This is a story from the hottest day of the year. But it is not my story, because on the hottest day of the year I wake up on the western tip of Cornwall, where it isn’t hot at all. When I look out of the window in the morning I see the coastline draped in heavy cloud. My phone says it’s 17C outside. I put on a jumper – the one I almost didn’t pack – and sit in the kitchen drinking coffee, fingers laced round the cup.
All the news on my phone is about the hottest day of the year, possibly of any year, and I feel left out. This is exactly what it’s like every time my home town in the US is damaged by a hurricane. The rest of my family have a story to tell, the title of which is the name of the hurricane. When I next see my siblings, they will describe the devastation wreaked by Judy or Florian in detail, and I will think: I should have been there for that.
