Janine reached for her handbag. She pulled out a keychain flashlight and aimed it around the room, over Donald’s and Eric’s and Tom’s faces.

“I told you we needed to leave some spaces to see out of,” Tom said. He pulled his flip phone out and waved it around the boarded-up window. “It’s totally blocked. It’s like a tomb in here. I can’t take it.”

“I’ll get the candles,” Janine said. “We bought flashlights too, and batteries. You should save your battery, just in case. We can take the boards down tomorrow, you’ll see.”

“You’ve done this before,” Donald said. “That’s good.”

“Marianne is all by herself over there,” Tom said. “Somebody want to go check on her?”

“I could go,” Eric offered.

Janine didn’t comment. It was lonely and a little strange, being the only woman in the room, but she didn’t think she could stand to go through a hurricane with Marianne, to sit on a bed with her and hold her hand and reassure her. She’d been arguing in her head with Marianne ever since she read the newspaper article, though she hadn’t spoken a word to her. In her mind, Marianne sat at a desk in Janine’s classroom, her hands folded meekly, while Janine interrogated her. Why did you go to the newspaper, and not to us first? Do you really have so little respect for us?

Janine lit two candles and placed them on the dresser, just below the mirror, where they flickered with an amber light. “I filled the bathtub and the sink,” she said. “Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” Donald asked.

“For drinking or flushing.”

“I’m not drinking bathwater, no offense,” he said, moving to claim a bottle of water.

“It isn’t bathwater. No one is going to take a bath in it,” Janine explained.

“It touched bath. That makes it bathwater.”

“It’s hot in here,” Tom said. “Stuffy.”

“I could open the door,” Eric said. “Just a crack.”

They agreed—just a crack, just enough to let some fresh air in.

“But be careful,” Janine said.

“It’s just like a really long thunderstorm,” Eric said.

Eric went to the door, with Tom behind him, and opened it a crack, then halfway. Janine and Donald followed Tom, hoping for a cooling gust of wind. Outside, the light was gray and eerie, hourless, and they could see rain bouncing where it hit the pavement. It looked like someone was throwing bucket after bucket of water into an already drenching rainstorm. Rain overflowed the gutters and poured off every side of the roof. Wind tossed the palm fronds and creaked the long oak branches. Somewhere they couldn’t see, a tree limb snapped and crashed. Small branches, driven by the wind, thumped the roof loudly.