Chapter 5: Water

The basement had four inches of water on the floor and more coming through the stone wall.

Gabe stood in it up to his boot tops, with a flashlight in his teeth and a sump hose in both hands.

He saw me on the stairs and took the flashlight out.

"The pump alarm texted me at two," he said. "I wired it to my phone in September. I didn't think it would be useful this fast."

"You let yourself in?"

"With the back door key." He didn't look away. "I'm sorry, I should have called."

"Don't be sorry. Tell me what to carry."

"The bottom shelves first. Anything paper, anything in a bag."

"The potting soil."

"Everything soaks up water."

I tore off my coat and dropped it on the stairs.

For forty minutes we didn't say anything that wasn't a command.

"Take this."

"Left."

"Higher."

"Watch the step."

I carried fifty-pound bags of rock salt up to the hardware floor, three at a time, with my arms shaking.

He took the paint cans, six gallons in each fist.

The rain hit the sidewalk grates.

At three-fifteen, the lights went out on the whole street.

The pump cut off with a sad little hiccup.

"That's the transformer," Gabe said into the dark. "It'll be hours."

"Great."

"I've got a lantern in the van."

He was gone and back in a minute, and the battery lantern threw a pale circle across the stone.

The water had stopped rising.

We stood on the hardware floor, soaked to the thighs, with the store smelling like wet cardboard and turpentine.

Everything on the bottom shelves was upstairs now, stacked in the aisles.

I laughed.

It came out loud and silly in the empty store.

"What?" he said.

"We moved the whole basement. In an hour. It took us two days to move my mother's piano."

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