Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“What do the numbers mean?” Her arms covered his, her hands cupped protectively. How long had it been since somebody tried to shield him? His own mother had given that up about the time he grew taller than she was, when he was ten.
LJ pulled his back straight again, but he didn’t let her go. “The one on top is the date the rescuers cleared the house and who cleared it. The one on the bottom is how many bodies they found.”
“Bodies?”
He stared over her head at the numbers. “Some of our neighbors came over to wait out the storm, because my mama’s gumbo is the best for miles around, and she’d made a whole mess of it. When the levee broke, water came into the house so fast we lost Ron Gravier while trying to get up to the attic and out onto the roof. Then it was just me, up there with the women and children. I was only a teenager, but I was the biggest and the strongest by a long shot. I grabbed them, was pushing them higher on the roof when the Graviers’ house came off its foundation next door and came crashing down into ours. When it hit us, half of them went in the water. I was pulling them out, throwing them back up onto the roof, and there was another jolt and Mama went in. It was raining so hard, and the wind—”
He stopped, because there was nothing to say about wind like that. It pushed so hard, there was no standing against it.
“It was the loudest thing I ever heard. All I could think was to hold on to Mama with one hand and the roof with the other. I forgot about the kids.” His voice went hoarse, and he coughed to clear his throat.
He released Andra, afraid he might hold her too tight.
“We got Letty out of the water, but by then, CPR couldn’t bring her back. Or maybe I wasn’t doing it right, because I just did what I’d seen on the poster in the gym. Mama never said anything, but I know if she had the strength, she would have hung on to those kids.” He nodded to the door. “That number two. It’s for Ron and Letty Gravier. We lost Aimee Mitchell off the roof, too, but I don’t know what happened to her body.” He hadn’t seen her in the water, hadn’t seen her ever again. “The number should be three.”
Andra turned around, her eyes dark in a way he hadn’t seen in anyone who wasn’t there during Katrina. He set his jaw, but she didn’t speak. Just lifted his hands and kissed his fists. The right and then the left.
“Tell me how you got out,” she said.