After the Hurricane by Leah Franqui

Author:Leah Franqui
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

They have passed Quebradillas, and Fernando takes the exit for Isabela. Instantly the highway drops away, and they are on a much smaller road, twisting through the countryside. The empty countryside. There is no one around, few other cars, and several roadside shacks they pass advertising aguacates frescas y maduras and pinchos and bacalaitos are empty. It all seems abandoned. Elena’s heart aches at all the emptiness, for the coffee plants, the people living in towns that never see a cent of tourist money, ugly little places that will stay in darkness long after most of the island is electrified again, people who will suffer for the sin of not being born somewhere else. For the way this paradise is also a prison, a pretty place with no jobs and no escape, beaten down by the rain and the sea.

“Should be twenty minutes, maybe less,” Fernando says.

“I thought you hadn’t been?” Elena asks. Fernando points to his phone, which is attached to the dashboard and navigating for him. Of course. And he is right, for twenty minutes later they are driving through the town of Isabela, right through a square with a large church on one side.

It looks like most other Puerto Rican towns she’s been to, with one striking exception. It’s completely empty. Fernando slows the car down, then stops, and there are no cars behind him to beep at him in anger. He turns off the car suddenly and gets out, and Elena follows him.

“Jesus,” he says. Elena nods, looking up at the church, which has a sign declaring that it is the parish of San Antonio de Padua, and another, paper sign declaring that it is closed. It’s eerie how quiet it is, with only the coos of pigeons audible. A cat wanders through the square, displacing the birds, and stops, looking at the two of them and meowing, plaintively. Elena wishes she had something to give it, but doubts that it wants anything from their car.

“You wanted to see the beach, right?” Elena says, softly, unsure what else to say. Fernando nods, looking dazed, and gets back in the car. Elena follows, and watches him warily. She feels like perhaps he shouldn’t be driving but she doesn’t want to offend him by offering, and she can’t just make him let her, it’s his car. The engine starts and Fernando follows the road down a hill and past a large apartment building that is clearly devoid of inhabitants, and past a group of little huts, shut up, and a basketball court, and parks under a tree. Elena smiles, that’s something her father would do, to keep the car cool. She looks out and it is true, the beach is beautiful.

“This all flooded.” Fernando breathes out, still sitting in the car. He points to a hut, and Elena can just make out watermarks, halfway up the side of the wall. “I saw it on the news. They evacuated the town. I guess a lot of people just never came back.

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