If someone had told Janine that one day she would be holding hands in the dark with an entertainer of questionable reputation while hurricane-driven wind and rain lashed her legs, she would not have believed him. But she could not imagine letting go, no more than she could imagine abandoning Marianne to the storm.

They fought their way into the wind, passing dormitories and classrooms where days before people had been worrying over the tiniest things: who was cooking dinner at home, why was the internet out again, what had someone really meant by a critique? Janine remembered the two lines Lorraine had not crossed out in her poem, how pitiful and lonely and disaster-stricken they’d looked on the marked-up page, but now the lines themselves were gone—she couldn’t remember a single word.

20

It was raining hard when Marianne left her room, with heavy wind and patches of lightning overhead. She called for Eric and Tom, but if someone answered she didn’t hear him. She looked up at the sky; maybe the rain was slowing. How long was a hurricane supposed to last, anyway? Whatever time it was, it was not supposed to be dark like this, black clouds moving fast against a slate-gray sky.

And her feet—they weren’t supposed to be so wet, so heavy from the few minutes she’d spent running, aiming her flashlight to check each building she passed. Empty, empty, but so far she did not see any roof damage or downed trees, and she could see that everything would be better when the storm was over. Everything could be fixed, everything could be righted. When she found Eric they’d take off her shoes and wring out her socks. They’d talk about what to do next.

But where was he? Aiming her flashlight toward the empty beach, she saw that the gulf was nearer than it usually was, swallowing the mangroves with great black gulps. And how was it that the gulf approached from two sides—in front of her and behind her, from the west and the east, water pouring down from the parking lot in a great river, running over her shoes and up her ankles?

The water slipped up her calves, so cold she gasped. It hit behind her knees, knocking her over, and as she tumbled down the suddenly steep hill, under and over the water, scraping her legs and elbows and palms and head against gravel and sand and tree branches. This must have been how her mother felt when the cancer returned, when she knew that she would die. Shocked and betrayed and angry and helpless and sorry, so sorry to be leaving. She felt herself letting go. It’s over, she thought. What now?

21

Dear Ms. Somers,

I would like to respectfully withdraw from the Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch.