Alone Together • JJ Maybank

Four.

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An odd silence filled the house as I woke up the next morning. The rain and wind that trashed around outside overnight had now calmed and all I could hear was the subtle tweets of the birds trying to settle into their new surroundings. I tossed my blankets back to relieve myself from the sticky humidity that surrounded me, rubbing my eyes to wake up. The house is silent. Too silent.

I know Nana isn't here, but I feel like something else is causing the quietness. Standing from my bed with a stretch, a feeling of dread washes over me when I spot the clock at my bedside. The usual glow of orange numbers is blank. I pick up my cell and instantly notice that the battery is on 16% even though I left it on charge overnight. The power must be out.

I step into my sliders as I sleepily walk through the house towards the backdoor. The usually lightweight door creeks and sticks to the frame as I forcefully push it open. I let out a sigh of relief as the soft breeze hits me and I begin to observe the branches and debris littering the yard. A door opening catches my attention as I see John B walking out of his porch. Seeing the sleepy disheveled boy examining the damage around his house makes my stomach sink as I think back to my research last night.

I took the impending hurricane and empty house as an opportunity to dig deeper into mom's call logs with no interruptions. I was up to the end of December, combing through line after line of numbers, highlighting each one that I recognized as I went – me, Nana, colleagues, Big John and some friends. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But a few weeks into January I noticed Big John's number hadn't appeared for a while. And that's when it dawned on me that was around the time that he went missing. A sick feeling instantly washed over me then, just like it did again right now as I watched John B. A pang of guilt and sympathy hit me at the thought of what he must be going through.

I pushed the feeling aside, eager to keep hold onto the small sense of hope I stumbled across last night. A new lead to follow. After countless nights searching the cell records, I found something interesting. Two weeks after Big John's disappearance she called a number directory. And almost immediately after that she rung the number. Not once, but ten times, in a row. Odd.

Flicking through the next few pages I spotted the number again, and again, and again. She called it every few days. For months. It didn't look like the person answered though, as most calls were less than 2 seconds long, probably catching their voicemail, but hanging up without leaving a message. But it was the last call that caught my eye the most. It was just 9 days before the accident. It was an incoming call from that number, and it lasted for 4 minutes. I needed to know who the number was, but I was too scared to ring. Instead I decided to call the directory myself. The line was fuzzy, hard to hear as the power lines outside took a battering from Agatha. But by the end of the night, I got a name. A glimmer of hope for some kind of answers. Someone who might know more about my mom's life leading up to her death. Now I just had to find him.

"Agatha did some work, huh?" JJ's voice called towards John B, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, she did." He groaned back as he pulled branches out of the boat. I walked towards them as they carried on talking "Come on, think about it. It's God telling us to fish."

A twig snapped under my foot as I neared the boys, causing them to both turn towards me. "How'd you hold up?" John B asked.

"No damage, just mess." I said, folding my arms subconsciously around myself when I realized I had walked over in just an oversize t-shirt and bare legs. They both nodded in response.

"We're going fishing. Picking up Pope and Kie on the way. You coming?" JJ asked with the cheeky smile that I just couldn't say no to.

I pulled at the hem of the t-shirt a little, trying to make it appear longer than it really was. "Sounds good. Let me just go change." I quickly turned back towards Nana's to shield the red creeping onto my face.