“The first plane has landed.” Was it a collective whisper, or just one voice?

​

I turn in a circle, unable to grasp the magnitude of the story unfolding around me. An ant

farm of women and men, everyone moving, everyone doing. Tables line the walls of the hangar. Food and water. Toiletries. Clothing and shoes. A play area has been set up with change tables and piles of diapers, dress-up costumes and toys. Mattresses cover the floor along the back wall and chairs and tables fill the middle of the room. A few brown faces, most are white. Mothers I recognize from my son’s private school, members of the PTA. Efficient and calm. They move around me, speak in low voices. They do what needs to be done. My hand flies to my nametag, Counselor, written boldly in red. Fear, the master manipulator, mutters in my ear, you’re not supposed to be here. A woman with a baseball cap and short-shorts checks my name on a list.

​​

“Know any French?”

​​

“I do. Why?”

​​

“Many of the people arriving are Haitian. You can translate.” Her gaze traps me like a

spotlight, and I stand in silence, weighted by an invisible force.

​

“You’re a counsellor, right?” Her eyes flick to my nametag, I shake my head. “Then you’re

here because you have a boat that can save people?” Again, I gesture no. “Then you’re a

counselor.” Her voice leaves no room for mine.

​

“They’re here.” Another shared murmur. A hush blankets the room. I turn to the wide, steel

door of the hangar as a line of people shuffle in. Their movements are cautious, as if testing the ground beneath their feet. Hollowed eyes that search the room with an empty gaze, half-mooned shadows underneath. Shades of brown turned sallow, features smudged with shock. My curiosity is morbid and I flush with shame.

 

Your family is ushered through. You’d been rescued by a fishing boat the night before,

taken to a sister island for a meal and first aid. Dressed in clothes from strangers, too loose, too tight. You’re in your father’s arms and your braids snap against his chest as you squirm to see. He puts you down and pulls his wife against him, a tiny bundle held to her chest. They trudge to the nearest chair and I wonder who is leading whom. Your mother sits unmoving, her eyes searching for solace in the unyielding concrete floor.

​

I notice you watching me. I smile. You squeeze around your father’s knees, yank on my

shirt. I lift you in my arms. You’re small for your age, I hold you with ease. There are spaces where your second teeth have yet to come in. You point to your family, but won’t tell me your name.

​

“Good for you, jumping right in.” A woman with an orange safety vest and a walkie-talkie.

I recognize her from yesterday as the school cook. Her name tag says Food Service, and I wish we could trade.

​

“I’ve never done this before,” I whisper around your head.

​

“None of us have,” she mouths back. “Go to her family, you’ll be fine.” She takes you from

my arms and brings you to a table heaped with stuffed animals, board games and art supplies.

​

I watch your father move to the back of the hangar with the other men. Shoulders hunched,

head bowed. Your mother, breasts heavy with milk. How she kept her newborn alive could only have been with God’s help. Your baby sister sleeps, and I marvel at life nestled in death. I pull a chair next to your mother, turn my body to hers.

​

“Yuh seen mi daughter?” Her Caribbean lilt is monotone, flat.

​

“She’s with the volunteers in the back. Someone brought some toys.” The smell of her skin

is acidic, sharp. She falls against my shoulder, she hasn’t slept in days. No one arriving has.

​

“Dat’s Raymona. I cyahnt find Letitia. Not since de storm hit.” She raises her head, her

face a ravaged landscape, pathways of sorrow etched across her checks. I want to look away but she won’t let me. Mother, woman, sister. You, me, her. I place my hands on her shoulders, her t-shirt drenched in sweat.

 

“What’s your name?”

​

“Monique.” She clutches her neck, rubs and yanks on skin. Her baby whimpers, a tremor

blending a sigh. Monique’s hand drops. Her square and calloused fingers are feathers; she caresses her child’s head.

​

“Monique, I’m here to support you. There are more planes arriving. Your daughter is surely

on one of them.”

​

“No ma’am, Ah know it inna mi bones. She was swept ‘way.”

​

Her voice is the wind that moans through barren branches, raising the hair on my skin.

​

“Oh sweet baby Jesus. She’s only ten.”

​

My ten-year old is in school having his lunch. I search for help, but everyone is helping

someone else. I shouldn’t be here, I’m not trained for this. I’m not a psychiatrist, or a therapist. I’m a health coach who teaches people what to eat. I lower my head to hers. The hangar holds us together, an organized safe space as we wait for American and British help. Someone had called me this morning. Aren’t you a therapist of some sort? Not at all, I said. I’m a coach. You know... vegetables, meditation, bare feet in the grass. That’ll do, was the response. Less than three hours before the first plane arrived I was given a crash course in

psychological first aid. Contact and engagement, safety and comfort, stabilization, information gathering, practical assistance, connections. This was a Category Five hurricane, named Dorian, and she had hovered over the Abaco Islands, ripping them apart, for more than two days.

​

“When did you last see your daughter?” I ask. Unable to say her name.

​

Letitia.

 

“We mek it to de roof. De watah rose so quick. Winds stronga dan God’s spirit, jus blow

mi littl’ girl ‘way.” Her words tear me at the core. Shared humanity, the fragility of life.

I can’t hold her close enough.

​

“When de watah reach de roof we had tuh float on pieces a’ wood. Dere were bodies in de

watah everywhere, people, animals, sharks comin’ in. I done cover Raymona’s eyes. Tore up a clot an’ blinfolded ‘er, I did. Couldn’t have her see dat death. ” She clutches at her chest, her face jagged shards. She begins to wail, her voice a lament of sorrow, her pain raw and exposed. “We had tuh look at de faces, ma’am. Had tuh look inna deir eyes. Mek sure dey wuhn’t Letitia. Not our baby girl.”​

​

Raymona. For three days you floated on a piece of wood. Blindfolded, without food or

water, your parents sifting through drifting bodies, seeking your sister’s face. What stories did they tell to keep you sane?

​

Later, I hold your baby sister. I’m told her name is Dawn. I caress her skin and kiss her. When I open her soiled diaper I’m greeted with a putrid stench and I know that she is sick.

I look over my shoulder for a medic. My eyes fall on you.

​

Your gap-toothed smile fills the room.

​

When the sun sets, I go home. My boys have piles of books and toys to donate, and my

eyes fill when they point out The Giving Tree and The Little Prince, and a much-loved collection of miniature cars. My husband pours me a bath, adding peppermint and rosemary, and warms the lentil soup I’d made the night before. I sleep very little, my dreams of the howling winds that were your mother’s voice, and the waters of our Mother Earth, rising in anger and pain. The next day, I return to the hangar. As I will the day after that. And the day after that. More ravaged faces, devastation. I wonder where you and your family had spent the night. When I find a badge reading Organization, pinned to a soft and suntanned chest, I ask the round-faced woman if she could find you.

​

“Have you located family members?” she asks. “Friends that can help?” Hope, a beacon

of light.

​

I tell her that I’d been with you yesterday, that you’d been taken to a shelter with your

family in the evening, that I don’t know which one. The woman’s gaze is tender. She tells me that families are being shuffled, and many more were to arrive, it would be better if I looked for you in a few days. And then, she gives me her words of advice.

​

“My dear, there are so many people arriving that need you. You’re a professional, you

know it’s best not to get attached.” I twist my Counselor badge until it’s upside down, rub my tight and burning face. “A plane has landed,” she says, and she turns away from me to the hangar’s doors. I take a step forward, following her lead.

​

When I wasn’t at the hangar, I drove to different shelters, delivering clothing and food.

I asked for you, Raymona, for your mother Monique, for baby Dawn. I searched for you amongst the new arrivals at the airport, and although you had no reason to come back, every braided little head made my heart jump.

​

I never did find you, although our photo appeared in the newspaper. You were in my arms,

our faces close. We were smiling at each other, and for one glorious moment, the world had

stopped.