Trouble

Disasters are reactionary. A person does not have to think and plan and schedule beyond the need for response; like being caught in a rushing river, moving from crisis to crisis, nothing but assessing and reacting. They make Rachel tired and snappish, but she secretly enjoys the freedom of feeling helpless, of letting it pull her over rapids and stones, depositing her in places she's never been, but always at the mouth of a trail that leads back to her ordinary life. Grace calls in sick to work. The sisters walk barefoot through the water on the floor and wash three loads of towels and old rags. They send Williamson home around eleven, and sort through their soggy boxes of Christmas decorations and hand-me-down junk. They go to bed well after midnight. Their bellies full of leftover waffles and soup and frozen blueberries. A disaster should never last longer than a day and a half. Then it becomes a trouble; a wearisome trial. -from Disaster