María poured the coffee into the thermos using an old sock filter. Mamá made the coffee earlier by boiling water in a saucepan and putting in a few heaping teaspoons of finely ground powder. María added sugar into the thermos–just sweet enough.

She took a banana from the bunch at the edge of the kitchen door as mamá cut a few slices of cheese from the large block and wrapped the slices with the buttered bread in an old, white napkin. María put all of them in a cloth tote bag to take to papá for breakfast.

The morning was cool and wet. The coqui and crickets still sang their evening songs. Her eyes adjusted to the hazy dawn as she entered the footpath into the woods towards the tobacco fields.

The path was muddy from the rain the night before. She stopped near la bruja’s house. The one-room house sat tucked against the wooded hill. The window and door were always closed. People said they saw her fly over her house at night in her long black nightgown. A dim light came from the back of the house. A breeze picked up and the trees rustled. Maria held her breath and ran. Once she was no longer in sight of the house, she slowed to a walk again.

She arrived at the clearing where the men sat, finishing the last of the coffee from their thermoses. Her papá, Juan, sat under a flamboyan tree chatting with his compadre, Gil.

María traded papá’s empty thermos with the new one. She gave him his sandwich.

“No ham today?” He asked as he opened his sandwich and looked at the buttered bread and thick slices of cheese.

She shook her head.

He sighed.

“Word is a big storm is coming,” Don Gil said to María.

Papá nodded and sipped his coffee. He was terrified of storms. Mamá said they’d been lucky; no powerful storms had passed since María could remember.

“Is it going to be big?” She asked.

Papá looked away.

“They heard from one of the other islands that houses were torn away,” Don Gil said. “We'll probably go home soon.”

Would they let them leave early? The tobacco needed to be cut and the drying barns protected before they could go home.

“Tell mamá to bring the goats into the shed and move the furniture to the storm room,” papá said.

Papá added a concrete room to their small wooden house two years ago. He called it the storm room, but it was also mamá and papá’s bedroom. The walls were at least a cinder block thick, and the floor was a foot higher than the rest of the house. “Don Gil, you come stay with us,” papá offered.

Don Gil nodded, “gracias.” María smiled at the thought of having her friends Lourdes and Carmen with them to pass the storm.

“Anything else?” She asked.

“No, just get ready,” he said. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

She took the empty thermos from earlier and returned home. At the bruja's house, she stepped up her pace and jogged home. Her loafers were covered in mud when she got home. A light drizzle fell.

“Mamá,” she said. She went to the kitchen at the back of the house. “Papá says a storm is coming.” Mamá was outside over the fire pit making corn meal porridge. The tin roof covered her from the rain. Two walls making a corner protected the flame from the wind. “He said we need to get things ready.”

“Did he say how bad it will be?” She turned back to stirring the porridge.

“Don Gil said it was going to be bad. They heard from the other islands.”

Her older brother, Juan, came out of their room. Though he just turned thirteen, he was almost as tall as mamá. He finished buttoning up his shirt.

“That doesn't mean it will be bad here,” Juan said.

“He’s coming to stay with us,” María said. His eyes widened. His godfather, Don Gil, never stayed with them for prior storms. His house was sturdy and built to withstand almost anything.

Juan shrugged, “we'll pray it will pass us.”

Mamá went into the main kitchen. She grabbed a stack of bowls from the cabinet and then back outside to fill them with porridge.

“Breakfast," she said, "then we'll get ready."

María wished it were a weekday and had school instead. She changed clothes in their room. Rosa sat on their bed playing with a red-haired rag doll her godmother had sent her from “allá afuera” - out there. New York. She turned six two weeks before. Maria didn't expect Rosa to help much. Rosa  could help mamá by watching Luisito while she went to the fields with María and Juan to gather the goats. María put on the hand-me-down shirt and pants she inherited from Juan. The only time she could wear pants was when working in the field. Though the pants gave her the freedom to climb trees and jump fences, she preferred the lightness of her dresses in the August humidity. The pants fit loose around the waist, so she used a rope for a belt. They were a few inches above her ankles.

“Watch Luisito,” María said. Rosa looked up from the doll and nodded. Luisito slept in his crib in the corner of their room. His chubby arms over his head as he lay on his back only wearing a diaper. It was too muggy to sleep in anything else.

+++++

After helping gather the goats and chickens and pack food from the kitchen into boxes, María and mamá brought the mattresses into the storm room. It was large enough for their family to shelter in, but María wondered how they would fit Don Gil, Doña Isidora, and their two daughters.

“We'll make do somehow,” mamá said.

They put away the smaller items from the room. María put the statue of la Virgen that was on the dresser by the door into a trunk. Next to it was a picture of abuela Felicita. Papá's mamá. It was a studio picture. Her blue eyes grey in the black-and-white picture. Her long hair pulled up in a loose bun. The ruffle of the high collar of her dress framed her unsmiling face. There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes, similar to papá's when he stole cookies from her snack plate. It was the only picture papá had of her. She died when he was young, and he never talked about her.

María was about to put it in the trunk with the other items when mamá said, “leave it out.”

She took the picture frame from María and put it on a small shelf above their bed, next to their bible and a kerosene lamp. “Has Juan come back yet?” She asked.

He went to town to buy supplies - candles, kerosene for the lamps, and to hear any news about the storm.

“I haven't seen him since he helped me with the goats,” María said. She didn't think he'd be back soon. It was a long walk to town and back, and surely there would be many people doing the same thing. Mamá's forehead furrowed.

A strong breeze picked up outside. “I wonder if they'll let them come home early.” Mamá rubbed her eyes. “Come, let's make lunch, big enough for dinner, too. Were there any banana clusters in the woods?”

“No,” María said. She was worried about the storm and didn’t think to look.

+++++

Mamá warmed oil in a large skillet over the fire. She cut onions, put them in and crumbled dried codfish onto them. “I guess we’ll just eat yucca and malanga,” she said. She usually made it with green bananas, but the ones they had in the kitchen were too ripe.

María peeled and sliced the root plants, then put them in the large pot of salted boiling water next to the skillet. She hoped Juan could get a few cans of meat spread and bread. It had already been a week of plenty of yucca and malanga. At school, they served it twice at lunch that week.

The food was almost ready when Isidora called through the front door, “hola!” Lourdes and Carmen stood behind her carrying large bundles over their shoulders. María led Lourdes and Carmen to the storm room. Isidora went to the kitchen to help mamá.

“Gil said they're sending them home for lunch,” Isidora said.

This was good news. They’d have time to finish prepping with the men’s help. After lunch, María took Luis and Rosa onto the front porch to play while mamá and Isidora finished putting things away in the rooms that could get damaged from the rain. Luis played on the floor with the wooden blocks papá made years before for Juan. He banged them together and laughed when his small towers fell.

María and Carmen sat on the hammock behind him, looking at a fashion magazine from the United States. They couldn’t read what the captions said, but the pictures of beautiful ladies dressed in glamorous dresses filled their imaginations with stories of rich husbands and large homes in crowded cities.

A large gust came from between the hills in their valley. It rattled the house and sent drizzling rain onto the porch. The magazine pages rustled. Luis stopped playing and looked at María. 

“Don't worry Luisito. Just a little wind,” Carmen said.

Juan came down the road carrying a large sack on his back and two bundles in his hands. María and Carmen ran to him and took the bags, heavy with cans.

“How was town?” María asked, hoping for news about the strength of the storm.

“Too many people,” he said. “Everyone is worried. They’re saying it’s going to be worse than San Ciprián.”

María’s heart sank. San Ciprián happened before she was born. It destroyed entire neighborhoods, and hundreds of people died. The winds, rain and mudslides killed crops, trees and livestock. Her mom told her people ate twigs and grass. Papá was a teenager when it happened. Maybe that’s why he was so afraid of storms?

Juan put the large sack on the kitchen table and emptied it: kerosene for the lamp, boxes of matches, candles. “Diosito is watching over us. It won’t happen,” he said.

Why wasn’t God watching over the people for San Ciprián? She guessed that sometimes he looked away and turned his attention to more important things rather than a bunch of jibaritos on a tiny island.

“Papá's coming!” Rosa yelled from outside. He and Don Gil came up the narrow dirt path from the field. Their shoulders drooped and their pace slow.

The smell of tobacco followed them into the house. “We finished securing the barns. I don’t see the point if it’s all going to blow away,” papá said. He put his thermos on the table next to the supplies. “Thanks for going to town,” he said to Juan. “Where's your mom?”

“She's getting eggs,” María said. “I'll get you some coffee. Lunch is ready. Do you want a plate?”

He nodded, “mm-hmm.”

María prepared their lunch and started another pot of coffee.

Mamá and Doña Isidora were in the woods looking for eggs. Earlier, they put the hens in the coop near the back shed of the house, where papá stored his tools. Mamá knew the spots where they liked to make their nests behind the house. She listened for their egg song when she tended the garden.

María brought out their lunches of codfish, boiled yucca and malanga with glasses of cold milk. “I planned on finishing the living room this year,” papá said to Don Gil and took a sip of his milk. “But I still owe from the kitchen.”

Papá built the kitchen last year to get mamá away from cooking over the open fire. She still preferred it over their new stove. “It's what I'm used to,” she said whenever he asked her why he spent so much on making the kitchen.

María brought out two cups of hot black coffee with a couple of teaspoons of sugar in each. She took the plates back to the kitchen.

They talked about what they needed to do if the storm was as bad as Ciprián. “At least now they can tell us where to go to get what we need,” Don Gil said.

“Si,” papá said. His blue eyes misted over as he looked out the door to the hills across the valley from their house. The breeze was almost constant now. The sky a sheet of grey. “Nothing like San Felipe,” he said. He didn’t direct it at Don Gil, but he nodded anyway.

Just like with abuelita, papá never talked about hurricane San Felipe. It was one of mamá’s first memories. She remembered the howl of the winds outside of the crowded shelter where everyone from her neighborhood gathered to take cover from the storm. “It was like a monster,” she said. “The walls didn't just shake, they vibrated.”

Don Gil stood. “I’m going to find Isidora. We may need to go to town for a few things,” he said and stepped out the kitchen door into the woods.

Papá stared blankly out the front door.

“Papá, what happened during San Felipe?” She asked.

He let out a long sigh. “Not now, María.”

She finally asked what she had suspected for a while, “did abuela die during that storm?”

He blinked and turned to her. One tear streamed down his cheek. He quickly wiped it away. “Sit.” He patted the chair where Don Gil had just been.

She sat and pulled the metal chair closer to papá, its feet dragged against the wooden floorboards.

He sighed and leaned against the table.

“I was four. We lived in a one-room house that was poorer than this one. Mamá and papá put it together with whatever papá could find. I slept on a hammock in one corner, and they slept on a small cot. The roof leaked, even with just a drizzle.

“Papá came home one afternoon and told mamá we needed to pack and go to the shelter. We lived in Toita then. It was a long walk from the house to town. Longer than here.

“Mamá wanted to wait a bit. Titi Grisilda was stopping by to bring her a pretty dress from one of the rich ladies in town. She had her mind on that dress for weeks. Papá said mamá was beautiful no matter what she wore.”

María thought of the picture on papá’s shelf. She pictured her in color: dark blonde hair and the pronounced Spanish nose like papá's.

“Papá didn't argue with her. What mamá wanted she got. He didn't think that the storm would be bad. Many times before, they'd say a storm was coming and after so much panic, nothing. So, we waited, and evening came. Titi Grisilda never stopped by. That morning it was raining. Nothing bad, just like the rain we get every afternoon. When we ate breakfast, Don Octavio came by with his family. They headed to town in their truck and asked papá if we wanted a ride. We hadn't packed, so papá said no. Papá said Don Octavio got angry at him and called him stupid. If Don Octavio hadn't been such a cabrón, he’d have changed his mind. He told him he needed to leave.

“We packed some stuff after we ate and got ready to leave, but the wind picked up even more by then. Mamá said maybe we should wait. The walk to town was over an hour and it was pouring. She didn't think it was safe for me to walk since I didn't have shoes. They stayed.

“They thought if it got terrible, we could hurry out to town. Neither of them had ever seen a big storm, so they thought we could leave if it got bad. I'll tell you, there's no leaving in the middle of hurricane. They didn't know that.

“They closed the windows and we sat on their bed and waited. Time moved so slow. With every gust of wind mamá  hugged me tighter. Papá sat on the edge of the bed praying and, once in a while, stopped to sing. He had such a great voice. He said that’s how he won over mamá. Such a pretty lady wouldn’t fall for a plain jíbaro, he said. Mamá hugged me and hummed along.

“It got dark and the storm finally came at its strongest. The winds shook the house. Trees snapped, and branches hit the house. Our roof lifted and lowered like the house was breathing. Then it ripped off, and the walls flew away.

“Mamá somehow carried me and ran out of the house. Papá grabbed our sack of stuff. We went through the cow fields in the dark. It was the fastest way to town. She fell and we got tangled in barbed wire. The wind was so loud I couldn't hear her screaming, even though her face was next to mine. Papá tried to help us, but the wind was like needles. She crouched on the ground with me. Papá left us to get help.

“The wind howled in my ears and mamá's heart pounded against me. She held me and cried and screamed to God for help. I eventually fell asleep or passed out. I woke up in the town hospital, alone. Mamá died a few days later. They said pneumonia. The storm took her.”

María hugged papá. He tensed. She cried for the abuela she never met. Imagining the terror of being stuck out in the middle of a hurricane with the uprooted trees flying by. She cried for papá; the boy clinging onto his mamá while the winds tried pulling him away.

“We need to get ready,” he said, and moved her away as he stood.

+++++

In the remaining hours, they tied down the animal shed roofs, gathered water from the well into drums next to the house, and cooked the remaining food from the refrigerator so it wouldn’t spoil when they lost power.

     They ate an early dinner and set themselves up in the small room. María sat on the floor on the mattress she'd share with Rosa, Juan, and Luisito. Don Gil, Isidora, Carmen and Lourdes were on another mattress. Mamá and papá sat on their bed. The boxes and bags they packed earlier were under the bed. It was warm and humid in the room, but not too warm. The constant wind shook the wooden shutters and cool air seeped in.

The kerosene lamp in the middle of the room created long, dark shadows against the wall. The younger kids fell asleep even with the wind rattling the shutters. Juan and Lourdes played brisca on the bare floor between the mattresses. The adults talked about “el ela”, statehood, “los americanos”–María tried to listen, but couldn’t follow along. Abuela's picture over papá's bed looked over them. In the dark, only her pale skin was noticeable.

María laid down next to Rosa and closed her eyes. The wind came in waves. The constant hum picked up, and the leaves and tree branches shook against themselves, becoming louder as the wind made its way through the valley then shook the walls when it reached the house.

The tin ceiling clanged against the wooden part of their house. The image of the roof of papá’s house heaving then ripping off with papá, abuela and abuelo huddled inside, made María's muscles tighten. She waited for the gusts to pass, then relaxed.

Papá turned the lamp off. Papá and mamá’s bed creaked as they stirred in the room's quiet. The shutters slammed against each other. María waited for one of them to fly off its hinges.

The noise from the main part of the house grew louder. The roof lifted and clapped back against the house with a metallic clang. Papá tied the tin roof down with wire a few years before. She imagined the wires being pulled like the belt on an expanding belly.

María got into bed with mamá and papá, squeezing into the space between him and the wall. She put her arm around papá. He shook. She pressed herself against his neck, which faintly smelled of tobacco, and squeezed her arm tighter against him.

“Abuelita will make sure that we're safe,” she said. “She watches over us. I know it.”

His muffled crying diminished. He still trembled, but even that subsided.

The strength of the gusts decreased, and the time between them grew longer. The noises from the house quieted. María fell asleep.

+++++

María woke up alone in mamá and papá's bed. Light filled the room from the open door to the living room. The younger kids slept, but Juan, Lourdes, mamá, papá, Don Gil and Doña Isidora talked in the living room. The smell of coffee filled the house. María got out of bed and went to the door. The floor was wet, but they still had a roof. The walls were intact—even in her room and the kitchen. She needed to use the bathroom.

“Buenos días,” she said, rushed out the front door and around the corner of the house to the outhouse.

Papá laughed, and María saw why. The only thing left of the outhouse was the concrete seat. Even the toilet seat flew away. She went anyway. Most of the trees survived, but branches and leaves littered the ground. A couple of cows grazed in the open field across from the house.

On her way back inside, she stopped. La bruja walked towards her from the muddy path. She wore all black and had an umbrella for the light drizzle. María had never seen her before, but knew it was her. She froze.

“I wanted to see if your family is alright,” la bruja said. Her formal accent was out of place among the fallen branches and muddy road. Her brown eyes were barely visible under her drooped eyelids and tucked into her leathery face.

“We are,” María said. “Should I get my parents?”

“No. No. I’m just making my way to see how everyone is doing,” she said. “God bless you.” She gave one nod and continued up the road toward town. María watched her until she rounded the bend.

She didn’t tell them about the encounter when she went inside. Mamá, papá, Don Gil and Doña Isidora sat on chairs with the radio between them on an export soda cracker tin.

Mamá placed a cup of coffee with steamed milk and a piece of buttered bread for María on the table. She sat in the doorway to the storm room. Its step up was just the right height for her to sit and eat. She put the mug next to her.

The newsman talked about the damage in different towns. "We're still receiving information from some municipalities in the interior," he said in his clipped voice. "Many of the roads are impassable and it may take a few days. It spared us from its worse."

María turned into the room as she dunked her bread into her coffee and took a bite. Abuelita looked at María and out into the living room from her picture with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

"Gracias abuelita for looking over papá again."