The Cradle Robber. E. Joan Sims
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on when I finally dozed off. I slept soundly for a full twenty minutes until the alarm sounded.
“Damn and drat!”
I hated not getting enough sleep. My stomach felt queasy and my head ached. I stumbled to the bathroom and stared into the mirror at the exhausted green eyes and freckles that stood out boldly on my pale face. I splashed on some cold water and sighed into the towel as I dried my chin and looked out the window.
“Holy cow!”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. For a moment I considered the possibility that I was still asleep and having a nightmare. I discounted that when a sharp pain sliced behind my eyelids and throbbed in my temple. I was awake all right, and looking out at the ruin of what was once the most beautiful place on earth—at least to me.
Hot tears flooded my eyes as I stared unbelievingly at the huge maple that had provided summer shade for generations of Sterlings. It had been torn out by the roots and cast down across the patio. The hole it left in the raw earth was easily ten feet across and four feet deep. Maple leaves embraced the lawn almost across the whole width of the backyard, yet the tree had miraculously missed falling on the back porch. I wondered sadly if a small furry body lay smashed beneath its limbs.
I ran back to my bedroom and knelt on the window seat. The oak trees in the front yard hadn’t fared much better. One lay across the driveway and the others were missing the top half of their limbs. It looked like a giant scythe had whacked them off about twenty feet above the ground.
I shrugged into my jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped on my Cole-Haans even though they were still damp from the night before. I steeled myself as I opened the French doors in the library and stepped outside.
The sky was clean, freshly washed, and a brilliant blue. Fluffy white clouds preened in front of a golden sun. It was a beautiful day. The ground was still soaked from the rain. I felt it sink through my jeans as I fell to my knees when I saw the devastation the storm had wreaked on my grandfather’s orchard.
Limbs were everywhere. Peach, plum, and apple trees were scattered about like pick-up sticks. Everything was destroyed except for one lone sapling—the little cherry tree we planted last summer. I wept.
When I was spent, I pulled myself up and climbed over limbs and tree trunks to the other side of the house. My moonlight garden: the white roses, my gardenias and paper whites, even the tiny lilies of the valley were crushed by storm debris. Incongruously, in the middle of the garden stood the glass reflecting ball without a scratch to mar its shiny silver surface.
I climbed over scattered limbs searching for Aggie, knowing that if I found her it would be too late. If she had been anywhere in the yard during the storm, she was a goner. Somehow the falling trees had missed the house, but there wasn’t a square foot of lawn that was not covered by debris. Aggie wouldn’t have been able to run fast enough to escape. Poor little puppy. I cried again when I imagined the terror and helplessness she must have felt. And I was miserably sorry that yesterday I had been happy thinking I would soon be rid of her. Now, I would miss her always.
I slipped and skinned my hands and knees as I climbed over limbs and tree trunks. I was cursing like a sailor before I made it back to the driveway. I kicked aside the cans and plastic bags from someone else’s garbage that had flown through the air and landed in our yard and made my way down to the carriage house.
I held my breath and said a small prayer as I rounded the corner and looked inside. Watson was unscathed, but the back of the roof over the garage had caved in underneath the weight of a huge broken limb from a walnut tree. There was no way I could get the Jeep out without some help. The limb was as big around as twice my waist. It didn’t even budge when I tried to move it.
“Well, damn and double damn. This is a fine kettle of fish!” I swore, wiping the sweat from my upper lip with a skinned knuckle.
“Indeed it is,” answered Mother as she picked her way around the stump of the walnut tree and came up behind me.
“Mother! You scared me half to death! What are you doing out here?”
“The same thing you are, I imagine. Crying a bit, and wondering how long it will take us to clean up and get everything back to normal.”
She looked calm and collected in her neatly pressed Ralph Lauren chambray shirt and navy slacks. Not a silver hair was out of place. It made me furious.
“And Cassie?” I snapped. “Just how am I going to pick up Cassie?”
“I called the Nashville airport and left a message at the Delta information desk,” she responded calmly. “I also reserved a rental car for her. She is perfectly capable of driving herself home—and I need a rental car until mine is out of the shop. It all works out perfectly.”
“Yeah, just hunky dory,” I muttered sinking down on the walnut limb. I stared morosely at the tall pole of the martin house that my father had built. It leaned at a drunken forty-five degree angle, spilling bits of straw from each tiny doorway.
“What a mess!”
“I quite agree, darling, but it could be worse. Horatio called me from his, er, office. At least six people didn’t make it through last night.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Well, dear, look around you,” she said pointing at the swath the tornado had cut through the orchard. “We were really quite fortunate. Imagine if the path of the tornado had taken it a few feet in another direction. Our house would be mixed up in all this mess, and you and I might be in heaven’s equivalent of Kansas.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Wow, six people. Do we know anyone who was killed?”
“I don’t think so, dear. At least Horatio didn’t think so. Or he may have been protecting me until he could tell me in person.”
“Great!” I grumbled, “Something else to look forward to.”
Chapter Five
Mother finally convinced me there was nothing more we could do until we got some help. She had already called Billy to make sure his family was all right and to enlist his aid in procuring some heavy equipment to move the fallen trees. Until the driveway was cleared and the walnut tree was lifted off the garage, we were trapped. The very thought made me crazy to get away, even though Cassie was coming home on her own and I really had nowhere to go.
Somewhere deep inside, my rational self recognized that my impatience and irritability were aftereffects of the storm, but that didn’t keep me from behaving like a spoiled brat all afternoon.
Mother went to a great deal of trouble to make lunch for us in a kitchen with no electricity. She dragged the gas grill out of the corner and prepared shrimp kebabs with pineapple chicken and coconut rice.
“Why in the world did you fix all this food?” I asked petulantly. “It was just a tornado, not the end of the world.”
She smiled pleasantly at me over the lovely table she had set in the corner of the back porch. The sunlight painted rainbows on the heavy white damask tablecloth as it passed through the stems of delicate Waterford goblets. Her best silver cutlery gleamed next to the finest Wedgwood porcelain. I stared at the plump, perfectly grilled shrimp on my beautiful plate and burst into tears.
Thoroughly ashamed and undone, I hung my head until my chin almost touched my chest and whispered an apology.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You should. You’ve been through this before,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?”
“Post-traumatic stress—from your experiences in San Romero.”
“Don’t be silly,” I hooted. “There’s a big difference between rescuing your daughter from a bloodthirsty mob and spending a night under the stairs because of a little storm.”
“Not such a little storm,”