The Handbook, 1995

Becca and Buckley stood on the beach.

“What did it feel like, Becca?” he asked.

“I don’t really remember the first time, except for the noise. It was so loud, I thought I was dead, and then the second time, it felt like I was a caterpillar squished under a fist, and it looked translucent white everywhere. It was really clean, but then it was deep too, like the whites of your eyes. You fall into it. Zap. There’s no way out.”

They stood in front of Paddy John’s house where the black waves swept the shore. The wind blew hard off the water. Becca said, “How long did you live in New York?”

“Eight years.”

“It’s eight for me too.”

“I was hiding,” he said. Buckley dug his heel in the wet sand. The waves washed over his feet and calves. The rolled cuffs of his khakis were stiff with salt and spray.

“From what?”

“This.” He looked up at Paddy John on the balcony and back out to sea. The wind whipped his hair. “You should get out of New York. There’s too much concrete.”

Becca took a deep breath. “I like concrete.”

“No one likes concrete.”

On Paddy John’s deck, Carrie was drunk on gin and tonics. She sat beside Joan Holt, who had nodded off, her chin on her bony chest. They rocked on a wood-slatted swing.

Paddy John sat in a straight-backed chair beside Mary, who leaned against the warped railing. Paddy John and Mary drank bottles of Budweiser, and Mary said, “I will never forget when you told the bartender to give me a shot.”

“Well, you needed it.”

Mary laughed. “I did.”

Paddy John’s rusted chimes clanked in the wind. Mary pulled a strand of salty hair from her mouth. Paddy John said, “It’s good seeing you again. You doing all right?”

Mary told him about her job. About going back to school. She said, “I couldn’t be better.”

“That’s apparent.” He rested his hand on top of hers, and Mary heard that voice again, the voice from fourteen years ago, telling her, This is the kind of man I was supposed to marry. And then, It’s the beer talking. Maybe. His hand was coarse and strong from hard work.

Inside, Sissy washed dishes. From her place at the window, she could just see the white of Buckley’s shirt on the beach.

Out on the beach, Buckley said, “You want to head inside?”

“You know,” Becca said, playfully punching Buckley on the arm, “we need to keep in touch.” She squinched sand between her toes.

He playfully punched her back. “I agree.”

“I’ll race you.”

Buckley felt the electricity first. The hairs on his arms and legs stood up. He saw Becca’s hair electrified about her face. He heard the crackling. His skin pinpricked. He shouted, “Get down! Get down!”

Becca dropped to the sand. She thought, Please, no! Not again! The black sky turned bottomless and split open white and blinding. The sky lit up. Becca saw Buckley through her eyelids. The electricity sparked. In that fraction of a second when the world froze, Becca thought she’d dreamed Buckley. She’d dreamed Buckley the way she dreamed Grandma Edna and Bo, the way she dreamed fish. As the electricity shot to the ground and back to the heavens, she thought she was dead.

From Paddy John’s deck, the sky, the water, and the ground melded fuming white. Inside the kitchen, Sissy saw nothing but translucent brightness and her hands glowing pink in dish soap.

The first drops of rain fell. Becca cowered at the edge of the dune. She heard her mother’s voice. She heard Paddy John. She was not dead. She ought to be dead. The rain felt good on her back. She couldn’t move. Then she felt her mother’s hands on her back and on her shoulders. Her mother’s hands, the touch of skin—so unlike the feel of electricity. She heard the sky open up. She heard her mother say, “Becca, honey, are you all right?”

She heard Paddy John say, “Goddamn it,” and before she raised her head, she knew.

“Come on, Becca,” her mother said. In the wind-driven rain, Becca crawled toward Buckley’s burned body. She took Buckley’s right hand in hers. The lightning had split his palm open, and in the rain, his palm was sticky with blue-black blood. Paddy John cursed, “Goddamn it.” Buckley’s ankles and his feet were burned. Paddy John, on his knees, clutched fistfuls of wet sand. The lightning touched down all around them. Carrie froze on the dune. Paddy John shouted, “Motherfucker! Motherfucker!” Ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, and Becca screamed, “Somebody call 911!”

Mary said, “Sissy’s calling. Sissy’s calling.”

You’ve read excerpts of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, so you know that witnesses to lightning strikes suffer from shock similar and sometimes comparable to the victim’s shock. As a matter of fact, witnesses are often conduits, like parallel transformers, their bodies transporting the positive electrical charge returning to the cloud or the negative charge meeting the ground. In simpler terms, the lightning had touched them all.

Becca thought, Call a fucking ambulance. Call a fucking ambulance. It should’ve been me. How many thoughts can fill someone’s head in a matter of seconds, like a bad pop song that won’t go away? Becca thought, Call a fucking ambulance. Call a fucking ambulance. Call a fucking ambulance. Call a fucking ambulance was mantra. It was rhythm. It was the pulse of electricity traveling through Becca’s veins.

Mary said, “Let’s get you inside. Come on, Bec.” She saw her daughter’s toes. “Jesus, honey. Jesus.”

Becca’s toes were scorched deep purple. The sky cracked white and orange and gold down the beach. The light played across the water in red circles. God’s fireworks. In Becca’s head, clusters of fish washed up gaping on the beach. The wet sand struck Becca’s back like a million prickling toothpicks.

She moaned. She pressed her cheek to Buckley’s chest to feel his breathing. To feel his heartbeat. Nothing. She thought, It should’ve been me, and Call a fucking ambulance. Paddy John held his fistfuls of sand. “God can’t do this to me.”

Mary said, “We need to get off the beach. Come on.” The lightning played around them, pounding and sputtering and splitting the sky white.

Call a fucking ambulance, call a fucking ambulance. The pop song in Becca’s head turned to Treat the apparently dead. Treat the apparently dead first. Becca straddled Buckley’s waist. With two fingers, she traced his bottom rib until she found that knot of cartilage. She was afraid. She counted two fingers up. With one hand on top of the other, she pressed down two inches deep into his chest. One, she counted. Two, three, four, and up to fifteen. She got off and pressed her mouth to his wet lips. One breath. Another breath. His lips were warm despite the rain, and she was methodical. Her mother pulled at the straps on Becca’s dress. “We have to get off the beach.” Becca pressed down and counted again. The ocean and sand melded white in a deafening blast. Becca’s mother shouted, “Becca! Becca!” but Becca heard, Treat the apparently dead first, and one, two, three, four … One breath. And another. She counted and she breathed into Buckley’s mouth.

She heard the sound of her breath forcing its way into Buckley’s chest. She heard the five words over and over again: Treat the apparently dead first. As the lightning played around them, Becca’s mother pulled again on Becca’s dress and the yellow daisy shoulder straps tore loose. The straps were in Becca’s mother’s hands. Becca wouldn’t stop. She was Buckley’s heart. Paddy John grabbed Mary. The sky cracked open translucent violet. Paddy John saw Mary’s hair electrified about her face. Mary said, “Buckley’s dead. Buckley’s dead.” She remembered Bo: her daughter sopping wet, covering the body of a dead dog. “Becca, Buckley’s dead.”

Mary, breaking free from Paddy John, grabbed Becca’s right arm and her wrist. Becca pressed down on Buckley’s chest, turning to Paddy John, the old man dripping gray in the flashing light and darkness. She said, “Get her away from me.”

Becca breathed for Buckley. She pumped his heart.

The paramedics rushed the beach. Their orange pant legs swished in the dying rain. One of them cupped Becca’s body from behind, wrapping his arms around hers. He grabbed ahold of her wrists. She realized that her back ached. Her lips were numb. “That’s enough,” he said. “That’s enough. We got it.” The rain drip-dropped onto the beach. Lifting Becca up, he shouted over the dune, “We need two stretchers.”

“Don’t stop!” she screamed.

The paramedic held Becca against his chest.

“Don’t stop! He can’t die.”

The paramedic shouted, “Stat.”