Bill and Sarah's Storm

Hurricane Sandy's Legacy for Bill and Sarah

Bill Harrison and Sarah Harrison were conferencing in Sarah's divorce Attorney's spacious, modern architecture office on a beautiful September 12, 2011. The greenery still dominated the small Northern New Jersey community outside the office building in this township, although it was now early fall.

In the conference room the arguments were sometimes shouting matches but the four participants, in time, hammered out an agreement (in lieu of a threatened court date) of Joint Custody with a sizable total package of payments to the wife, and children's residency to be with the wife. The most important thing in Bill's favor was that she got almost none of the couple's extensive cash holdings because Bill's attorney successfully argued that the Dad used it to operate his business - the profits from which would come Sarah's rather large monthly check. So in time the agreement was duly signed, with no one happy with the outcome.

After the conference Bill Harrison drove the few blocks over to his 16-bay automobile repair shop - and later, after the shop closed, to the few more blocks to the Zero Lot Line home. It was now exclusively his since he had purchased the wife's equity in the settlement. Sarah, who had gladly sold her share of the equity in their home, drove 40 plus miles southeast in New Jersey traffic to her lover's Penthouse. She and the children had previously installed themselves in the 'new Dad's' luxury home when her cheating had been discovered. After school started two months ago, she had even enrolled them in a Parochial school near the Penthouse.

Sarah's co-worker, Jerry Jones, had been a household name sports figure for a winning football team. When he retired from sports he became a major investor in the manufacturing company where Sarah had been the office manager for 7 years - and where her staff secretly called her 'Chihuahua Bitch,' alluding to her petiteness. The CEO then created a not-quite-fully-defined-or-needed position and office for the star investor. Handsome, tall, rugged, and with pronounced whiskers matting his face, he considered himself still in the limelight, especially for the office manager, Sarah Harrison. He also was a gossip item in the news because of his own ongoing divorce. Jerry was in bed with his office manager in just over a month after he had moved into his newly created position.

In time Sarah wrote the boiler plate letter to her husband - i.e., Dear Bill, I have met someone who etcetera etcetera - and moved her and the children in with Jerry, at his invitation and assistance. Both had announced plans to get married as soon as both their respective ongoing divorces were finalized.

Having settled into a routine Bill routinely drove the 40-plus miles to pick up his children on two or three Fridays monthly and returned them to their school Monday mornings. In time the children had toys, clothes, and supplies to live in both places.

My story starts on September 24th of 2012, 13 months later, when Sarah Harrison married Jerry Jones, her lover for the past two years. She had a fleeting moment of 'not doing the right thing' fear at her wedding because not a single one of her family or a former friend of Bill and hers would make the trip to East central N.J. to attend - not to mention all her staff were invited, but also were no shows. But the Dean's List MBA fancied herself madly in love with her new found god-like figure and found his friends just fantastic people. She chose to just overlook his rank stupidity, both on and off the playing field. As the ceremony proceeded she recalled that on TV he only talked to sports reporters after rehearsing what he would say because he was a down right embarrassing at impromptu speach.

For their honeymoon they elected to take a round trip shoreline luxury cruise out of New York to Halifax the next day. The ship would be stopping at a number of ports to view the autumn leaves and then on the return from Halifax stopping at more small ports for tours and scenery viewings. Sarah had made arrangements with her ex-husband to keep the Children in her absence. Her excitement was high as they boarded the shoreline luxury cruise ship in Manhattan.

Sarah and Jerry's cruise North was sometimes wonderful, filled with lots of fucking and site seeing at the stops. What was slightly upsetting to Sarah was that a young lady with an elderly escort was on the cruise and sat at their 12-person table for evening meals. Jerry couldn't keep his eyes off the stunningly beautiful lady. But, back in their stateroom, Jerry would 'take her to heaven again' and she would conclude that her anxiety about Jerry's true feelings for her was misplaced. Once Sarah used the bathroom and later followed Jerry to the gym, where she found her new husband chatting up the same young lady outside it. But, again, Jerry later said, "The small gym was crowded and we were chatting while awaiting you and some of the passengers to exit." She sort of believed him and they continued to enjoy the cruise.

The honeymooners started having palpable problems on their first night traveling South out of Halifax. In the dining room, Jerry had purposely chosen two seats where his was beside the beautiful 20-something blond hair woman. Sarah was livid with anger but not wanting to start an argument, she took her seat on Jerry's other side. The group conversation at the table was about the poor nutrition of most food stuffs, although on this luxury cruise it had been prepared by a celebrated chef. The stunning lady announced to the table, "The only food I normally eat is vegetables, fruit, and meat so, needless to say, this has been a near starvation cruise for me - and, keeping my energy up is important since I am very active. For example, I biked 100 miles for charity in July around Lake Tahoe." Sarah's new husband was suddenly star-struck and shifted his seat angle so he could look directly at the stunning sexy lady and asked, "Tell us more about your diet?"

She smiled and said,, "It's call the Paleo diet, and ..."

The other diners immediately lost interest in the beautiful young lady as well as her diet and her conversation. They began talking amongst themselves. Sarah tried twice to interrupt her new husband's and the goddess's conversation about the wonders of the paleolithic diet, but afterwards gave up. Jerry, by way of contrast, completely ignored his wife as she sat idle because he was mesmerized by the young lady's explanation - and probably by her warm blue eyes and pronounced breasts with much cleavage showing. An elderly woman sat to Sarah's right and was busy in a conversation with the gentleman on her right. Forty-five minutes later the other eight had finished dinner and left the table. The elderly gentleman escorting the young lady then asked the waiter to bring his walker and afterwards ambled away himself.

Sarah rose livid with anger, leaving the two alone and blindly went to their stateroom. She used the toilet and then lettered a message for her husband that she was in a particular bar, mid ship, and to please join her. She sat at the bar becoming more panicky and inebriated with every drink. As the abandoned wife kept watching for her errant husband, she kept saying, "Surely he will be here soon." One hour later she returned to her stateroom because Jerry never joined her at the bar.

The seas were high and she was inebriated. So, she staggered into their stateroom. Jerry Jones was there. But, to her horror, he was packing his suitcase, and she slurred, "Jerry, what the hell happened to you and to us? What are you doing?"

He condescendingly looked at her and said "There is no 'us,' Sarah. Our marriage was the shortest on record. Read my lips, it's over! My attorney will contact you about a no-fault divorce."

Her Irish temper flared and she slobbered while squalling. She kept standing up by holding on to Jerry. She tried to beat the mountainous man on the chest. She asked, "What did I do to deserve this, Jerry?"

"Goodbye Sarah, let's be civil to each other in the office and keep this quiet, O.K.," as he rolled his suitcase to the stateroom door? Her husband then gently took her arms and force-led her to the bed. She sat down and then lay down and then slowing started passing out as thoughts and memories of her first rejection by a man when a Freshman in college whirled in her head. As unconsciousness was just about to overpower her mind, Sarah's last thought was that this moment was the low point of her life. She was unaware that after checking that she was all right, Jerry clutched his suitcase handle and walked out of the stateroom and of her life.

Full consciousness came the next morning when the captain announced, "Welcome to beautiful Portland. Passengers are now free to disembark..." Noting that it was 10:30 she showered and found some food and black coffee. The ship was almost deserted except for crew as most all the passengers were ashore. The captain gave periodic updates on Hurricane Sandy's churning north in the Atlantic, to which Sarah couldn't possibly grasp that a storm had anything to do with the insurmountable problems descending on her life.

She stayed aboard ship and went to the small room that was the ship's public library and game room to see if she could join a domino or bridge game amongst the senior citizens. But she saw the gentleman who had escorted the young lady sitting along, with his walker beside him. She sat next to him and said, "Hello. My name is Sarah Harrison Jones, what is your name again?"

"George Carver, pleasure to meet you," as he extended his gnarled hand, which she shook.

She asked, "Were you and the young lady, who had been accompanying you to dinner, companions on this cruise?"

He replied, "I am sorry, but no. I paid the single supplement and so did she. Miss Anna was kind enough to help me get to my room because she was behind me in line at check in at the cruise terminal - she carried my small bag for me as well."

Sarah asked, "So you know nothing about her?"

"No. She offered to take her evening meal with me after helping me navigate to the dining room. My morning meal is via room service." He hesitated for a moment and continued, "I will be leaving the ship because my great grandson is picking me up when we dock at Bar Harbor tomorrow morning. My children are frightened for me."

Sarah thanked him and left. She thought to herself, "I had better find out about the hurricane because it might be big. But this isn't Florida? what is going on here?" She faced the most probable fact that her new husband moved into the young lady's stateroom and the two have by now left the ship together. Since they were both struck with each other, Jerry would not be returning because of the ship's terminus in the hurricane and the excitement of his new squeeze. Since she was in port she turned on roaming and called her ex-husband so she could talk to her children. Bill answered, "Yes, Sarah."

"Will you put the children on your phone so I can talk to them?"

"Sarah, they are at the same drop-off child care center that we previously used. I had to come into the shop because we are busy nailing up plywood on the windows and tying down tools and objects. We want to be prepared when the hurricane damage comes this far inland. I will pick them up about 4 if you will still be ashore at that time? I have also bought some canned and dried food and water so we three should be able to weather the storm - you don't need to worry about them. This evening I will be taping my patio door."

She said, "That is alright, Bill. I will be in Bar Harbor in the morning and I will call back then. Thank you for taking care of the children."

That evening, Sarah helped the old gentleman from his stateroom to the dining room table. There were only ten passengers at the table tonight. As if it were calculated to make Sarah feel even worse, the others wouldn't even look at her or include her in any bit of their conversation. Their topic was the coming hurricane and how it might affect the cruise terminus in Manhattan.

In Bar Harbor the next morning, Sarah helped the old gentleman into the tender boat and the two went ashore. He said, "Thank you so much Ms Jones for helping me," as they were now standing on the tender boat dock. He continued, "Oh! I see my great grand son over there who is walking this way." After an introduction, the young man hugged his grandpa and said, "I am double-parked about about 50 feet away. Can you walk that far, Papa?"

Sarah went alone to a pastry shop and ordered coffee and blueberry pie. She then pulled out her phone and dialed her ex-husband's cell phone. The only sound was a busy-circuit signal. She sat stunned and for the first time was somewhat panicky. "What to do?" After a second cup of coffee her phone rang and it was her ex-husband. She said, "Thanks for calling, Bill. The children and I drove into Western NY to buy some more supplies. We are on our way home, now. I will give the phone to them so you can talk."

Sarah really enjoyed talking to her children, and they to her, but about 10 minutes into the conversation, the circuit again went dead."

The morning of the 30th the captain announced over the ship's intercom, "Welcome to historic Boston," waking Sarah again! She walked off the ship alone, and had zero interest in visiting the historic sites there - although that is one of the reasons she and Jerry had planned this honeymoon cruise. She took a bus to the South Station and then walked across the street to a Starbucks. While looking at the Globe's car dealer ads for the kind of car she was interested in, she made up her mind to lease a car drive the 200 plus miles home.

Then the full reality of, "I have no home because Jerry's Penthouse is not my home and I couldn't get there anyway!" hit her between the eyes. She then found the dealer and the sport van she thought her first husband might want to buy off her hands ultimately, because, hopefully, his business could use it. While she studied the paper she watched the monitor in the coffee shop detailing the storm that had just this morning was approaching landfall. During this time she repeatedly attempted to call Bill and was met with a busy circuit signal. She then called her office and again the same busy signal.

When it was sailing time out of the Boston Harbor, the captain announced, "Both cruise terminals in New York City are closed. We will stay in the Boston port overnight and make an announcement in the morning. The gangway will be open at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning."

The following morning, Sarah forced herself to eat breakfast aboard ship and then walked off rolling her luggage. The rain was falling in torrents but she finally managed to jump into a taxi and gave him the address of the car dealer listed in the ad. With her credit card and near perfect credit score, the dealer salesman went out of his way to write the lease papers for the sport van and even timidly asked her to have lunch with him afterwards - which she declined. Her goal was to drive to Hartford and get a room.

She finally found a nice hotel that had as its only vacancy their honeymoon suite, and she rented it. This was near downtown Hartford. After learning that she could not call her children, she saw on the news that the entire county where Jerry's Penthouse and her place of employment was located, had no power and that officers were out to deal with looters. The more northern and inland city, where her children were, was not mentioned on the news. Her dilemma was that her relatives were in the Mid-West and she was friendless and she literally had no where to go, perhaps no job, and no home to go to either. She laughed like an insane person and said to nobody, "How can so many major disasters happen to one person at the same time?" Laughably, In the dinning room of the hotel, a stranded business man plaintively asked her to his room to have a drink... She declined, the thought of getting it on with this man was making her nauseous.

When she finally lay in her hotel bed to sleep, Sarah's complete exhaustion promptly put her into a sound slumber. The next morning she breakfasted and loaded her luggage and sat in her car. She sat thinking about her options, and was forced against her will to come to a momentous decision - she would drive to her ex-husband's house where her children are. Remembering the map, she would turn south into Northern New Jersey from I-84, and throw herself on Bill's mercy. There literally was nothing else she could do. Burning the miles she began to think about her ex-husband and beat her fist on the steering wheel saying, "How could you, Bitch...?" as she recalled her perfidy.

A few miles west on I-84, she had another nightmare thought, "What if Bill says, 'Hell no! Go check in at the homeless shelter'?" Then she countered, "No! Bill would not do that to the mother of his children! He is not capable of revenge. Besides, there is a storm... Well, I am going to tell him everything and the complete truth. Then the chips will fall where they may." Inexplicably, Sarah's entire body then relaxed and she turned off the radio and just listened to the windshield wipers oscillate. She kept refueling the vehicle each time the Gage reached a half tank - for fear of long lines after she turned South.

——-

AT 12:33 A.M. just after midnight, on October 1st, Sarah looked and felt like a tramp as she drove into her darkened township in the rain after fourteen grueling hours. Her exhaustion was almost life threatening and the eerie feeling of disaster was everywhere. At several points tree limbs were blocking her path, forcing her to back up and go another route. She had seen civil defense workers moving some of the debris from major roads but not in her former neighborhood. She pulled into her ex-husband's driveway with her gas Gage pegging empty.

She willed herself towards the house and pounded on the front door. In about a minute, she saw a flash from a camper lantern through the side window and Bill Harrison called out, "Who is it?"

She replied wearily, "It's Sarah Harrison and I am alone, Bill, and I am in trouble. I need your help. Please help me!"

The dead bolt and safety chain coming off seemed to Sarah as if it were taking an hour, but Bill finally got the door opened to face his soaking wet, unkempt and decidedly ugly-duckling (at this moment) ex-wife. She took a step inside the open door and then collapsed into her ex-husband arms.

She was now unconscious.

He gently laid her on the carpeted floor. He then got his rain coat and went out to her vehicle to fetch her suitcase, but found the vehicle locked. He then returned and rummaged through her wet pockets to find her car key and then brought in her suitcase.

Kneeling down beside her, Bill said softly into her ear, "Sarah, wake up! You have got to get those wet clothes off of you. He could not revive her, try as he might. She only mumbled, "hmmmmmm" each time he would roust her. He opened her suitcase and got a gown that was on top. He then fetched some towels and pulled off all her clothes and put the gown on her after he dried her. His only thought was, "Dear God! She is so beautiful." He marveled that, at a time like this, he even had an erection.

He got some clean sheets and put them on the couch with a couple of blankets and a pillow.

Bill lay her on the sheets and then wrapped her up in the blankets and smiled because she was now comfortable. Then he had a thought, "Will she piss on the couch if she doesn't go to the toilet?" He picked up her wet designer jeans and noted that she had done so already in her pants. So he checked on the children and then returned to bed.

———-

At 10:30 the next morning consciousness returned to Sarah. She lay on the couch trying to recreate the previous 24 hours in her mind. She did remember going to the guest toilet once and then returning to the couch to sleep. When she finally opened her eyes, her 8 and 10 year olds sat on the floor in front of her cross-legged, just looking at her, but saying nothing.