We’ll call the woman on the balcony Karen. She stands anxiously and gazes out onto the empty beach. The low, light gray clouds graze the palm trees around her, all under an interminable gray backdrop enveloping the entire horizon.  Only occasional gusts and bands of rain whip across the Gulf of Mexico and lash out onto Fort Myers Beach. Her retirement dream home, The Rachel, stands defiantly in the calm before the storm.

Even though the barrier island lies just on the south edge of Hurricane Ian’s current path, Karen is nervous about this storm. The island has been so eerie the past few days, with Publix and gas station shelves going empty and incessantly long lines of traffic running down both sides of Estero Boulevard moving at a snail’s pace. That has all ended now, though, the final cars having made their way off the island. They left behind an apocalyptic quiescence punctuated by howling gusts and short, soaking bouts of rain increasing in frequency and intensity. 

Karen and her husband, Bob, have lived here full-time since his retirement six years ago. As a result, they never experienced Hurricane Charley’s wrath in 2004, but Karen has heard horrible stories about it and what it did to the barrier islands and coastal areas. Now, Ian is even bigger and stronger than Charley ever was, and their home is in the cone – even if just.

“It’ll just be some really bad wind and rain for a few hours. And a little flooding,” Bob has been repeating during the past few days. Other favorites of his included, “This place is used to hurricanes,” and “They’re only telling everyone to evacuate to play it safe and cover their asses” whenever Karen voiced a desire to evacuate. 

She finds her husband’s lack of fear and desire to experience a powerful tropical cyclone to be quite shocking. It’s not something he would have done when they lived up north. This is the same man who found COVID terrifying, eyes glued to MSNBC throughout 2020 and 2021. He was practically the first in line to get the jab. Now he has zero trepidation about this storm and wants to talk about news stations “covering their asses.” Karen rarely ever voices these sorts of inconsistencies to him, though. She just suppresses them, carries on, and secretly wishes that at seventy-one her husband would come to some realizations.

Such incongruities, along with his stubbornness, have complicated their marriage over the past forty-three years. He still lacks a fear of death in some cases, like right now, for instance – or does he just not see the situation as potentially fatal? Karen, three years Bob’s junior, has begun to come to terms with her mortality in the past few years. Denial still blinds Bob as he works himself to exhaustion in the yard under the beaming sun while avoiding the doctor, claiming he is “in tip-top shape.” She had to beg him to retire, as he demonstrated serious difficulty conceiving of life without work. On the other hand, that obstinacy functioned as an important quality. It enabled him to start a successful business and earn a small fortune, enough to afford their retirement home here on the beach.

During Bob’s stupidly stubborn moments, Karen cannot help but let her repressed feelings about his affairs surface. He has not cheated since retiring (as far as she knows), but he did fairly regularly before then. He still thinks he got away with several years’ worth of cheating. She must admit he did a fairly good job of hiding it. Mostly. Except, of course, that he would occasionally commit some telltale signs such as claiming to be staying out late with a friend only for her to hear from that friend’s wife that the men had not seen each other. 

It angered her that he always chose younger women. She knew she shouldn’t, but she could not help but feel somewhat responsible. It had been a long time since she had been able to provide him with a youthful body, sure, but how dare he go off screwing these tramps who did nothing to help his family? They got all the fun while she was cleaning shit stains out of his underwear after returning home from work and cooking dinner for the kids. “Just some cheap whores,” she would say aloud some nights when he was surely cavorting with them while she was lovingly raising their family. 

Bob never expressed a desire to divorce and always seemed to share their mutual goal of retiring to a beachfront home in Florida, so Karen resolved only to mention it should he desire one. Moreover, moving down here full-time did inject some passion back into their relationship, so the affairs have faded largely into her unconscious. Even so, she wonders sometimes if the years of always “putting on a happy face” contributed to her recent multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

Although unable to afford a beachfront house on nearby Captiva (without selling their summer home up north), they liked how the residents there named their homes, so they christened their home The Rachel. From coastal Massachusetts, they both have had a lifelong interest in Moby Dick and whaling. They also both believe that the DNC is the United States’s saving grace, its Rachel, against the onslaught and wreckage of MAGA. 

They also named their daughter Rachel, now a grown woman herself raising a family back home. She calls and texts each time she hears something new. “You still have time to fly up here,” she kept repeating yesterday. “They’re predicting a potential storm surge of fifteen to eighteen feet in the next eight hours or so. That could take down the house.”

As much as she loves this place, Karen misses Rachel and the grandkids and wishes she were with them right now instead of being stuck on this island. She also thinks of their son, Ben, with whom Bob wants little to do with. Ben had forgone a lucrative career to work, first with NGOs around the world, and now in Bolivia with the Peace Corps. She decides to shoot him a quick text telling him that she loves him. To her surprise, she receives a text back that he is following the hurricane, loves her too, and wishes Bob and her the best. 

She makes her way downstairs, hearing a news anchor recite, “If you have not evacuated yet, you still have time. Once the storm makes landfall, it will be too unsafe to drive, and emergency services will not be able to help you.” 

Bob, having just finished placing all of the sandbags in front of the thresholds outside, enters, picks up the remote, and mutes the TV. “I’m really excited!” he exclaims with a youthful exuberance. “I’ve always wanted to have a hurricane party. Maybe Joe and I will even get to have a stogie on the porch!”

Karen rolls her eyes, not believing Bob’s excitement, especially since that same joviality takes precedence over her concerns. “You know, there’s still time to leave. We can try to get a hotel somewhere off 75. Or even go to a shelter,” she states as calmly as she can. Her voice still trembles slightly as she looks up from her messages with Rachel.

“There’s no need. We’ll be fine,” Bob answers nonchalantly, dismissively waving his hand in her direction before adding, “and it’ll be a great time with Patty and Joe,” referring to friends of friends of theirs whom they have met only once. They are the only people they know still remaining.

“But they’re MAGA,” Karen remarks, looking over at him and rolling her eyes, really quite astonished and annoyed that Bob has invited them. 

She immediately thinks of how they have cut Trump supporters, even siblings and lifelong friends, out of their lives. They make almost daily Facebook posts about how MAGA is the American Third Reich, even since Biden’s election. If MAGA people want to have a hurricane party, who cares that they support Hitler? she thinks sarcastically to herself, annoyed at Bob’s hypocrisy.

Bob, appearing briefly irked upon hearing her bring up their political leanings, squirms a bit before ignoring Karen’s comment and reiterating his excitement for the party. “They’re saying a storm surge of eighteen feet, Bob.” Karen cannot feel reassured, her voice now cracking with fear. “That’s like a tsunami going up to the roof.” The example that makes her shiver at the thought. “Do we even know if the house can withstand ten or twelve feet with all that current?”

“Honey, you’ve gotten worked up over things before for no reason,” he tells her in a more reassuring tone. “You’ll see soon that this is another one of those times. They never get a storm surge like that around here. It has to do with the geography and the wind patterns.”

More of Bob’s bullshit, Karen thinks to herself, certain he did not hear that from any sort of meteorologist or geologist. She could never actually leave his side during something like this, but his confidence makes her want to leave without him. How could he just completely disregard her concerns – the same concerns of almost everyone else? 

“What makes you think that it won’t happen now? When have they ever had a storm like this? Like, the storm that caused the Calusa to build their mounds?” She fires off several questions, the last one referring to the now non-existent tribe native to the area that began building mounds to protect against storm surge after a devastating hurricane in the 9th century CE.

Saying nothing, Bob quickly embraces her, clearly finally sensing her distress. Saying in a comforting tone, “Again, they’re just covering their asses. We’ll be just fine. Let’s just have a good time.” He begins to massage her shoulders and neck as Karen closes her eyes, breathes in deeply, and raises her head with pleasure.

She supposes she has no other choice at this point. Nothing will convince him. They are in it for the long haul. The whole situation reminds her of an old couple who lived on Mount Saint Helens and refused to leave despite warnings of its imminent eruption. Or maybe she is just overreacting and things will turn out just fine. She had done that before. “Anyway, I’m going to go check on Dad,” she says, referring to her 92-year-old father with dementia who lives in one of the guestrooms.

He no longer seems to recognize anyone, only very occasionally referring to Karen by name. Thankfully, he does not wander around aimlessly too much, can still go to the bathroom by himself (with a raised toilet seat and birthing rails to hold onto, of course), and does not anger easily. Bob still wishes that they would just send him to a nursing home. “It’s been long enough already,” he has claimed more frequently this past year, but Karen cannot do that to her father. Leaving him alone with demented people and surrounded by death was inconceivable. 

At least here he can spend his final few years in peace and comfort with family, white sand beaches, and a gentle sea breeze. Karen has, however, appreciated Bob accepting her father’s stay with them since her mom passed three years ago. Bob even has fun with him, spending some time learning how to do scrimshaw and carpentry. Despite having no recent and very little long-term memory, her father still does small woodworking projects with the adeptness of the master carpenter that he used to be. He spends most of his days carving driftwood from the beach. Karen is always amazed at how steady his hands remain, especially since he can only move doing the “old man shuffle” as she and Bob call it. 

Karen thinks back to her childhood on Cape Cod when her father, then very agile of hand and mind, would make all of their furniture from scratch. He even built their family cabin in the Berkshires “in the spirit of Thoreau.” He was a well-known scrimshander, perhaps the last, who sold his work at his small studio. Eventually he had to change to wood-carving when the practice of carving whale teeth became illegal in the 1970s. He took pride in Massachusetts’ rich history and likened himself an “American Scholar” guided along by a greater Over-soul that advocates living harmoniously with nature and other cultures and creeds, declaring that “within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE.”

Now in his advanced state, Karen’s father is a far cry from his old self and has declined severely since Karen’s mother’s death. He hardly ever speaks and usually spends a few hours a day just sitting in a beach chair at the water’s edge, a bucket hat atop his head and a white patch of sunscreen dabbed on his aquiline nose. He passes his time either carving or staring out onto the open horizon, the warm water enveloping his feet before receding into the Gulf. Karen loves seeing young children approach and talk to him, her father even chatting pleasantly with a bit and sometimes helping them make sandcastles and feed ravenous seagulls.

He may be enjoying life in The Rachel, but his recent carvings have worried Karen. Besides the occasional driftwood carvings, he makes coffins, crafting one or two every year. He embellishes each coffin with images of whales, dolphins, seabirds, and coral as well as poems he knows by heart carved in cursive all around the interior and exterior. Upon finishing, he spends a few nights sleeping in it, resorting to Karen and Bob’s help entering and exiting. Although they find the sporadic habit to be rather morbid, they always buy him the wood, never obstruct him, and always marvel at his creations once he finishes. Bob, as a tribute to her father, intends to disassemble these coffins one day and incorporate them into the walls of their property up north. They could surely sell the pieces to tropical art studios around here, but they want to enjoy them for themselves. 

Her father’s work has always astounded Karen, especially now as he sits at the window, staring blankly at the ominous horizon. As Karen enters her father’s room, she cannot help but notice his latest casket, finished just last week, with a large Whitman verse carved into the bottom of the inside: 

“Prais’d be the fathomless universe, 

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, 

And for love, sweet love—but praise! Praise! Praise! 

For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.”

A howling gust shakes the windows and brings Karen back to the present. Her father has no idea about the impending storm. Karen has explained it multiple times during the past few days, yet not once has it registered. At least he has an excuse, she thinks to herself, smiling, as Bob also forgets things she says as well. 

“Do you need anything, Dad?” she gently asks despite knowing he will not respond. “We’ll be okay.” She spoke to herself more than him, holding his hand and recalling how he had always stayed calm and collected through the many Nor’easters that struck Cape Cod during her youth. “We’re going to help you get upstairs once Joe gets here,” she finally tells him before returning to help Bob.

As Bob finishes closing the storm shutters and placing the sandbags around the interior thresholds, Karen arranges the liquor bottles, places food in the oven, and readies plates and cups. Karen dutifully trudges onward despite her fear while listening to the news and texting with Rachel. Looking at her watch, she calls to Bob from the kitchen. “They’ll be here any minute.” 

“Great!” she hears him reply.

Unable to contain her concern, Karen then adds in an angry tone, seemingly venting to herself, “Of course the only people we know who stayed out here are Trumpers.”

“People aren’t wrong all of the time,” Bob defends himself and their soon-to-arrive guests, making sure she knows he heard her. “Plus, that also means that most of the MAGA people have gone away to get something else wrong.”

“And you think the four of us are the only people who are right?”

“There’s more than just us here, and most of them have been through this before.”

Within minutes, a car pulls into the driveway. A couple around the same age  emerge, carrying bags of snacks and drinks. They fought the  strong gusts on their way to the front door. Joe, the husband, even lost his baseball cap.  He limps to retrieve it as the gust blows it along like a tumbleweed before it stops in the middle of the yard. Bob, beaming at the fact that his first hurricane party has begun, and Karen, feigning happiness, greet their guests with smiles on their faces.

“I really wish we weren’t here right now,” Patty states with sarcastic excitement as Joe approaches, “but Joe insisted we stay.”

“Oh, I feel the same way,” Karen agrees in a high, contrived, festive voice, feeling a little more at ease that someone relates to her. Even though she is a Trumper, she thinks while hugging Patty.

“Oh, don’t be a stick in the mud,” Joe says to Patty with a wide grin as she ominously stares at palm trees next to the house whose fronds rustle in the swirling gusts.

Upon exchanging the usual pleasantries, they take the food into the kitchen and begin the party. “What’ll it be, Joe?” Bob asks.

“What do you have?”

“How about a dark ‘n stormy?” Bob suggests with a smile, holding up a bottle of Gosling’s to Joe’s approval.

“I’ll have one too,” Patty interjects before turning to Karen and adding, “Something to get me through this.” Karen cracks a small smile.

Everything seems fine so far, Karen thinks, removing the pizza from the oven and advising the men to move to the living room while she and Patty remain in the kitchen. The TV in the living room blares that “only a very small window of time remains to evacuate.” Stronger and stronger gusts and bouts of rain continually whip the house.

“Let’s turn that off,” Joe recommends.

“Great idea,” Bob concurs, picking up the remote. “It’s going to hit Tampa. Let’s not hear this shit.” His utterings amazeKaren yet again with inconsistencies.

“Here, here!” Joe boasts, holding up his glass. Bob approvingly clinks his glass against Joe’s.

“I really, really wanted to leave,” Patty quietly expresses to Karen in the kitchen, rolling her eyes in reaction to Joe’s festive behavior.

“So did I,” Karen agrees without hesitation.

“My kids have been texting me that Joe’s crazy for wanting to stay,” Patty explains, looking frantically at her phone. “But he’s all like, ‘There won’t be a storm surge because of the wind patterns and where we are in the state,’” imitating him in a mocking tone.

“God, Bob’s said similar things himself,” Karen says exasperatedly and relaxes a bit. “And it’s just, like, ‘Where did you get this information?’”

“Right? They never say, and I’ve never heard them say that on the news or the Weather Channel. I’ve heard that our location is usually safe but not always,” Patty responds, also now more at ease. “But it’s not like I can just leave him out here.”

“I thought about it a few times, honestly,” Karen confesses.

Patty laughs. “So did I. These men are so stubborn.” 

“Indeed.”

“But Joe’s stubbornness has gotten him where he is.” Patty qualifies her previous statement a bit. “He is always first in line to tell you he’s right, even when he’s wrong.”

“Men,” Karen concludes, thinking that Patty’s remark does not bode well for the party, as Bob acts similarly.

“Men.” 

After a brief pause, Patty asks, “Was your father that way?”

“No, in fact,” Karen answers before taking a reflective pause. “He was actually a very thoughtful, studious, and agreeable man. So strange he’s ended up losing his mind, especially since he’s in really good health for his age. You should see some of his carvings.”

She then picks up the pizza and ushers Patty into the living room with some plates. “Let’s take this time to appreciate how good we have it.” Joe toasts upon seeing Patty and Karen. “There’s a bad storm outside and a lot of problems in the world, but, goddamn, we have friendship, dark ‘n stormies, and DiGiorno’s pizza!”

“I like this guy,” Bob declares to Karen, pointing at Joe with his thumb. 

Karen, annoyed at Bob’s continual hypocrisy, thinks reflexively, these Trumpkins are no friends of mine, even though Patty has grown on her some. 

“And even something like that remote right there,” Joe continues, as if he is the host. “Remember when we used to have to actually get up to change the TV channel?”

“Absolutely!” Bob exclaims, clearly eager to talk about something other than the storm and finally enjoy himself. “And those rabbit ear antennas? We’d spend half an hour adjusting them just to get a decent picture. Sometimes we’d have to take turns holding them in place. Now kids complain if it buffers for a few seconds.”

Patty lets out a snicker upon hearing this before contributing a tangent: “And don’t get me started on music. We had to save up for records, and each one was a treasure. Kids today just download everything in seconds. Can have thousands of albums on their phones.”

Even Karen loosens up a bit and, ever ready to complain about younger generations, pitches in. “And kids are just glued to their screens these days. Would it hurt them to go outside and actually meet up with their friends face-to-face?”

“Those were the days,” Patty reminisces, looking down at her drink. “We had so much freedom and imagination. Nowadays, kids are so over-scheduled. You have to be here at noon and there at 3 and over there at 6. We just had the neighborhood and our bikes, and that was enough.”

“Exactly,” Joe retorts. “And what about the cost of things? I remember when a gallon of gas was less than a dollar. Everything’s so much more expensive now.”

“Like houses!” Bob jumps in, always proud to advertise how much their home up north and The Rachel have appreciated over the past few years. “We bought our home up in Mass for what seems like peanuts compared to today’s prices. Its value has increased more than tenfold.”

“Same with our place up in Ohio,” Joe makes known. “If you don’t mind my asking, how much did you pay for this place?”

“$2 mil seven years ago,” Bob replies before adding proudly, “No mortgage.”

Joe nods approvingly before disclosing, as if he himself had been asked the question, “We got ours here for $300k back in ‘95, and the appreciation’s been crazy the past few years.”

“Has it ever!” Bob agrees. 

“We’d spend our kids’ Christmas vacations here and some of the summer until Joe retired back in 2016,” Patty offers.

“That’s when I retired too!” Bob exclaims.

“Well, wouldn’t you know?” Joe replies.

“Too bad our kids can’t seem to catch a break in this housing market,” Karen jumps in.

“What do you mean?” Joe turns to her with a look of genuine confusion. “They can always catch a break with hard work. Just look at me…and Bob. We sure knew how to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps.”

Even though she senses the conversation might take a political turn, Karen does not care and disagrees. “Our daughter and her husband both have Master’s, have good jobs, and still live paycheck to paycheck. They live comfortably, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t have much disposable income with a mortgage, car payments, all the insurance payments, two kids, and inflation.”

“What do they do?” Joe inquires.

Bob appears slightly embarrassed as Karen answers truthfully. “They both work in education.”

“So, teachers?” Joe asks dismissively.

“Well, Rachel’s husband, Kyle, is a guidance counselor,” Karen corrects him.

“Well, that explains it,” Joe concludes self-righteously. Patty’s face and posture tense a bit. “Teachers get so much time off and are always asking for more money. Such a drain on our system.”

“Who are you to say they don’t work hard?” Bob challenges Joe, knowing how much time and concern Rachel and Kyle give to their jobs.

“In the spirit of this party, why don’t we change the subject? Things have been so nice so far,” Karen, suppressing a desire to defend Rachel as Bob has already done so. “And what about your children?” she asks Patty directly, already not a fan of Joe.

“Our one son, Tim, is doing well,” Patty explains, showing them a picture of his family on her phone. “A lawyer making good money. Here’s his wife and our beautiful grandchildren.”

“They are beautiful,” Karen observes, peering onto the screen. “You have another son?”

Joe scoffs before Patty answers, “Well, our youngest, David, is a…digital nomad?” Her voice rises as if unsure she knows the exact term. “He teaches online and travels around the world. He’s in Cambodia or some place now.”

“Cambo-diarrhea, if you ask me,” Joe adds with a scowl. Bob cracks a smirk. “Pinkos really fuc…” He stops to censor himself, seeing Patty look forlorn. “…really messed that place up.”

“Well, that’s really interesting about… David, is it?” Karen, finding Joe obnoxious, replies approvingly to Patty. She always found world travel alluring, though she was never strong enough to pursue it.

“He makes practically no money and just travels and says he writes books or whatever, but I’ve never seen anything.” Joe cannot let the topic go. “And he says the rest of the world is more interesting than the US. What the hell does the world have that we don’t? Patty and I can proudly say we’ve never had a passport and have been to all 50 states,” he finishes, picking up his glass and taking a large gulp.

“Oh, we love traveling,” Karen comments. Neither Joe nor Patty care to follow her line, with Joe merely uttering, “Oh yeah?”

“Your youngest reminds me of our youngest, Ben, who’s in the Peace Corps,” Bob remarks, ignoring Karen and taking the conversation down a different tangent. “I just don’t understand it.”

Giving Bob a look of sympathy, Joe defeatedly confirms, “The Peace Corps, huh? That’s rough. David wanted to do that shit. Does he get paid for that at least?”

Bob grumbles, “Not much. Gets a stipend.” He then looks up and declares confidently, “It’s nothing compared to what he could earn with his degree.”

“Is he really young? Isn’t the Peace Corps for college grads?” inquires Patty equivocally.

“He joined in his thirties after years working with NGOs,” Karen replies, causing looks of disapproval to cross Joe and Patty’s faces.

“Oh, God!” Joe blurts out. Bob appears as upset as Joe.

Bob then briefly looks at Karen before turning his head back to them, saying, “We just don’t get why he’d want to live in some remote village when he could be here making a great living.”

“Sometimes they just have to follow their own path, I guess,” Karen states, thinking about how she had even considered the Peace Corps in college after learning how JFK had created it to counter the destructive behavior of the CIA. This was, of course, before she met Bob. “But I get Bob,” she qualifies, sensing Bob’s disapproval of her defending Ben. “It’s hard to see them struggling when they could have an easier life.”.

“Exactly!” Patty exclaims, as if she has been holding back her sentiment. “We worked so hard to give them opportunities, and it feels like David’s just throwing it all away. I don’t understand how you can be so smart and want to use your intelligence for anything other than getting rich.”

“Right? If I were as smart as Ben, I’d be loaded right now,” Karen responds with a laugh.

“At least Tim is climbing in his practice and making us proud,” Patty consoles herself as Joe nods with his hand on her knee.

At that moment, the electricity cuts out, much to everyone’s annoyance. Karen and Bob pull out their phones to turn on their lights, Karen noticing urgent texts from Rachel, emergency services, and others. Patty notices similar messages on her phone, and she and Karen both voice concern, especially now that they can hear water hitting the wall outside them, but the men do not want to listen to them. 

Karen, realizing the impossibility of evacuating at this point, suppresses her feelings and rises delicately, feeling weakness. Bob goes to help her and explains to the couple, “Karen was recently diagnosed with MS.” 

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Patty tells Karen sympathetically. “My cousin has it as well.” 

“Who doesn’t have a major problem these days?” Joe poses to the group as Karen and Bob light candles. “Been on Lisinopril for years now.” Karen thinks Bob could even learn something from him.

“Yeah, and I’ve had Parkinson’s for a couple years. Thankfully hasn’t gotten that bad,” Patty divulges as the room assumes a cozy, incandescent atmosphere despite the disaster occurring outside. 

“Bob never goes to the doctor,” Karen then tells everyone.

“Oh, you really need to go as you get older,” Joe immediately suggests to Bob. “Especially down here. All kinds of skin cancer. Patty and I have both had cancer removed.” He points to the missing piece of his left ear, something Karen had wondered about earlier.

Karen and Bob pause as they settle back into their seats, and the four sit silently for a moment as Karen and Patty send texts. Seeming to spend the brief silence allowing feelings from earlier to brew, Joe vents, “It makes me angry. Kids have so many more opportunities these days. We had it so much harder, you know? And we just had to work hard, and that’s what we did. No handouts. And when I mention these things, David just says, ‘ok, Boomer.’ Like, what the hell does that even mean, as if we aren’t obviously right? He’s just a lazy piece of shit, if you ask me.”

“Joe, let’s not go there. We’re with friends,” Patty states under her breath to him, placing her hand on his knee and tilting her head toward Bob and Karen.

Karen now feels a need to defend the younger generation a bit, especially since she feels Joe is also referring to Ben – only she and Bob have the right to talk about him that way! “We definitely had it easier with the job market and the housing market,” she counters Joe. “Even with good degrees, it’s so competitive. Our niece has a PhD and can only find adjunct positions that pay just $10,000 per semester.”

“What’s her PhD in: art history or gender studies?” Joe chides. Patty dropsher head and shoulders in defeat. 

Karen looks down sheepishly before quietly divulging, “Comparative literature.”

Joe scoffs again, the candle in the table between them casting a dancing shadow as he gesticulates wildly. “My point exactly. She wouldn’t have that problem if she had an actual good degree.”

“Joe, please,” Patty pleads again, drawing out her “please,” before looking over to Bob and Karen and mentioning, “He started drinking early this morning.”

“So did Bob.” Karen implicates her husband as he looks down at their entwined fingers in embarrassment. “And I might have had a glass of red,” she finally reveals, shrugging.

“Try a whole bottle!” Bob exclaims, ensuring that the couple knows the truth.

“It wasn’t a whole bottle,” Karen insists as Bob gives her an I-know-you’re-bullshitting-me look. She sighs and confesses, “Ok, maybe half a bottle.”

“Don’t worry, I actually polished one off this morning,” Patty finally reveals.

“Well, in that case, here’s to the good old days when things seemed simpler and more affordable,” Karen toasts, feeling the alcohol really begin to relax her. She still shudders a bit as a wicked gust strikes the house. “And also to hoping our kids find their way in this crazy world.”

“We can toast to that!” Patty agrees, holding up her glass and looking at Joe. The two husbands reluctantly join.

Throughout the conversation, the winds had picked up, and now a constant roar rages above everything. Shrieking gusts fling across the Gulf like missiles and strike The Rachel with great force, shaking the entire house. Rain pelts the shutters, sounding like a firing machine gun. Now, waves bat against the storm shutters on the ground floor more intensely, and they start to see water come in around the edges of the sliding doors. They look at their phones and have no signal. A sinking feeling invades Karen’s stomach. Little did they know that the cone had shifted southward, with Fort Myers Beach due to receive Ian’s inner wall.

“Well, would you look at that? We’re already in the middle of the storm,” Bob cheerily, yet falsely, observes. “Only a few more hours. Charley was only four hours, right?”

“No generation can shoot the shit quite like ours, am I wrong?” Joe says as if he did not hear Bob’s question.

“The water must be pretty high already,” Patty adds as each new wave rams the shuttered sliding glass door.

“There’s nothing to worry about. Those sandbags will keep it fairly dry down here,” Bob assures everyone, his tone sounding a little less assured as each wave hits the wall.

“Our cars are going to be ruined if this keeps picking up,” Karen mentions.

“Nothing insurance can’t help,” Joe responds confidently. “This is probably the worst it’s going to get, and we’ve been looking for new cars anyway.”

All feeling the effects of the alcohol, everyone, especially Karen and Patty, appear more confident about the situation. Regardless, Karen still wants to keep her father safe. Some flooding has already begun, so she requests that Boband Joe help her father upstairs. 

When Bob and Joe enter Karen’s father’s room, they are shocked to see him wearing a suit. Neither of them comment on it, however, as they usher him up to the guest room. The father stands there after shuffling to a halt and shakes a bit before requesting with a strong, yet aged, voice, “Bring me my most recent coffin, a hammer, and nails.”

Joe and Bob both laugh a bit at the request, but Bob ultimately responds, “Ok, Dad.” The two fetch a hammer and nails from a flooded garage and lug the coffin upstairs as instructed. 

Karen’s father’s request surprises the wives, so Karen follows them. “Why do you need a hammer and nails, Dad?” she inquires upon reaching him.

“Do you think I cannot see that a tempest is already upon us?” he asks slowly, turning toward the covered window. “‘Raging storm, I hear thy voice, I feel thy tempest roar,/And in the troubled sky rejoice,/That soon shall be no more.’”

Karen shivers a bit, goosebumps breaking out on her arms. She pauses and reflects upon the short Blake excerpt while Joe, disregarding the gravity of the moment, quietly breaks the silence. “Does he always talk this way?” he asks Bob. Bob nods his head.

“Please nail me within it should the storm take a turn for the worst,” her father then entreats, squeezing his daughter’s hand in his aged one.

Joe and Bob both snort at the request, but Karen takes it seriously. “Ok, Dad, but only if it gets really bad,” Karen concedes, a tear rolling down her cheek. 

“Hey guys?” They all hear Patty calling from downstairs.

“What is it?” Joe asks as he moves to the staircase. “Holy shit!”

The water level has risen significantly. The living room is now underwater, approximately ankle high. Patty works her way upstairs with bottles in hand. “What’s going on?” Bob asks, approaching Joe and Patty before seeing the situation downstairs.

“Honey, I think we’re going to have to move the party to our room,” Bob states calmly as nervousness dawns on his face for the first time.

They all do healthy shots of Gosling’s. The candles cast their shadows across the walls, making the whole scene appear ceremonial. Bob inadvertently takes the conversation down a political direction: “Well, I guess it’s good we have organizations like FEMA that’ll be here tomorrow to help us out.”

“Bullshit,” Joe states forcefully, the effects of alcohol in full swing. “It’s not like FEMA’ll do anything after this. Just more government corruption, especially since the real president isn’t in the White House.”

“Oh please, ‘real president,’” Bob quotes him mockingly, the alcohol also rendering it more difficult to maintain his civility. “You really think the election was rigged?”

“Yeah, and you probably think Russia rigged 2016,” Joe spars back. “The only way to explain how such a great candidate as Hillary could have lost.”

Bob sits up and pauses for a moment before acknowledging, “I knew all along Hillary was a terrible candidate.”

“Hillary was the worst candidate ever,” Joe interrupts him, “and Trump was speaking a different language.”

“Yeah, like saying ‘drain the swamp’?” Bob retorts sardonically, taking back the metaphorical conch. The increasing intensity of the conversation leads Karen and Patty to tense a bit, especially as each new gust and wave batter the house. “How’d that work out for you? It’s like he drained the swamp and put all the creatures he found at the bottom in his cabinet. Barr, Pompeo, Bannon.”

“Are you complaining about the economy under Trump?” Joe, completely avoiding Bob’s point, challenges him with a look of disbelief. 

“No,” Bob responds equivocally.

“If you invested in the market at all,” Joe says, “you must have done pretty damn well while he was in, especially after the COVID crash.” 

“The market isn’t everything.” Bob does not care that Joe had changed the topic. Karen wishes the women could have the chance to speak. “Plus, you know it was artificial. They used the Trump tax cuts for stock buybacks.”

“Did you make money off of Trump’s market?” Joe grills Bob. Bob begrudgingly nods. “If you have such a problem with him on principle, you should give away that money on principle. Shouldn’t you see it as blood money or something?”

Karen looks to Bob, who knows he cannot fathom giving away money he has made on the market, especially what he made off Amazon, Netflix, Moderna, Pfizer, and Peleton in 2020. Now it is Bob’s turn to avoid Joe’s point: “Well, at least Biden has brought civility and decency back to the White House. The rest of the world respects us again.”

“Decency?!” Joe exclaims, unable to contain himself. “Biden doesn’t know the meaning of the word. The man’s a puppet, Bob. Been corrupt his whole career. Senator from MBNA.”

“That’s not true.” 

“Trump at least had the guts to stand up for what he believed in, unlike Sleepy Joe who can barely finish a sentence. It’s starting to look like elder abuse having him speak anymore.”

“Oh, like Trump stood up for what he believed in during the pandemic?” Bob responds with a different point. “Remember how Trump downplayed the virus? Told people to drink bleach? How many lives could’ve been saved if he’d taken it seriously from the start?”

In the spirit of not addressing one another’s points, Joe counters, “Oh, and you probably thought Kamala was right to say she would question any vaccine produced by the Trump administration, only to turn around and advocate for vaccine mandates once she was VP? Like Democrats weren’t vaccine-hesitant under Trump.”

“And they were right.”

“So why doesn’t our side have a right to protest? Why is your side the only one with that right?” Joe questions Bob, pointing to one of the many double standards floating around American politics – and American life in general.

“Because your side does nothing but spew misinformation,” Bob forcefully asserts.

“Let’s just face it,” Karen jumps in, itching to answer his question and get something off her chest. “Your side is just racist.”

“Racist?” Patty laughs, finally joining. “We voted for Obama in ‘08.”

This disclosure confuses Karen and Bob and leads them to quiet for a moment to let the information sink in. They may have voted for Obama but that doesn’t mean they’re not racist, Karen thinks as a response. She does not voice it, not wanting to push this issue any further. 

“Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of racists who support Trump,” Patty then qualifies, breaking the silence.

“You think?” Karen states aggressively. “How could there not be with all the dog-whistling?”

“What dog-whistling?” Patty queries seriously, as Karen and Bob give shocked looks to one another.

“What the hell happened?” Bob interrogates Patty, still amazed that they had voted for Obama. “How could you go from voting for Obama to voting for Trump?”

“Obama only gave us pocket change, bailed out Wall Street and not Main Street, and expanded the War on Terror,” Joe answers for Patty. “He talked a good game, but that is all he was: talk.”

Bob and Karen both laugh loudly. “Just talk?” Bob asks in disbelief. “How many times has Trump uttered confirmed lies? And he dropped the MOAB in Afghanistan as a part of the War on Terror.”

Karen cannot believe Joe would rave about Trump’s market and not Obama’s, or even consider that Trump had a better foreign policy than Obama. She decides to cross-examine him. “Ok, so you see Obama as a fraud, but you see Trump as a sort of savior?”

“Yes, he’s the only person with a clear plan,” Joe affirms plainly and reflexively to Karen. “And you think the Dems aren’t merchants of disinformation?”

“Tell me what Biden has lied about,” Bob challenges him, taking his bait.

“Do you even remember the ‘88 primary?” Joe flings back at him. Bob quiets once again, aware of Biden’s extensive history of plagiarism that caused him to drop out in 1988. 

“That’s so long ago,” he eventually mumbles. “Trump is lying now.”

Banging and crashing occur downstairs, but no one wants to check – Karen and Patty out of fear, and Joe and Bob out of a desire to continue driving their points down one another’s throats. The storm has become a backdrop for their ideological furor, the tempest outside both mirroring the emotional squall and fueling its intensity. 

“And Biden isn’t lying? The whole Ukraine thing with Biden is shady as shit,” Joe continues after a brief silence. “Hunter gets a job on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while Joe is handling Ukraine policy. It’s blatant corruption, and you know it.”

“Misinformation!” Bob objects, believing every ounce of the word.

“Let me remind you of Hunter’s cushy job at Burisma.” Joe will not cease amidst Bob’s exhortations. “Making $80,000 a month with zero experience, giving a certain percentage ‘to the big guy.’.” 

“Will you let me speak?” Bob attempts to insert himself back into this now one-sided conversation. “Hunter Biden isn’t the President, Joe.”

Joe, having none of it, continues to force his point: “Yeah, well, President Biden, while he was Senator, authored the crime bill that put many people in prison. Rightfully, if you ask me, especially for crack, but all at the same time his own son was addicted to it. Hunter even films himself smoking crack. The hypocrisy is unbelievable, Bob.”

“Trump’s family isn’t exactly clean either.” Bob finally gets a foothold. “Ivanka and Jared made millions while supposedly serving the public. Biden’s focusing on policies to help everyday Americans, not lining his pockets.”

“Oh, come on, Bob. Biden was VP when the whole oil issue with Syria began.” Joe attempts to detract from Bob’s statement.

Bob now tries to get Joe on the ropes. “You really want to talk about corruption, Joe? Trump refused to release his tax returns, hosted many taxpayer funded events at Mar-O-Lago, tried to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, and pretended to be Christian to pander to evangelicals.” Joe attempts to rebut, but Bob does not relent, exclaiming, “Let me finish! He even admitted to using corruption in his favor in his debate with Hillary, saying he had bought her off or something like that. So many examples of corruption.”

“He was just doing what was good for business.” Joe calmly continues to defend Trump. “Too much regulation is one of the things killing this economy.”

“That’s some good ol’ boy bullshit,” Karen jeers, unable to contain herself at Joe’s willingness to overlook Trump’s corruption but not Biden’s. “Trump is just so crass and such a bully. All the scapegoating of illegal immigrants and Muslims. And ‘Grab ‘em by the pussy.’ You really felt ok voting for that, Patty?” Karen hoped one of Trump’s worst qualities would disgust Patty as much as it disgusts her. 

Joe and Bob back off for a moment and peer heatedly at Patty, like they both wanted her to answer his way. “Honestly, it made me uncomfortable,” Patty reveals, looking at her hands on her lap. Bob perks up and Joe scowls. “But I’d rather a crass asshole who’s transparent over some corrupt prick hiding behind a facade,” she concludes, appearing to look at Joe for approval. The men’s faces invert their expressions rapidly.

“Transparent?!” Bob hurls back with amazement, causing Patty to recoil a bit. “Again, he refused to file tax returns, paid hush money to a porn star, who knows the things he did with the mob in the 80s, need I go on?”

“And what about the things Trump says about women?” Joe tries to regain control. “Biden gotaccused of sexual assault too, and everyone came down on his accuser. So you’re all about taking women seriously unless it’s your guy who’s accused?”

“At least Biden stands for a woman’s right to choose!” Bob yells back in response.

“Will you kids quiet down in there?” A voice outside the room makes them jump. Karen whips around to find her father standing upright in the doorway. She almost hadn’t recognized his voice – he sounded so lucid. His words were nothing like the meaningless mumbling he had resigned himself to the past few years.

Her father continues without waiting for the others to respond. “You sound like the people on TV, never addressing anyone’s points or looking up what’s right or wrong. You’re the same kind of people; you just believe different things. Same form, different content, and nothing but disrespect,” her father remarks lucidly, to everyone’s amazement. “Do you even see what’s happening here?” He points to the water more than halfway up the staircase.

The banging they ignored earlier was the storm surge breaching The Rachel’s defenses. The waves and current were strong enough to break down the storm shutters and sliding glass doors, completely inundating the first floor. Amid their collective silence, the winds howl, and rain fiercely pelts against the windows. 

“I think it’s time,” the father utters calmly and confidently before shuffling back to the guest room. 

“What the hell are we talking about?” Joe asks, the gravity of the situation appearing to hit everyone and make them look sympathetically at one another. 

“This storm is clearly really bad and we’re here fighting about politics,” Bob finally agrees with Joe, looking over at him with an apologetic expression.

“I was thinking while listening, ‘Man, if anything any of you said about them is true, they’re both corrupt pieces of shit – and their kids.’ One’s a POS politician and the other a POS businessman,” Patty concludes, now appearing comfortable enough to speak freely. Joe and Bob both give blank stares as if not even having heard what she said.

“You’re probably right,” Karen agrees in the spirit of respecting her father, though still feeling pretty confident that Biden is just fine.

“Anyway, we should help Dad.” Bob rises, inebriation and his discomfort at being about to nail his father-in-law into a coffin both apparent.

They all walk over to the guest room, peering down the stairs along the way. Their fear mounts considerably, especially now that the tops of the waves can reach the second floor. The house rocks intensely. Karen’s father stands in the coffin holding a copy of Walden and his first authentic scrimshaw piece made of a sperm whale tooth. 

“No matter how bad the storm should become, do not return for me,” he instructs calmly, his voice, although strong, barely audible beneath a gust shaking the house.

Karen breaks down crying and lunges to embrace him. “We’ll be opening this back up in a couple of hours, Dad, I promise,” she urges, guilt surfacing.

“Be strong, Karen,” he advises, hugging her. He remembered my name. “Farewell, friends. ‘Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves – and Immortality.’”

At that, he lay down in the coffin, ready to end his final chapter. Joe and Bob, at Karen’s father’s urging, finally place the lid flush with the rest of the coffin and hammer nails around the edges. The sounds of the hammer strikes compete with the storm outside. Karen cries, fearing that this may be the final moment she has alive with her father. 

“I need a drink,” Joe says as he finishes hammering in his final nail.

Patty, Joe, and Bob all return to the master bedroom while Karen takes another couple of minutes to sit silently with her father. Eventually, waves begin to batter the second-floor sliding glass doors like the relentless lashings of a great white whale,  letting inside more and more water. Everyone finally realizes that they may have indeed made the wrong decision about throwing this party. The two couples sit silently, now at a loss for words. 

“Does anyone have ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ on their phones?” Bob eventually asks everyone, attempting to break the very somber mood.

“How the fuck could you joke right now, you prick, when we’re here because of you?” Karen angrily lashes out at him. Her hands tremble, as she releases years of unresolved suppressed anger. This could be her final moment to let him know that she knows about the affairs.

“I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” Bob replies, surprised. Patty and Joe both squirm in discomfort.

Karen cannot hold back the suppressed anger any longer. “Oh, like I had to lighten the mood for kids all the nights you were fucking young whores and they were sad you weren’t there?”

Bob has a look of shock, and Patty and Joe both give each other awkward glances. “You knew?” Bob asks after a brief, shocked silence replete with roaring gusts and water splashing the upstairs wall.

Karen lets out a guffaw as tears run down her face. “You were that oblivious? Those times you said you were with Bill but Cathy later told me he was with her? Those times when you’d have to take a call and leave the room and then just abruptly leave for hours? C’mon, Bob.”

“Why didn’t you ever confront me?” Bob asks hesitantly, clearly unsure as to what to say.

Karen’s anger deepened. How come it was up to her to talk about it? “How could I? And risk ruining our family and losing you?” She breaks down sobbing, and Bob pulls her close to him. “Did you ever even feel guilty?” she asks, tearfully looking up from his armpit.

“That’s why I stopped,” Bob responds, pulling her even closer. “You know they never meant anything to me. I’ve always wanted to spend my life with you.”

Decades of suppressed feelings now abating some, Karen calms a bit. “Yeah, that’s also why I never said anything. Part of me knew. But it hurt.”

“I wish we could have talked about this earlier,” Bob says half-heartedly. “I’ve wanted to bring it up before, but then we retired and things seemed good.”

“But you made a stupid-ass decision today.” Karen cannot help but make him aware of that.

“We had a good run,” Bob states, the closest he will come to admitting he was wrong. “And it’s not over yet.”

The two couples quietly hold one another as each new wave batters the upstairs wall. Joe and Patty take the bed and Karen and Bob take the couch. More and more water flows around the sides of the sliding glass doors, and the house shakes more intensely with each wave. 

“Oh Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” Patty whispers.

Karen and Bob once would have found such a behavior to be absurd and selfish (“as if God listens to me!”), but in these moments of impending doom, they sympathize and even hope for an afterlife. Karen now pleads internally like Antonius Block in Bergman’s Seventh Seal after losing his game of chess with Death. She also all feels ashamed at having made what some would call a Darwin Award-worthy decision. 

But no one there is a stupid person. All of them are just victims of letting the wrong feelings drive their decisions. “Florida men, out of a desire to have a hurricane party, convince their wives to stay on Fort Myers Beach during a category 5 storm and all perish,” will be the news story about them.

The house creaks very loudly like a wooden galleon. The couples cling even tighter to one another. Suddenly, The Rachel’s gulf side gives out, plummeting half the second story into the water. Remnants of the walls below still prop it up slightly, creating a large lean-to taking beatings from waves. 

Then the bed slides Patty and Joe are unexpectedly pinned underwater against the wall. At the same instant, the couch slides down into the water. Karen falls onto Bob with a scream, but both make it through unscathed. Due to slivers of light breaking through openings in the wall, Karen and Bob see the other couple, submerged and unconscious. Karen screams again. 

“There’s nothing we can do for them. We have to get to the roof,” Bob instructs.

With water up their legs, the couple struggle to cross the slanted room to the window. Bob helps Karen climb onto the sloped, submerged bed in front of the window. He opens the window and winds up the storm shutter, letting in more light. Karen can see blood where Patty and Joe lie under the water. 

Karen has difficulty due to her MS, but, with Bob’s help, climbs out the window and grasps onto the roof’s edge. At once, the weight of the second story and the current have become too much, and the other side of The Rachel groans and gives out. Karen is pulled into the water and Bob is submerged entirely. With one mighty effort, Bob digs his feet into the bed and pushes Karen up enough for her to pull herself onto the roof just as another wave strikes The Rachel. The current begins to nudge the floundering house slowly across the island. Karen lays flat, crying out for Bob, feeling her skin ripple from the wind’s fury. The rain feels like razors against her skin. She curls into a fetal position and cries.

Within moments, she hears, “Karen, help me!” from down below. She crawls to the roof’s edge only to see a large wave pull Bob away from the house. 

He swims quickly, almost making it to the edge before another powerful wave pulls him away like an orca toying with a seal. “No, Bob!” Karen yells. She pounds her hands against the roof as she watches each passing wave pull Bob further and further away until she can no longer hear his cries. 

She curls into a fetal position in an unsuccessful attempt to shield herself from the whipping winds and sharp rain. The house moves along steadily, the current and the waves pushing it. Delirious with regret, anger, grief, and shame, the roar overhead draws Kareninto a trance. Memories flood in: happy times, arguments, moments of love and regret, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all as vivid as when they were first experienced.

A strong gust, a sharp lashing of rain, and the rocking of the house break her trance. Karen peers out onto an apocalyptic seascape with waves washing over entire palm trees, leaving only the fronds reaching up like arms to God for salvation. Despite the desperate situation, Karen finds herself with the clearest mind she has had all day. She realizes that she can only surrender. She had the chance to escape as recently as a few hours ago, but now she can only wait for the storm to end and hope what remains of the house beneath her stays intact. Hopefully, her father somehow survived in an air pocket beneath her. Maybe Bob caught on to something floating. Maybe Patty and Joe didn’t drown, if they even survived colliding with the wall and the bed crushing them. 

Her mind rushes with reflections about today: had she been as assertive with Bob as she is on Facebook with Trump supporters, she would be perfectly safe right now with Bob and her father. If she can survive this still-raging torrent, Karen will certainly approach life with a different mindset, with less judgment toward other people’s decisions. She would no longer think of Patty and Joe as two “dumb Trumpers” but as two living and breathing human beings. They weren’t different from Bob and herself, with strengths and weaknesses who could just as easily be up here now instead of her. She wants to reconnect with family and friends she has cut off for political reasons – if they will even talk to her considering some things she has said and assumptions she has made. She will listen now and give them space to express themselves. If she can make it through, she might even go down to Bolivia to visit Ben. 

How stupid we all were to spend any time during this storm gumming off about politics as if everything would go on as usual, as if any of it mattered compared to what was happening outside? She curls into a ball, shivering amidst the gusts. At least this experience has led to some realizations; now she must survive long enough to apply them.

With no end in sight and absolutely nothing certain, Karen reckons herself safer here on the roof than in one of her father’s coffins. The mighty waves furiously batter The Rachel’s wreckage before rolling on as they have for thousands of years and will for thousands more. 

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.