Christmas in Peachtree Bluff by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Author:Kristy Woodson Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2021-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Ansley: Pretending The Day after the Hurricane

THE PEACHTREE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION SELLS luminarias each year to raise money for my very favorite annual tradition: the Starlite, Star Bright Festival, which takes place every Christmas Eve. All season long, neighbors and friends line their front walks with the little bags filled with sand and candles. When I look out my window at night, the glow of those candles lining the streets fills me with the most intense sense of peace, togetherness, and community.

Tonight, now, we needed light. It probably hadn’t been the safest choice to sleep in sleeping bags on the third floor, but it was what we had chosen. I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping downstairs and waking up to utter and complete pitch blackness. Plus, the water was rising quickly and furiously, and while I prayed it didn’t come into the house, I didn’t know what was going to happen. We needed high ground. While cyclones were still possible, they were generally less of a threat. And we needed to keep an eye on Vivi and Tyler. The hormones of teenagers were as dangerous as any hurricane. It was my job to make sure it didn’t turn into more than that. Honestly, it was sort of a nice distraction.

By nightfall, the wind and rain had finally stopped, but, as I could see from the windows, the water was high. It had reached my front porch, which meant that, in all likelihood, every shop, home, and restaurant in Peachtree Bluff had flooded.

Jack was champing at the bit to get outside, to check on everything. But the first rule of storm safety was that you never, ever went out in floodwaters. Not only could they rush unexpectedly, taking you with them, but they were also bacteria-filled—and live power lines and even sharks had been known to lurk. Plus, the water was cold. Really cold.

There was a sense of relief as Vivi, Jack, Tyler, and I, now downstairs, sat around the fire in the living room, welcoming the morning. We were all trying to preserve our phone batteries and had turned them off. Well, not Vivi, of course, whose dead battery had gotten us into this mess in the first place. I turned my phone on quickly. Still no bars. My heart sank. We were fine. We were safe. But I knew Caroline was absolutely panicking.

I wasn’t panicking, but I wasn’t calm. Yes, we could live off of the Cheerios and granola bars in Sloane’s pantry for a few more days. But we were going to be out of water soon. We could drink what we’d put in the bathtubs for flushing the toilets if we had to. But I really, really didn’t want to. The thought made my stomach turn.

We all glanced down at our plates of soggy, once-frozen fruit, string cheese, and cold cuts that were definitely going to need to be tossed tomorrow. “As soon as the floodwaters recede,” said Jack, “I promise I will go down to the store and load up.

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