Storms 01 - Family Storms

wonderful,” Mrs. March said.
    Mrs. Kepler rose. “I’ll prepare the work assignments to help her catch up quickly. I’ll start her off tomorrow and then stop by every other day for a few hours at most. I hope she’ll get out a bit, get some fresh air and sun.”
    “Oh, yes. For sure. Mrs. Caro will be taking her out after lunch in the afternoons. You certainly can work on one of our patios, if you like.”
    “We’d like,” Mrs. Kepler said, winking at me. “I’ll be by tomorrow, then, same time. I’ll bring the books.”
    “Wonderful,” Mrs. March said. “Are you happy, Sasha?”
    “Yes,” I said, even though I thought she meant about everything and not only Mrs. Kepler’s tutoring.
    “I’ll see you out,” she told Mrs. Kepler.
    “’Bye, then,” Mrs. Kepler told me, and followed Mrs. March out of the suite. I heard Mrs. March’s melodic laughter echo down the hallway.
    Part of me didn’t want her to feel better. Part of me wished she’d be suffering as much as I was, even though it wasn’t literally she who had hit Mama and me. Just as Mama had once been responsible for everything I did, Mrs. March and her husband were responsible for everything Kiera did. Maybe her husband was more responsible, if Ibelieved what she had told me, but still, it felt strange making anyone happy in that house. In that house, the cause of Mama’s death resided.
    From that house, Kiera March had emerged carefree and reckless, arrogant and self-centered. She had taken her drugs and, like some asteroid, come flying out of space to smash two people who had never done her any harm. Also like that asteroid, she was indifferent and unrepentant.
Look at how she was at the pool,
I thought.
She laughed and frolicked right beneath me.
    No, I hated the sound of laughter in that house. I even hated the sound of my own laughter. Eating well, trying to improve my education, wearing beautiful clothes, enjoying everything in that magnificent suite, suddenly felt more like a terrible betrayal. I almost wished I would never get better. I had to suffer in order to honor Mama’s memory.
    Try as hard as she will,
I thought,
Mrs. March will not take the pain away from me.
When and if she did, it would be like me burying Mama again and again. These thoughts overwhelmed me. I sat there sobbing and made no effort to stop the tears from dripping off my cheeks. It reminded me of that night when the rain came pouring down over us, pelting us so hard that it was as if the heavens were expressing their anger.
    Or maybe it was meant to be a warning, to make us stay on that beach and not dare try to cross that highway, not dare try to go home.

10
Family of the Blind
    P robably because Mrs. Kepler had made an issue of it, Mrs. March sent Mrs. Caro up immediately to wheel me down and onto the patio. She found me crying and rushed to me.
    “What’s wrong, dearie? Are you in pain?”
    “No,” I said, wiping my face quickly.
Not the kind of pain you mean,
I thought.
    “Oh, I know,” she said. “Being brought like this to a strange house ain’t easy, I’m sure.”
    I didn’t say anything, but
strange
seemed to be the perfect adjective.
    “Well, let’s get you out in the sunshine and fresh air. It’s no good being indoors so much, anyway. People heal better and faster when they get into fresh air.”
    She turned my chair toward the doorway.
    “I grew up in Cork, Ireland, and I can tell you it wasn’t always easy getting into the fresh air. When I tell my family back home that I live in a place where the sun shinesat least three hundred days a year without rain, they’re amazed.”
    She pushed me onto the elevator.
    “You always live in Southern California?” she asked.
    “Yes. My mother was from Portland, though.”
    “Don’t say? Weather there can be like weather in England, I hear. You have any of your people still there?”
    Her question didn’t surprise me. I was sure everyone who was working there wondered why I wasn’t with family.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Yes, it’s a shame how fast we all lose track of each other in this world. I have a sister I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years now. She married a man who lives in South Africa. You know how far away that is?”
    “Yes. It’s at the tip of Africa.”
    “I bet you’ve been a good student. How did your schoolin’ work go today?”
    “Good,” I said.
    “You’ll be up and around in no time, I’m sure. Right now, it looks like forever to you. I