PART TWO
She thought it would be slow and take hours, like when Titanic went down. Not like this. Not like a fire, but with water.
Right in her ear, the same whisper she’d been hearing for half an hour. “Mommy, I’m cold.”
“Me, too, baby.” It was seventy-four degrees, downright chilly for Houston in August, and they were all soaked and had been for almost an hour, and wrinkled fingers and toes were the least of their problems.
Ninety minutes ago we were dry and safe. Relatively speaking. She still couldn’t get over how quickly she’d gone from “scared but calm” to “We’re all going to die in this shitty canal”.
She’d gotten them in the car and it rained. She’d driven them out of the city and it rained. The highway was flooded and it rained. She couldn’t see out her windshield and it rained. She pulled off and parked in the nearest lot and it rained. The car died and it rained. The water was over her wheels and it rained. She grabbed the kids and it rained. She tried for high ground and it rained. She lost her footing and was swept into the mouth of a canal and it rained.
Now they were huddled against the edge of the canal, buffeted by every drop of the water in the world and the shrieking wind that sounded exactly like her third grade teacher the time Billy Jenkins snuck a garter snake into her purse.
Focus.
Good advice. She tightened her grip on baby Jen, thankful she’d been in such a hurry she’d never taken off her front carrier, leaving her hands free to clutch Becca. Jen, thank God, was too young to know what was happening, but she hated being cold and had been crying and sniffling for five minutes. She didn’t care; if the baby was crying, the baby was alive and getting plenty of air.
The current kept them tight on the edge, but she had to grab for the concrete every few minutes when something heavy came down that threatened to dislodge them. She was tired and freezing and her arms and back ached and needles of rain stung everywhere and the girls were heavy and the water definitely wanted to kill them all and the wind wouldn’t stop screaming.
“It’s just a little longer, Becca.” Pure truth. Nobody could see them, tucked into the canal as they were. Nobody could hear them, thanks to the wind that, like the water, she’d decided was sentient. They’d be dead by the top of the hour, so yeah...just a little longer. “Just a few more minutes. Okay?” she murmured into the top of Jen’s head. “It’s okay, it’s fine. You keep crying, it’s fine.”
“Look!” Becca had shifted in her arms and was pointing toward the debris flowing toward them. Which is just what they were, she realized: debris about to be swept away to God knew where.
She looked. Fast food garbage, bottles, plenty of junk she couldn’t identify, and—oh.
“Get it! Mommy, get the puppy, don’t let it drown, get the puppy!”
She got the puppy. And instantly wished she hadn’t. The poor thing was little more than a shivering bundle of black fluff, and was quite happy to be grabbed, but now she had the four year-old and the baby and a puppy. And herself.
Maybe not that last one. Please, God. Save them. I’m not asking for myself. I’ll drown, choke, suffocate, whatever, no problem, I’ll praise Your name and call it a bargain worth making but not my babies not my babies not my—
The puppy, trying hard to snuggle under her chin, let out a series of shrill yaps that were like needles through her ears, argh. Unreal; the thing weighed all of a pound and a half and was capable of making more noise than she was. (That was another unpleasant truth about the day: screaming for help was exhausting.)
“Oh my God with the racket you dumb dog!” She heard her voice—cracked, ruined—and her tone—terrified, angry—and couldn’t do a thing about any of it. Which, of course, was the worst of it.
“Who’s that?”
Who knew her darling could see so well in a hurricane? It was like a super power. “Baby, if it’s another puppy, I can’t—“
“May I assist?”
She let out a yelp and almost let go of the concrete lip. She turned her head and though the driving rain could make out a bare-chested man with shoulders that were almost ludicrously broad. He was standing no more than four feet away, which was impossible because nothing could stand in this.
Annnnnd here come the rescue hallucinations. Fine, God, be that way, you big tease. No, wait! I didn’t mean to complain. Just save my girls just save my girls just save my—
“May I assist?”
“Just save my girls!”
“Of course. And you, and your tiny domesticated land seal.”
“My—what?” This couldn’t be a hallucination. She could still feel everything, the wet, the cold, the way her fingers had been scraped raw trying to hang on to the concrete. And he was closer, much closer, and if he wasn’t standing, exactly, he was staying still and just sort of floating gently in the water like a broad-shouldered bobber and the garbage flowed around him and nothing dislodged him. His dark blond hair was plastered flat and if the weather bothered him, you’d never know it. Who was he? Where had he come from? Had he lost his shirt, or did he just run around shirtless when there was a flood?
Oh my God, WHO CARES? “Take my girls! Oh, thank you—“ She blindly shoved Becca at the man, started fumbling with the straps of the baby carrier with one hand while she clutched the puppy with the other. Jen, who had begun to subside into sniffles, started crying anew. “Just get them away, away from here and to a shelter, get them up high, you understand? Don’t stop ‘til then and girls? Oh, I love you, I love you, be brave, you’ll be okay, it’ll be fine, go with him right now. Go.”
Their savior, who seemed puzzled but calm, started to speak.
“Shut up! Save your strength for them and—“ She stopped wrestling with the straps on the baby carrier, handed the puppy to Becca, and just plucked Jen out of the thing. She held the baby out to him, then took the puppy back. “And get the hell out of here why are you just standing there get out of here!”
“You are a good dam—“
“Stop talking! Wait, a dam?”
“—but self-sacrifice is unnecessary. I can bear the three of you. And your seal.”
No, the puppy stayed. It would drown with her, poor thing, but she wouldn’t expend a scrap of the man’s strength on a stray she didn’t know existed three minutes ago and—
Oh.
Jen had been plopped back in her arms. Becca had been carefully slung across the man’s back so she could clutch his shoulders. She herself was plucked away from the edge, the man moving through the debris like it wasn’t there, and then she was in his arms, the puppy squashed between them, and the mouth of the canal, where she assumed they would die, where they had physically begun the process of dying, receded with astonishing speed.
She knew, because she watched. She looked over his shoulder and watched the canal get smaller and smaller until she couldn’t see it any longer for the rain.
*****
“I can’t thank you enough. I can’t.”
“This one is pleased to help.”
The stranger had brought them several blocks south, where the water was only two feet deep.
“Only”. That’s how we’re qualifying things now. That’s how crazy this is. “Hey, that Burger King parking lot is ‘only’ two feet under water, let’s set up a temporary HQ there!”
There were several high water vehicles (super trucks, equipment transporters, mostly civilian as far as she could tell), all going to and fro; the stranger waved to the driver nearest them. There were people being picked up and dropped off, people bundled into blankets and whisked away, other people climbing right back into a truck and plowing carefully through the water. She didn’t recognize anyone but that was no surprise; nearly seven million people lived in Greater Houston.
He set her down and she started to stumble, so he steadied her with a hand on her elbow and, when she was steady on her feet (as steady as anyone could be in swirling eddies of two feet), set Becca down. The water was almost up to the little girl’s waist, but Becca didn’t so much as murmur. There were worse things than two feet of water. She wasn’t sure if she should cry over that—that her little girl knew such a thing now—or not.
Cry later. Get the girls high and dry first. But first...
She summoned her courage and turned. And saw exactly what she expected: the stranger was naked. The stranger with the odd, stilted way of talking was naked and moved through water like it was air and was phenomenally strong and he was all those things because he wasn’t human. He was one of those Undersea people she’d heard about on the news.
She was glad.
“Thank you,” she said, and stopped. That was all of it, right there. Woefully inadequate but all she had. “Thank you” was oh my God and we’d be dead if not for you and we owe you everything and I owe you everything and I’m in your debt forever.
“Did you lose your pants in the flood?” Becca asked, and she could have wept at the compassion in her child’s voice.
“Ah. I am remiss.” With that, the stranger plucked the baby carrier from her—she’d unbuckled it as soon as her feet were on solid ground—and held it over his crotch. The baby was in the crook of his other arm.
Because she couldn’t adequately thank him, and didn’t want to laugh at him. and wasn’t sure acknowledging his nudity would be rude (they probably didn’t even have clothes, they’d rot away under water), her brain came up with something stupid. “I’m gonna need that back.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” To her amusement, he handed the baby over.
“Well, yeah, but also...” She pointed at the carrier over the man’s genitals.
“Yes. Well.” For the first time, the man seemed flustered. It was a testament to her numb exhaustion that she was only now noticing how gorgeous he was. Great build—he was her height, about 5’8”—with strong legs, broad shoulders, freckles, blue eyes, tanned skin (how? if he spent most of his time under water?), long sharp nose. And naked, of course, since his legs had replaced his tail (and she was more than a little bummed she hadn’t noticed the transformation). “I was made to understand nudity is a great taboo among your kind. My friend warned me many times.”
“Well. Normally, yeah. I don’t give a damn right now. And I doubt anyone’s gonna arrest you.”
“Aw, c’mon, Devan, we’ve talked about this.” One of the drivers was sloshing through the water to them, waving and smiling. What little of his skin she could see was quite tan; he was wearing a bright yellow poncho over soaked jeans, his hair plastered under his Lone Star State of Mind baseball cap. “You can’t be running around dong out like that. You’ll freak people out.”
The stranger rolled his eyes. “I am aware, Benjamin, you have mentioned this many many times.”
“You guys are—“ She looked from one to the other. Benjamin was clearly a local, tanned, with an accent just like hers and, though he was smiling, his exhaustion was plain to see. Soaked, as she was, but with a working vehicle and, judging from the trucks and drivers in the lot, an evac plan to follow the rescue plan. No uniforms, though. No military transport, no cop cars. Oh, God bless the Cajun Navy. And their ability to recruit mermaids, apparently. “You guys know each other?”
“Yeah, friends since we were kids. Couldn’t really tell anyone ‘til now, though. Can you imagine? ‘Hey, I’ve been hangin’ out with my merman pal, what’d you guys do this summer?’”
“Awkward,” she guessed.
“Hell yes. I’m Ben Silva. I live—used to live in Sienna Plantation.” Ben’s smile faded for a moment. Then, smacking the naked guy on the shoulder: “This is my friend, Devan.”
“Lisa Jordan.” She realized her hands were full of baby and puppy, so she handed the dog over to Ben so she could shake Devan’s hand. He was careful of his strength, she noticed, shaking her hand almost gingerly. “And my girls, Becca and Jen.”
“Yes, I know your little ones,” he said, smiling down at them.
“Thank you,” Becca said solemnly, reaching up, her small wrinkled hand like a pale starfish. It was immediately engulfed by Devan’s as he shook it gently. “Jen and Flood say thanks, too.”
“Flood?” she asked. Becca pointed at the puppy, which was currently engaged in the serious business of licking Ben’s face. “Oh, boy.” When Becca’s eyes widened, Lisa spoke quickly, heading off the (smaller) storm. “Yes, she’s ours. We’re keeping her.” Her folks would be so happy to see the three of them, hopefully they wouldn’t mind that the three of them were now the four of them.
“You wanna come with us, Lisa? They got hot coffee and warm beds at Sara’s B&B and over at La Maison. C’mon, we’ll—“
“I can’t! I can’t afford that and—oh, hell, I don’t even have my purse.” She was nearly sick with the realization. No wallet, no credit cards—not that there was much room on her Visa or the MC—no prescription sunglasses, no checkbook, no Advil. All in her purse, which was in her car, which was underwater. Her only goal had been to get the girls to her folks and, later, to not die and then, later, to not let them die.
“Naw, it’s okay, they’re not charging. C’mere, you.” Becca hopped up—a good trick in high water—and he caught her and deftly swung her onto his hip. A dad, Lisa thought. Or a big brother used to little ones. “All the B&Bs and Airbnbs around here—it’s free.”
She burst into tears. Now that it was almost over, now that they were safe and a warm dry bed was in the cards, now she fell apart. Ben, bless him, didn’t seem to think anything of it. He just handed Flood the puppy to Becca and gave Devan another smack on the shoulder. The men put their heads together for a few seconds, talking, and then Devan was hurrying off into the downpour, gone before Lisa could thank him again.
“This is yours, I guess,” he said, and handed her the baby carrier. She snorted when she saw it and he rolled his eyes. “Good God, the times he scared my mama half to death ‘cuz he’d come strollin’ in straight from the Gulf, dong out.”
She giggled at the thought of it and followed Ben to one of the trucks. Later, she would worry about her neighbors, would check up on her friends, would volunteer to muck out houses, would track Ben down and, through him, Devan, would take in another dog orphaned by the flood. For now, she focused on thoughts of a dry house and hot coffee and her girls, cuddled up in a warm bed.
I prayed, she thought. Well, first I prayed, and then I complained, and then I apologized, and then God visited upon me a merman. Mysterious ways indeed.
She’d ponder what it all meant later. For now, what little she had left was more than enough.