The bedroom was a disaster. Small unrecognizable bits of his grandparent’s old life swirled around. Once they had decided to leave Dorothy hadn’t worried about the state of affairs they left behind.
Hunter swallowed hard. He wished his parents had heeded the same warnings.
He pushed the waterlogged mattress and frame up and over. The safe was recessed in the hardwood floor, fully exposed. The false floorboards had floated out of place. Hunter knelt focusing his light on the diaclass="underline" eleven, six, fifty four. Sherman always used his wedding anniversary for the combination, said it was the only way he could remember. Hunter wasn’t sure if he meant the combination or the anniversary.
The dry safe door popped open and a gasp of air escaped around Hunter’s face. Grey brown water flooded in. A stack of papers almost as old as his family immediately began to disintegrate. Ink divorced from pulp. Paper curled over on itself. Hunter grabbed what he could, trying to stuff the birth certificates and deeds, and wedding licenses into the dry bag. They were lost, his family’s paper history washed away in still water. A few trinkets lay in the bottom; a pair of medals from Sherman’s father’s army service, a short string of pearls, an opal ring, a dozen coins from some other shore. Hunter stuffed them all in, wishing he didn’t have to claim his inheritance this way.
A light crossed the room.
“There you are.” Hunter heard Moesha in his ear. She was floating outside the bedroom window along with Simon and Roy. “Find your baby pictures?”
Hunter didn’t wait. He cinched the bag shut and swam for the closet. He ran the compressor as he moved, caving the rubber in on itself, tight to its contents. There was one more thing he needed.
Moesha smashed the glass with her brass knuckle, getting inside in an instant. Ray ripped the hinges off the bedroom door, while Moesha cut the frame. Hunter was already up the stairs when they broke through.
Water topped out a foot above the last step. Hunter splashed out, feeling the weight of his gear. The attic was the hardest. His parents had moved up there after Dad’s job was gone. Hunter couldn’t linger over the four poster bed tucked under the dormer. He went straight to the deck.
The screen door was off its hinges. Muddy water splashed around his knees. Outside he pulled up his mask, catching his breath. Cushions floated, trapped inside the railing. The metal chairs were long gone. Across the submerged courtyard, a row of five roof decks all poked out, just like the one he stood on. He remembered playing in the yards below, under a canopy of strung up laundry and chattering neighbors, calling across the rooftops. His mother used to sit up here and talk with his grandmother while he scampered about below.
Trapped between the row houses the water was still.
The pots were still there!
Moesha crashed outside. “Why are you up here? What are you doing? Taking in the view? If you are done diving get back to the boat. You are going to lose your stake if you keep this shit up.”
Hunter kneeled in the water and looked under the leaves. The fruit was plump and purple and red. A few had already burst, but at least six looked healthy. He unzipped his wetsuit and pulled a hand towel from his breast.
Moesha looked over his shoulder. “Tomatoes? You came out here for tomatoes? What was in the safe Hunter?”
He plucked a fist sized tomato from the stem and cradled it in his palm. “My inheritance.” He wrapped the fruit and placed it tenderly in a dry bag. “These are Morados, my family’s heirlooms. Do you want one? More are ripe on the vine than I can carry.”
“I don’t want one of your goddamn tomatoes! Tomatoes don’t pay the bills. Where is the jewelry, the cash, the diamonds? This your house, your neighborhood. Where are the fucking valuables?”
The water started to ripple. Hunter held out a second tomato to Moesha.
She shook her head. “There isn’t anything here is there?”
“Here, take one. It’s the last of their kind. There aren’t any more like them.”
The house started to shift. Simon emerged from the attic, his spool unwinding behind him. Ray followed, untethered.
“The structure is breaking.” Simon called out. His head turned on a swivel, barely holding back panic as he looked for an escape route.
Ray still had his mask on. “Tesso will bring the boat to us.”
“Where is she?” Simon asked.
Hunter pointed to the main roof. Simon and Ray didn’t wait, pulling themselves up and over, back towards the street.
“The pawn shop just collapsed.” Simon called back, now in full panic. “We have to go.”
Moesha took a tomato, stowing it in her bag and gave Hunter a look. “Last of their kind?”
He nodded.
They both climbed onto the roof. Moesha followed the others, sliding down, and splashing into the water. Hunter paused, straddling the peak of the roof. A turbulent boil swirled where the pawn shop used to be. Half the divers were in the boat. Simon was swimming frantically with Roy and Moesha behind. All three were being pulled in the fast water. The current had shifted. The confluence of river and ocean had moved. Tesso gunned the engines, pointing towards them.
The house groaned and Simon shifted his feet. One flipper went through the shingles. Hunter looked down through the rafters seeing his parent’s bed below.
If only they had listened.
He kneeled to pull himself out. Instead of rising up, he pushed the whole house down. The frame moved and twisted, crumbling under him. He felt heavy, dense, weighed down by loss.
Water bubbled below, first pushing up the mattress, then drowning it under its own weight. The room they slept in flooded. He felt the rafters sink away and him with it.
He hadn’t moved, but the house collapsed underneath him. He wasn’t standing or swimming or sinking. Hunter bobbed in the water, letting it pull him where it may.
Water splashed his face. The noise got louder. Was it the river or the ocean? It didn’t matter. The brine was toxic. It was trying to wash his whole family away.
He heard the roar of the engine before he saw the arms reaching out for him. A hot pink tiger stripe took him by the collar.
The trees had been pulled to the side of the road. Broad sweeping strokes painted the asphalt in mud and dead leaves. The tracks weren’t wide but there were more of them than he expected.
As he strode up the hill, Hunter could see the broken wood. Three pallets were splintered into the mud where the rear tires should be. A splash of congealed grease marked the ground where Dot dumped the pan fat. Maybe they left in a hurry, maybe not. Didn’t matter, Sherman never left a note, but had taught his grandson what to look for.
Hunter kept going up the hill, rounding a turn into the park. He saw the mark. Shallow axe strokes carved the trunk, pointing him to the top of the hill.
None of the mud tracks appeared to respect the yellow dividing line. Had someone given chase? Hunter hurried.
Broken asphalt became heavy gravel as he followed the marks off the main road. The trees got closer together. Hunter’s footsteps crunched loud inside the park. Another mark pointed him into a thicket. There was no way they had driven the truck through here.
Through the trees the canopy opened up. A pool of sunlight shined down on a patch of turned soil, rich and black. A pot marked each corner of the garden.
Hunter squatted at the edge of this grandmother’s handiwork. Even if she hadn’t convinced Sherman to stay, she had still planted an anchor. They wouldn’t go far.