“That one doesn’t have a hanger,” she went on, making a checkmark in her notebook, “but that house has been unoccupied since Greta passed away.”
The idea of putting hangers on the knobs or handles of the front doors to indicate that all the residents of a home had evacuated was her idea. In such a situation, she reasoned, the signal had to be as simple and as easy as possible. It was voted unanimously into the town’s emergency guidelines and had further been adopted by most of the surrounding communities.
“No hanger there, either,” Emilio said, nodding toward a Cape Cod creeping with moss and mold. “Then again, why would there be?”
“Tell me about it,” Sarah replied bitterly. That particular property had been abandoned by the owners after they’d been hit by two floods in one year. The second time, the water had risen almost above the street signs. When it receded, the family in the Cape Cod posted a note on the door — WE’VE HAD ENOUGH — and disappeared. Two weeks later, the governor announced that twelve lots in Silver Lake would be declared uninhabitable and purchased by the state, relieving those residents of their diminishing mortgages. The resulting gap in the town’s tax base, however, would have to be filled by pooling the burden among everyone else.
They reached the end of River Road and started back in the other direction on the next street over. Several sweeps later, on Masterson Avenue, Emilio spotted another hanger-free door, this one belonging to a handsome colonial with a swinging bench on the front porch and several statues within the carefully tended landscaping.
“Another big surprise,” Sarah said sarcastically when he pointed it out. She flipped a few pages in her notebook. “And hey, look at this. We’ve given them four warnings about the storm and received no response. Great.” She took out her iPhone and thumbed through Contacts until she found the one she wanted.
“Keith? It’s Sarah. We’re over here in Atlantis, and there’s no hanger on the Delacourts’ door… Yeah, I know… naturally. One of the squad cars is nearby, isn’t i — two blocks over? Okay, good. Could you please send that one to see if the Dela-twerps are home? Okay, thank you.”
Driving out of the development, they headed south down Kramer Turnpike. About a mile on, directly across from the playgrounds, basketball court, and picnicking area in Orchard Park, a cherry picker, surrounded by traffic cones and with its hazards flashing, was parked next to a towering red oak. As Emilio pulled to the opposite curb, the woman in the bucket high in the tree shut off her chain saw.
“How’s it coming, Kell?” Sarah shouted up to her, leaning out the window. Kelley Howard had been the first woman ever hired to Silver Lake’s road crew and was now a ten-year veteran.
“All right!” she yelled back. The air was thick, damp, and tinged with the acrid scent of fresh sawdust. “I’ve got one more branch on this one, then I’m going to drop that cherry tree on Hanover! It’s been dead about two years now, so the roots are fully rotted! If we leave it, the storm will blow it into the power lines!”
Sarah knew exactly which tree she meant — the one in front of Allyson Parker’s house. She and Allyson had been close in elementary school and had stayed in touch after the Parkers moved to Fort Worth. Back when they played hopscotch on the sidewalk next to it, that tree had been little more than a stick with some leaves up top. The thought of it coming down now brought a touch of melancholy.
“How long have you been out here?” Sarah asked.
“Since about five!”
She looked at the man driving the rig — Donnie Barrett, dressed in a plaid work shirt and jeans and wearing a yellow hardhat — then back at Kelley. “You both need to go home and get some rest!”
“We will!”
“You shouldn’t be operating a chain saw if you’re tired!”
Kelley smiled. “Okay, Mom!”
“I’m serious!”
“Just the one more after this, and then it’s home to bed! The rain will put me right out!”
“Okay, please be careful!”
Sarah put the window up as they pulled away. “Ooo, that reminds me,” she said, pulling out her phone again. “Paul? It’s Sarah. Have all the flags been taken off the telephone poles? You’re sure? Okay. And the garbage cans are in? Okay, good. Listen, get inside as soon as you can. All right, I’ll talk to you later.”
Emilio made a left onto Hawthorne, where the lots were wider and the houses taller than in the River Road district they only half-jokingly referred to as Atlantis. Beside him, Sarah’s eyes unfocused and she started drumming on her knees; a sign of restlessness, Emilio knew. She flicked on the radio.
“… can now confirm that the warm Canadian front we spoke of earlier has indeed made a southeastern turn and is heading our way.”
“My God,” she said, “they can’t be serious.”
“Pretty much a perfect storm.”
“It’s gonna be the worst the town has seen in decades.”
Emilio nodded. “It looks that way.”
They parked in the front lot of Silver Lake Elementary School twenty minutes later and got out. The town prided itself on the quality of its educational system. Test scores were consistently higher and the disciplinary rate dramatically lower than in most other Pennsylvania schools. Silver Lake offered top salaries for teachers, made a strenuous effort to keep the politics to a minimum, waged an aggressive and mostly successful campaign to get parents involved in homework and extracurricular activities, and had zero tolerance for bullying and other nonsense.
The only blemish on the picture was that the school had been built in the late 1940s and was badly in need of structural updates. Sarah and others pushed every year to have it razed and replaced, and every year her side was outvoted by a narrow margin.
Entering the gymnasium, she and Emilio saw about three dozen kids playing in a gleefully chaotic manner with various sports equipment while four aides — all female, all in post-retirement positions — looked on. Classes had been cancelled for the day due to the storm, but the school provided care for students whose parents couldn’t find anyone else to look after them. This service cost twenty bucks for a family’s first child and ten for each one after that. Half the take would be divided among the aides, the rest went into the school’s petty cash fund.
With Emilio shadowing her a few steps back, Sarah cut a straight line to Caroline Murphy, the oldest of the monitors, assuming she was in charge simply because she was wearing a whistle around her neck.
“Andrew!” Murphy bellowed, her voice still strong despite her age. “Andrew Hall! Stop swinging that hockey stick right now, or I’ll—oh, hello, Sarah.”
“Hi, Caroline. Having a good time?”
“Grand,” Murphy said with clear sarcasm as her eyes remained on her charge. “We’ve already had three time-outs and one bruised elbow in the nurse’s office.”
“It’s not easy being you.”
“No, it’s not. What can I do for you, hon?”
Sarah shook her head. “Nothing, I’m just stopping in to see if you need anything. We’re making our rounds before the other shoe falls.”
“How about thirty-four kid-sized doses of Xanax?”
“And four adult doses for you and the others?”
“Yes, please.”