We Are Unprepared. Meg Little Reilly
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to work. It was only a few days since news of The Storms broke and the first day since we moved to Vermont that I deviated from my morning work routine. Normally, I woke up around seven, drank one cup of coffee at the kitchen table with Pia, who was less enthusiastic about mornings, and brought a second cup back upstairs at eight, where I posted up at a large antique desk in our airy bedroom. From my desk chair I could see the backyard over the top of my computer screen and a banged-up thermometer that had been nailed outside the window by a previous owner. If I worked until two—including breaks for more coffee and lunch—I could get more client work done than I ever did in the office. My colleagues back in Manhattan seemed satisfied with the arrangement, so I was careful not to abuse it.
But on that day I couldn’t sit still or will myself to turn off the radio. I was already on my third cup of coffee, which was bad pacing. “It could start with a series of nor’easters this winter, each moving up from the southeast and hitting inbound arctic systems from the northwest,” the deep radio voice continued. “Everyone from Chicago down to DC and as far north as Maine can expect several feet of total accumulations and high, damaging winds at various times. Those storms alone will be costly and dangerous. But there’s another possible scenario that would be worse. The frequency and intensity of this year’s hurricane projection makes it likely that a tropical storm caused by the record-breaking ocean temperatures will be gathering around the same time as these snowstorms. Because the water temperatures are higher than we’ve ever seen, we don’t quite know how large any one of these hurricanes might get, but we know they could be enormous. If the arctic air coming in from Canada and the Midwest collides with this warmer air from the Atlantic and the Gulf, we will face the ‘frankenstorm’ effect that we saw back in 2012. But in this case, that cold air will be moving faster and covering more of the US than we’ve ever seen before. Here, again, we’re in uncharted territory.
“There are so many variables that could determine this winter storm season, but given what we know, it’s wise to assume that the eastern side of the US is looking at several hundred square miles of direct contact with at least one massive hurricane and several blizzards, with accompanying flooding and broad wind damage. I’m not even sure hurricane and blizzard are adequate terms for what could happen here. If any of these storms are as large as the most pessimistic forecast models project, it won’t matter if you’re in their direct paths because wind and flooding in surrounding regions from storms of this size can be just as damaging as what occurs in the path itself.
“Even in the most optimistic scenario, forecasters are expecting tens of billions of dollars in losses to the US economy and our basic infrastructure. The worst-case scenario is almost unthinkable at this point.”
I heard the car door slam outside as Pia drove off in search of groceries and probably a hidden antiques shop or two. She was better with a job, we both knew that, but her motivation to find one seemed to have diminished in recent weeks. As someone who believed in routines, I wanted badly for her to find somewhere to go each day or something to do. She was good about leaving me alone while I worked, though I knew it was hard for her to fill the time. She ran errands and took books out from the library. At the start, she’d spent hours researching possible job leads in area arts organizations, but that wasn’t happening anymore. We had enough in savings, for now, as a result of my buyout from the firm, but my income wasn’t as high as it used to be and it wasn’t a sustainable financial arrangement. She would need to find at least a part-time job by spring if we were to stay afloat. Still, I liked the companionship, hearing her putter around the house planting things and cooking things as the spirit moved her. It felt more like playing house than actual domesticity, as if we were putting on an ironic performance instead of careening toward an inevitable financially precarious rut. Every few days, Pia would find a recipe that inspired her and dance around the kitchen for a few hours until something delicious emerged. Or she would decide that we needed a new accent table and spend the whole afternoon browsing quirky local shops. But we were really only playing; there was no consistency or order to it. Dinner was often organic frozen pizza, and dust gathered in the corners of our beloved home at an alarming rate. We hadn’t been playing house long enough to get the act down.
I spent the first hour of my workday looking past my computer screen through the dirty window that framed our backyard. The browning grass was about six inches tall and peppered with old dandelions. Lady ferns spanned the perimeter of the lawn, claiming more of it all the time. I thought I saw the vibrant blue of a closed gentian flower, a comforting sign that autumn was close and nature’s clock wasn’t entirely out of whack. This day didn’t look like the previous one. Darker clouds had moved in and parked right above us, as if daylight had never quite arrived. The thermometer said sixty-eight, so it was moving in the right direction, but still too slowly.
August emerged with a soccer ball from the path in the woods that connected our homes and I watched his little body dribble around imaginary opponents. It was just after eight, so he wouldn’t have to leave for school for another half hour. My stiff legs twitched at the sight of August’s weightless movement around the yard and couldn’t resist joining him. With a few brief words, we were passing the ball back and forth between us. His kicks were usually too far to one side or the other, so I spent a lot of the time chasing after the ball and dribbling back to the center of the yard. After a thoroughly aerobic kickabout, a wild shot to the left planted the ball into a dense blackberry bush.
“This one’s all you, buddy,” I said, but August was already parting the prickly branches.
I bounced on one foot and then the other, trying to revive the spring I remembered in my feet from youth soccer games.
“Hey, look at that.” August pointed to a patch of moist earth beneath him where a perfect footprint had been left by a small animal.
I leaned in. “A fox maybe? I don’t know...” I crouched down to get a closer look as August pulled himself out of the bramble and fastidiously cleaned the soccer ball with his hands.
“When I was a baby fox...” he started.
“What?”
“When I was a baby fox, I liked to run through these woods.”
When I was a baby fox. He wasn’t talking to me, exactly; just reminiscing to himself. He was in his own head now. He said things like this from time to time, weaving imaginative fantasies with the tangible present. It wasn’t the sort of thing that seemed worrisome, not to me anyhow. No, these were precious clues about who August was. This was a small, open door to a brilliant and busy interior life. A vibrant ray of light poured out that door, illuminating a slice of our backyard. I wanted to see more of it. Were all children this amazing and I’d just failed to see it before now, or was there something special about this dirty, neglected little boy who roamed these woods alone whenever he had a chance?
I knew that the neglect was in some part responsible for what made August extraordinary. He hadn’t been properly socialized. August was unschooled in the parameters of our adult reality. He was smart—above average at least—but like a baby, he still lived in a world in which you could hear colors and touch sounds and reach back to memories from lives lived before this one. The curtain between real and unreal hadn’t yet come down for August. I don’t know when it comes down for the rest of us, but tragically, it must be so early in our lives that we retain no recollection of the change. Or perhaps that’s an act of mercy committed by our brains because the memory of our former selves would leave us wanting forever. August was still that early self, unmolested by reason and order. I hoped for him to never change. Like a collectable figurine, I imagined boxing him up neatly and preserving him on a shelf. But of course, that impulse was in direct opposition to the conditions that enabled him to grow this way. He needed safety, but not captivity. How a parent maintains such a balance, I couldn’t imagine.
We kicked the ball back and forth for another ten minutes before August announced that he needed to catch the bus for school and disappeared into the path that connected our homes. I spent two more hours at my computer before calling it quits and heading out to the shed. I’d been making incremental progress on a maple coffee table for weeks and was itching to get back to work on it. It wasn’t real woodworking—I bought each of the raw pieces precut from the lumberyard—but the act of sanding and hammering