fiction by chris dungey
Doppler
The little girl, Peri, had finally fallen asleep on Wendi Price’s chest. She’d been fussy and awake through most of last night—teething and probably something else. Wendi touched the child’s forehead. A little warm, but whose wasn’t? They were plastered to each other. Wendi could not keep her eyes open any longer. She nudged her way into a more comfortable position on the couch. She dozed, even with a small object under her back. Stay still.
Only moments later, the creaking of the glider on the rear deck woke Wendi again. The flaps of its awning had begun to rustle in a gathering breeze. Behind her head, the leaves of the giant silver maple in the front yard rustled anxiously. Air was moving through the screen-door. The summer had been dry, so far. Now the overcast day—what she could see of it through the dining room—had turned quite dark. Geez, how long had she been conked out? She heard a low rumble of thunder.
They had central air, but Ted said they couldn't really afford to run it this summer. Sometimes his economies led to money arguments. If it was just her at home . . . Why couldn’t he just take a job teaching high-school English? His MFA in writing wasn’t going to turn into a full-time job, probably ever. Seriously, how many Iraq veterans used their educational benefits for something like that? The thin volume of workshop stories inspired by a few incidents of actual combat had made a minor critical eddy. They used his advance for a down-payment on this place. But no one was clamoring for more.
She heard the soft flutter of the maple leaves turning skyward to plead for a drink. Hey, that was an image she’d have to pass along to Ted for his notebooks. Wendi closed her eyes again. Some of the leaves would be carried away though, if the storm was strong. Toward the neighbor’s yard, she hoped. That thing shed all kinds of foliage in a storm—along with abandoned bird’s nests Peri wasn’t old enough to appreciate yet.
Curtains for the deck slider were flattened against the screen. So, wind must be from southwest. Rain shouldn’t blow in too much. She just wasn’t ready to get up and close the doors. Then, rain crashed suddenly on the deck as if from a fire hydrant. She heard it behind her, too, on the concrete slab of the front porch. Cow pissing on a flat rock? No, she’d heard that one somewhere. Fire hydrant was a good one, she thought. Maybe she could be the writer. Her mind was sinking toward sleep again, until her cell phone vibrated against her hip. That’s what she was laying on.
“Are you awake?” Ted’s voice carried a subtle intensity with little inflection. She pictured him speaking with narrowed eyes, jaw set; a man who’d driven without hesitation around burning, armored vehicles; around the smoldering craters of IEDs.
“Yeah. I am now,” Wendi whispered. The time at the top of her phone read 10:15. He would be on the road from his adjunct lecture in Flint to his adjunct lecture in Caro. Three community college branch campuses, altogether, with high-school subbing in between, plus crucial Army Reserve check for training two weekends a month.
“Do you have the TV on? There’s a severe storm warning.”
Wendi sighed. God, she did not want to get up. “Isn’t there supposed to be a weather alert on this phone?” She heard a crack of tinny thunder. He must have his phone on speaker. She heard his wipers slapping and the torrent against his windshield.
“Maybe you downloaded it wrong. Shit! I can’t see a thing.” Finally, there was some irritation in his voice. “I’ve gotta get off the road.”
Another thunder-clap echoed in Wendi’s ear. “Where are you?”
“That was close! I’m just past Irish Road headed home. Caro is cancelled. There’s a tornado warning.”
Wendi put a free hand on the back of Peri’s neck and slowly scrunched herself upright. “So, remind me what a warning means?”
“If someone spots one or thinks they’ve spotted one. A watch is when conditions are right. Warning means you can’t screw around—seek shelter.”
“But it’s blowing and raining here. Isn’t it supposed to get all still, like? What’s the track of the thing? I just got Peri to go to sleep.”
She waited again. A burst of static coughed from Ted’s radio. “Jesus. I hope I’m on the shoulder.” Another silence. “Look, the doppler radar on my phone shows two rotating systems moving from southwest. I’ll send the link. Watch out the front.”
Please don’t test my lousy sense of direction, Wendi thought. “And what am I supposed to do then?” Peri stirred and gurgled on her chest. Wendi ignored the trickle of drool on her neck.
“Hey. I think it’s letting up,” Ted said. “I’ve told you: Southwest outside is toward our mailbox. Southwest corner of the basement is by the fireplace. Chimneys are usually the only thing left standing.”
Wendi sat up all the way, easing the toddler into the crook of her left arm. “And I’ve told you. I’m not getting trapped down there with the power out. It’ll flood pretty quick without the sump-pump.”
“Okay. Well . . . I’m moving again.” A sound of acceleration followed. “There aren’t really any interior rooms, though, hon. Hey, hop in the tub if you have to.”
“Yeah, I just thought of that.” She lugged Peri to the bay window and peered into the front yard. “What about the skylight, though.” Miraculously, the baby remained quiet.
Wendi closed the front door. Now, were you supposed to close up tight or not? Would the difference in air pressure make the place explode? Something like that, or maybe it had been disproved.
“I think it’s plexiglas.” Ted’s voice had returned to a military dead-pan. “You see the doppler yet?”
“Let me check my messages.” Now the phone bleated in her hand like a diving submarine. “Never heard that before. I guess that’s the alarm. Hey, the wind has just totally died.” Peri opened her eyes and whimpered. “It’s okay, ducks. It’s okay.”
“You better move, babe,” Ted said.
“Okay. Or, roger that. You like that?” Wendy glanced at the phone screen as she moved toward the dining room. “There’s your two red spots, alright. I’m gonna grab a sippy out of the fridge. Just drive.”
“I’m Oscar, Tango, Mary.”
“What?”
“I’m on-the-move, hon.”
“Oh, for christ’s sake—seriously?” Wendi slipped the phone into the breast pocket of her blouse. Peri’s mouth gaped as if to yawn, but a fresh sob bellowed forth. Wendi quickly inserted a pacifier. “Oh, sweetie, please. Please, not now.” She opened the refrigerator door and found the dropper bottle of Numzident. She wasn’t going to play around now. Before taking the sippy-cup, she squirted the pink fluid onto a finger. Unsuspecting Peri took it between her lips. Wendi still withheld the juice, slathering the binky with more of the analgesic instead. She took out a water bottle for herself. She was tempted to bring the Drambuie, too, when she spotted it in the door shelf. Refrigerated? How did that. . . Numb them both. Old home remedy. But, what kind of mother would—?
“Better? Let’s go play hide-and-seek.”
She placed the drinks on the toilet lid then carried Peri into the master bedroom across the hall. She wasn't lying in that tub without some padding. The comforter lay on the floor at the foot of the unmade bed unused for a month. She flung it and both pillows across the hallway in the general direction of the bathroom. The sky outside the bedroom window now wore a greenish tint. Somewhere toward Lapeer, a siren began to groan. “Jesus, girlie, we need to hustle.” She plucked a couple of diapers from the stack on the vanity. The Minnie Mouse night-light plugged in next to Ted’s shaver was aglow in the unnatural gloom of the bathroom.
The folded comforter fit perfectly into the tub. Wendi closed the bathroom door against the eerie wail of the siren. She still heard it though, with the skylight cranked open. A few spatters of rain had fallen in on the rim of the tub. She stepped in and arranged a pillow. Peri squirmed and tried to sit up, sleepily grasping toward the sippy-cup. The siren faded then grew stronger a minute later as it rotated.
Wendi reached for the juice on the toilet lid and traded it for the pacifier. She lay back and draped the second pillow over Peri. She reopened the phone. The storm markers were closer together. With each sweep the doppler tripped over the deep red blotches. They looked like melanoma or amoebas, one seeming to merge then cross the other. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. When she looked again, the screen in the skylight above had already collected sodden leaves. Way before their time.
She couldn’t blame Ted. A storm could find you anywhere in Michigan. Better in a modest ranch than in a mobile home. A few of the ramshackle older homes in town they’d looked at would at least have had interior rooms, and maybe basements that didn’t flood if the sump-pump died. Of course, Ted turned their first batch of ruined carpeting into a story.
Wendi thought she heard the car in the drive-way. Well, thank you, Jesus, a televangelist voice hollered in her head. Wow, and she hadn’t even prayed yet. Better get that done soon. But why was he just idling in the drive? Could you get your ass in here, please? Wait. Was that even a car? She hiked up on her elbows. The sippy-cup wheezed as Peri released suction for a moment. She always heard Daddy in the drive-way, if she was awake.
That wasn’t the car, though. A train going through town? You could hear them way out here—especially in this still, heavy air. That rumble vibrated now, like it was in the pasture across the road. Great time for cars to get backed up at a crossing gate. If you were the lead car you could see the rails bounce.
Then the house shivered and Wendi heard the crunch of wood splintering into other wood. Minnie Mouse winked out. Wendi saw the raised lid of the skylight fly off its hinges with enough velocity to reach the back yard. Peri resumed sucking away at her juice, peepers closed with satisfaction. Oh, now you can sleep? Under the weight of something much heavier, two more tree limbs the thickness of softball bats speared through the screen above. These appeared to be blocking the mail-box post from entering. No way! The screen stripped the leaves off of the branches. All of it blotted out the weak daylight. Wendi brushed bits of leaf matter off both their faces.
At least the train had rattled on to the next station. Wendi began to sit up. The siren was quiet, too. The nearly empty sippy-cup made the only sound. But when the duck-bill nozzle slipped from the baby’s mouth, the plaintive cheeping continued.
“What the hell, girlie?” Wendi tested her voice. “Pardon my French.”
Peri’s eyes opened and she too heard the chirping as it became more strident.
“Unbelievable."“Mother and daughter both turned their gaze toward the skylight.
Wendi couldn’t see, exactly, where the little birds had come to rest, only that the nest must be up there somewhere in the tangle of brush on their roof. She hoped to god they weren’t trapped, or that she and her baby girl weren’t trapped under them.
“Boodie.” Peri gestured toward the ruined skylight.
“You’ve nailed it, dumpling. Very good,” Wendi told her, hugging tightly. “And what does the boodie say?”
The child placed a moist thumb between her tender gums.
“Boodie says WTF,” Wendi answered for her.
Chris Dungey is a retired auto worker writing from Michigan. He rides mountain bikes, feeds two woodstoves, camps at sports car races, sings in a Presbyterian choir, follows Detroit City FC and Flint City Bucks FC with a religious fervor. With more than 70 published stories and a new collection ("We Won't be Kissing," from ADP) he nevertheless hopes you enjoy THIS one.