Summer
Storm

The storm arrived before Sum-ma did.

It rolled over the townhouses in a long, bruised line, swallowing the late-afternoon sunlight and turning every window dark enough to reflect the rooms behind it. Wind pushed through the narrow street, bending the young trees planted along the sidewalks and sending dry leaves, grocery receipts, and one unfortunate plastic chair skidding across the parking lot.

Thunder grumbled somewhere beyond the rooftops.

Theresa stood at the front window with both palms against the glass.

“She brought weather,” Theresa announced, her palms still pressed to the glass like she could feel the storm’s pulse through it.

Freddy looked up from the travel bag he was sitting on.

“Who brought weather?”

“Sum-ma,” Theresa said, not looking away from the bruised sky.

Freddy frowned from atop the travel bag. “She isn’t here yet.”

Theresa watched another flicker of lightning spread through the clouds.

“She’s coming with it,” Theresa said, with the flat certainty of someone reporting a medical diagnosis.

Across the living room, Gruff pulled on the zipper of the overstuffed bag. It moved less than an inch.

Freddy bounced twice on top of it.

“Try now.”

Gruff gave him a patient look.

Freddy bounced harder.

The bag remained open.

Gruff made a rolling gesture with one hand.

Freddy tilted his head. “Roll it?”

Gruff pointed at Freddy and repeated the gesture.

“Oh.”

Freddy rolled dramatically off the bag, crossed half the carpet, and struck his shoulder against the coffee table.

“Ow.”

Gruff closed his eyes.

From the kitchen, Brute called, “Did he break the table?”

“No!” Freddy shouted from the carpet, offended on behalf of both himself and the furniture.

Gruff leaned down, inspected the table, then looked at Freddy.

Freddy rubbed his shoulder and gave Gruff a wounded look. “The table broke me.”

Brute appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying three flashlights, an extension cord, and a half-empty bag of barbecue potato chips. He was dressed for travel in work boots, cargo shorts, and an old shirt that read WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD.

Theresa had bought it for him because, as she had explained, honesty mattered.

“Good,” Brute said from the doorway. “The table was here first.”

Gruff gave him a look.

“What?” Brute asked, lifting the potato-chip bag like evidence. “I’m teaching respect for elders. Flat, wooden elders.”

Another crack of thunder shook the windows.

The lights flickered.

Theresa did not move from the glass.

Gruff and Brute were leaving before dawn to travel south with a volunteer convoy. A hurricane had torn across several of the southern states, pushing inland with enough force to flatten homes, flood entire neighborhoods, and leave thousands without electricity, safe drinking water, or a reliable place to sleep.

The worst of the hurricane had passed, but the damage stretched across counties. Roads were blocked. Families were staying in churches, schools, community centers, vehicles, and whatever parts of their homes remained standing.

A network of soup kitchens, churches, food banks, and disaster-response groups had begun organizing mobile meal sites. Someone who had worked with Gruff before called and asked whether he could help manage one of the kitchens.

Gruff had agreed before the person finished explaining.

Brute had refused.

Then Gruff had looked at him.

Brute had sighed and said, “Fine, but I am not sleeping in a church basement if there’s one of those creepy porcelain Jesuses staring at me all night.”

Since then, Gruff had prepared as though the entire Gulf Coast depended upon the contents of his townhouse.

He packed what mattered most: first-aid supplies, water-purification tablets, batteries, sanitation gear, allergy labels, work gloves, flashlights, duct tape, and the notebooks that made Brute suspect the notebooks had notebooks.

Brute packed deodorant, clean socks, a deck of cards, and what he described as emergency chips.

Their absence meant someone needed to stay with Theresa and Freddy.

Gruff trusted several people to help the children.

He trusted only one person to take over the townhouse, the kitchen, the emergency contacts, the school routines, the medicine cabinet, the household rules, and the small ceramic urn containing part of his mother’s ashes.

Faye.

Although no one in the family had called her Faye for years.

Theresa had renamed her during their first meeting.

Faye had arrived at the townhouse in the middle of a summer thunderstorm, wearing flowing orange fabric, silver rings, and rainwater in her hair. Lightning had flashed behind her just as Gruff opened the door.

Theresa, still very young at the time, had stared at her silhouette and declared, “You are Summer Storm.”

But summer had come out sounding more like sum-ma.

Faye had loved it.

“Sum-ma Storm,” she had repeated, spreading her arms as thunder rolled behind her. “I sound like a grandmother who controls the weather.”

The name had remained.

Over time, Summer Storm became Sum-ma, and Sum-ma became as much a title as a name.

She was godmother to both Theresa and Freddy. She was also Gruff’s longest friend, one of the few people alive who remembered him before grief quieted him, before responsibility settled into his shoulders, and before two children began treating him as if he had always belonged to them.

Gruff had met her in Chicago years earlier, before his mother died in Ohio.

Sum-ma remembered a louder version of him.

That alone made her dangerous.

A flash of mustard yellow appeared at the end of the walkway.

Theresa straightened.

“She’s here!”

Before Gruff could remind anyone that doors should not be thrown open during storms, Theresa pulled it wide.

Wind charged into the townhouse carrying wet leaves, rain, and Sum-ma Storm.

She entered beneath an enormous green umbrella shaped like a leaf. Her long yellow coat swirled around her legs, and several silver necklaces clattered against one another as she fought the umbrella through the doorway.

“Children!” Sum-ma cried, wrestling the umbrella closed with one hand. “Men with emotional constipation!”

Brute lifted one hand in surrender. “Welcome. We were just discussing table violence.”

Gruff stared at her.

Sum-ma closed the umbrella and shook it beside Brute, covering his shorts with droplets.

“Good,” Sum-ma said, studying the rain now darkening Brute’s cargo shorts. “You look moist.”

“I was saving that condition for the South,” Brute said.

Freddy looked between them.

Theresa leaned toward Freddy without taking her eyes off the adults. “Adult humor.”

Freddy nodded solemnly.

He did not understand it.

Sum-ma bent down and opened both arms.

Theresa reached her first. Freddy followed half a second later, colliding with enough force to knock one of Sum-ma’s earrings loose.

“My little heathens,” Sum-ma said, kissing the tops of their heads and holding on a beat longer than her joke required. “You have grown again. Stop immediately.”

“We can’t,” Freddy said.

“Then I will place bricks on your heads while you sleep.”

“Would that work?”

“No, but it might keep you still.”

She stood and looked over them at Gruff.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Gruff’s face softened.

He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her. Sum-ma disappeared against his chest, her cheek resting over his heart. Gruff lowered his chin onto the top of her head and held her longer than he usually allowed himself to hold anyone.

“There he is,” she murmured.

Gruff pulled back before the words could become heavy.

Sum-ma squeezed both of his forearms.

“You look tired,” Sum-ma said softly, thumbs resting against the pulse points in his wrists.

Gruff shrugged.

“You always shrug when you mean yes,” Sum-ma said.

He shrugged again.

“And now,” Sum-ma added, narrowing her eyes, “you are being irritating on purpose.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

Sum-ma turned toward Brute.

“And you.”

Brute opened his arms. “Try to control yourself.”

She hugged him.

“Thank you for going with him,” she whispered.

Brute’s teasing expression faded for a moment. He glanced toward Gruff, who had suddenly become very interested in reorganizing a box of batteries.

“Somebody has to stop him from personally rebuilding three states,” Brute said, aiming for lightness and missing by just enough for Sum-ma to hear the worry underneath.

Gruff pointed at him without looking up.

“See?” Brute said. “He already made a list.”

Sum-ma removed her coat and draped it over a chair.

Gruff pointed toward the empty hook beside the door.

“I saw it,” she said.

He continued pointing.

“I chose freedom.”

Gruff took the coat from the chair and placed it on the hook himself.

Sum-ma watched with satisfaction.

“Still beautifully trainable.”

“Do not encourage him,” Brute said. “He reorganized my sock drawer.”

“Your sock drawer looked like a textile crime scene.”

“It had a system.”

Gruff shook his head gravely.

“Traitor,” Brute said.

Thunder struck again, close enough to rattle the windows.

Sum-ma raised both hands toward the ceiling.

“Behold. The universe recognizes my entrance.”

“The electric company recognizes old power lines,” Theresa said.

Sum-ma looked at Gruff. “She has your romance.”

Gruff nodded proudly.