Deni told me as we walked. Five dead of drowning. Seven dead of crush, shock, or heart attack, bad luck, worst choices. Several dozen unaccounted for and six whole blocks of North gone, no proof that anyone had ever lived there to begin with. Without the bridge and with so many slips and ships sunk off the mainland itself, it would be days before the National Guard could come, the police and medics, the unlocal firemen. “I can’t find Eva, Mira.” Deni said it again. We’d been back to the rock. Filled two pockets with Friskies, nodded at Old Carmen, who had nodded at us, who had moved the cactus with the pink bow from one end of the rock to the rock’s very middle, near the shine of her toolbox. Deni Norfleet, Deni had said, putting her hand out like she’d been trained to do, cause and effect of her status as a minister’s daughter. Old Carmen shook Deni’s hand back, like they were making a pact: two survivors who thought things through better than the rest of us.
