Born into a completely dysfunctional family with a mentally challenged younger sister, Gale found life particularly hard. The Navy a good place to hide and to grow despite his guilt over leaving his sister unsupported by other family members.<br><br>Nine years later, he returns to civilian life to find the old home abandoned, his family gone, and his sister missing from the group home her special education teacher Dave had arranged for her. Dave was Abigail’s only constant during the time Gale was away.<br><br>Worse, a major storm is on the way, promising flash flooding and damaging winds. Gale reaches out to Dave only to discover he doesn’t know where Abigail is, either. The two team up to find her, and in weathering the storm, they find solace in one another. But what will happen when the storm is over?

Number Nine on the Beaufort Scale

“I took both of them back over to my house and fed her cookies and found the number for that former teacher of hers, that Glen, Gary, Dale? Is that it? Dave Crowley, that’s it. He came and got her.”


We walked outside, together. “You keep an eye on that weather, you hear? It’s fixing to blow up a big one, soon. Remember last time we had gale force nine winds? Blew down those ugly beach shacks and some of the shingles off my house! But even so, our houses are only two blocks up from the waterfront, and a tidal swell or a storm surge could easily come up here.”


“I remember how drunk my dad got,” I replied. “He kept calling me Beaufort Nine and telling me to shut up and stop blowing, and then he’d laugh, and Mom would tell him not around the children.” It was not a happy memory, but, then, few from my childhood were.


Chapter 2