The Light Pirate

Upset by the theft his brother committed, Flip tries to exit the trailer. As soon as he opens the door, the boys become aware of how deadly the weather has become. They take in the wind and the rain, convinced that the storm is “a strange and brutal kind of justice for these sins they have just committed” (74). As the boys race homeward, Flip feels like a baby bird, “too small for this world, too new” (75). He recalls a nest of baby birds he once showed to Frida and how they were later devoured by a possum.

Kirby checks the beach because he’s been promising to take his sons there all summer. From the shore, he can see the stone-gray eyewall of the hurricane. To his astonishment, he spots a drunken teenage couple on the pier and shouts at them to go inside. The girl’s “jagged edges, her bravery, the messy persistence of her” (77) reminds him of the Frida he first met. He knows that he should go home to his wife, but he continues his search because he can’t bear the thought of returning without his sons.

As the boys run through streets filled with airborne debris, Lucas realizes that their predicament is his fault and slows his pace so his brother can keep up with him. The wind throws Lucas to the asphalt, breaking his nose. At his brother’s urging, he gets back on his feet and keeps running.

Frida remains immobilized in the “wind-ravaged battleground” between the shed and the house (81). One of the oak trees at the edge of the property crashes down. The house shields her from the wind, which “will very soon be gusting fast enough to snatch a little boy clean off the ground and carry him into the clouds” (82). Frida tries to battle her way through the mud and debris choking the yard, but the pain knocks her to the ground.

The rain continues to pelt the boys as they run down the street. Lucas realizes that they must take shelter, and he remembers a kind, elderly neighbor who lives in a “shabby blue house on his left, set back from the road, obscured by overgrown date palms” (83). He imagines her welcoming him and his brother inside and the relief he will feel when “a grown-up will be in charge once more” (84). As the house comes into view, the wind picks up.

The blue house’s owner, Phyllis, is an experienced survivalist who has fortified her home, installed a backup generator, amassed provisions, and stockpiled heirloom seeds. She tried to convince her friends and relatives that the world they knew was ending, but they drifted away from her. She hears an “erratic, desperate pounding” at her door and opens it to reveal a drenched and terrified boy (88). Quickly, she pulls him inside and slams the door.

Kirby decides to take shelter at an upscale apartment building that looks like a “roost for wealthy snowbirds” (90). He plows through the building’s iron gate and parks in the garage. His radio informs him that the hurricane’s eyewall has made landfall. Kirby resolves to try to make it home by driving in the eye of the storm, the “eerie, inexplicable pause in the destruction” (91).

Frida crawls back to the house on her hands and knees. She realizes that she is about to give birth all alone and begins to push. All but delirious from pain, she thinks, “The door, I have to close it” even though she knows that she is unable to do so (93).

Kirby drives his truck as fast as he can without leaving the sanctuary of the eye. Ahead of him, he sees the hurricane’s wall, “a churning mass of cloud that is somehow dark and luminous at the same time” (94). As he navigates the wreckage strewn across the roads, he is keenly aware that the damage will soon be doubled by the other eyewall behind him. Phyllis Donner calls him and informs him that his son is safe with her. At first, her words fill Kirby with relief, but then he realizes what is amiss and asks, “Where’s the other one?” (95).

Phyllis does her best to console the boy on her sofa. She notes that his nose is broken. He answers her questions in shell-shocked fragments, saying that his brother is gone.

Kirby arrives at Phyllis’s house and hugs his son tight. When he asks Lucas where Flip is, the boy sobs too hard to speak. Kirby feels that he, like Lucas, is just “a small boy who for a brief time pretended to be a man” (98). He tries to call Frida, but his phone has no reception. His promises that everything would be all right have been proven empty, and he can do nothing more than hold his son tight.

As Frida holds her newborn daughter, she feels “a brief spark, a small jolt” pass between her and the baby (100). She whispers to the crying infant, “Storm baby [...] “Wanda baby” (101). Frida curls herself around her daughter to shield her from the storm. She knows that she’s lost too much blood, but she’s too exhausted to staunch it or to stay awake any longer.

Kirby continues his vain attempts to call Frida, hoping that she and Flip are somehow safe together. Phyllis sets Lucas’s nose, washes his face, and gives him some water. When the wind eases a little, Kirby and Lucas drive home. The guilt-struck Kirby finds his wife and his newborn daughter lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Frida asks him, “Didn’t I do good? [...] Kirb. Look at her” (103). She names the child Wanda despite his protestations. Kirby hands Wanda to Lucas and futilely attempts to staunch his wife’s bleeding.