The Lies We Told

I dressed and went downstairs, dialing Rebecca on my cell as I walked.

“Hey,” she answered. “Any damage at your house?”

“Power’s out, but we’re good,” I said. “How about there?” The trees around Dorothea’s house were far smaller than ours.

“Nothing,” she said. “Couple of shingles off the roof. Have you turned on the TV?”

“Can’t,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right. Well, Wrightsville Beach is practically under water. And wait till you see Wilmington. The river’s flooding a bunch of the buildings on Front Street.”

“Oh, you’re kidding. We saw on the news that people couldn’t evacuate in time. Are there injuries? Will you be going?” Would Adam be going?

“Tons of people stranded,” she said. “It’s hard to say what’s going on because nobody can get in or out. But Erin is right behind. They expect her to hit tomorrow morning.”

“Already? Hit where? I thought Erin wasn’t due until.” I tried to remember what the predictions had been for the second storm.

“They thought Tuesday, but it suddenly started moving,” Rebecca said. I heard the excitement in her voice. My sister loved a great disaster. “It’s not as big because it’s not spending enough time over the water to gain strength, but it’s still a four, and the area just can’t handle another drop of rain.”

“I hope.” I pictured images from Katrina. “I just hope all the people are safe.”

“Me, too,” Rebecca said. “Is Adam there? Dot’s probably going to want both of us to go down there after Erin, unless she turns out to be nothing.”

“He’s somewhere in the neighborhood with his chain saw.”

Rebecca laughed. “The air’s buzzing here, too,” she said. “Okay, have him call me when he gets in. How are you doing?”

“I’d kill for a cup of coffee, but that’s not much to complain about.”

“Hey, sis? You know what they’re calling these two hurricanes?”

“What?”

“The sister storms,” she said.

I thought about that. “Maybe they’ll be like us, then,” I said. “Carmen was the wild and crazy one, and Erin will be tame and mild.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Rebecca said.

12

Rebecca

ALTHOUGH THE DAY WAS CLEAR, REBECCA COULDN’T remember a more nauseating helicopter flight. She and Adam were strapped into the fold-down seats of a military helicopter, along with a disaster medical team from Asheville. On the floor between them were stacks of supplies and equipment, poorly anchored. They tilted and shifted from side to side, and Rebecca finally shut her eyes to stop the vertigo, disappointed with herself over her queasiness.

“Check it out!” Adam shouted over the sound of the rotor.

She loosened her seat belt so that she could turn toward the window behind their heads, and the sight made her gasp. Below them, the flooding Cape Fear River covered the earth nearly as far as she could see, and the sunlight reflecting off the still water was blinding. Treetops and the roofs of houses looked like litter strewn across the water’s surface. On one of the roofs, she saw two figures. A man and a child.

“Do you see that?” She pointed in the direction of the twosome on the roof. “We need to get them!”

She leaned across Adam to tug at the uniformed arm of the guy sitting next to him. She’d spoken to the man before takeoff, and he seemed to know quite a bit about the evacuation efforts. He was an older guy, gray haired with deep frown lines across his forehead, but clearly in fantastic shape. He looked as though he could lean out the door of the chopper and scoop people from their rooftops with his bare hands.

“There are people on a roof down there!” she shouted to him. “Can we get them?”

He shook his head. “We’re not equipped,” he said. “One of the rescue choppers’ll see them.”

There certainly were plenty of other helicopters. She watched them zip through the air, buzzing precariously close to one another. Some were huge and olive-drab, like the one she and Adam were in. Others were tiny and colorful, most likely donated to the cause by private companies. Rebecca could no longer see the roof where she’d spotted the man and child, and she hoped one of the choppers had already managed to pick them up.

She leaned toward Adam, her lips close to his ear. “The worst part of DIDA work is when you feel helpless,” she said, and he nodded.

It was rare that she felt helpless, though. She was a problem solver and the more chaotic the setting, the better she performed. Dot had once gone so far as to call her a magician. “The only woman I know who can manage two dozen patients at one time, make a jetload of supplies appear overnight and still find time to sleep with the best-looking dude on the site,” she’d said, annoying the hell out of Rebecca. Dot was one of the few people who knew how to yank her chain.

The gray-haired man abruptly unbuckled his seat belt and walked to the front of the helicopter, leaning into the cockpit to talk to the pilot. Rebecca watched him, wondering if he would mention the people she’d seen on the roof. He spoke with the pilot for several minutes. Like the other DMAT team members flying with them, his battalion dress uniform was blue, while her DIDA uniform was dark gray. His multiple pockets, though, bulged just as hers did. In hers, she carried two water bottles, batteries, an MRE, a protein bar and her cell phone, which Dorothea told her she might as well leave behind. The cell towers near the Wilmington airport, where the evacuees were being taken, were down.

Rebecca brought it along anyway, and she knew Adam had his as well.

The man returned to his seat. He leaned toward Adam and Rebecca. “I was wondering why we went past the airport,” he said.

“We did?” Rebecca had been so mesmerized by the helicopters that she hadn’t even noticed the airport.

“Right,” the guy said. “The pilot got word that someone on the ground was shooting at the choppers.”

“You’re kidding,” Adam said. He looked a little green.

“They think it was a rumor, so now we’re going down.”

Rebecca gave Adam a “whatever” shrug of her shoulders. She faced the swaying tower of supplies again, tightening her seat belt, and psyched herself up to face whatever they’d find on the ground.

She sensed Adam’s disorientation as they climbed out of the helicopter, and remembered feeling the same confusion the first time she’d landed in a disaster area. The tarmac was brutally hot, the sun so bright and the smell of jet fuel so strong that her head instantly began to pound. There was no time to waste, though, and they joined the DMAT team in unloading the supplies from the helicopter. Adam was quick to get a grip on his confusion. She saw the energy she’d always admired in him as he climbed back into the cabin and began handing boxes and crates down to the volunteers on the tarmac. He’s going to be good at this, she thought. She remembered her conversation with Maya at the Starbucks a few nights earlier. A little separation was probably the best thing for the two of them right now. Time apart would give them a new perspective on their problems.

On the runway in front of them, she could see the string of helicopters landing and taking off. The choppers remained on the ground only long enough to dump their human cargo of evacuees before lifting into the sky again. Just like Katrina, she thought, as she watched so many people pour from one chopper that she knew they must have been piled on top of one another inside the cabin. Most of them were empty-handed, although a few clutched overstuffed plastic garbage bags. Mothers grabbed the hands of their children. One man carried an elderly woman in his arms. Rebecca turned back to the task of unloading the supplies. She would see plenty of these people in the days to come. There was no time to worry about them now.

“You two!”

Rebecca recognized Dorothea’s booming voice over the din from the helicopters. She turned to see the older woman standing near the bottom of the steps leading up to the concourse, her gray uniform a few shades darker than her braid and her hands forming a megaphone around her mouth. “Get your gear and come inside!” she called.

They finished unloading the chopper, then rummaged through the cargo until they found their duffel bags and ran together into the terminal.

Inside the glass walls of the concourse, the din changed from the roar of the helicopters to the buzz of human beings confined in too small a space to hold them. The gates looked as they might during a freak snowstorm on Christmas Eve, when all the flights had been grounded. People were everywhere. They slumped in the chairs. They sat on the floor, leaning against one another to stay upright as they tried to sleep. Long lines snaked to the restrooms, as well as to the few bottled water stations Rebecca could see.

She and Adam followed Dorothea through the corridor to the lobby, and Rebecca felt Adam’s hand light against the small of her back. He was so physical, and she liked that about him. He was always touching Maya—an arm around her shoulders, holding her hand, smoothing her hair. Brent touched Rebecca when he wanted sex; he was so damn predictable. They’d be walking home from a restaurant, and if he took her hand, she knew what he was after. The only good thing was that she nearly always wanted it, too.

In the lobby, Dot ushered them into a small office and closed the door. Two desks took up nearly all the space in the room, and there were no chairs. “Okay,” Dorothea said. “Have a seat.”

Rebecca boosted herself onto the edge of one of the desks, but Adam dropped his bag at his side and remained standing, hands in his pockets. He rocked on his heels as though raring to get to work.

“Is there any organization to what’s going on out there?” he asked. Clearly he thought there was none, and Rebecca guessed he was close to being correct, but it wasn’t the sort of question you asked Dorothea Ludlow. He didn’t know Dorothea well, so he couldn’t really have known. She tried to keep a smile off her face.

“Damn straight, there’s organization!” Dorothea said, gray eyes flashing. “We’ve accomplished more here in two days than you could in a month.”

Adam held up his hands in surrender. “I believe you,” he said with an uncertain laugh.

Rebecca grinned. “Don’t beat up on my brother-in-law,” she said to Dorothea.

“I can already see I’m going to have to separate the two of you.” Dorothea shook her head in mock disgust.

“We’ll behave,” Rebecca said.

Dorothea folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the second desk. “Well, listen up, and I’ll tell you the setup,” she said. “The concourse is where the majority of evacuees will hang out for now. Here in the lobby, on either end, is where the medical teams are setting up the tent walls. I’ll let one of the DMAT workers give you the full rundown. Look for Steve. He’s in the baggage-claim area.” She looked at Rebecca. “We’ve got the four zones going, like we did with Katrina,” she said, and Rebecca nodded. She would explain what that meant to Adam later. “No one expected this many people, and the teams are overwhelmed—” Dot looked at Adam “—which is not the same as disorganized. We’re trying to get some more teams in here. Like I told you, the cell towers are down, but I have a sat phone. Here’s your two-way radios and some extra batteries.” She pointed to the radios on the cluttered desk behind her. “No power, needless to say. The medical areas’ll have some AC from generators, but the rest of the terminal’s a damn steam bath.” She turned her attention to Adam again. “We need the princess here,” she said.

Rebecca laughed. Dorothea said that nearly every time they landed in a disaster area. She knew Rebecca would shrug off the idea, but Dot probably saw Adam as fresh meat. Adam, though, had no idea what she was talking about.

“Who’s the princess?” he asked. His face was open and boyish, and Rebecca was getting a kick out of seeing him so out of his element.

“She’s talking about Maya,” she said. “Dot thinks anyone who doesn’t work for DIDA is soft.”

“Maya’s not soft,” Adam said. Rebecca liked hearing him come to Maya’s defense, even though they both knew that Maya was as soft as mashed potatoes.

“We need her here.” Dorothea patted the pockets of her uniform jacket, as if checking her supplies. “We’ve got a mountain of kids with mountains of problems, and we have no pediatrician. Not one. And as you can see—” she motioned in the general direction of the tarmac, although they couldn’t possibly see it from the office “—the people keep pouring in.”

“Maya can’t do it,” Adam said.

“She knows that,” Rebecca said. “She’s just being a pain in the butt.”

“There’s a difference between can’t and won’t” Dorothea suddenly clapped her hands together. “Okay!” she said. “Let’s get to work.” She opened the office door and marched out, and Rebecca watched Adam stare after her, openmouthed.

“Wow,” he said. “I had no idea what a bitch she is. ”

“Really?” Rebecca stood up from the desk. “I thought that was common knowledge.” They left the office and made their way through the sea of tired, anxious people, following the signs leading toward the baggage-claim area. She felt uncomfortable that she’d put Dorothea down.

“Dot’s not really a bitch, Adam,” she said as they crossed the central lobby, where broad green beams formed a crisscross pattern beneath the high open ceiling. “It’s hard for her to believe that not everyone feels as passionately about disaster work as she does. She can make people do what they don’t want to do. That’s why DIDA is a success. Why it works.”

“Right,” he said. “I get it.”

They passed beneath a replica of the Wright brothers’ plane. Beyond that, Rebecca saw the canvas tent walls. An extremely young guy in a gold DMAT uniform rushed toward them as they neared the tent.

“Adam and Rebecca?” he asked.

They nodded and Rebecca thought he was going to hug them, he looked so pleased.

“Fantastic!” he said. “I’m Steve. ”

“Hey, Steve.” Adam reached out to shake his hand. “How’re you holdin’ up?”

“Haven’t slit my wrists yet,” Steve said, “though I’ve considered it. Let me get you oriented real quick because there’s no time to waste.” He started walking toward the tent walls, and they fell into step on either side of him. “We’re basically out of control, but we’re improving,” he said. “We’ve got nurses and PAs doing triage out on the tarmac as soon as people get off the choppers. And here’s the scoop on the tents. Tent One there.” He pointed to the tent farthest from them. “That’s for the walking wounded. Sprains, cuts, minor respiratory problems.” He nodded toward the tent in front of them. “Tent Two is urgent care. We’ve had a couple of women in early labor. Compound fractures.” He shook his head. “Saw three of them already this morning. People don’t belong on roofs.”

“I thought this was the baggage-claim area.” Adam turned in a circle, searching for the carousels.

“Inside the tents,” Rebecca said.

“Right,” Steve said. “They don’t design airports to house evacuees.” He led them to the other end of the lobby, pointing to the door leading to a stairwell. “Do not go down to the basement,” he warned. “The addicts took it over with the first wave of evacuees and things aren’t pretty down there.”

And will only get worse as they run out of drugs, Rebecca thought.

“Where are the pharmaceuticals being kept?” Adam asked, clearly thinking the same thing.

“What little we have is in one of the rental car offices,” Steve said. They’d reached the area by the ticket counters, where two more tents had been set up. “Here’s the third tent,” he said. “The E. R. of the operation. Cardiac arrest. Seizures. Active labor. That sort of thing. We have no supplies, by the way. You’ll figure that out soon enough, though.”

“And the fourth tent?” Adam asked.

Rebecca knew what the fourth tent was for, but she let Steve tell him.

“The expectants,” he said. “The ones who would die no matter what. Palliative care in that one. Letting the families be with them, if there are any family members around.”

Adam nodded. “Mostly elderly,” he said.

“Right,” Steve said. “A lot of them are from one of the small hospitals that had to be evacuated. Then we’ve been getting a lot … way too many … from nursing homes. Sadder than hell.” He looked from Adam to Rebecca and back again. “You brother and sister?” he asked.

“What?” Adam laughed.

“You look alike,” Steve said.

Rebecca and Adam exchanged a glance. Rebecca took in Adam’s dark eyes. Brown hair. She supposed they did look alike, especially in their DIDA uniforms. She tossed an arm around Adam’s shoulders, breathing in the scent of soap and aftershave, knowing it would be her last whiff of a well-groomed man for quite a while. “He’s my darlin’ brother-in-law,” she said to Steve, “but thanks for the compliment.”

“Hey!” Adam grinned. “That’s my line.”

“Well, whatever,” Steve said, and she could tell he had no time to joke around. He pointed toward the ticket counters. “You can put your gear over there. I’ve got to get back to the concourse.”

Steve took off down the hallway, and Rebecca and Adam dumped their duffel bags behind the ticket counters. Rebecca watched Adam fill his lungs as if he knew he wouldn’t have another chance to catch his breath for the next two weeks.

“Welcome to DIDA, bro,” she said, and they headed for the tents.

Rebecca spent most of the day with the patients needing urgent care, while Adam worked in the emergency tent. Dorothea had been right about the children. They were everywhere. Asthma attacks were rampant. Broken bones. Fevers. Wounds that were already oozing and infected. Rebecca didn’t know how Maya worked with kids all day. It was the one area where Maya was tougher than she was. “I’m just used to it,” Maya would say, as if it was no big deal.

As Rebecca’s fifth patient was brought to her, she already felt her frustration rising. The screaming five-year-old boy had broken at least a dozen bones in a fall from a tree onto the roof of a car. He should have been airlifted directly to a hospital, not stuffed into a helicopter with dozens of other people. Yet she knew there’d been no time to triage the evacuees as they were scooped up by the choppers. It was up to them to separate the sickest, the most gravely injured, from the others who could be treated here in the terminal. Those in the worst shape, like this little boy, would be airlifted inland. Yet as he screamed during Rebecca’s examination, she couldn’t help but wonder if Maya would be handling him differently. In her head, she heard one of her sister’s favorite refrains: Children are not simply miniature adults when it comes to medicine.

She saw Adam from time to time during the day when he’d transport one of his emergency patients to her tent. They weren’t able to exchange more than a few rushed words with each other, always about a patient’s condition and treatment, yet she felt connected to him. She was so glad he was there. She hoped the work hooked him and that he’d want to do his two weeks next year as well.

Around dusk, she finally took a break. She jogged down the long hallway to the concourse, dodging evacuees, relieved to be out of the tent and moving her muscles. In the concourse, she headed for the water station and spotted Adam standing near the windows. Grabbing a bottle of water from one of the pallets, she went to stand next to him. He glanced at her without speaking, and in his face, she saw the toll the day was taking on him. She’d never before noticed the fine lines around his eyes or seen the tight, unsmiling set of his lips.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. His gaze was fixed on the never-ending line of helicopters as they landed, dumped their passengers and took off again. “It’s different than I expected, though,” he said. “Rougher and—I don’t care what Dorothea says—disorganized as hell.”

“You get used to it.” She didn’t want him to lose heart.

He took a swallow from his water bottle. “I decided after the first few crazy hours to stop fighting it,” he said. “To see it as a challenge.” He glanced at her again. “I was thinking of you,” he said. “I figured, if Bec can do this year-round, I can handle it for two measly weeks.”

“No doubt about it,” she said.

“I admire you, kiddo.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t make me blush,” she jested, but his words meant something to her.

“Look at that.” He pointed to one of the choppers, and they watched as the doors opened and a river of people—mostly children—literally poured from the cabin onto the tarmac. Adam quickly lowered his arm from her shoulders, pressing his hand to the glass as though he could stop them from falling. They watched as the kids landed on top of one another. Rebecca had seen worse. Much worse. She rested her hand on Adam’s back, and he shook his head. “This is a horror show,” he said.

They watched volunteers on the tarmac help the kids get to their feet, trying to create order out of chaos. One of the volunteers, a woman, waved to a group of men standing at the side of the tarmac. She held up four fingers, and the men rushed toward the helicopter, carrying four litters between them.

Rebecca heard Adam groan, probably picturing four more patients swelling the ranks inside the tents.

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