Then a big limb came down in the rushing water; it just rolled down the hill. Donald and I had to scramble to get out of its way. It was a half-rotten live oak limb, gnarled and twisted. The leaf ends caught in the mangroves, and the broken end, maybe a foot thick, caught the side of the shed.

The water changed then. The limb was so big it acted like a dam, and the current was faster and stronger before the limb, and slower after. It was clear that the force of that strong water would take the shed down, then everything—the posts and roof, the oak limb, and Marianne—would be washed out to sea.

She saw this, understood it at the same time I did.

“You’re gonna have to jump,” Donald yelled. The rain had let up a little, but the wind was worse than ever, and the raindrops stung like needles. I didn’t know how strong a swimmer she was. It was possible she could still get swept out, but it seemed like her only chance. I suppose I could have gone after her, like you said, but I didn’t. You want to say that I’m a hero, but all I did was yell and point. I kept thinking about my daughters, how much I missed them, how much I wanted to see them again.

Marianne jumped, grabbing for the limb, and got one arm across it. She clung to it on the calmer gulf side, pulled herself along, bit by bit, the rough bark scraping her bare arms, her neck, her cheek. Those were the scrapes she had when you saw her. Donald helped her up when she made it across.

She was delirious. She kept calling Donald Eric, and asking about her sister, but she was strong enough to stand—no one carried her, though she leaned on Donald. The rain wasn’t as bad then, but the water was still rising. We were all the way to the dining hall before we could walk without a current pulling at our ankles. That’s where we found Eric and Tom, sitting inside at one of the tables in the dark, eating those little boxes of cereal from the breakfast buffet like a couple of teenage boys while the water came up over the steps and through the doorway. There I go again with my editorializing.

We told them about the flood. I was sort of holding on to Marianne then—she’d gotten scraped up and her clothes were torn and she was dazed. I sat her down in a chair. Eric had parked the van in the Kangaroo lot, which was higher up, and we decided to get everybody together and evacuate. That was one smart thing he did, moving that van.