Storm Warning
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
-Theodore Roethke, The Waking
The sales manager walked into the lobby of the hotel and sighed, breathing in the elegance of the marble columns and the crisp, tanned guests lounging on sofas. She had just finished a weary day in one of the lower meeting rooms pounding out a strategy for next year with her newly appointed “vision” team, but was more hungry than exhausted. She pondered the option of rushing to the airport to catch the last flight out, but decided to reward herself with a well-earned dinner with her team leader. Upstairs while showering she overheard a high-pitched voice coming from the bedroom talking about severe weather. She stood before the television as a young man pointed to a slashing line of orange cutting its way across the western part of the state, heading toward her hometown. She made a quick call to give and receive a little reassurance that her husband was aware of the impending storm. It was not yet raining at home but yes, he too was watching the weather channel.
“I’m sorry I didn’t take that late flight out,” she said, “but it looks as if I would have been delayed anyway. Just keep me posted.” The faint vision of the jagged scimitar rolling across rivers and farms stayed in her mind as she leaned against the elevator, watching the setting sun.
The doctor sat patiently waiting for someone to answer the phone up on the fifth floor. His only patient on that ward had come in sick three days ago and had not yet rallied. Now he listened to the nurse recite new symptoms that had appeared since the doctor had left the hospital. A frown of discouragement slid across his face like an oil spill. His patient was not “crashing” but was certainly worse and required transfer to the intensive care unit in order to continue receiving full support. Faint rumblings echoed in the doctor’s mind as he discussed the situation with the ICU physician.
“We’ll start him on pressors and watch his gases closely,” replied the intensivist. “You don’t really need to come in now.”
“Just keep me posted,” answered the doctor.
The sales manager hurried to her car and squealed out of the airport lot onto the highway. She weaved over into the far left lane and raced toward the suburbs. When she returned to her room last night she heard no further news about the storm and not wanting to awaken her husband, she had waited until landing to call him. Reports of damage now crackled across the radio. She dialed home repeatedly but got no answer. As she approached her subdivision she noticed green leaves and twigs scattered across the road like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle tossed into the wind. She rounded the corner of her street and slammed on the brakes, unable to breathe.
Her house had exploded across the front yard and into the street. The house next to hers was decapitated, its upper floors cleanly sliced off. On the other side of her home a white frame colonial rested thoughtfully, all of its windows still intact.
The doctor pulled on his white coat as he walked down the long hallway, his footsteps popping on the polished tile. At the end of his sight was a corner, and beyond that lay the double doors to the intensive care unit. He felt a familiar pang of anxiety as he approached the turn. No further calls had come from the unit last night, which he interpreted as encouraging news. He rounded the corner and came face to face with a group of people sitting on folding chairs in front of the ICU entrance. Before he could even connect a thought he saw in their eyes a child’s painting left out in the rain, a teacup falling toward a marble floor, a bitter stillness filled with dusky shadows after a storm. Behind him the threshing sound of quiet sobbing pushed aside the silence.
He stood helplessly before them, afraid to ask the question that he should have known the answer to. As he slowly walked toward his patient’s room he passed a white-haired woman wearing glasses, sitting upright in bed eating a bowl of sherbert.
