Chapter 37
I wake with a jolt when it’s full dark, my pulse pounding in my temples, as a shrill siren blares on my phone.
I have a sensation of acute vertigo; I’m disoriented and queasy.
I scramble for my phone, seeing the earthquake warning a moment before I realize the ground is rolling under me, rattling my ceiling fan and forcing me to grip the bedposts until I find my bearings.
And I know—just as I knew our little tremor in the woods was a small one—this is the big one.
My mouth goes dry as it continues, and I cannot ride it out in here.
Mom.
I scrabble from my bed as the quake dissipates, finding my balance before I dart across the hall to her room. I swing the door open to find her fast asleep.
“Mom, Mom!” I rush to her bedside, flicking on the lamp on her nightstand. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes flutter open before panic strikes her face. “What’s wrong?”
“There was an earthquake. A big one. You didn’t feel it?”
Mom sits up and swings her legs to the wooden floor. She glances around. “Are you sure? Nothing is out of place.”
I follow her gaze around the room. She’s filled it with knickknacks and art, and everything is in its cluttered place. But my heart is still galloping, warning me of danger just out of sight.
And it lands. “Dad.”
Our family home was built on landfill and prone to liquefaction, a term so frightening that I often dreamed of getting trapped in quicksand during my childhood.
I race back to my room, hunting in the dark for my phone.
Mom follows me, finding the light as I grab my cell.
She stands behind me, her palm on my shoulder as I find his contact in my favorites.
I have to hang up and dial again. It rings once, twice, three times before he picks up. “Hello?”
“Dad, are you okay? What’s the damage there?”
Earthquakes don’t usually bother me. Perhaps Caleb’s fear is rubbing off on me, or I’ve never felt one this big.
“Eden? What?” His voice is groggy, and he clears it. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know.” My panic is escalating. “Can you check your house?”
“Edie, honey, you’re scaring me. What happened?”
“The earthquake. Please make sure your house is okay.” My tone is sharp, but I work to soften it. “Please.”
There is shuffling on his end of the line.
A few moments lapse, and when he comes back, I’m on speakerphone.
I hear his overhead fan and the creak of the hardwood floor.
“Everything’s fine,” he says. “The power’s on.
My pictures are straight. Are you sure you didn’t dream it? I didn’t feel a thing.”
“No.” I shake my head, although he can’t see it. “My quake alert went off and was still going when I woke up.” But even as I say it, I glance around my room, noticing the paintings still hanging at right angles, the snake plant, which tips over at the slightest brush, standing upright.
“I am a light sleeper but slept right through it.” Dad yawns. “We should check the news.”
I pull my phone away from my ear and put him on speakerphone, but before I can open a browser, he says, “There was an earthquake.”
I rub my palm over my face. “I know. How bad? How strong? You should turn your gas off and come here just in case.”
“The initial estimate is 6.8.”
Mom and I exchange twin expressions of dread.
There hasn’t been one that big in San Francisco since right before I was born.
I saw photos of collapsed freeways and bridges; my childhood was marked with recovery and rebuilding.
I expect sirens—some outward sign that the chaos is coming. But it’s silent.
“How did you two sleep through it?” I sink down on the edge of my bed, telling myself we’re okay. But my heart rate hasn’t gotten the memo—it still thinks I’m running sprints.
“Eden.” Dad enunciates both syllables of my name. “We didn’t feel it because the earthquake didn’t happen here.”
“What?” I spit out an uncomfortable little laugh. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t.” His voice drops to the register he uses to deliver bad news—when he told me the doctors had done everything they could for my leg and when he sat me down a year later and told me Mom had left. “The epicenter was in Grand Trees.”