I find a group of other women working under a makeshift tent. They’re sorting supplies brought in by some aid organization or another, and I spend the next several hours sorting through flats of bottled water, boxes of canned food, and crates of medical supplies. Every once in a while, I steal a glance over at Jonny working with the men; he’s tirelessly hauling at the debris, even directing others where to pick at so as not to dislodge the rubble. He’s filthy by now, streaked with dirt, his hair messy and filthy from his dirty hands scraping through it. He’s shirtless, his already dark Latin skin burned darker by endless hours in the sun at sea.

  He’s a beast, is what he is.

  I know he’s a few years older than me, with sexy hints of silver creeping in at the temples, and in the stubble that’s pretty much a beard by now. But damn, he’s in amazing shape. He’s not ripped and cut like an Instagram model, which is nice to look at of course, but doesn’t seem real. No, Jonny is the perfect real man, in my opinion. Solidly muscled, with thick pecs and toned, hard, round biceps, a trim waist and a hint of a six-pack, but there’s some evidence on his body that he enjoys life and loves food and likes to drink, but still takes care of himself.

  His body is that of a man who has spent his whole life hauling at ropes and carrying supplies and doing hard physical work all day every day, keeping him naturally fit, rather than the carved-from-marble perfection of a man who spends all day in the gym.

  Now, I’m lucky if I can keep even a so-so looking guy’s interest for more than a couple dates and a quick fuck or two in his dingy-ass apartment after drinks at the bar before going home to pick up Alex from Mrs. Allen’s apartment. And even that is getting old and unsatisfying. Although, really, that’s always been old and unsatisfying for me. I’ve always wanted more—shit, I still want more now, but I’m at the stage and the age where I’m beginning to despair I’ll ever find more with anyone. I mean, I’m thirty-eight, a single mother working dead-end jobs, no future, no meaningful career or accomplishments. Sure, I had a couple songs bought by some country music stars, but even that didn’t pan out.

  A surprised shout from one of the men shakes me out of my thoughts, and everyone in the vicinity stops working to watch, or to hustle over and see how they can help. There’s a crowd on the pile, and Mike the police officer gently but firmly guides them back.

  I find myself in that crowd, at the very front, standing precariously on a pile of broken cinderblocks nearby, watching as Jonny works feverishly. He’s on his hands and knees, picking gingerly at the debris, carefully removing cinderblocks and pipes and chunks of drywall and setting them aside. He leans farther into the hole he’s creating, until his entire upper half is bent forward into the hole, reaching back to hand chunks and bits to whomever is close enough to take them from him. And then, moving as slowly and carefully as if crossing thin, cracking ice, he lowers himself into the gaping maw in the rubble, vanishing completely.

  The gathered crowd is utterly hushed and still.

  I hear a noise from the hole, Jonny’s voice saying something I can’t make out, and one of the other men nearby reaches in and hauls out a form, a body. A still, limp, female. Her arms dangle, her feet trail listlessly. The man carries her with exquisite care, stepping down the pile with her in his arms. He’s mid-fifties, muscular but with a slight belly, grizzled and graying, wearing a sleeveless shirt with the logo of a construction company on it. His face is shut down, hard, solemn. His eyes are locked on the woman in his arms, who, as he passes me with her, I see is still alive, but only barely. Her eyes flit sluggishly, and one hand has something clutched in it, a photograph. She’s young, Hispanic, and beautiful. And very clearly slipping all too quickly into death. She has moments left. She’s been holding on, desperately. She abruptly jerks in her savior’s arms, twisting, moaning, reaching frantically, calling out names.

  “He’s gettin’ ’em, honey, he’s getting ’em. Good ol’ Jonny’s gettin’ ’em, okay? Settle for me, settle. Calm, calm.” His voice is as rough and grizzled as he is, and it’s clear the woman doesn’t understand.

  I turn back to look at the hole, and Jonny is handing up a second body, and a third. These are much, much smaller. Children. They’re alive, squirming, crying weakly, shielding their eyes from the bright Florida sun as men take them from Jonny and carry them down the pile of rubble. I think Jonny is going to emerge, but he doesn’t. He stays down for a long few moments, and then emerges slowly, a burden over one shoulder. He refuses to let anyone take the burden from him as he climbs out. The burden is another body. This one, like the woman, is an adult. A male. Totally limp, bent in half over Jonny’s shoulder, dangling, lifeless. The father. Young, Hispanic, and handsome.

  Jonny carries him off the rubble pile. Joining him at the makeshift tent, I see that Jonny is . . . devastated. It is the only word I know for the expression on his face. He gently deposits the male form onto the ground, falling to his knees to allow the limp body to come rest on the grass. There’s no sign of serious injury, and it looks to me as if the man hasn’t been dead long, but he is very clearly gone now.

  The woman, lying on a fold-out military surplus cot nearby, weakly lifts a hand toward the man, her husband. She’s weeping, or she would be if she weren’t utterly dehydrated. Her lips are cracked and shriveled, her skin papery and pale. She’s muttering in Spanish, and after laying the man onto the grass, Jonny scoots across to sit beside her. He takes her hand and whispers to her in Spanish, shaking his head. The woman is wracked with shuddering sobs, but she’s too weak even for that. She says something else to Jonny, who twists, spies the two children—a boy and a girl—being tended to by Red Cross volunteers. He points at them, talking to the woman. She reaches for them, tries to sit up, but can’t. Jonny scoops his hand under her head and helps her sit up so she can see her children, only a few feet away. They are both being fitted with an IV bag, as is the woman, while Jonny continues to whisper to her.

  Not knowing what else to do, I sit beside Jonny on the ground beside the woman. He acknowledges me with a glance and a nod, and then returns his attention to the woman, speaking to her in Spanish. She mutters something every once in a while, and Jonny responds. He holds her hand. A doctor appears from somewhere, haggard looking, exhausted. I recognize him from the hospital, and it’s clear he’s been working nonstop like everyone else, with little food and less rest. He examines the woman briefly, but his expression is grave.

  I overhear him speaking to the nurses. “Push IV fluids, but that’s about it, I’m afraid. Anyone’s guess, at this point. She may be too far gone, but if she’s a fighter, she may pull through. No injuries I can see, no trauma. Just severe dehydration, possibly some lung damage from inhaling debris dust. Push fluids, that’s all I can say.” He sighs heavily. “It’s in God’s hands now.”

  And then he’s gone, checking the two little children.

  I sit with Jonny for hours. I might be needed elsewhere, but there’s no chance of me leaving him, not now.

  Jonny never moves. Never lets go of of the woman’s hand. Sometimes, he talks to her in Spanish, sometimes I think maybe he’s singing to her, but it’s too low for me to hear even sitting beside him. I doze off again, sitting up beside him.

  I’m woken by a scuffed footstep and quiet voices. Jonny is asleep, sitting up, head lolled forward, still holding the woman’s hand. It’s a male Red Cross volunteer, a penlight in one hand, shielding the glow with his palm—he’s young, with a shaggy blond beard and world-weary blue eyes.

  It’s the deep dark of past midnight, cool air stirring, stars shining beyond the tent. With so much of the city without power, there’s less light pollution, so the stars are more visible. The male nurse touches two fingers just beneath the woman’s nose, and his frown deepens. He touches the same two fingers to the side of her throat, holds them there a few moments, and then sighs sadly. He thumbs the switch to close the IV line and gently removes the needle.

  I touch Jonny’s shoulder. “Hey. Jonny.”

  He starts awake. “Que? Um—what?” He straightens, blinks at me, and then at the volunteer lifting the IV bag free of the hook. “What’re you . . . where are you taking that?” He sounds stubborn. Petulant, almost.

  The volunteer doesn’t quite look at Jonny. “She’s gone, man. I’m sorry. The fluids are needed elsewhere, there’s not enough to go around.”

  Jonny is silent a long moment. “She’s not gone.” He shifts, leans forward, touches fingers to her neck. “She’s not gone. Where’s the doctor?”

  I wrap an arm around him. “Jonny. You did everything you could.”

  He shakes me off. “No. No. I got her out. I got her kids out. He was . . . he was already dead when I got down there, but I got her out.”

  I feel a hot lump in my throat. “You did everything you could, Jonny. No one could have done anything more. You’ve done more than . . . more than anyone.”

  He shakes his head, murmuring in Spanish too low and too rapid for me to make out, and then louder in English. “She was—she needs the IV. The doctor, he said—he said to push fluids. She’ll—her babies—no, no.”

  I wrap my arm around him again, try to pull him away. “Jonny, there wasn’t . . . there wasn’t anything anyone could have done.” I tug at him, but he’s immovable. “Jonny, come on. You’ve done enough for today. Come on.”

  “Hours, I—I dug for hours. If—maybe if I’d dug faster, or started sooner, maybe they’d—they both might still be—” He shakes his head, making a keening sound in the back of his throat that is . . . it’s utterly heartbreaking. “I have to—I have to—” He lurches to his feet, staggering out of the tent and toward the ruined building.

  I follow him at a run and catch up to him. I cut in front of him and stop with my hands on his chest. “Jonny, stop. Please, please, Jonny, please, just stop for a second.”

  He blinks at me as if now realizing I’m here; he’s flashing back, I think, to some past trauma. “I have to go back. I have to help. I have to save them.”

  I move slowly, unsure of his mental state at the moment, gathering him into a hug. He’s stiff, tensed, breathing heavily. Shaking his head. Hands fisted at his sides, eyes wild, now.

  “Hush, Jonny. You’ve done so much. You’ve been here, digging for days. You’ve saved so many lives, Jonny.” I hold him, and he lets me, but he doesn’t move.

  “I—I didn’t save them.”

  “You tried.”

  He shakes his head. “Mi hermana, mi madre. Mi sobrino . . .” he whispers. “No pude salvarlos . . .”

  I’ve worked in enough restaurants and bars with Spanish-speakers to have picked up a little Spanish over the years to understand what he said—my sister, my mother. My nephew. I could not save them.

  “You tried, Jonny. You did everything you could.”

  He sucks in a deep, deep breath. Holds it. Lets it out slowly, with a broken shudder. “Never—it’s . . . it’s never enough.”

  “Can we go to our spot on the beach, Jonny?” I pull him in that direction. “Let’s go sit down for a minute, okay?”

  “Her babies.” He blinks, starting to come out of his thoughts. “I have to—I need to see them.”

  “Okay, let’s go see them.”

  So we go back to the tent, to a pair of cots that are much too big for the tiny, orphaned bodies in them. A four-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl. IV lines are taped to their forearms. They’re sleeping.

  A female Red Cross volunteer nearby shushes us softly. “They’re exhausted, the poor things,” she whispers, ushering us away a few feet. “Poor, poor little dears.” She’s mid-forties, thin, efficient, and warm, a woman who has spent her whole life as a nurse.

  “They’re going to be okay?” Jonny asks.

  The nurse nods. “Yes. They’ll be just fine.” She glances at the now-empty cot. “Such a tragedy about their parents, though.”

  “What will happen, now?” Jonny’s gaze stays on the children.

  “Oh, social services will take them, eventually. Things are such a mess right now, though. Who knows when that will happen?”

  “Until then?”

  She shrugs. “We make sure they get fed. Someone will have to tell them about their parents. We will all stick together and help out.” Another shrug and a sigh. “That’s what we do when tragedies happen.”

  “Look for the helpers,” I put in. “Mr. Rogers once said that as a kid, whenever something bad happened on TV, his mother would tell him to look for the helpers; there would always be people helping.”

  The nurse nods. “Yes. Well, we’re all the helpers now, aren’t we?”

  Jonny rubs his face. “I’ll talk to them when they wake up. I don’t think they speak any English.”

  “I’ll personally come find you when they wake up, okay?” The nurse pats him on the shoulder. “Go rest, okay? You need it.”

  Jonny trudges away, and I follow him. We go to our little nest—well, his little nest, which I’ve somehow turned into our little nest. I wonder if I should give him space or stay close? I don’t know. This is utterly uncharted territory for me, dealing with such raw, intense emotion. Jonny is clearly reliving some past horror, collating that with this current situation, and his placid and seemingly imperturbable demeanor is suddenly cracked, and I’m seeing through to the depth of the man behind it.

  He slips off the boardwalk and collapses into the sand, sitting abruptly, as if he’s suddenly too weak to move. I sit beside him. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.

  “Jonny, I—” I break off with a sigh, unsure what I’m trying to say. “I’m here.”

  He nods heavily, staring out at the rippling sea, the moon a bright disc painting a path on the water, stars infinite and scintillating. “Thank you.”

  “Do you . . . do you still want my company? Or would you rather be alone?” I ask, my voice hesitant.

  He digs his fingers into the sand, wiggling them deeper and deeper under until he’s buried up to the wrists. “Don’t go. Please.” He says this without looking at me.

  “I just . . . I’ve sort of latched onto you since I got here, and—” I pause, hesitating, and then voice my deepest doubts. “I don’t want to . . . overwhelm you, or overstay my welcome with you. If you know what I mean.”

  He shakes his head. “Having you around, the last few days—it’s . . . it’s been good. I’ve done this before, helped people after a hurricane. It’s never easy. But with Chris missing and Ava still in the hospital, I wouldn’t . . . it would be harder if I was alone. I’m usually happier being alone, but after what I’ve been through the last few weeks?” He shrugs, shakes his head again. “No, Delta, if I have to be here, doing this, I’m very, very glad to be here, doing it with you.”

  I smile helplessly, my heart thrilling and lurching into my throat. “Same.” I pause. “This hurricane . . . I don’t know much about hurricanes in general, but it seems like this one came out of nowhere.”

  He nods. “It did. This was a very powerful out-of-season storm, and it just cropped up out of nowhere and hit like a freight train. Me and Chris were on the outer edge of it as it was developing over across the Atlantic, off the southern coast of Africa. It was nice and clear, smooth sailing, and then . . . bam, it hit. We didn’t have a chance to try to get away from it or go back to port and ride it out. It overtook us, smacked us to shit, and . . . that was it. Chris went overboard, and I managed to stay with the boat until Dom rescued me, which was a miracle in and of itself, honestly.”

  There’s another long silence between us.

  He finally twists his head to look at me, and our faces are so close, too close. “About this morning, Delta . . .”

  I interrupt him. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

  He doesn’t look away, and I can’t either—I’m somehow just incapable of breaking the eye contact. “In a way, I’m glad of the interruption.”

  I blink at him, surprised. “You . . . you are?” I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be hurt or insulted or just baffled, and I go with baffled. “Why? I mean, it can’t have been comfortable, getting stopped when you were obviously, you know, so close.”

  He nods. “Well, yeah. That part sucked a little. But . . .” He pauses, his eyes searching mine. “That was a weird situation, and if something were to happen between you and me, Delta, I don’t want it be by accident, you know? Also, I feel like that would have been . . . one-sided. And that’s not how I do things.”

  “I’m not the type of woman to keep count, Jonny,” I tell him. “I do what I want, what feels good. And I may not know much about you, but I get the sense you’re not the type of man who’d leave his partner wanting or frustrated.”

  “Hell, no,” he says, and somehow we’ve shifted even closer to each other. “Never. That’s why I’m glad things happened like they did. Because I’m not sure how I would have given back what you were giving. We ain’t exactly in a private place, you know?”

  I nod, sighing. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”

  He eyes me, reading me. “But?”

  “But . . .” I laugh ruefully. “I don’t like leaving things unfinished. And this morning, it may have started by accident, but . . . I was doing what I wanted to do, because I wanted to do it. Not with any expectation of getting something in return. So things just feel . . . I don’t know. Unfinished.”

  He’s quiet for a while. “I hope you can understand this, Delta, but . . . I’m not in a place right now where I can . . .” He shrugs, and it’s obvious he’s deeply uncomfortable saying this. “I can’t go there. Not tonight. Not after”—he waves behind us, at the medical tent—“not after all that.”