Page 102 of Escaping Our Reality

I back out of her driveway on two wheels and drive up the road to the other driveway. She can’t use her key code because the electricity is out, so she opens a side door with her key. Once we’re inside of the garage, I pull the emergency cord and lift the heavy aluminum rolling door by hand. I grab everything I see that might be useful. A chainsaw, two axes, some flashlights, a ladder, some gasoline, and two large tarps, still in the vacuumpackaging. We load everything into the back of the SUV. Lulu has to crawl in to lower the seats for the ladder.

We’re driving down her street, trying to avoid the larger limbs when we pass a patrol cruiser with its lights flashing. A couple of seconds later, it beeps its siren, asking us over the loudspeaker to pull over. Are you damn kidding me right now?

“What? What’s happening?” Lulu bounces in her seat, a nervous wreck. She checks her phone for the umpteenth time.

A policeman jumps out of the cruiser’s passenger-side door and jogs over to my window. I quickly lower it. He looks at me and Lulu. “Officer?”

“Are you Ella Hill?”

“Oh no. What happened? Are they dead?”

The officer’s face clouds with confusion. “Is who dead? Detective Marcum sent us to check on you. His cell phone was damaged. He’s unable to make calls.” He narrows his eyes. “Is someone you know injured?”

“We can’t get in touch with our aunt and uncle. Our cousin called and said she saw their street on the news. Said it was demolished. We have to go check on them.”

Since when are Teresa and Rayouraunt and uncle, instead ofheraunt and uncle?

I guess since now.

“What street? What neighborhood?”

When I tell him, his own face blanches. “Listen, you need to turn around and head back home. You won’t be able to get over there. That whole area is blocked off.”

“No!” Lulu grabs my arm, digging her nails into my skin.

“No offense, Officer, but I will not take her home and make her sit there for hours, in the dark, wondering what happened to her family. No way in hell.”

“Marcum said for her to stay put.”

I chuckle, cynically. “Marcum knows her better than that.”

He scrubs his face, looking back at his partner in the patrol car.

“Look,” I say, lowering my voice, “if it’s that bad, they need all the help they can get. I’ve got tarps, axes, gasoline, a chainsaw. And I’m able-bodied, strong. Let me help.”

Sighing in resignation, he gives me directions to the back side of Ray and Teresa’s neighborhood, where a small access road is usually blocked off from trespassers because it has a small electrical substation on it. “Go there. I’ll radio ahead and tell the patrol unit to let you through. Be prepared to park and carry your stuff.”

As we drive through town, the varying degrees of damage is astonishing. There are areas of nothing, areas that look like Lulu’s neighborhood, and a few small areas where buildings are nearly flattened. We pass overturned cars. Parts of roof structures. There’s even a patio chair in a tree. It looks to be in pretty good shape. Under different circumstances, I’d stop and get it for the homestead.

I don’t have to ask Lulu to do anything for me while we drive. She takes it all upon herself. First, she calls the nursing home. It takes four tries to get through, but she finally does. Everything is fine with Grandma. The storm completely missed them. Biting her lip, she looks up the phone number for the gas station. Someone answers on the first ring.

She rubs the scar on the back of her neck. “Hello, yes, I was wondering if the station was okay from the storm. Did you receive any damage?”

…

“Good. So, it missed you?”

…

“And the body shop across the parking lot? It’s okay too?”

…

She exhales in relief. “That’s wonderful news, thank you. Um, was Trash at the gas station when the storm came through?

…

No, I don’t wanna talk to—”

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