As sunlight peeks through the humid, foggy morning, I look out the car window to see clumps of fallen trees lying in odd, abandoned piles, across the road. Crippled branches, bent and contorted, reach towards the car like brittle fingers. As I adjust my position, the seat squeaks. The car’s air conditioning cools our hot bodies, wet with thick, summer heat. As we pull into our driveway, gravel crunches beneath our tires like distant thunder. What was once a familiar sight, is now foreign. Broken tree limbs and tattered tarps litter our backyard. As I tiptoe over shrubbery and upturned earth, through a maze of debris, my father takes out the house keys, then waits. His body slumps, as he tries to prepare us for something we will never be prepared for. The key jiggles, then opens to a whole …
