Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around by Pagán, Camille (top novels of all time txt) 📗

Just then the room, which was dimly lit by the lamp, became blindingly bright for a split second. A moment later, a crack of thunder rang out and I jumped.

“That’s what woke me up,” said Shiloh. “I’m actually surprised you slept as long as you did, and that the girls aren’t in bed with us right now. We’re in for a bad storm.”

I was about to ask him how bad when it hit me that he’d never been one for hyperbole. In fact, he was probably downplaying the severity of whatever was headed our way.

He rubbed his forehead as he looked at his phone. “This weather pattern’s been upgraded to a tropical storm again,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “And . . .” He was staring at me like he wasn’t sure he should continue.

“What is it?” I pressed.

He grimaced. “There’s a hurricane watch in effect.”

He might as well have injected espresso directly into my bloodstream. “Hurricane? Why aren’t there any alarms going off?”

“I don’t know—I guess it’s possible the alarm system isn’t working. The storm was headed east, but from what I can gather it looks like it was in the middle of the Atlantic when it boomeranged back to us. Storms do that sometimes.”

“How far out is it?” I said, sounding every bit as panicked as I was. I couldn’t hear rain yet, but the wind was picking up, and the waves slapping against the shore could have been just outside our window.

“A couple hours at most,” he said. “What do you think we should do?”

Should? I had no idea. But what I wanted to do was call my father. Whether it was dealing with a flooded basement or trying to figure out why our car wouldn’t start, he always had an answer, or at least an idea as to how to find one. My throat constricted, and I had to swallow hard before responding. “I think we should ask Milagros. I hate to wake her at this hour, but she’s lived through this more than a few times. I feel like we should find out what she has to say.”

I wondered how much of the stress on his face was weather related and how much was the aftereffect of the conversation we’d had, oh, four hours earlier. “Good call,” he said after a moment. “Let’s go.”

The girls were still fast asleep, so after I threw on some clothes, I scribbled a quick note on a notepad and left it under Charlotte’s phone. The wind was bending the palm trees as we ran through the patio to Milagros’, sending images of Hurricane Maria flashing through my mind. Were we about to live through that? Would we even be able to? More than three thousand Puerto Ricans had died as a result of the storm. I wanted to tell myself I was overreacting—but I’d just spent several days witnessing the aftermath of this exact scenario.

What fresh hell had I dragged my family into?

“Eh? Libby, is that you?” said Milagros when she came to the door. She was wearing a nightgown and fluffy slippers, but she didn’t look like she’d been asleep.

“I’m so sorry to pull you out of bed at this hour,” I said.

“You didn’t,” she said, ushering us inside. “Now that I’m old, I can’t sleep more than a couple hours—I’m up by four most days. So Hector and I were finding ways to pass the time.”

Hector, clad in a silk robe, appeared behind her. His cheeks, like Milagros’, were flushed, and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow.

They didn’t look embarrassed, so I wasn’t sure why I was. But at least I wasn’t envious for a change.

“¿Qué pasó?” said Hector, slipping his hand around Milagros’ waist.

“Viene una tormenta tropical,” said Shiloh—there’s a tropical storm coming.

“And a hurricane watch is in effect,” I added.

Milagros’ smile evaporated, and she shook her head. “I used to like a good storm. Pero ya no. Maria ruined them for me.”

I winced. “I’m sorry, Milagros. We were wondering what you think we should do. Do you think it’s safe to stay here?”

“Safe? There’s no such thing,” she scoffed. “We’re on the water, claro, but so is everyone else on this island.”

My mind was racing. We couldn’t evacuate if we wanted to—there was no plane or boat that was going to go head-to-head with a tropical storm. But what if Milagros’ house flooded? What would we do if Charlotte’s blood sugar tanked and we needed to get to the hospital?

Before Milagros could answer, the porch lights, along with the rest of the house, went dark.

“Ay, I’m not so blind that I didn’t just see all the lights go out,” said Milagros. “No es bueno.”

If Milagros was saying this wasn’t good, we were screwed. “We need to go get the girls,” I said to Shiloh.

“Let me grab the flashlights first,” said Hector from somewhere behind me.

“I appreciate that, but I don’t want to wait in case they try to come out and find us in the dark,” I said.

“I’ll go, Libby. You follow when you have a flashlight,” Shiloh told me.

“Be careful,” I said, reaching out to touch his arm. I’d always thought that the advice not to go to bed angry was ridiculous—who had the energy to stay up and argue, when a good night’s sleep would fix most everything on its own? Now I saw the wisdom in it. What if our last real conversation ended up being the one I couldn’t manage to have? “I’ll be right behind you,” I told him.

Hector, who had already disappeared, was muttering to himself in Spanish and English from the other room. It wasn’t until he’d gotten quiet again that the hum of the refrigerator, now gone, drew my attention to another problem.

“Charlotte’s insulin,” I said immediately.

“Eh?” said Milagros. “¿Qué es?”

“Charlotte’s insulin and test strips need to be refrigerated when it’s this hot out.” I sounded frantic—because I was. This was so much worse than I’d even allowed myself to imagine.

I