Joyce Maynard - The Good Daughters

Hurricane Season

October 1949

I T BEGINS WITH a humid wind, blowing across the fields from the northeast, and strangely warm for this time of year. Even before the wind reaches the house, Edwin Plank sees it coming, rippling over the dry grass, the last rows of cornstalks still standing in the lower field below the barn, the one place the tractor hasnt got to yet.

In the space of time it takes a man to pour his coffee and call the dog in (though Sadie knows to come; the wind has sent her running toward the house), the sky grows dark. Crows circle the barn, and starlings, looking for the rafters. Its not yet four oclock, and daylight savings will be ending soon, but with the sun no longer visible behind the low, flat wall of cloud cover rolling in, it could be sunset, and maybe thats why the cattle are making their long, low sounds of discontent. Things are not as they should be on the farm, and animals always know.

Standing on the porch with his coffee, Edwin calls to his wife, Connie. Shes still out in the yard with a basket, taking down the laundry shed hung out to dry this morning. Four girls make a lot of laundry. Cotton dresses, Carters tops and bottoms, all pink, diapers, naturallyand her own sensible white cotton under-garments, but the less said about those the better, in Connies book.

Gathering up the last of the clothing not yet dryrescued from the line before the wind gets to itConnie is already thinking that if the lights go out due to the storm, as very likely they will, and he cant listen to the ball game on the radio, her husband may bother her in bed tonight. She had been hoping the World Series would keep him occupied a while. His Red Sox wont be playing; the team folded in September as usual. Still, Edwin never misses the series.

They knew the hurricane was coming. Bonnie, theyre calling this one . (In their eight years of marriage, has Edwin ever failed to catch the weather report?) He has already taken care of things in the barn, put away his tools, made sure the hay is covered and the barn doors secured. The cows are in their stalls, naturally. But on the roof, the weather vanethe same one that has stood there for a hundred and forty years now, through a half-dozen generations of Planksspins like a top.

Now comes the rain. A few drops first, then sheets of it, pounding down so hard Edwin can no longer see his tractor, the old red Massey Ferguson that sits out in the field, in whatever spot he finished up his work that day. The rains so loud, he has to raise his voice now as he calls in his two elder daughtersNaomi and Sarah. Go check your sisters, girls. The little onesEsther and Edwinashould be waking from their nap any time now, if the sound of the rain hasnt wakened them already.

In the yard, Connie is struggling with the laundry basketwind in her face, and rain. He sets his coffee down and runs to meet her and take the load. Already soaked, her dress clings to her short, utilitarian body. Nothing about her resembles the women he sometimes thinks about, afternoons on the tractor, or during the long hours he spends in the barn, milkingMarilyn Monroe, of course, Ava Gardner, Peggy Lee. But at that moment, with wet fabric accentuating her breasts, he is thinking how nice it will be, when the children are in bed tonightknowing the game will be canceled due to the weatherto lie under the covers with his wife, hearing the rain on the roof. A good night for making love, if she lets him.

Connie hands her husband the basket. He puts his free arm around her shoulders to help her up the hillthe wind is that strong pushing against their bodies. He has to raise his voice over the roar of the downpour.

Shes a doozy, this one, he says. Looks like we may lose power.

Id better get the girls, she says, brushing his hand away. The baby will be frightened. She means Edwina, the one named after him. He might have thought hed have been disappointed, not to get a boy that last time, and perhaps he was, but he loves his girls. Theres something about walking into church with the line of themevery one built like their mother, from the looks of things so farthat fills his heart with tender pride.

This is when the phone rings. Surprising that it even works in all this wind, and in another few minutes it wont. But for now the dispatcher has managed to get through, to say a tree is down on the old County Road, and would Edwin get his truck out there, and a chain saw, so people can get throughnot that anyones likely to try, until the storm dies down. Edwin is the captain of the volunteer firemen in town, and on call at moments like these when a job needs doing.

He has his work boots on already. Now comes the yellow slicker and a check to make sure that the batteries in his flashlight are working. A final shot of coffee in case the task takes longer than he hopes. A kiss for his wife, who turns her cheek to receive it with her usual brisk efficiency. She is already lighting the stove to put the beans on for the children.

Less than five minutes have passed since the phone rang, but the sky has gone black, and the wind is wailing. Edwin climbs into the cab of his truck and starts the motor. Even with the wipers on, the only way he makes it down the road is because he knows it so wellhe could drive this stretch blindfolded.

The radio is playing. Peggy Lee, oddly enough, the woman he had just been thinking about not one hour ago, bringing the cattle into the barn. Theres a woman for you. Imagine making love to a gal like that.

They interrupt the broadcast. Hurricane warnings upgraded to full-scale storm emergency status. Power lines coming down all over the county. No drivers on the road, except for rescue workers. He is one of those.

It will be a long night, Edwin knows. Before its over, he will be soaked through to his long johns. Theres danger for a man out in a storm like this one, too. Falling trees, loose power lines on the road. Floodwaters.

He thinks about a movie he saw onceone of the few times he ever went to the pictures, in fact The Wizard of Oz . And how, when the storm hit (a twister, if memory serves), the farmhouse lifted right up off the ground and landed in this whole other place nobody ever knew about before.

That was a made-up story, of course, but wild weather can come upon a person in the state of New Hampshire, too. Right around the time he saw the Judy Garland movie, in fact, they had the biggest storm in a hundred years, the hurricane of 38. That one took the oak tree in front of the house where his tire swing used to hang. And a few hundred others. A few thousand, more like it. Even now, all these years later, people around here still talk about that storm, measure time even, by before 38 or after.

From the looks of it, this hurricane could do some serious damage. He does an inventory of the places on the farm where they might run into trouble. No danger of losing crops this time of year (with only the pumpkins left in the field, and not many of those), but theres the barn roof, and the shed, and a stand of hickory he loves, up along the strawberry fields. Always the first to go in a storm, hickory. Hed hate to see those trees snapped off, and it could happen tonight.

Then theres the house, built by his great-grandfather, and still standing firm, with those four little girls and his good wife inside. He doesnt like leaving them alone in a storm.