Molly Harris

the Last Long River Sigh

St. Louis Public Radio played through the static in Adelaide’s Pontiac: ‘The water levels are rising throughout Greater St. Louis. The Missouri is predicted to crest about the 1993 levels —’

Adelaide turned it off. She didn’t need it to tell her that the water was rising. She could see its height as she drove over the Missouri River. It swelled and lapped at the farmhouses that sat too close to the water’s edge.

Rain hit the top of the car — its sounds reverberating in the silence. She was driving back from burying her father. With no mother or sister left, the duty to arrange the funeral had fallen to her. It was a small affair, with just her and the priest in attendance. She opted to bury her father in Quincy, Illinois where they were originally from. He had only lived in Missouri for a couple of years, and he never liked it. When they had moved, Adelaide remembered her father promising her that the floods wouldn’t touch them there, and he was right. In the flood of 2008, the water didn’t even touch their front yard.

Adelaide always thought it hypocritical of him.

She remembered the feel of his gravestone. Her hand dragged across the red granite, fingers lingering over their last name, Beaulieu—a ‘beautiful place.’ She never thought the name fit them.

Her palms slipped on the steering wheel from her sweat. She stumbled with the CD case, holding the wheel in place with her knee before putting a disc in the stereo. Night was falling, and signs advertising liquor and beer had replaced the rural highways and farmlands. The neon of them fought through the fog — bright pinks and cyans cutting through the dark.

The apartment was dark and cold when she got home. She walked into the kitchen, turning on the lights as she passed them. Mari, her roommate, had tacked a note on the fridge that reminded Adelaide to feed the fish while she was gone.

The phone in her back pocket buzzed. Looking down, she saw Mari’s name flash on the screen. ‘hey addie :) the news said 55 was gonna b shutdown 2nite so i headed out early. dont forget to feed the fish!!! ill bring u back sum lonestars xoxo’

Mari was nine years younger than Adelaide, and she attended a private university in a nearby suburb that Adelaide could not afford. Mari was going home to Dallas to visit her parents for the week, and Adelaide was grateful for that. She didn’t particularly mind her roommate. She was just so young. Mari never remembered to give her the utilities money on time. It was never as pressing to her; money hadn’t failed or scared her yet.

As Adelaide cooked her instant ramen on the stovetop, the radio played in the background. ‘There is a mandatory evacuation for the residents of Valley Park. The Meramec River is expected to crest above the ’93 levels tomorrow night. We repeat: there is a mandatory evacuation for all of Valley Park, Missouri.’

She swirled the noodles, watching them soften and how the water turned cloudy from the starch. The news continued on about how a seventy-nine-year-old man had been swept away trying to take a picture of the rising water. Adelaide strained her ramen into a bowl. The steam from the leftover water curled towards her ceiling light, creeping up the fading yellow of her kitchen walls.

*

The Mississippi moved like a river snake — fast currents twisting up and down the writhing black water. It was night. Tornado sirens shrieked in the wind, and the rain whipped against Adelaide’s face.

She was too close to the water. She grasped at a tree branch, but her feet slipped in the mud. Blinking the rain out of her eyes, she saw a young girl whose hair was curly like her own. Adelaide watched the girl sink further and further into the river until she could only see the child’s outstretched arm above the river top, her tiny fingers curling in.

Adelaide screamed, trying to back away, but her hand slipped from the branch she was holding. The girl never bobbed back up.

Adelaide jolted awake, feeling the sweat on her forehead. Rain hit the top of her tin roof, and the cacophony of it gave her a headache. She walked to her window. Outside, water pooled on the side of her one-way street. Rain followed the curvature of her Pontiac parked out front. The streetlamp’s light flickered through her window, and she rested her forehead on the cold glass, shutting her eyes.

The rain didn’t stop.

*

Adelaide walked through the rain, passing the hot dog spaghetti sculpture near the parking lot at St. Louis Community College-Meramec. The long, yellow pipes cut through the metal meat pieces, glowing bright from the wetness. Adelaide pulled her raincoat’s hood up. Looking down, she didn’t meet other students’ eyes on her way to environmental studies. The campus was thinned out today. Standing water had shut down Interstate 44.

Adelaide’s class only had ten out of the thirty students attending. She took her usual seat in the back, putting her backpack on the table she shared with three others. They weren’t there.

Her professor always pulled at the end of his unseasonable sweater vests, and his voice sounded like he talked between river pebbles — elongated and with effort. ‘Class looks a bit empty today. Given the topicality of it, I thought we could do some research on flooding. What causes it, how it can be prevented. I brought in a documentary about the Great Flood of 1993 to start.’

Her professor struggled with the TV-on-wheel’s VCR, rewinding the tape to the beginning and apologizing for not doing so before class. He stopped it near the middle. A man looked fierce at his audience through the VHS grain. He stood on the train tracks. Adelaide knew it was Quincy.

‘Why do you have a gun?’ asked the reporter.

‘This here is for robbers, looters, and reporters. Especially reporters,’ the man replied.

The newscaster laughed nervously, and the class laughed with her. Adelaide heard someone near the front quip about the country rednecks.

The film reel cut to another clip from the archives. An older woman with red hair was being interviewed. She held a sandbag; it was propped on her hip like she was holding a child. In the other hand, she held a young girl’s hand. She looked about eight and held a stuffed patchwork cat with a missing eye. Adelaide recognized them — she hadn’t seen her sister and mother since she was five.

‘How long have you been out here?’ asked the newscaster.

Adelaide’s mother shifted the weight of the sandbag. ‘We’ve been out here since about five, me and my oldest here.’

The newscaster leaned down to the girl. ‘Hi, sweetie, what’s your name?’

‘I’m Daisi, and I’m eight,’ the young girl replied, holding up eight fingers.

The newscaster laughed, straightening and looking back into the camera. ‘This is KMOV Fox2Now straight from Quincy, Illinois.’

Adelaide bit the bottom of her lip as she listened to the newscaster, slightly older now and sitting behind a desk, reminisce about the interview and give their condolences for that sweet girl, Daisi, and her mother. Really awful, he’d said, how they swept away in their car when the levee breached.

When Adelaide drove home, she had to use alternative routes to avoid the flooded highways. When she got there, she parked her car, but she did not go inside her apartment just yet. She got out and walked instead, making her way to the bridge that overlooked the highway. The cars below were gridlocked — inbound and outbound traffic still stalled during rush hour. There were too many closed freeways.

She walked through Turtle Park. The stone snapping turtles’ maws lifted to the sky, and the rainwater filled up their mouths and ran down their jaws. Looking down to her boots, she kept walking. The corner bar was up ahead.

Louie the bartender recognized her when she walked in. ‘You’re soaking wet, sweetheart. What can I get you?’

‘The usual,’ said Adelaide.

‘Single or double, sweetheart?’

‘Double.’

‘Rain’s coming down pretty hard still?’

‘Yeah, still pretty hard. Hasn’t let up yet.’

The bar was dark and empty. An unused dartboard and scraped-up pool table sat in the corner. Three TVs hung behind the bar, but only one of them worked. The news played on it, reporting on today’s disasters.

‘Three people died today,’ said a man from a couple of stools down. ‘Can you believe that?’

Adelaide sipped her drink. Louie had given her more than expected, and she was thankful for that.

‘An eighteen-year-old boy from Festus, Missouri died today while attempting to drive through standing water. A grim reminder to us all to turn back. You never know how deep it could be,’ the newscaster said.

Leaning back in her stool, Adelaide sighed. ‘Is there anything else we could watch, Louie? Isn’t there a game on tonight or something?’

‘Got rained out,’ said the man from a few stools down. ‘You know, do you all remember what happened with Quincy? I can’t remember who did it, you know, the one who caused the breach in ‘93. He moved all the sandbags, didn’t he?’

‘It was Scott Beaulieu,’ said Adelaide. She remembered that night — her mother screaming. Her father slamming the door on the way out.

‘Yeah, Scott Beaulieu. What a bastard. Did you guys know he wanted to just get stranded on the Missouri side for night? You know how the highways get, how they always close during these rains. Anyway, that’s what they said about him. Said it was for a party. Can you all believe that? His wife must have left him if he lived. They must’ve had some fucked up problems for him to do that. Maybe fought, maybe fought a lot, who knows? Women can be such a burden sometimes.’ The man paused, pushing his rocks glass towards the bar. ‘Hey, Louie, could I get another one?’ Louie looked up from his polishing and nodded, filling his glass. ‘Louie, did you know he’s why the bridge failed?’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Louie said, uninterested, pouring a drink.

‘Yeah,’ the man continued. ‘Crazy world, isn’t it?’

‘He should have been put to death,’ said Adelaide. ‘Louie, can I get the next one to go? I’m gonna head out. Got some homework to work on.’

Louie, without looking at her, grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it to the brim. ‘You want a lid for that? You’re gonna get rainwater overfilling your cup.’ He grabbed her one anyway without waiting for an answer and then slid the drink to her. She fished a wet five-dollar bill from her jacket pocket and handed it to him. ‘Be careful out there, sweetheart. It’s not supposed to stop anytime soon.’

When Adelaide got home, she had the same dream as before. She woke up covered in sweat, clenching her palms together. Thunder rumbled outside, and lightning illuminated her small room, cutting her skin into shapes made of shadow and light. She remembered what her mother had told her before she passed: the worst thing about floods is that you can see them coming. At five, she never understood. Now, at twenty-nine, she did.

*

Mari’s fish were dead. Their scaled, ruby bodies floated to the surface of the tank. Adelaide had forgotten to feed them.

Adelaide had three days to figure out what to do with them. She stood over their tank, looking at the neon-colored fake algae and the rainbow-colored rocks.

‘Shit,’ she said.

Adelaide looked around Mari’s room. Mari kept it cleaner than hers. A nicely made bed. No clothes on the floor. Multi-colored, unlit Christmas lights hung over her bed. Papa Bear, Mari’s stuffed bear she still kept from childhood, stared at Adelaide. He had an eye missing, and the other one was scratched white. Teddy bear cataracts, Mari would always say.

She had to take a call soon. She had just connected her phone to Google Voice to keep her number private, and her client was going to ring any minute now.

She walked to the kitchen where Papa Bear couldn’t judge her, and she grabbed a beer from the fridge. She hoped it wouldn’t take long.

She sat outside on her covered porch, her cellphone and the beer next to her. She watched the rain come down, listening to its soothing, soft pattering on the fabric overhang. The streetlights showed on the stream of water working its way to the street drain. The night smelled like mud, like earth after a storm.

Her phone rang. ‘Hello?’ she asked.

‘Is this Joy? From Craigslist?’

‘Yeah, this is Joy.’

Adelaide felt like this call would go differently than most. They usually called and went right into it — how they could picture her breasts, how tight and wet her pussy was. They never made sure that they called the right person.

She hated this job, only relying on it when her hourly gig at the outlet mall wouldn’t cut it for this month.

‘Look, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,’ the man started.

Shit, she thought. This was going to be a long night. She popped open the beer slowly so that the hiss wouldn’t be audible on the caller’s end, and then she took a sip. It tasted like rust.

‘Depending on what you want me to do, we might have to negotiate a raise in price,’ she said.

‘I know what,’ he paused. ‘I know what you do, but I was wondering if we could just talk?’ Adelaide spat out her beer. ‘Have you ever done anything you regret?’

Adelaide remembered the last time she saw her mother and sister. Her mother had smiled, kissing the top of her head, telling Adelaide to be good, and Adelaide had just kept crying and crying because Daisi had taken her Barbie, the nice one with the striped swimsuit on, the one that was a gift just for her, without asking. She didn’t say I love you to them as Daisi and her mother left to go to the store. They had never come back.

‘Look,’ said Adelaide. ‘I’m a phone sex operator. I’m not your fucking therapist.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll still send you the money.’

Adelaide listened to the dial tone well after the man hung up. She finished her beer, staring at the rain still coming down.

Throwing her can into the street, she walked back inside.  

*

Adelaide watched the Mississippi churn. It raised its head like a river snake, trying to swallow the young girl bobbing in the water, yelling and flailing.

This time, Adelaide let go of the branch. The water took her, dragging her head under. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mother floating downwards. She looked like she was sleeping, mouth slightly open and eyes closed, falling like dead weight. Adelaide fought the current up, breaking through the top of the river.

She saw Daisi screaming, still bobbing. She was crying.

‘I’m coming for you!’ yelled Adelaide, fighting the current, spitting out water. Against the rain and the wind, she made her way to her. ‘I’m coming! I’m coming.’

Adelaide grabbed her by the arm, pulling her towards her chest. She patted the top of her wet head. The girl looked up at her, eyes wild like her own. Adelaide was so sorry, she was so, so sorry. Spitting out water and trying to hold them both afloat, she could only say that she was sorry.

They both went under. Adelaide could see her old playground flooded underneath the waves and surrounded by large catfish swimming between the monkey bars, idyllic. Minnows darted in and out of the chains of the swings. Adelaide was crying. She tried to gasp for air, but she only breathed in the muddy water. I’m so sorry, she thought.

Adelaide sunk her head into her pillow when she awoke. It tasted salty from her tears and her sweat. She dragged herself out of bed, wiping away the wetness of her forehead with her palm, trying to catch her breath.

She walked to the window. It had stopped raining. She rested her hot forehead on the cold glass window, letting her breath fog its pane. She sighed, and she felt the rivers sigh with her. She imagined they moved with her body. With every inhale, they swelled, and on the exhale, they breached.

The worst thing about floods, her mother had said, is that you can’t stop them. You see them coming, and they’ll just come. There’s no stopping them.

Adelaide couldn’t stop them no matter how hard she tried. She knew they would only keep coming.

Breathing out, she felt the Mississippi breach.

Molly Harris is a writer and editor out of St. Louis, MO. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her poetry and prose can be found in Vagabond City Literature, Hooligan Magazine, and Furrow, and in 2020, she was named Writer of the Year by Over the Edge in Galway, Ireland. She currently works at Jefferson College as an online writing lab tutor and at Boulevard as an associate editor.

Molly wrote the following about her story:

I was inspired to write ‘The Last Long River Sigh’ after a summer watching old TV footage of the Great Flood of 1993 and the real-life case of James Scott. Despite this tragedy happening before I was born, I’ve experienced my fair share of “once-in-a-lifetime” weather emergencies, and with climate change, they’ve only gotten more frequent and more deadly. Adelaide’s story often feels hopeless, and as the climate emergency worsens, stories like Adelaide’s are going to become more relevant, as evident even from St. Louis’s most recent ‘historic flood’, which was only last year.