Gradually, the family realizes the house is flooding. Esch, reading from Mythology, feels moisture as well, and she wonders if she’s miscarried. Later in the day, Randall spots liquid pooling under Junior and assumes he’s urinated. Esch is dumbfounded, as she believes China knew the tree would fall before it did. They catch him shoving a package he takes from his dresser into his pants.ĭaddy and Skeetah relocate to the living room. The kids rush into the room, where Daddy is unharmed. A tree has fallen on the house and burst into the room. China begins acting strange and leaps from Skeetah’s bed just as a loud noise sounds from Daddy’s room. They hear a dog whimpering outside, and Skeetah wistfully agrees they can’t go outside to help it. Skeetah remembers her telling the kids she loved them and to take care of each other as Daddy carried her to his truck the day she died. Mama noticed them peeking but did not tell Daddy they were outside. Remembering her last moments with Mama, Esch recalls sneaking up to Mama’s bedroom window with Skeetah and Randall while she struggled to give birth to Junior. Skeetah remembers Mama talking about the wind, he says, but he cannot remember her voice. Skeetah appears, the only other family member that is awake, and invites Esch into his room, where China is sitting on the bed.
The wind outside sounds like a train, and Esch remembers her mother telling her that’s how the wind sounded during Hurricane Camille, too. She remembers her mother telling her about Hurricane Camille, as well, and about how the water made Papa Joseph, Mother Lizbeth, and her sick after the storm.Įsch wakes up to find the house without power and imagines talking to the storm, calming it so that her baby would hear.
She remembers Hurricane Elaine, when Mama let her peek through the plywood laid over the windows and into the storm, simultaneously letting Esch feel her belly, pregnant with Junior and full of water. It encourages them to evacuate and renounces all responsibility for their lives if they do not. In the waning light after dark, Esch reads about Medea and realizes that water will be deadly for both her and the Greek goddess.Įsch is also the one to answer the phone when the automated call comes warning the family of the hurricane. Esch, Randall, and Junior move their bed linens to the living room and take turns watching TV. As Esch and her brothers prepare to ride out the storm, she recalls her mother explaining to her what a hurricane was for the first time.
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