She sounded hoarse and weak and defeated. I took the wet cloth off my mouth and pressed it over Mother’s, ignoring the way she fumbled at me to protest. I tried to stifle the immediate urge to cough, but every breath I took now filled my lungs with unfiltered dirt. Soon, I was coughing and wheezing just like Mother.

“How far are we from the house?” Dad shouted.

“Close,” Henry shouted back. “Maybe twelve feet?”

“I tried to find my way but I was too scared I’d get lost and wouldn’t get back to Mother in the car.”

We figured it out quickly from there. I’d follow Dad, holding on to the back of his shirt. Dad would carry Mother, throwing her over his shoulder so one hand was free to hold on to Henry’s hand, and Henry would lead the way.

Henry said it was only twelve feet or so from the car to the house, but every single step into that swirling black dust felt like a marathon. I was dizzy from lack of air, like every panting breath I sucked in only brought me closer to suffocation. By the time we made it back to the bedroom, and Henry closed the door and propped the towel beneath it, I couldn’t take another step. I sank to the floor in a heap by the door. The wet cloths we’d taken outside were now dripping with mud—a whole other kind of suffocation. There was no way to filter the air other than to pull our dry shirts up over our mouths—a measure so ineffective we wouldn’t have bothered, except that we were desperate for any measure of relief.

For an hour, we sat and waited. Finally, the wind began to slow and then the darkness lifted, and then after all of that, the thickness of the dust in the air started to ease.

I was too exhausted to be relieved. Crumpled in that weary heap by the door, I was gradually becoming aware that I was hurt—that the sand-filled wind outside had burned my exposed skin, especially my cheeks.

Henry was the first to rise. He came to my side, gently swept the dust from my head and the uninjured skin of my face with his fingertips.

“You’re bleeding here,” he said gently, motioning toward my face.

“I figured,” I whispered back, both of our voices raw and thick. He helped me up and dust poured down from my clothes, running down my body like waterfalls after rain. I blinked over and over again, trying to clear my blurry vision, only to realize that my eyes were as burned as my skin was. I wouldn’t see clearly again until they healed.