Finding Maddy

When the first of the ash began to fall, it was reminiscent of growing up in Wisconsin. The first snowfall of the season arriving when the ground was still too warm for accumulation. A flake here and there.

That was how it started.

Of course, unlike snow, ash didn’t melt.

It didn’t need proper weather conditions to stick to the ground, and it would keep coming until it reached its devastating end game.

I held no expectations. I would leave the zone beforehand, as long as I got my daughter.

That was my goal.

To find her.

Get out if I could.

For weeks we watched it unfold. The evacuations out west, the swarms of earthquakes … the first eruption.

Like the rest of the world, we witnessed the horror, and prayed for those who suffered. In my mind, it physically wouldn’t affect me, I was seventeen hundred miles away.

Our small town opened its doors to refugees. A temporary tent city was set up at the high school field on the outskirts of town. We were warned ash would come. Not much, just what was carried in the wind. A dusting covering no more than the annoying green pollen which covered the cars every season.

I volunteered at the tent city, probably more hours than I should have. Not that I was a selfless soul, it kept me focused.

Distribution was running late. A busload from Iowa City had arrived, and those poor people had been shuffled around for two weeks.

I missed the call.

“Ms. Burke, this is Taylor calling from Evergreen,” he said on his voicemail. “We know you’ve been anxious about your daughter. Just letting you know, Maddy is ready for pick up whenever you can come. Maddy will be with Marcy in reception.”

When I heard the voicemail, I was excited. It was after nine and I knew Evergreen’s visiting hours were finished by eight-thirty. I could wait one more day. I would go first thing in the morning.

That never happened.

Within an hour of finishing the input of the Iowa City busload, chaos erupted.

Noise, people shouting, trucks rolling in, someone on the loudspeaker saying something I couldn’t understand.

I heard a few people mention, ‘here we go again’ and I didn’t understand until I saw people being escorted onto a bus.

“Wait,” I called out to a soldier. “These people just arrived.”

“Ma’am,” he replied. “There is an evacuation order. Everyone is to leave the area now.”

“You're evacuating the camp?”

“The state.”

“The entire state of Kentucky?” I asked with disbelief.

“Please just get on the bus.”

That wasn’t happening, at least not for me. Surely, the danger wasn’t imminent. I had time to go home, get my things, and get my daughter in the morning.

I believed they were focusing on those who were displaced. I was wrong.

Getting to my car was a challenge. I was blocked at every attempt, and when I finally did make it to the parking lot, my car had been bulldozed into a pile with others to make room for the garrison of buses and trucks that came to evacuate.

There was no time to grab personal belongings. It was a ‘get in the vehicle and get out’ situation. Everything was rushed.

My anxiety grew by the second and my heart beat strong in my chest. I could hear it in my ears. I just needed to get out, get my daughter, but like some prisoner, I was given no choice.

They grabbed me, pushed me with the masses to force me on a truck. I fought, kicking and screaming.

“Get your hands off me. I have to get to my daughter!”

“If your daughter is in Florence, she will be evacuated,” a woman told me. “We are going door to door. No one will be left behind.”

“You don’t understand …”

“Ma’am you don’t understand. You have to go now,” the woman spoke decisively.

I pretended to relent, acted as if I were climbing on the truck, but I broke free and ran.

No one chased me.

I camouflaged myself in the pandemonium. Moving with one group of people, ducking out then moving to the next.

The sounds of engines and horns were loud, people shouting and children crying. I felt as if I were in a dream, not in control.

All I could think about was Maddy. It wasn’t as simple as knowing she was out of Florence. I had to get her. I had to make sure she was with me.

Maddy was all I had in the world, and I wasn’t leaving her behind.

If I explained my plight to anyone they would think me insane.

I was successful and avoided being lumped into the throngs of people being hastily evacuated.

Another eruption of the caldera was looming, this one bigger than the first. The ‘end all be all’ of extinction events. As if we weren’t already living in an upside down world where people were homeless and hungry, and lawlessness quickly ran rampant. Now they were moving more people east into more tent cities.

Was there anywhere safe to go?

There were twenty-three hundred people in the Florence tent city, it took less than two hours to move them all out.

I found refuge in a medical tent and hid, waiting for the silence to know it was safe to walk out. They were hell-bent on evacuating everyone and I was hell-bent on not being part of it.

I’d get out after I got Maddy.

Evergreen was only a mile away. I could make it there on foot.

Simple.

Then the ash began to fall.

I knew enough through the assiduous news reports it didn’t mean the eruption occurred. The multitude of ash meant … it was coming.

The caldera was venting, first releasing the ash.

That was what happened in Pompeii. Vesuvius buried everything in ash, suffocating everyone before the lava baked them.

I highly doubted the lava would reach us, but the suffocation part was a possibility.

It was just a few flakes of ash when I emerged from the tent. I darted back in and grabbed one of those paper face masks. I placed it on, lifted the hood from my jacket over my head, and stepped out again.

The ash dropped steadily and slowly, nothing I worried about. Even if it were more ash than predicted.

I didn’t truly realize the magnitude of what was happening. In my ignorance, I didn’t worry about it or fear it.

One mile. That was all I had to walk. I would take the main road into our small town, then make it to Evergreen. That was my plan.

The camp was eerily dead. No people, no vehicles. I had never seen it like that. So quiet it was frightening. I felt safe enough to walk in the open. I was more angry than anything else.

How dare they just push my car to the side into a heap. I knew their mission was to get everyone out. Maybe they didn’t want the roads cluttered with cars and it was easier to just shove people onto buses and trucks. There was no way they did that to the whole town of Florence.

I made my way from school property to the street. It had been fifteen minutes at most since I walked from the tent, the ash was thick and falling faster. My glasses protected my eyes, but the ash built on them quite a bit. My fingers became windshield wipers.

Once I hit the main road it was one steady line of traffic plowing through the heavy falling ash. It fell so hard and fast it blurred out the world. Seeing was difficult. The convoy moved quickly, cars, trucks, and busses. Headlights glowed in the falling ash nearly blinding me when they passed me. I pulled out my phone for light, aiming it down to the ground. I focused on my footing.

I stayed off the road and away from the vehicles. There was no way they could see me. No one bothered to stop to see if I needed a ride or even to warn me I was going the wrong way.

Moving fast was not an option. The ash was accumulating quickly. I hadn’t even made it halfway and the ash was beyond my ankles.

I could feel it burning and irritating the exposed skin on my hands and face, laying heavy on my shoulders, adding weight I had to carry.

I stopped several times to shake it off.

My skin felt tight and dry when I finally arrived in town. The streetlights were my only guide. There were no cars on the street, the ash created a soundproof padding. Someone trying unsuccessfully to start an engine carried in the muffled silence.

The dancing yellow blips of a few flashlights moved about.

People were walking.

“Jen,” I heard someone call my name. “Jen, is that you?”

I couldn’t see who called my name. Then as quickly as I heard it, Sheriff Haggerty appeared before me.

“Jen, where are you going?” he asked. “You have to get out of town.”

“Evergreen,” I told him. “I have to get Maddy.”

“Jen, I know how important this is. Okay, I get it. I do. But do you think Maddy would want you taking this chance? Everything will be buried in an hour.”

“I have to get her.”

“Jen, Maddy … isn’t there,” the Sheriff told me. “She isn’t there.”

“No, you’re wrong. I’m sorry.”

He grabbed my arm as I tried to make it by him. “Please don’t.”

I didn’t bother answering. If every minute counted, I was wasting time on the street arguing. Pulling away, I followed the line of streetlamps. My feet dragging in the thick, ash covered street. Every step was harder than the one before. When I arrived at Evergreen, I was invigorated by the sight.

It was dark outside the large house-like building, but I could see small specks of light inside. I made my way up the four steps to the double front doors. One of them was ajar and light seeped out. It was an emergency light.

I had been to Marcy’s reception desk many times. It was in the dark office to my right.

I used my phone to brighten my way to her desk.

Where is she? I thought. Where is Maddy?

My left hand rummaged the file stack as I moved the light around. And then I saw it. A small yellow envelope with my name on it.

I lifted it, feeling the exterior. She was there. I knew it. I set down my phone, opened the envelope in the light and dumped the contents in my hand. The silver, heart-shaped locket with the purple stone was attached to a silver chain. I clutched the locket in my hand, sobbing once, relieved I had my daughter once again. Inside was a speck of what remained of my fourteen year old child who had been taken from me so quickly. She was all I had in the world. When the accident took her, I was crushed. My heart was broken, it shattered, and the perfect, beautiful locket containing her ashes was in some way giving me a bit of hope, giving my heart back in the dismal world I faced.

I lowered my hood, placed the chain over my head and placed the locket beneath my shirt for protection.

It was time to go and I made my way to the front doors.

In those few minutes, things had gotten much worse. It seemed like an insurmountable task to make it through the thick, gray world ahead of me.

I stepped back out into the brutality of it.

From that moment on, whatever happened … happened.

I found Maddy. In some small way she was with me again.

That was all I needed.