Chapter Four
Shell shocked. That was the look on Clarissa’s face when they stepped into the eerie sunlight. Jed couldn’t begin to imagine what she was feeling right now. Loss, fear, emptiness. He just knew he had to step in to try to make it better.
“You’re coming home with me and Mack,” he said.
“It’s all gone. Everything is gone.” Clarissa whispered the words. When she stepped forward, the volunteer fire chief held out a hand to stop her. “Sorry, Miss. Nothing’s safe right now. Tomorrow morning you’ll be able to start cleaning up. If you don’t have someplace to go, the church has set up a shelter.”
Jed cut him off. “She has someplace to go.” Then he put an arm on Clarissa’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ll come back tomorrow. You can search then.” Although, from what he remembered Clarissa didn’t have much.
Clarissa nodded as if in a daze, agreeing but not really aware of what she was agreeing to, then she stepped forward, wincing as glass from Pete’s big front windows, now shattered, crunched under her feet.
As if the sound shook something inside her, she turned back to what used to be. “Wait. I’ll just look...”
The fireman shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Let us make things safe first. Then you can search all you want.”
Jed didn’t know what Clarissa had lost, but he’d do anything in his power to find it for her.
“I’ll have you back first thing in the morning. Promise.”
She blew out a long breath, and met his eyes. Hers were empty now. As if she were refusing to let herself feel. He knew that look. Had lived it for months. Around them emergency sirens sounded from all directions. Lights on the vehicles flashed red and yellow and blue. He had to get Mack and Clarissa away from this. Get them to the Triple Eight.
Only his phone wasn’t working, and there were no guarantees that the ranch had survived this storm unscathed. Pain hit him at the thought, but he pushed it away. If nothing else, they had plenty of camping gear.
Mack put her little hand in Clarissa’s and stared around at the damaged square so much a part of her life.
“It’ll be okay, Clarissa. Daddy will make things better. You will, won’t you, Daddy?”
Her words pierced Jed’s heart. He met Clarissa’s eyes and saw that she knew the truth. He couldn’t make this better, and it killed him to realize Mack thought he could.
As if Mack’s assertion clarified the situation Clarissa snapped back to the present. She turned away from him and bent to pick Mack up. “You better not walk right now, sweetie. This glass is...” Clarissa stopped, surveyed the damage around them and finished with the one word that made sense. “Everywhere. The mess is everywhere.”
Pete followed them out of the diner, trying to shine a positive light on the disaster.
“Looks like most of the diner damage is superficial, we’ll be open again in no time.”
Around them others made their way out of broken buildings to survey the damage. Thankfully, Jed’s truck was relatively unscathed. Strange since shards of glass and splintered lumber were scattered everywhere in front of the diner. The only vehicles on the road were those serving as emergency services. It didn’t take long to understand why.
Power was out. The square was damaged, but it looked like the diner’s apartment was the worst of it for the town square area.
Lester Pyle drove up in his tow truck, stopping when he saw Jed.
“You coming?”
Dread hit Jed in the gut and he waited to hear more. Storms like these always meant tragedy.
“The elementary’s damaged some. Fifth and sixth grade wing gone. Power’s out since the lines are down. But west of here, it’s bad. We’re going to dig.”
He didn’t say more, but the look he sent Mack said enough. He didn’t want her to know the truth. They were going to dig for survivors.
“West of here?”
“Down at the trailer park and the neighborhood surrounding. Sure could use your hands.”
Bev lived at the trailer park.
Clarissa’s gasp said she understood.
A sense of responsibility for keeping Mack and Clarissa safe warred with the duty Jed had to Stearns and those who were missing.
Clarissa made the decision for him.
“You’ve got to go help, Jed. Mack and I will be safe at the church. Go on. Go find Bev.” Her voice broke as she said their friend’s name, and Jed knew she was right. This was Stearns. They took care of their own.
He leaned down and kissed Mack on the forehead, determined to try to protect her from the worst of this if at all possible.
Mack wrapped her hands around his neck, then took his face in her hands. “Jesus kept us safe, Daddy. He kept Bev safe, too.”
Clarissa didn’t meet his eyes this time, and he prayed Mack was right. Prayed Bev and her kids were okay. This was a lesson he didn’t want Mack learning so early. She’d learned enough in her short lifetime.
Jed wanted to say something meaningful to Clarissa. But her walls were back up, and even a hug seemed out of place. So he did the only thing he knew to do.
“Thank you,” he said. And then, as he started the truck, he said, “Be good Mack,” but this time he knew he didn’t have to worry.
Clarissa and Mackenzie joined Miss Topkins and the school secretary, Mrs. Anderson. The church now served as a shelter for people who’d lost homes.
As soon as they entered the building, Clarissa swallowed the pain at realizing she was one of those people. Keeping busy would work as emotional salvation for now.
From all over town people were bringing in food, water, blankets, sleeping bags, cots, jackets. Someone Clarissa didn’t know was grilling hotdogs. If not for the debris visible out the heavy wooden doors of the church, she’d think this was a celebration instead of a response to crisis.
When the twins from Mackenzie’s Sunday School class came in, one of them with a huge bandage on his head, Mackenzie ran to them. It wasn’t long before they were playing games with other children.
Clarissa, sure Jed’s daughter was safe for now, helped arrange areas for displaced families in the church gym. She handed out food and water. Prayed or at least listened to the prayer of a new wife whose husband had been on the road somewhere between Stearns and Shawnee where the powerful storm with what the weather service was calling multiple vortex tornadoes had torn through.
When a man with three children came in, she rocked his newborn baby, feeding it a bottle and listening as he and his older children retold their story of horror and thankfulness. His wife was in the Oklahoma City hospital now, but the emergency workers had brought him and his children to the shelter because the hospitals were too full for the uninjured. Someone volunteered to take care of his children, someone else volunteered to take the man to the hospital where his wife was once they knew where to go.
Home wasn’t an option. Home was gone.
Clarissa put her finger in the baby’s hand and smiled as the infant wrapped his tiny fingers around hers. The infant smiled at her and a sense of peace wrapped itself around Clarissa’s heart.
Home.
So much loss and yet the entire town rallied together to help each other. She’d only felt at home one place in her life. But she’d run away from her grandmother’s as soon as she’d been able. In the midst of this tragedy, Clarissa wondered if maybe she hadn’t found home again.
Handing the now sleeping child to his father, she stretched, rubbing a crick in her back, happy to be helping, to be part of this.
“She doesn’t belong out there.” The shrewish words sounded in a whisper as Clarissa moved toward the church kitchen. She stopped as soon as she heard the voice, knowing instantly who the words were about.
“Shush, Joan. You don’t…”
“Don’t shush me. We don’t know anything about her.”
“I know now is not the time. She’s here, she’s helping. Just stop.”
“Mark my words, that girl’s trouble.”
Clarissa recognized the voices. The women talking were the school secretary Mrs. Anderson—Joan—and the Sunday School teacher Miss Topkins. Miss Topkins was done arguing with Mrs. Anderson. At least Clarissa figured that to be the case since the conversation ceased.
The words hurt. Truth was, Mrs. Anderson was right. She didn’t belong here. In fact if the good people of Stearns knew about her past with churches, they’d run her out of town regardless of the help she gave now. Her heart squeezed painfully and she tried to shove the guilt aside.
That was a lifetime ago. Maybe she wasn’t good enough, but right now, she was the person volunteering. So the biddy could just get over herself.
Walking into the kitchen, Clarissa pasted a smile on her face, and walked by the women as if she hadn’t heard a word. And even though anger balled up painfully in her throat, she grabbed more food and headed back to the gym to give it to people who needed help all the while ignoring the disapproving frown of the woman who didn’t think she belonged.
Every part of Jed’s body hurt. He’d numbed his mind and heart to the destruction he’d seen. He and Pete had worked tirelessly alongside emergency workers for hours to get to the destroyed trailer park where Bev lived.
Miraculously, everyone who lived there had made it to a park storm cellar. Funny thing about tornadoes. They didn’t care much about socio-economics. The same storm had torn through one of the upscale blocks of town, too. Lester Pyle had found Mrs. Norene Albright in a hallway closet of her now destroyed home. Paramedics on the scene said she’d make a full recovery, but they’d insisted she make the trip to the Oklahoma City hospital for concussion-like symptoms and a broken ankle. They’d readily agreed when Lester volunteered to serve as ambulance service.
Bev and her kids were on their way to Bev’s sister’s. Jed dropped Pete off at his house and promised to be back in the morning.
Now all Jed wanted was to pick up Clarissa and Mack and get to the Triple Eight. The governor had called out the National Guard and troops protected the road into Stearns. Jed showed his ID, and they waved him through. People gathered around a fire pit burning outside the church. He saw Clarissa first, standing outside the door, under the lighted cross that promised sanctuary to those seeking.
When Clarissa saw him, she smiled tiredly, sadly, and Jed realized she didn’t know yet that Bev was safe. He climbed out of his truck, walked past several townspeople who called hello.
“You okay?” Jed asked, and she nodded, still holding herself back. Then he nearly kicked himself because of course, she wasn’t.
“Stupid question,” he said. “I know you have to be wiped out.”
She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug.
“I didn’t have much to lose. Not like some of these people,” she said waving a hand back at the church and the people housed inside. “I’ll be okay.”
When he told her Bev and her kids were safe, Clarissa visibly relaxed, but the wall she’d erected around herself, around any real emotions, didn’t come down.
“Mackenzie’s asleep with the twins from her Sunday School class,” she said. “I came outside because someone said the moon tonight was incredible.”
Jed looked up then, surprised to see she was right. The giant orange ball promised rebirth in time. When he turned back to her, he saw a tightness in her eyes he’d not seen before.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’ll be fine. Let me go get Mackenzie.” She turned then, and left him standing outside the church.
Clarissa didn’t bother arguing with Jed about going to his ranch. She knew him well enough by now to know she’d lose. Besides, she was exhausted emotionally and physically. And she wanted out of this church.
Scooping Jed’s daughter up, she took comfort in the little girl’s trust. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled when she saw Clarissa.
“I love you, and Jesus does, too,” Mackenzie said, then she closed her eyes again, completely at ease, totally unaware that her words were a vise around Clarissa’s heart.
Jed turned on to the gravel road that led to the Triple Eight and wondered at Clarissa’s quiet. Hopefully, it was just the result of being tired and emotionally depleted. She’d spent most of the trip to the ranch with her head resting against the window and her eyes closed, but her breathing made it pretty clear she wasn’t sleeping.
Something was bothering her, but she wasn’t sharing. Of course, from what he’d seen so far she wasn’t exactly the sharing kind. Tough way to do life.
The ride home showed the Triple Eight had avoided most of the damage. When he crossed the cattle guard, the bright lights burning in all the front windows downstairs caught his attention fist. When he pulled into the drive, his parents’ Ramblin’ Road RV made him smile.
“How about that,” he said, and Clarissa opened her eyes, blinked a few times and bit her lip. He wondered what she was thinking seeing the ranch house for the first time.
“My parents drove in from Branson,” he explained. “They must’ve started this way about the time the storm hit.”
The door opened and three cow dogs barreled toward the truck and then Momma was standing on the front porch, a towel in her hands, her hair pulled back in a silver pony tail that made her look younger than she was. But he saw the worry and relief in her eyes.
A few seconds after Jed stopped the truck his daddy limped his way out the door to join her. His arthritis must be giving him fits after the drive.
“Hey, hold up there,” he said when Clarissa started to open her door. His daddy’d let him have it for sure if he saw anything resembling poor manners.
A quick skip and Jed had Clarissa’s door open, then Mack’s. Unbuckling the seatbelt, he pulled her from the booster and cradled her in his arms. She settled her head against his neck, her arms draped around his shoulders, and he breathed a quick prayer of thanksgiving. It wasn’t often he got to hold Mack like this. She was always running ninety to nothing, pushing him away after a few seconds. The storm today had been way too close, and yet, they’d survived unscathed.
“A welcoming committee, huh?” Clarissa said worriedly, and Jed laughed.
“You might say that,” he said, noting the question in his momma’s eyes as she took in Clarissa and the stiffness to Clarissa’s shoulders as she seemed to drag forward.
“You going to be okay?”
“Always am,” she said, and he could swear he heard something unspoken in her words.
Carrying Mack up the steps to the porch, he noticed Clarissa’s head had snapped straight. Her blue eyes were smudged with tired dark circles. Her hands were rough and red from hours of work at the church. Her hair was falling out of its clip and the clothes she wore, a white shirt, jeans and yellow plastic looking sandals, were the only clothes she owned other than the apron she’d left in the walk-in at Pete’s.
She was the same kind of mess he was, and Jed was as proud to introduce her to his parents as anyone he’d ever brought home for them to meet.
“Momma, Daddy, I’d like you to meet Clarissa Dye. She’s new in town, works at Pete’s and has been helping me out with Mack. She lost everything in the tornado, so she’ll be staying with us a while.”
He noticed her slight frown at his last words and then she was shaking his daddy’s hand. When she tried to shake his momma’s hand, Momma wasn’t having any part of it.
“You poor dear,” she said, wrapping Clarissa in a Susie Dillon hug. And then he didn’t have to worry about Clarissa and her frowns because his momma was pulling her in the house in that way she had that brooked no resistance.
“Let’s get you set up in one of the guest rooms. My daughter, Jed’s little sister Callie’s about your size, and she left clothes here when she visited last.”
With that Clarissa was walking up the stairs with his momma, and once again Jed said a quick prayer of thanksgiving, this time for his mother’s ability to make anyone feel at ease. Because Clarissa definitely needed that comfort tonight.
After Jed tucked Mack in bed, he made his way to the living room where his daddy sat in front of empty fireplace, a concerned look on his face.
“She’s not one of your lost pets, Jed.”
Jed was exhausted and hurting and he wanted to visit Clarissa, tell her everything would somehow be okay. But he was going to have to have this talk with his daddy.
“I know that,” Jed said.
“She’s a grown woman who has the look of a world of hurts that have nothing to do with the storm tonight in her eyes.”
“She’s a friend, Daddy. That’s all. And I think I know a bit about a world of hurts.” Jed couldn’t help adding the last part even though he knew no one in his family needed reminding.
“There are some hurts you know nothing about, Son, and I’m thinking that young woman you brought home might have a few experiences there.”
When Jed started to answer, his daddy waved away his words.
“Don’t go jumping down my throat, Jed. You know I’m not going to judge her one way or t’other, but I saw the way you were looking at her. Her hurts are going to take the Good Lord’s miraculous ways.”
Jed didn’t bother denying his father’s words. Didn’t even try to say he was wrong. Because tonight, after what they’d been through, he was done denying that he was interested in Clarissa Dye.
“Well, we know plenty about God’s miracles, too, don’t we?” Jed said remembering for a moment, then wishing more than anything the memories weren’t so sharp on this night when everything had changed.