Page 58 of Smoke Season

Astor’s voice quavered. “One of her spells.”

Fuck, no.Sam was already halfway into the living room before the expletive had fully formed in his brain, and at Annie’s side before he could yell back to Astor, “Her med bag! I just put it next to the cooler!”

Annie’s cheeks were blue, her lips were blue, her nose was blue. Her constant coughs now racked her small body so hard, her chest and abdomen bucked with the effort of each one. She cried hysterically, or would, if she could draw breath, panic causing her eyes to widen at Sam in terror as her hands clawed at his shirt, at her blanket, at the couch.

“Baby, baby, okay,” Sam tried to soothe. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he chanted numbly as his brain screamed,Help! Help! Help!Because he knew: it was Annie’s panic that threatened his daughter most. It was her panic that was going to force him to sink the morphine into her arm, just as soon as Astor brought the goddamned vial back to his side.

He had to stay calm for his child’s sake, but at the sight of Annie’s cyanotic state, her agony became his agony, her desperation to draw a breath his desperation. Annie’s needs folded into his own right at the seams, her comfort sewn directly into the sinew of his bones. If he could, he would drain all his pumping blood into her waiting veins.

“Here!” Astor thrust the little glass vial of morphine and the already prepped syringe at him; she’d even torn open the plastic at the top of the syringe, so all he had to do was extract it, stab it into the top of the morphine vial, and sink it into Annie’s flesh.

She screamed as he did it—she always screamed—but within seconds, her body stopped spasming as the meds hit her blood system and her lungs relaxed. As her face went slack. As her shoulders slumped.Astor, too, had sunk to her knees at the side of the couch, quietly crying.

“I always hate this part,” she said.

Sam did, too. It was even worse than the screaming. Sometimes, just to ease them all through it, he would try to joke with Annie, once the sting of the needle was past them.

“Where’s Wonder Woman?” he’d asked her gently, leaning in to coax her up like the doctors instructed. The low dose should never knock her out completely. “I only see Slug Girl.”

“I like being Slug Girl,” Annie usually murmured.

Thank God for Astor, Wonder Woman from day one, though she should never have to be. As Sam eased Annie into his arms, he waved Astor over as well, enfolding her into his embrace for a brief second before having to ask her to repack the meds and drag the cooler to the front door.

It was a good thing they’d still been here when the tet spell hit, in the house where Sam could access the meds so easily, but it also punctuated anew just how fragile Sam’s tenuous hold on his family was. His house still stood, for now, but he could lose Annie anyway. It had served as a sanctuary during the tet spell, but it wasn’t the magical “safety” in the game of life Sam had tried to make it be. They were now precious minutes behind schedule, the buffer Sam had built into their evac eaten away by the medical emergency.

He consulted his watch. 16:22. They’d lost ten minutes.

Claude pounded on the door, and Annie whimpered against Sam’s shoulder as Astor let him in. He looked ragged, mud staining his jeans where he must have fallen, but immediately, he noted Annie’s condition and crossed the room to assess her. Sam saw what he saw: lips still tinged blue, but not the indigo they’d been moments ago. And Annie’s fingers were pink again, against his arm.

Claude nodded gravely. “Let’s go.”

“To the Eddy?” Astor asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam told her. “Let’s just go, okay? We gotta go.”

A sudden noise sounded again outside, but instead of a pounding, this was a crunch of metal, accompanied by the shatter of glass. Sam flung back open the door.

“My SUV ...” Sam gasped. The cedar tree in the driveway had fallen directly on top of it in the wind and heat. “How ...”

But Claude didn’t waste a second’s time analyzing. He’d already turned back toward his truck with a load of gear. “We’ll take my truck! Keys are in it. I’m going to start your water out front,” he said.

It was standard Level 3 preventive protocol to assist the eventual first responders by soaking the roof and grounds before an evac, but at Claude’s age, he shouldn’t be outside at all, let alone running hoses. And there wasn’t time: Sam’s watch now said 16:32.

“Forget it!” he yelled. “Take Annie so I can load everything up!” She was crying softly again against his shoulder, stabilized enough to leave her uncomfortable but still too listless to walk on her own. Thanks to the tet spell, someone would have to carry her from here on out, and she was too heavy for Astor, who was already sprinting back and forth from the SUV to Claude’s truck, tossing in duffels and boxes with rapid speed despite the heat, wind, and smoke.

Claude turned back, tripped on the loose stones of the walkway, staggered, and fell.

“Claude! Are you—”

But then Astor was there, helping him up, and Claude was reaching for Annie. “Give her here! I got her, I promise.”

“Astor! Go to the truck with them,” he ordered, grabbing more boxes himself. One held the extra N95s, which he pressed into Astor’s free hand. “You put one of these on, too.”

Astor didn’t need to be told why: she tugged it over her ears and onto her face between coughing fits and immediately got back to work. Sam didn’t notice the tears still in her eyes until they’d both stooped to pick up the last of the gear at the same time. “It’ll be okay, honey,” he managed.

By the time they had everything—didthey have everything?—Highline Road was eerily quiet, save for the wind. Even the heartiest, most stoic of Sam’s neighbors had already rolled down in a caravan of trucks, minivans, and cars. Everyone else had mobilized faster than him.They don’t have two kids—one with medical needs—and an elderly man to assist.

He ran to the truck to check on him and Annie, but Claude waved him away, his eyes shadowed by soot and worry and dirt smudges. Under his Buff, his face must be doing that worried quiver Sam always hated to see in his aged expression. Which he hadn’t seen much since Ingrid had died, actually.

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