FEMA trailer, chatting with a neighbor, when Bruce surprised her. She managed to stand, with a cane, and gave him a big hug. He introduced Polly as a friend from California. Wanda introduced her neighbor, a lady not much younger than her, and offered them seats in her kitchen chairs, which had been arranged in the driveway near the trailer. Much of the rest of the furniture was piled near the street to be hauled away one day.
Wanda said her house had taken eight feet of water that had not subsided for three days. Everything was ruined, same as her neighbors. Most of them had no flood insurance, nor did Wanda, and the future was pretty grim. The FEMA trailer was free for ninety days with a possible extension, which made no sense. What was FEMA planning to do with the trailers when they took them away? Wait for the next Cat 4?
Wanda and her neighbor had survived the storm in a shelter on higher ground, and they managed to find a little humor in their story. It was a frightening experience, one that they would never forget. Both vowed to evacuate the next time. Bruce told a few stories about the storm but said nothing about Nelson Kerr. He doubted if Wanda had met him, though she still read almost everything.
Polly just listened and tried to absorb the surroundings. Twenty-four hours earlier she was leaving the safety of San Francisco. Now she was sitting in a war zone with people who were sleepwalking through a nightmare, people who had lost everything and were happy to have a warm bed in a dark, tiny trailer. For a moment, she almost forgot about her brother.
Across the street a small gas engine came to life, then a lightbulb. Wanda said, “That’s Gilbert. His son brought him a generator yesterday and he’s showing it off, says he might be able to rig up a small window unit for some cool air.”
“Have you talked to your son?” Bruce asked.
“Well, yes, finally. We didn’t get phone service until Thursday. Phil called yesterday from St. Louis. Asked if I needed anything. Nothing really, I said. Just a new house, new car, new furniture, some food might be nice. A bottle of cold water. He said he’d do what he could, which of course means nothing.”
Changing the subject, and ready to leave, Bruce said, “We brought some water and food.” He left and walked to the Tahoe. Polly followed him and they hauled four cases of bottled water and three boxes of groceries to the trailer. Bruce took a quick look inside and was overwhelmed by the thought of living in such tight quarters for any length of time.
Wanda was crying, and Bruce held her hand for a few minutes. He promised to come back, and made her promise to call if she needed anything. When they left, a crowd was gathering around Gilbert’s lightbulb, and there was music on the radio.
5.
On the southern end of Camino Island, Curly’s Oyster Bar was crowded with locals looking for comfort food and a cold drink, and utility crews killing time on a Saturday night. Bruce and Polly waited half an hour and got a table outside on the deck. Of course, she did not eat fried foods and had never confronted a raw oyster. They settled on a bucket of boiled shrimp and waited on beers. She preferred white wine but Bruce steered her away from the boxed stuff poured at Curly’s. The music from the jukebox was soft and distant, and the conversations around them were subdued, as if folks had just stumbled out of the nightmare and were still stunned by the changes. There was too much work to be done to feel good about life.
In a low voice, Bruce said, “So, you’re the executor of Nelson’s estate.”
“I am. He made a new will last year and named me as executor, or executrix, to be more precise. The gender thing.”
“Who drafted the will?”
“A law firm in Jacksonville.”
“Have you talked to them yet?”
“No.