At first it was just more soldiers, and though a few were kind, most were as dismissive as the ones inside had been. My stomach grumbled as I sat there waiting. I didn’t want to go inside to try to find slurree for fear I’d miss someone who would help me. I kept thinking of my dream, of my grandmother lying there with a hole in her head. How did I know that someone hadn’t attacked her, broken into her place already, and that was what was waiting for me out there? I tried to tell myself that she had survived a lot in her time. But it didn’t help me overcome the fear that the dream had put in me. As I stood there, I started biting the little bit of fingernails that had grown back since the last time I’d bitten them all down.

Finally, a man who wasn’t in fatigues came along in a boat with several people in it. He wore a truck driver’s cap, and old, paint-splattered blue jeans. He had on a flannel shirt with a puffy black vest over it.

“Hey,” I said, as he was leaving people off at the stairwell. “I need your help.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he said, almost cheerfully. Disaster brings out the best in some people, I guess. This guy seemed thrilled to be piloting around in this boat bringing people to and from the shelter. I guess he hadn’t seen what he was bringing them to.

“I need to get out to Gravesend,” I said. “My grandmother’s out there.”

“That’s where I’m from,” he said. “It’s a disaster out there. Houses destroyed, blown away, trees through them. Won’t get rebuilt for a long, long time. I hope she’s okay.”

“She’s up in a high-rise,” I said. “I need to get out there and bring her back. I can pay you. Not much, but I can give you something for helping me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Just get in. We’ll see if we can bring her back here.”

I got in the boat after the people who were already in it got out. The man’s name was Peter, he said. I looked at his clothes, then down at mine. His looked a thousand times cleaner. I wondered when I would be able to change mine. Then I thought of my basement apartment with everything packed up in boxes. That was the first moment it hit me. It was all gone. Everything was gone. I sat down in the boat.

“Where in Gravesend are we going?” asked Peter.

“Far Gravesend,” I said. “The Ocean Way Apartments.”