Second Chance Sweethearts

“I’m sorry, Gloria. I’m afraid that boat is gone. They’re not expecting anything to be left. One of my guys talked to an assistant fire chief about an hour and a half ago and told me.” She needed to stop thinking about the way looking at his silhouette in the fire glow a few minutes ago had made something inside of her spark. She had to remind herself that at age eighteen she’d promised herself she was never going to take notice of him again.

“I’m coming up,” Rigo said. “Is there anything you need?”

Gloria shook her head, not trusting herself to answer with words.

As Rigo waded across the entry and placed his shoe on the first soaked stair, a crackle sounded behind her. She turned around to see water shoot from the nonfunctioning electrical outlets like the jets on a Jacuzzi tub.

“Rigo! The house!” Gloria screamed, terrified she was about to find herself in the same situation as the doomed marina.

“Gloria. I need your help down here.” In that instant, Rigo transformed from civilian to peace officer. There was no questioning or disobeying the tone in his voice. “It’s the pressure. It’s building up in the walls. Those holes are the best way for the water to relieve the pressure.”

“Gloria? Gloria? What’s going on?” Tanna shouted from the bedroom.

“It’s just the water, Tanna.” Gloria couldn’t believe that she had the ability to sound calm. Her throat was full of fear and her veins coursed with adrenaline. “Rigo’s here. We’re coming. Just move into whatever position makes you the most comfortable.”

Gloria skittishly made her way down the stairs, afraid of the fizz of the outlets and the red of the marina fire and the ice in her heart and her stomach and the tips of her fingers.

Rigo grabbed Gloria’s hand as she made it to the bottom of the stairs. Even though he was leading her into who knows what kind of chaos, she felt better just having his hand wrapped around hers. She could feel a callus at the base of his ring finger and vaguely wondered what had caused it. It hadn’t been there before.

Time had changed them all. In ways both big and small.

“Where are we going?”

“My boat. I tied it up on the porch. But I need your help to get it inside. I can’t do it by myself. Things are getting very crazy, very fast. Look at those outlets—you can see what’s happening to the world around us.”

She cocked her head in disbelief. “You want a boat inside the house? You’re crazy.”

He turned and looked straight at her. “Maybe. But that boat may be all we have in a few hours—I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I have a pretty good idea, though, and I can’t afford to lose the boat. It’s small enough that it fits in the bed of my truck and light enough that I can maneuver it myself. If we can get it on its side, it will go through the door. The trolling motor just clamps on. I can unscrew it. I just need you to hold the door and help me guide it through.”

Water pushed in waves, as the Gulf of Mexico had literally come to their door. It was rising more quickly now. Hurricane Hope was being anything but ladylike. She was making her force known.

Rigo untied the rope mooring the small craft to the banister near what had been the front steps. He guided the boat to the door and braced it against the frame, then turned himself, grabbed the edge and heaved the boat onto its side, using the frame of the door for counter leverage.

Gloria had never seen so much strength used at one time. He was probably right that he could easily move the boat to where he needed on an average day. But in these conditions with the water rising and the wind whipping, the strength he needed to pull off the feat she had just witnessed had to be nothing short of superhuman.

Was that God answering her earlier prayer for strength for them all tonight?

Had He really heard her over the howls of the wind and the cries all across the town? Was He really there?

* * *

Gloria ran up the stairs as fast as she could. Rigo stayed behind to tie the boat to the banister inside the foyer and move everything back from the small entryway so the vessel wouldn’t flop into it and cause more damage. Gloria wasn’t sure it mattered. Everything on the first floor of Tía Inez’s house was going to be a total loss, anyway. At the rate Hurricane Hope was growing, Gloria wondered if even the ceiling down there would be safe.

She wondered if any of them would be safe. Or would this be the time the house that made it through the Great Storm of 1910 met its match?

Entering the bedroom, Gloria found Tanna lying on the bed, propped up with some pillows. The room had a warm glow from the candles Inez had lit earlier, and the soft light brought Gloria’s blood pressure down several notches. It wasn’t the birthing center by a long stretch, but as long as there were no complications, everything should work out. She didn’t need to let the panic and what-ifs take over. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Inez had apparently woken up. She sat next to the laboring mother, holding her hand.

“Just breathe, niña, breathe.” The calm in the older woman’s voice contrasted sharply with the chaos Gloria had just witnessed below and could still hear from outside.

Inez looked up at Gloria and smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve done this six times before.”

Rigo’s voice came from the doorway. “Six times? I thought you only had five kids, Tía.”

She smiled. “Five kids. Six hurricanes, nephew.” Stroking Tanna’s hand rhythmically, she continued. “Birth and hurricanes are a lot alike. They’re intense and sometimes unpredictable. But they only last for a few hours, and after it’s over, the sun comes out again.”

Tanna moaned and rolled a bit from side to side.

“But you’re so calm, Inez. You even took a nap! I couldn’t sleep if my life depended upon it.” Gloria wished she could have looked out a window, but everything was boarded up.

“Go ahead. Hold my hand. It’s okay.” Inez rubbed Tanna’s back while the young woman grunted through a contraction, a sheen of perspiration bubbling up just below the line of thick, dark hair at the top of her forehead. “Well, it’s what Jesus did. It’s never a bad thing to follow his example.”

“‘Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters,’ hmm, Tía?” Rigo sang the line of the children’s song but stayed put in the doorway, clearly wanting to be near the light and the company, without coming too close to the action.

“Rodrigo Vasquez.” Inez’s calm voice was replaced with a snap of reprimand for her nephew’s mocking tone. “One of these days, you’ll learn. Every Sunday morning I go to church, and there’s a reason why. I didn’t make it to this age all on my own. And neither will you.”

Gloria would never admit to Rigo’s aunt—or her own family, for that matter—but lately, she found herself more aligned with doubt than the confident faith she saw mirrored around her. She’d known Inez for years. The older woman, as far as Gloria could tell, lived a fairly uneventful life. She always saw her at church and on the occasional trip to the grocery store, and she knew that Inez spent a lot of time with the ladies of the women’s Bible study group Gloria’s own mother attended. A lot of tamale making, knitting and chatting over slices of flan.

If she lived Inez’s life, it would probably bore her to sleep. Even in the midst of a hurricane.

But thankfully, a midwife’s life was far from dull. Babies were never predictable about when they were going to be born. Sometimes they decided to stay and bake for days after their due dates. Sometimes they decided to come in the middle of the night. Sometimes babies decided to come one right after the other and make their midwife sleep deprived.

And sometimes, they decided to come in the middle of a natural disaster.

“Rigo, would you mind stepping out for a minute? I need to check Tanna. I think we’re getting close.”

She turned to her patient. “Unless there’s an emergency, Tanna, I’m going to follow your lead. You do what’s most comfortable for you and I’ll let nature take its course.” As she bent over and did a quick check of Tanna’s progress, Gloria laughed a little.

“Hmm?” Tanna shifted her weight as Gloria stepped back from the bed.

“I was just thinking,” Gloria said. “I’m perfectly comfortable letting Mother Nature take her course with your birth, but to the core of my being, I wish she’d quit taking her course with this storm outside. I just want it to be over. The good news is you’ve progressed more quickly than I expected you to, so Mother Nature will be through with you shortly, in all likelihood. You can push whenever you feel ready, Tanna. I won’t hold you back.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Tanna breathed low and slow through a contraction, then looked up when it passed. “I guess I don’t get my water birth, after all?”

Tanna had wanted to use the deep-water birth tub at the birthing center since her first appointment. “I’m afraid not in that way. We’re surrounded by a totally different type of water, but as for us, Inez filled the upstairs bathtub earlier today and it’s only for drinking and emergencies.”

“Peace.” Inez wiped Tanna’s head with a wet washcloth. “Breathe deeply and think of peace.”

The next contraction started. Tanna bore down, gripping Inez’s bony hand, but Rigo’s aunt never flinched. Gloria was amazed at her strength and her demeanor. She wondered if she could bring Inez to attend all her births.

Tanna made instinctive reaching motions with her hand. The birthing waves were taking over, bringing her closer to motherhood.

Rigo stood just outside the doorway, and Gloria called to him. “Rigo. Grab her hand. She needs something to push against.”

The man, who’d stared down criminals in the line of fire and who’d already saved grown adults and children alike from the clutches of near drowning tonight, hesitated. In addition to being a certified peace officer, she knew he had to be a certified EMT for his job at the beach. Surely he’d had some training for this. Gloria looked up from where she’d been focusing, monitoring the baby’s progress. “Go on. She needs you. Just stand back by her head. You’re not going to see anything from there.”

Gloria hastily threw a towel over Tanna’s knees and belly to preserve her modesty. Rigo stood by the headboard and looked toward the doorway, but reached out his hand and provided more than enough support to give Tanna the leverage she needed.