One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi

His visit wasn’t planned. Yet when she saw the car pull up, riding the cusp of a tempest, Eve was unsurprised. Headlights sweeping up her driveway in this remote, vast space they called home could have been reason for fear, panic or, at the very least, an unsettling unease. But looking up from the sink, where she stood carefully drying a crystal wine glass, seeing the lights, she immediately knew. Rafe was behind her in a second, all agitation and tension, hating surprises, hating things out of his control. 

‘Who on earth can this be at such an hour, and in this weather,’ he complained, fiddling with his wedding ring, a subconscious action he did in the vicinity of her father, betraying that he, too, knew the identity of their guest. Her eyes glanced at the clock on the wall. The clock her father had given her. Swiss, reliable, punctual; the context for Rafe’s question. Nine thirty. Winter had tricked them into feeling it was later than it was. Nine thirty. There were nights, she remembered them like they were a fleeting dream, they would be emerging at nine thirty, to see where the evening took them. When they lived in the city. Before Zach. 

‘It’s Papa,’ she told him, calmly. 

‘He told you he’s coming?’ Rafe asked, in his sharp, unmistakable tone of annoyance. 

‘No,’ she said, meeting his tone with her own, breezy one.

‘Then how do you know it’s him?’ Rafe squinted out into the drive. The car had cut its lights. Darkness clothed it; make and model lost to the navy depths of the outside world. Its inhabitant sitting inside, their identity not yet revealed.

‘I just do,’ she replied. And she did. Of course it was him. Of course he’d come here. After everything that had happened, where else could he go?

Placing the wine glass carefully on the sideboard, she moved towards the door, noting with concealed amusement Rafe’s obsessive tidiness as her other senses read what her eyes couldn’t see - him picking up the glass and returning it to the place it belonged, hanging above the island in the middle of the kitchen. Even with a surprise guest, even with the only people here being family, he couldn’t bear for one facet of the house to be out of place.

Opening the door offered an exchange: light spilled from the house into the inky night, and in return the howling wind battering the outdoors sent its cruel breath into their hallway. Eve stood in the space in-between. Dark and light. Cool and warmth. Family born and family chosen. The car door opened and a stooped figure eased itself onto the driveway. Older than when she’d last seen him, but still, unmistakably him. Her father. 

Rafe hovered behind her, noiselessly, but she could feel his presence nonetheless. His manners and breeding took precedence over his response to Papa turning up. There would be bags in the car; he was there to fetch them, to help. To welcome his father-in-law into the house, despite his reservations, despite the threat brewing. 

‘Hello Daddy,’ she said, as he shuffled within hearing range.

‘Sir,’ Rafe said, nodding. Still so formal. Still so afraid. 

Her father nodded his response to Rafe first, then turned his attention to Eve.

‘Hello pumpkin,’ he said, and the weariness in his voice broke her heart. ‘Is it ok if I stay for a few days, wait out this storm?’

She nodded, stepping back to invite him into their home. As soon as his foot stepped over the threshold, the clouds broke, as though someone slit the skin of a water balloon, and rain gushed to the land. They were castaways now, bound inside together. 

A flurry of activity whirled around them like a mini tornado as Rafe fetched the bags, took them in, shut the door, and threw another log on the burner. His movements seemed double, triple pace even, to theirs. He’d swept past her, a hooded figure in his mackintosh, rushing in a way that still managed to look managed. Rafe, who even in a crisis let his Britishness spill from every pore. Eve simply took the old man’s arm, linking it with her own, and walked his bent figure to the dining room table. The crystal glasses she’d just cleaned were picked once again from the rack above the kitchen island. Rafe reached for a bottle of red, it was unspoken between them. They knew there was a story to be told, and silently, put everything in place to create the setting. Her father, leaning back in the chair at the head of the table, head haloed by the glow from an overhead light, had aged a decade in the months since she last saw him. She suspected that had all taken place today. As the news broke, as the accusations whirled on the air. 

‘Where’s my buddy?’

Of course, Zach. His pride and joy. Thank goodness he was in bed. With the squall rattling overhead, it would mute the sound of voices in this room. She didn’t want him here. Didn’t want him to hear this. To witness this. Buddy, that was her dad’s name for Zach. Her only child. His only grandchild. They had taken so long to bond. Her father, a creature from a different era, unable to understand the things that brought joy to Zach’s world. His critical edge, slicing like a knife through Zach’s hobbies and passions, cut their relationship into tatters. It had been Christmas, five, no, six years ago when it finally turned around. The Venn diagram of their interests - her father, normally so serious, so concerned with the news and current affairs, no time for whimsy, had an Achilles heel in the comedy of Robin Williams, and Zach, with his newfound love for museums and artefacts - both settling down on boxing day to watch Night at the Museum. Both tickled by that line ‘there’s a storm coming buddy’, and chanting together ‘it’s on your watch’. Years of butting heads and misunderstandings smoothed over by that one shared experience. Their new greeting, whenever Papa visited, a call and answer reminiscing that moment. Him, pointing at Zach,‘There’s a storm coming buddy,’ he would pronounce, in mock seriousness.

‘And it’s on your watch,’ Zach would answer, then run into the waiting arms of his favourite grandparent. Eve couldn’t remember seeing her dad so animated. In real life. It was different to the glow he exuded on the TV, that gravitas and charm oozing from the screen

Over the years Zach had gone from a cute, lisping little boy to a cheeky, cheerful pre-teen. Even now, transitioning into those difficult teenage years, finding mum and dad cloying and annoying, he still greeted his grandpa in the same way. Their little in-joke. Brimming with pride when he was called ‘buddy’. Her dad had always shown a knack for making people feel special with his little nicknames. Something she’d observed as harmless, that came into a different light under the glare of the accusations this morning’s news had pronounced. 

When she was sixteen, Eve had accompanied him to the studio. Work experience dictated a week learning a trade. Before nepo-babies were a known entity, it had seemed obvious to bring her to the hallowed site of her fathers demesne. She learned nothing useful about work all week, but that hadn’t been his goal. It had been a showcase. To see his importance, to recognise his authority. Trailing him as he walked through the office like a diplomat on a stately visit rather than an employee coming to work for the day. He knew all the men by name, often stopping to handshake or share a joke with them. The women he called love, sweetheart, darling. It seemed innocent. Like a cuddly uncle. Straining as she thought back, Eve tried to see through the fog. Had it been creepy? Inappropriate? Or was her father, as he was claiming, a victim of malice, whose kindnesses were twisted against him?

At the station he’d been popular. People wanted a piece of him. Eagerly queued up to meet her and tell her how much they loved her dad. He’d brushed it off, humbly, although she could tell he was pleased as punch at the adulation. 

He’d wanted to introduce his daughter to his ‘special friend’, Wendy the weather girl. It was the highlight of Eve’s week. Everyone knew and loved Wendy the weather girl. She was a national icon. A girl next door who was everyone’s friend. Especially, it seemed, Eve’s dad’s.

‘Hi dollface,’ he’d said, as they stopped at her desk.

‘Papa,’ Eve had admonished, surprised at finding her voice. ‘That’s Wendy, not dollface.’

‘Actually it’s Jan,’ Wendy told her, coolly, none of the bubble-gum charm she flaunted onscreen. ‘They liked the alliteration of Wendy. Simpler for the public. But don’t worry honey, your daddy can call me whatever he wants,’ she said, with a wink. The same wink that signed off the weather. The famous Wendy wink. Up close it didn’t feel friendly and assuring. It was charged with something. Lust? Requited or unrequited… Eve hadn’t the fortitude to think it through at the time. Now, looking back, she still didn’t know.

‘Doll, I wanna introduce you to my little girl.’ Eve was amazed to hear her father drawl. Where was his articulate speech? He didn’t even sound this casual at home with his family. Wendy was mesmerised by him. Watching as he started to speak again, hanging on every word. ‘She’s afraid of storms, and I can't think of a better person for her to talk to than a weather girl.’

‘What are you so afraid of hun?’ Wendy had asked, whilst her gaze remained on Eve’s father.

Eve shrugged. How to tell this woman, who she looked up to, worshipped, who was the essence of the womanhood that seemed to allude Eve, with her awkwardness and growing pains. How could she admit: she was afraid of everything. Afraid of night falling. Afraid of the wind howling in the trees. Afraid when the windows rattled in their panes. Terrified by peals of thunder and flashes of lightning that would unnaturally light up her room with a spooky silvery glow. Afraid of the unknown, what was contained in the very depths of the storm’s soul, and of the harm it intended to do her. Afraid it was childish to still feel this way at sixteen - just three years younger than Wendy was, as Eve later learned - and worried she would never truly grow up with such a primal fear holding her back.

Wendy’s eyes finally slid from her father’s face to lock Eve squarely in her gaze. She arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow with a querying look.

‘I guess I don’t like uncertainty, don’t like not knowing. What they bring. When they’ll be over. How much damage they might leave in their wake.’

Wendy nodded. Her eyes went back to Eve’s father, to check his gaze remained on her, taking in her soft skin, her manicured face, her shiny hair, the outfit that showed just an inch too much skin. ‘Smart kid,’ she told him.

Looking back to Eve, Wendy smiled. ‘We can’t predict what will happen. But there’s no such thing as bad weather. Only bad preparation,’ she told her. At the time Eve thought this was the pinnacle of wisdom. Every step she took in her life from that day forward was prepared, thought through, had back up plans, and contingencies. She thanked Wendy and walked back to her dad’s office, pulled out her notebook and began writing profusely. Plans. If Wendy the weather girl said preparation was key, then Eve would become the most prepared person on the planet. 

Later in life, Eve realised you couldn’t plan for every eventuality. She hadn’t been able to plan for infertility and the futile ravages of IVF, hadn’t been able to plan for how fiercely she would love the surrogate baby that finally joined their family, years after she and Rafe had fallen out of love, years after learning of his countless affairs. She hadn’t planned for her mother dying, suddenly, one inclement morning as she was out pruning her fruit trees. And she hadn’t been able to plan adequately for tonight’s storm. Or storms. For one, they’d nailed planks of wood across the windows on the eastern side. Brought in all the garden furniture. Stocked up on tinned foods, candles and bottled water. But for the other storm that whirled in through her front door, there was nothing. No plan. No guidebook. She didn’t know how to think or feel about it. It was her papa. The man who always made her feel safe. Who came and tucked her in bed when the skies were screaming, and let her put cold feet on his legs when she ran scared into his room in the middle of the night, chased by angry thunderclaps. He was her shelter in the storm. And now he was the storm. She didn’t want to believe the accusations, but she couldn’t disregard the voices of victims; Jan, as Wendy was now formally going by, among them. 

A loud boom of thunder brought her back to the present, to the dining table, to the sombre faces gathered around it. They were illuminated in a frieze by a sheet of lightning that seemed to wrap itself around the house, before falling into darkness and taking them and their comfort of electricity with it. Another thud of thunder came quickly behind it; the storm was overhead. As the timbre of its roll faded away, the sound of a match striking a surface filled the otherwise silent room, and Rafe held its glow to a candle in the centre of the table. 

Only she could ask the question. Only she had the right to enter the eye of this storm.

‘Did you do it, Daddy,’ she asked. The question struck quickly, and she was surprised how strong and steady her voice sounded. Surprised at how bravely she’d gotten to the point. Inside, something teared at her soul; the unbearable knowledge she’d asked her favourite person in the world the worst question she could fathom.

He looked directly at her, and for a moment his visage was once again illuminated by lightning. He waited for the immediate fall of thunder and then cleared his throat.

‘You’re not afraid of storms anymore, are you Evie?’ he asked.

She shrugged.

‘No, you’re not,’ he concluded. ‘I’ve been watching you since I arrived. You haven’t jumped once. Haven’t been on edge…. Nothing surprises you anymore.’

‘Some things still have that power,’ she warned. 

He nodded, understanding. 

‘Is this thing… is it real? Is it about to hit our lives, to upend us, and throw us into the maelstrom?’

The conversation paused as lightning warned them of the impending crash of thunder. Eve counted in her head. Before it had been instantaneous. Now there was a three second interval. She thought back to that day in her dad’s office. Wendy had stopped by, and knocked on the door. Eve, looked up.

‘My dad’s not here,’ she’d said. She felt stupid saying that. It was obvious she was the only one in the room.

‘I know,’ Wendy replied, moving inside the door and crossing over to the couch tucked up against the wall, sitting down with an ease that betrayed familiarity. ‘I came to see you.’ Wendy looked around, as if checking no-one was there, and shyly dropped her gaze to the floor. In that moment, Eve could see the girl she had been, could see she was still in there, underneath the glamour, the make-up, the too tight clothes and shiny red nails.

‘I’m afraid of storms too,’ she confessed, looking quickly up at Eve with a guilty half smile, then back down again.

‘You are?’ Eve couldn’t believe it. She felt a kinship with Wendy, touched that she’d shared her secret with Eve.

‘Yep. Not all of them. But I really hate thunder and lightning. It’s why I became a weather girl. So I’d know what to expect, understand them better.’

‘Know thine enemy,’ Eve had quoted, then felt embarrassed for being so uncool.

‘Sure, whatever. There’s a trick to thunder and lightning storms,’ Wendy explained. ‘You need to count, one-mississippi, two-mississippi and so on, in between the lightning strikes and thunder crashes. The number of seconds between them tells you how far away the storm is. One second for each mile. That way, you can tell when it’s going to be directly overhead, and know when it starts to move away, when you’re safe again.’

‘One-mississippi, two-mississippi?’

‘Exactly, kid. You got it.’ She stood up and was once again the confident, self-assured woman Eve had met earlier that day. ‘Well, be seeing you,’ she’d said. Had her tone been hopeful? Whatever it had been, that was the last time Eve saw Wendy face to face. She hadn’t been on the weather much longer either. About six months later she’d gone off air, her departure shrouded in mystery. Eventually Eve stopped looking for where else she might turn up. That face she’d watched, worshipped, left her screens. Until that face alerted her to the troubles coming her way, that morning, on the news. Not telling the weather, not warning of the tropical storm swirling towards their peninsula, but an older, sadder woman named Jan, naming Eve’s father as an abuser.

Eve looked up, back into her father’s eyes.

‘The storm is passing on.’

‘It’s three miles away,’ he informed her. So Wendy taught him that little trick too.

‘What’s going to happen next papa?’ she asked. They both knew she wasn’t talking about the weather.

‘There’s a storm coming,’ he admitted, sighing, and that very sigh told her everything she needed to know.

She nodded, and in the absence of Zach, quoted his line.

‘And it’s on your watch.’