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“Fine,” he said, and giggled. As a kid I’d been embarrassed by that overgrown baby giggle. But I’d learned to love it, just like I loved him.
Emotions clogged my throat, but I forced them down. “So. You’re going on a bus ride, aren’t you?”
“Bus ride,” he answered, giggling with increased glee. “Bus ride.”
“Okay, then. Have fun. And remember that your Janie loves you. I love you, Clark.”
And that was it. He handed the phone to Verna and she wished me good luck. I guess that’s when I finally knew what I had to do. Clark was in good hands, and a three-hundred-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy would cement the cracks in his care a lot better than I did with my weekly visits.
I filled my glass with that courage-giving amber liquid, and stared at my life-insurance bill. The problem was, it couldn’t look like suicide because they wouldn’t pay off, and Clark wouldn’t have that extra layer of protection I wanted him to have.
Then suddenly, like a light at the end of a tunnel, it came to me. If I died during the hurricane they’d have to pay. I could feel the adrenaline surge through my body. If I committed suicide by storm, they’d never know. I’d just be an unfortunate casualty of the horrific wind and waters. Too bad; so sad.
But what if the storm turned away from New Orleans? What if it veered east as they so often did, sparing the city?
Then I would drive to where it was going. My car wasn’t in the greatest shape, and my car insurance was overdue. But so what? If I stalled out somewhere in the road, the storm would just get me there.
I aimed the remote control at the television and upped the volume. Walter Maestri, emergency management director for neighboring Jefferson Parish was on, urging everyone to leave. This could be the big one, he predicted. With the storm surge this hurricane was pushing, we could have twenty-five feet of water in the streets.
The easier to drown in, I decided, switching channels.
I watched television all night, fell asleep around six, woke up at noon, and called in sick.
“The hell you say,” the day manager barked at me. “You’re not sick. The whole damn city’s going crazy. Tourists leaving early, and half the staff is cutting out for Texas. Don’t bullshit me, Jane. You’re evacuating like everyone else. But look. Come in today. You can work a double. I know you need the money. Then you can leave on Sunday if you really have to.”
“I’m sick, Robbie. Really.”
“Come on, Janie,” he said in this wheedling tone.
I smiled to hear the asshole beg. “Sorry. No can do.”
“Come in or I’m firing your ass!” he shouted in an abrupt change of tone.
“Whatever,” I said and hung up on him.
It felt good to do that, and it felt even better to hear him pleading on my answering machine ten minutes later. I guess he’d called around and gotten no takers, so he was back to begging me.
I just poured myself another nice glass of Southern Comfort for breakfast and took it into the bathroom with me.
It’s strange. Unless you’ve been there, I don’t think anyone can adequately explain how it feels to have decided once and for all to end your life. It was perversely liberating. And relaxing. And sad. I had a lot of regrets piled up in my forty-seven years. At the top of the list was Clark, of course. Not that he would miss me all that much. But still. I was his big sister, his only living relative.
Correction. His only living relative who gave a damn, since we had no reason to believe our dad was dead, and I knew he didn’t give a damn.
Next regret? That I’d never had kids. I didn’t dwell on that disappointment too much, but it was always there.
And then there was Mom, who I guess had done the best she could with no husband, a difficult daughter and a special-needs son.
After that came the mass regrets, the people I’d let down either because of my stubbornness or my stupidity. Friends, bosses, lovers. One husband. Patients.
The only clear concept I remember from the time I’d been in rehab was that you had to take responsibility for your own actions. That you could never get sober if you didn’t acknowledge your own shortcomings.
Not that I’m an alcoholic, mind you. I’ve had my moments of overindulgence—like now—but I’d never lost a job because of alcohol.
No, my spectacular fall from grace seven years ago hadn’t been due to drinking, but to drugs. I’d had a brief but intense and incredibly self-indulgent go-round with prescription drugs. Unfortunately what I lost then was more than merely the nursing job that I loved. It was my profession. My calling. Nurses who are incompetent or dishonest due to substance abuse have a hard time getting a second chance in the field.
So there was that regret, too. I’d lost a great career, and though I usually blame my ex’s conviction for insurance fraud, the truth was that I had decided to drink during his trial, and I had decided to drink even more when we lost the house. Then when he went off to prison, I had decided to try out some of the pain-killing, brain-deadening drugs I so often administered to my patients on the job.
I’m not a junkie, though, and I’m not an alcoholic, either. If I was, I’d still be using drugs and I sure wouldn’t be the oh-so-desirable employee that Robbie was desperate to have back on the job. No, I’d be in the gutter somewhere, or back in rehab. Or dead.
But my choices of the past were neither here nor there. Alcoholic or not, I would be dead by Monday, so it was a moot point.
One last regret was that I couldn’t leave a note. Not that there was anyone to leave it to. Clark wouldn’t notice that I was even gone. My boss had fired me, and I really didn’t have anything to say to Hank.
Sad, wasn’t it? And it only deepened my depression—and my resolve. No one would miss me. No one would care that I was gone—except maybe my landlord. I had no one at all to leave a goodbye note to.
By late Saturday afternoon I was bored stiff. I sat outside on the front stoop of my four-plex and watched as my neighbors came and went.
“You not staying?” my downstairs neighbor Carlotta exclaimed.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Girl, are you crazy? They saying this one could come over the levees.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I have a second-floor apartment.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to my auntie’s in Baton Rouge. After the storm, though, I’m gonna call you, okay? Just to see how the old place held up. You need any supplies? I’m going to Robert’s on St. Claude.”
“Thanks, but I have everything I need.”
She shook her head. “Okay then. You know where I hide my key, so take anything you need from the kitchen. And one more thing. At least move your car to higher ground, up by the river.”
“Good idea,” I said. Exactly what I didn’t want: higher ground. But later that evening as she drove off, along with several other neighbors trying to avoid the crush of traffic leaving town by driving at night, I thought about the whole water issue. The river levees aren’t the weakest spot for New Orleans during a hurricane. It’s the Lake Pontchartrain levees. That’s where the wind and tides drive the waves to top the levees. So that’s where I should go to drown.
Or maybe somewhere in St. Bernard or Plaquemines Parish. The levees aren’t as high there, and the tidal surges are a lot stronger.
That’s why I spent Sunday driving around town, picking my spot. There was the Lakefront Airport, outside the levees. But it might be guarded by the Levee Police. Or I could try the mouth of Bayou St. John. Or Little Woods where the camps along the lake were sure to be wiped out, just like in 1998 during Hurricane Georges.
I sat in an empty parking lot on the University of New Orleans campus and studied a map of the city. What about the turning basin in the Industrial Canal? That’s where the lake, the river and the Intercoastal Canal all met. There was sure to be a lot of water action there.
My stomach growled. I was hungry, and there was nothing decent at home to eat. Some crackers, maybe. Some peanut butter and tuna and canned soup. I started up the car and headed out, looking for a convenience store or burger place. Anything that sold food.
But nothing was open. I mean, nothing.
I had to drive past my house all the way into the French Quarter and even then all I found open was a couple of bars. Naturally. So I ordered a drink and ate peanuts until almost midnight. By then the wind was really picking up. But until the power goes out, it’s not really a storm. The weathermen were all predicting a landfall around dawn, with Katrina’s eye hitting New Orleans East around noon. The threat of flooding wouldn’t reach its peak until after the eye passed and the winds started coming out of the north. That meant I had at least twelve hours to wait.
It’s funny, but on the one night I should have just stayed in the bar, drinking until it was time to act, I didn’t feel like drinking. The bartender was being really free with the liquor, and a pair of guys from Ontario kept offering me drinks, too. But I was too keyed up. This was it. My time to go. I was hyper, and yet strangely calm. In countdown mode, I guess.
I didn’t want to go home, though. So I found my car and just cruised around, past the Superdome where knots of people were standing around despite the mayor’s announcement that it would not be a shelter of last resort this time. Uptown was a ghost town. Mid City was the same. I couldn’t get across the Industrial Canal into St. Bernard or New Orleans East. The cops had all four bridges closed, probably because of the high winds. And at the St. Claude Bridge, the Industrial Canal was already high, splashing and sending spray onto the roadway.
I stared at the dark, heaving waters, and the first tremor of fear hit me. Could I do it? I’d rejected shooting myself years ago, mainly because I was petrified of guns. That’s why I’d also ruled out suicide by cop. Sure, I could have pulled out my ex’s old handgun, confronted a cop and let him shoot me. But I didn’t want the poor guy to feel bad about killing someone who’d waved an unloaded weapon at him. Besides, what if he was a lousy shot and I didn’t die?
No, drowning in waters too powerful for me to resist was the surest way to do it. Once I jumped in, there’d be no turning back. And anyway, I’d heard that drowning was a relatively peaceful way to go. One big gulp of water would fill my lungs, and that would be it. My lonely loser of a life would be finished, but Clark would be protected. No matter how you looked at it, it was a win-win situation.
I guess I could have jumped in right then, but if someone saw my body too soon, the insurance company might suspect suicide. I had to wait. I decided the lake was my best shot, so around three in the morning I headed back toward the lake-front. By then the wind was really whipping. The trees were swaying and some of the branches had begun to go, littering the streets. The electricity was going, too, neighborhood by neighborhood. I picked my way down Elysian Fields Avenue, weaving through the fallen live-oak branches.
One fell on my car, hitting with a thunk that nearly made me wreck.
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt. I should have headed to the lakefront hours ago. What if I couldn’t make it? The rain was coming down in erratic sheets, blowing mostly out of the east. But it swirled around, too, like miniature tornadoes. No way I could walk in this.
I watched as a streetlight went down, and right after it, a utility pole in a shower of sparks. Even in the car I didn’t want to get hit by one of them. Electrocution did not sound like a pleasant way to die.
“Dead is dead,” I muttered. But I was getting really creeped out.
This is for the best. For Clark. That was my mantra as my little Corolla fought the howling winds. At the train overpass a powerful gust caught the car and it actually skidded into the left lane. My heart was in my throat, but I kept going. What else could I do?
It was way beyond weird. Gentilly Boulevard was a mess of tree branches, signs and pieces of roofing. There was water in the streets, but not much. So far this wasn’t a very wet storm. It was near Brother Martin High School that I ran into trouble. First a big oak branch hit the trunk of my car. It bounced off, but I veered left into another branch. After I backed out of that tangle, the car stalled. It sputtered a few times. Then it went dead. And all the time, the wind howled like a banshee.
After trying futilely to get the car started, I realized that I was out of gas. Why that made me start crying I don’t know. Maybe because after my miserable failure of a life, now I was also failing at death. In any event, I sat there in my car a long time, feeling sorry for myself and wishing a giant oak limb would crash down on my head and finish me off right then and there.
No such luck.
By the time dawn fought through the heavy clouds and sheeting rain, I decided I’d have to walk the last mile or so to the lake. I hadn’t seen another car on the road since about 3:00 a.m. No wonder. If the winds weren’t reason enough to stay inside, the now impassable streets were. I’d have to wait until the worst of the storm was past before I could make my way to the lake.
So exhausted by lack of sleep as well as tension, I crawled into the back seat and made myself as comfortable as I could.
You’d think all those hours curled up alone in a disabled car would have given me time to rethink my suicide plan. Instead, my failure—so far—only proved to me that I had to do this. My life was a hopeless shambles with nothing to look forward to but getting old. I’d failed at everything else, but I refused to fail at this.
I think I must have fallen asleep. I’m not sure. But the next thing I knew, the car was moving. I jerked awake and sat up, only to find water in the floor of the car.
Water?
I rubbed a clear spot on the fogged-up window, then gaped at the scene outside. Elysian Fields was flooded. Houses, street, yards, and cars were inundated in a roiling mass of water. And my car was floating! Sort of. Had it rained that hard?
I glanced at my watch—9:42 a.m.—then back at the surreal landscape. No way was this much water caused by rain. The levees must have been overtopped.
The car lurched, then lodged against a street lamp that was still standing.
Famous last words. In the next blast of wind the pole went over like a toothpick, bouncing off a van in someone’s driveway. But the wind was so loud, howling through the trees, screaming in the wires, that I barely heard the crash.
I gripped the driver’s side headrest. What should I do?
Go drown yourself. That’s the plan, isn’t it? So go do it.
In three feet of water?
Except that those three feet looked as if they would soon be four. Or more. “Just wait,” I muttered. “Just wait a little longer.”
Within fifteen minutes, the water was over the seat and rising, almost as deep inside the car as outside. I shivered as my capris soaked up the chilly water. Was I going to drown in a Toyota with the doors locked and the windows up? Or would I get out of the car and head toward the lake and deeper water? Assuming I didn’t drown before I got there.
That’s when out of nowhere a dog slammed into my front windshield. Somehow it righted itself, scrabbling around for footing on the wet hood. Then it stood there, spraddle-legged and terrified, staring me straight in the face.
I heard one yelp—or maybe I saw it. Either way, when the next wave sent the frantic animal sprawling, sliding off my car, I didn’t stop to think. I shoved open the door, lunged through the opening and into the water, and somehow caught the animal by the tail.
I don’t know how I caught hold of the dog’s collar, but it was just in time. The next thing I knew, we were both underwater.
The weird thing is that it wasn’t rainwater. Don’t ask me why I noticed that. It wasn’t rainwater, but salty, brackish water. And as I came up sputtering, with Fido still in my grasp, I knew that the worst had happened to New Orleans. One of the levees had broken.
And that meant I didn’t have to go to the lake.
The lake had come to me.
CHAPTER 2
Some parts of that day remain a blur: how I managed to keep Fido and myself from drowning; why I kept Fido and myself from drowning. Between the tearing winds, the punishing waves and the debris missiles they both aimed at me, I could easily have just let go. Given in. Given up.
But I couldn’t.
It was because of the dog.
He was a medium-sized mutt, black and white, totally non-descript, like a million others. Mainly, though, he was petrified with fear. He’d decided I was his salvation and kept trying to climb into my arms. That’s because the water was too deep for him to stand in.
Unfortunately, between the wind and the waves, it was too rough for me to stand in. Tree branches, lawn furniture, street signs, garbage. It was like being inside a giant washing machine set on spin.
One thing I knew: avoid the cars. Because if one of them pinned me to a tree, I was a goner.
I know, I know. Five minutes ago I’d wanted to be a goner. And I still did. But I needed to save this dog first.
I could barely keep my eyes open; that’s how harshly the winds whipped around me. Like a drowning blind woman, I flailed around, looking for something solid to cling to. Then I slammed into a fence. A hurricane fence, designed not to fall over no matter how hard the wind and water pushed. The fence also had a gate—wide open, thank God. And the gate led to a house. Somehow I dragged myself up the steps. The minute Fido’s feet hit something solid, he was out of my arms. Right behind him, I crawled up the long flight of steps, out of the water and onto a porch. There I curled into a ball in a corner against the house. Fido, wet and stinky, wormed his way into my arms, and that’s how the two of us spent the next few hours. He shivered and whimpered uncontrollably. I shivered and alternately cried and cursed.
You’d think someone who wanted to be dead wouldn’t be afraid of anything. That she should stand up to the storm, beating her chest and screaming, “Come and get me, Katrina! Come and get me!”
But it was terrifying. I’d never seen such power. Mother Nature at her most furious. Ripping up trees, tearing off roofs, and flinging everything around like pick-up sticks. And all the while wailing her rage until I thought I’d go deaf.
Parts of trees and other buildings thumped against the house. I felt the floor shudder beneath me, and I prayed it would hold. A shingle flew across the porch just above my head, then cartwheeled across the floor before burying itself in the wood half wall, just like an ax thrown in a magician’s trick.
Suffice it to say, I did not fall asleep this time.
I kept checking my watch, but it had stopped. The water, I guess. It seemed as if hours went by with no change. I was afraid to lift my head above the solid porch rail; I could get decapitated.
Fido finally stopped shivering, but he didn’t sleep either. He just kept his anxious brown eyes on me, as if I might disappear if he looked away. Who did he belong to? And why on earth had they left him behind?
He wore a collar with a tag that identified him as Lucky.
Lucky. Yeah, right! Lucky to be huddled on somebody’s porch with a crazy woman while the whole damn city returned to the sea.
It felt as if two days had gone by before I sensed the first easing of the wind. It’s not that the wind slowed down, it was more that the worst gusts weren’t coming as often. Since the weathermen had predicted the eye would reach New Orleans around eleven, I figured it must be early afternoon.
Extracting myself from Lucky, I wriggled toward the porch steps. How many steps had I climbed? A full flight, I think. But only seven steps remained above water. That meant the water had to be at least four feet deep.
