into the rushing water.
Jack yanked off his tie and fit it through the belt loops on her borrowed pants, cinching the waistband tightly. Then he took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.
Elsa was too cold to be polite. She put on the coat, buttoned it up. “Thank you.”
He took her by the hand. “The water is still rising. Be careful.”
Elsa held on to his hand as they slogged through the cold, muddy, rising water. Ruined belongings floated past them. She saw a broken-down truck with a pile of junk tarped in the back. And a face. “There,” she yelled to Jack, pointed.
“We’re here to help,” Jack shouted.
The black, shiny tarp slowly lifted. Huddled beneath it, Elsa saw, was a bony woman in a wet dress, holding a toddler. Both her face and the toddler’s were blue with cold.
“Let us help you,” Jack said, reaching out.
The woman pushed the tarp aside and crawled forward, holding her child close. Elsa immediately put an arm around the woman, felt how thin she was.
At the side of the road, volunteers—more now—were waiting with umbrellas and raincoats and blankets and hot coffee.
“Thank you,” the woman said.
Elsa nodded and turned back to Jack. Together, they trudged back to the camp.
Water and wind beat at them; mud filled Elsa’s boots with cold.
They worked through the long, wet night. Along with the rest of the volunteers, they helped people get away from the flooded encampment; they took as many as they could to warmth, got them settled in whatever buildings they could find.
By six in the morning, the rain and the flooding had stopped and dawn revealed the devastation caused by the flash flood. The ditch-bank camp had been washed away. Belongings floated in the water. Tents lay in tangled masses, ruined. Sheets of cardboard and metal lay scattered, as did boxes and buckets and quilts. Jalopies were up to their fenders in water and mud, trapped in place.
Elsa stood by the side of the road, staring at the flooded land.
People like her who had almost nothing had lost everything.
Jack came up beside Elsa and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “You are dead on your feet.”
She pushed the wet hair out of her eyes. Her hand trembled at the effort. “I’m fine.”
Jack said something.
She heard his voice but the vowels and consonants were stretched out of shape. She started to say, I’m fine, again, but the lie got lost somewhere between her brain and her tongue.
“Elsa!”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
Oh, wait. I’m falling.
* * *
ELSA WAKENED IN JACK’S truck as it rattled to a stop in front of the boarded-up hotel. Elsa sat up, feeling dizzy. She saw her journal on the seat beside her and picked it up.
The parking area was crowded with people now. It had become a disaster staging area. Volunteers offered food and hot coffee and clothes to the flood victims, who walked around with a dazed look.
Elsa got out of the truck, staggered sideways.
Jack was there to catch her.
She tried to pull away. “I should go to see my children—”
“They’re probably still sleeping. I’ll make sure they’re fine and tell them where you are. For now, though, you are getting some sleep. I saved a room for you.”
Sleep. She had to admit it sounded good.
He helped her up the stairs and into the room next to her children’s. Once inside, he led her straight into the bathroom, where he turned on the shower water and waited impatiently for it to get warm; when it did, he wrenched back the curtain. Elsa couldn’t hold back a sigh. Warm water. She tossed her journal onto a shelf above the toilet.
Before she fully understood what he was doing, Jack had removed her galoshes and peeled the heavy canvas duster off of her and pushed her into the spray of water, fully dressed.
Elsa tilted her head back, let the hot water run through her hair.
Jack pulled the shower curtain shut and left her.
The water at Elsa’s feet turned black with the mud. She stripped out of Jack’s clothes—probably ruined now—and reached for the soap in the dish and rubbed it in her hands. Lavender.
She washed her hair and scrubbed her skin until it tingled. When the water began to cool, she stepped out, dried off, and wrapped herself in the towel. Steam hung in the room. She washed Jack’s clothes in the sink, then draped the shirt and pants and her undergarments and socks over the towel rack and returned to the bedroom.
Clean