Chapter 25
Ethan’s face pales. “I have to go,” he says, slowly sliding the phone back in his pocket. He turns to his sister. “We have to go.”
I put a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
He’s staring right at me but I can tell his thoughts are far away. “My mom… I think something’s wrong at home. Will you come with me?”
I love that he wants me to be there even when things are wrong. “Of course,” I say, grabbing my phone off the kitchen counter. The living room smells like bleach but that’s better than the musty old smell it had when we first arrived. I leave a note for Aunt Donna on the kitchen counter and leave the door unlocked for her.
We get back in Ethan’s truck and I can tell he’s weirded out on the whole drive across town. Whatever his mom said has really freaked him out.
People are already piling carpets on the side of the road like we did. We drive past more than carpet—furniture, trash, debris. Some homes were flooded worse than others, but at least most of the flood waters are gone now.
Dakota gasps as we turn onto my old neighborhood. The manmade lake that’s right in the middle of the circle of homes looks more like an ocean. It’s overfilled all the way up, covering the sidewalk that normally wraps around the lake with plenty of grass separating it from the water. The flooding is even halfway up the benches that dot along the sidewalk where we used to sit and watch the lake back when I lived here.
The houses are a little bit higher than the lake, which was probably designed that way so that water can drain into the lake. They aren’t flooded right now, but you can tell they did flood. All of my old neighbors are home, cleaning out trash and toting out rolled up carpets.
Ironically, the thin metal For Sale sign still stands at the front of my old lawn. The water and storm didn’t tear it away, despite knocking down tree branches and throwing cars around.
Funny how life works.
Ethan’s front door is wide open. I let Ethan and Dakota go inside first, and I hang back a few seconds. The Poe’s immaculate house has been ruined, at least downstairs.
That musty smell in my living room is multiplied ten fold in here. The walls have water stains that go up at least three feet, maybe higher. Tears spring to my eyes as I survey the damage.
All of the Poe’s belongings are now just trash.
The couches, the flat screen TV Mrs. Poe surprised Mr. Poe with last Christmas. The DVD player and the Xbox. Furniture and knick-knacks. Everything that’s below waist height is ruined and will have to be thrown out.
Unlike my house, the water didn’t just creep in a little bit here. The whole downstairs got it. The Poe’s bedroom is trashed, as well as their clothing and bedding and everything except a few paintings on the wall that are high enough to have escaped the water.
We find Ethan’s parents in the kitchen. Mrs. Poe has clearly been crying and Mr. Poe has so many worried creases in his forehead that I almost don’t recognize him.
The kitchen’s white cabinets are now a muddy brown, stained from the gross flood water. The countertops are still wet, which means the water got pretty high in here.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Mrs. Poe.
At first she doesn’t seem to hear me. But then she looks up and meets my gaze with a teary one of her own. “These things just happen, I guess.”
“We just took out the carpet in Ella’s house,” Ethan says. “Let’s get started here.”
“There’s way more work to be done than just carpet removal,” Mr. Poe says, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “We have to get all the furniture out. Then the floors, then the drywall. They say you have to tear out the drywall twelve inches higher than the flooding just to make sure you don’t get mold. This will take forever.”
“It won’t take forever,” Ethan says. He glances at me and I give him a little smile. “It’ll take some work, but it’ll be fine. We’ve got this.”
“My parents will help,” I say, trying to sound optimistic. “And give me a sledgehammer and I’ll be happy to knock out the walls.”
This earns me a grin from Mrs. Poe. “That actually sounds fun,” she says. “I want a sledgehammer, too.”
“Me three,” Dakota says.
Mr. Poe laughs. “I guess it could be worse.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It definitely,definitelycould be worse.”
###
Later, when all the furniture is piled in a heap on the Poe’s lawn, Ethan and I sit on the tailgate of his truck, sharing a pizza from the only pizza place in town that didn’t get flooded. We stare out at the setting sun and watch it glisten on the overfilled lake in front of us.
