Both Rhonda and the camerawoman, Linda, are sleeping in the studio basement with her. Margaret bids them good night, and from her little corner, she calls Drake, then she calls her kids in order of age. Patrick is spending the weekend taking his oldest, Barrett, up to look at Colgate, Hamilton, and Skidmore; he doesn’t seem to know there’s a hurricane coming and Margaret decides not to mention where she is. He’s bringing Barrett to the city the following weekend to look at NYU and Columbia. Margaret says, “Can’t wait to see you!” then hangs up, hoping she makes it home in one piece—hoping she makes it home, period. Kevin is consumed with the closing weekend of Quinn’s Surfside Beach Shack. He sounds harried; Arnaud is teething and Genevieve is starting kindergarten. I can’t believe she’s going to school already, Kevin says. It feels like she was just born. Yes, Margaret knows the feeling only too well. Kevin was once that chubby baby who was such a delicacy for the island’s mosquitoes. The years—where do they go?

Finally, Margaret calls Ava, who says, “I stopped by your apartment today, and Drake told me you’re in the Virgin Islands covering that monster hurricane. What were you thinking, Mom?”

The next day dawns calm and still. Rhonda makes a big pot of coffee and produces a beautiful tropical-fruit platter and a bakery box filled with muffins and bagels.

“The café down the street saw you on TV last night,” Rhonda says, “and insisted on sending these.”

They head out to do one more live spot for Dougie back in New York. The wind is picking up. The outer wall of the hurricane will be arriving in a matter of hours.

“Stay safe,” Dougie says. “We’ll see you on the other side.”

Margaret, Rhonda, and Linda go back down to the studio basement.

Margaret traces the storm on her laptop. It’s coming. She hears the wind screaming like a woman in labor (it must be the situation with Dougie’s wife that puts this image in her mind). Then the lights flicker, and the power goes out; the studio’s generator comes on, but the lights in the basement are low and there’s no longer any air-conditioning. Things outside the studio crash, smash, shatter. Margaret can’t see what’s making the noise because the windows are shuttered. Dear Lord, she thinks, please don’t let the windows break. Don’t let the roof blow off. Don’t let the place flood. Please don’t let anyone die. But as the minutes pass and then the hours, as the wind gets so loud that Margaret can’t hear her own voice praying, as her cell signal cuts out, as she lies on her back unable to even read the book she brought, she marvels at how profound the weather is, how mighty, how inexplicable and unpredictable.

Life on these islands is changing right now, right this second, she thinks. Maybe forever.