down the back of the house, scraping against what remained of the loggia roof. Avery couldn’t bear to think about what Bella Flora must look like inside with so many of her windows missing and only half of a roof to protect her from the rain and the wind. All of it—the floors and doors, the hardware, the chandeliers, the walls, everything they’d worked on and slaved over, exposed and vulnerable. Deirdre’s kitchen, that work of art Avery had been unable to acknowledge, was bound to be a sodden mess. And what about the things the designers had just installed?
“Oh, my windows,” Maddie groaned. “All that time re-glazing and half of them are just . . . gone.”
“It’ll be all right,” Kyra said as she and Nikki stepped up on either side of Maddie. “We’ll just move into the pool house again and . . .” She panned her camera away from the house and toward the pass. They turned with her. And saw the reclinada palm, torn out by the roots, lying across it, the roof smashed but intact. One glassless French door lay at the bottom of the filthy pool along with the outdoor furniture.