Page 215 of Everything Under the Sun

“He was telling the truth.”

“So, then Shreveport is real?” Thais paced the floor. “So, we really do have a chance.”

After a moment, I, finally believing it, said, “We do.”

We left the beauty salon the next day. Fortunately, the raft was there, but unfortunately, so was the rain. It had rained for two days, would stop for an hour, and start all over again for three. But Thais and I could stay no longer. We didn’t even have to discuss it; we just packed up the following morning and set out.

Thais carried the scissors—broken in half to make two separate blades—in the folds of her skirt, secured by ripped fabric; and the toy bucket with the electrical tape and dried-up baby wipes and precious penicillin. We both wore black beautician’s smocks: Thais’ over her white, ruffled blouse—she ditched the suffocating corset—and I wore mine over my bare chest and makeshift sling. I was without shoes, but the bottom of my feet moving over rocks and debris was nothing compared to my many injuries, and travel of any kind was painful and arduous.

THAIS

And Atticus, being Atticus, had a difficult time passing the reins over to me. It was I helping Atticus walk the distance to find the raft, I who uncovered it from the brush—he tried to help, but I ordered him to sit down—it was I who went in search of an improvised oar—a broken water ski—and it was I who rowed us down the Mississippi River, underneath a dreary, cloud-filled sky and the constant rain that fell from it. The only relief we took from the weather was that it still had yet to be accompanied by dangerous lightning or stormy winds. Just rain. A lot of miserable rain. So much rain that by Day Five on the river, its banks were swelling.

“We have to get on land,” Atticus said. “And we need to move inland as far as we can or else this river is going to swallow us.” His swollen mouth still had trouble forming words correctly, but I was already used to it, so in my mind I no longer heard his difficulty speaking.

Together we dragged the raft on the bank—Atticus ignored me telling him to let me do it, this time—and we left it there, not anticipating ever having to use it again. We would be traveling on foot from here on out, getting as far away from the rising waters as we could.

But by late afternoon, hours after we’d left the water for land, the power of The Mississippi proved greater than our efforts to hide from it. The water had broken its banks and flowed far and deep into the land that once contained it. We heard trees snapping in the distance, and the rush of violent water consuming everything in its path as though it were coming straight for us with the whip of retribution ready to strike our backs.

“We have to get to higher ground!” Atticus shouted.

I grabbed Atticus’ arm and he pulled me alongside him, through the pain of his injuries he could not hide from me no matter how hard he tried, and toward a water tower.

I could hear the water coming, like a train barreling over tracks. Glancing back, in the distance I saw the tops of trees swaying, some trees toppling, and I gripped Atticus’ arm tighter, saw a flash in my mind of the water reaching us and tearing us away from each other.

“Where’s the ladder?” I shouted when we made it to the immense water tower.

We found the ladder, but it had been raised and padlocked, and neither of us could reach it.

“Let’s go!” Atticus grabbed my hand and we ran past the tower and went toward an old grocery store.

Moments later: “The water is coming, Atticus! The water is coming!”

Without stopping, we looked out at the open space behind us with awe and terror as the rushing river, littered with cars and roofs and trees raced toward the water tower with violent determination. The beams that held up the massive dome-shaped structure snapped and buckled like four broken legs, and the dome crashed into the Mississippi River like a tiny raft overturned and swallowed by white rapids.

”HURRY!” Atticus roared.

Ditching the sling to free his other arm, Atticus grabbed me around my waist and lifted me into the air, and he threw me onto a ladder that led onto the roof of the store.

“What if the river takes the store, too!” I shouted as we hurried up the ladder, hands gripping the bars above us, feet climbing the ones beneath us.

“Then you hold onto me and don’t let go!”

I will never let go…

We made it onto the roof seconds before a wall of water slammed into the store below; the glass windows exploded, and we could hear the shelves and shopping carts smashing against the walls inside; the ground and the building shook beneath us like an earthquake.

We sat in the center of the roof, huddled together, holding onto to one another with inseparable force as the river battered our only life raft. And we waited, for life or death, or more of the in-between we’d been surviving since we met.

I will never let go of you, Atticus.

66

THAIS

Lying together on the roof of the grocery store, Atticus and I looked up at the sky, we watched the dark clouds drift slowly overhead, and felt the last few drops of rain sprinkle our faces. I listened to the water beneath us churn and swish and move debris around, but now with a lighter hand as the angry river had finally calmed. Birds flew over, their tiny black wings flapping amid the gray clouds. The wailing of a cat I could hear in the distance, probably stuck in a tree or on a rooftop just as Atticus and I were.

The sun was setting, and it covered the flooded landscape in an eerie gray-red light that looked more post-apocalyptic than a peaceful, approaching nightfall.

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