Chapter 68 Frannie
Frannie had her own news to break to Dad, and she couldn’t put it off any longer.
She’d taken pity on him and given him a day to recover from the whole dying-in-an-earthquake thing and Bridget’s I’m-going-to-Hawaii thing. She still couldn’t believe her big sister was going to the land of hula dresses and surfboarding.
What a lucky duck.
Frannie was in Dad’s hotel room at The Nest. He was packing to catch the train home and thought Frannie was going with him. Poor Dad. Maybe she should have broken her news to him sooner.
Dad had taken the news about Bridget better than expected.
He’d gone a little pale, and asked a boatload of questions, but in the end he’d agreed that it would be good for Bridget’s career.
Then Paul gave Dad a ride to The Nest in West Yellowstone, because—as much as Dad loved Claire—he wasn’t going to sleep on a couch.
Frannie and Claire and Bridget stayed up late talking about the earthquake, and Hawaii and all sorts of stuff, then Bridget and Frannie tossed a coin for the couch.
Frannie lost and had to sleep on the floor, but she didn’t mind.
Before they went to sleep, they all said their prayers together like they used to.
It was nice to pray again and really believe somebody could hear her.
Now Dad fastened the last clasp on his monogrammed luggage. “Where’s your suitcase, Frannie?”
Frannie took a long breath. She’d rehearsed what she had to say—and was positive this wouldn’t turn into the usual knock-down-drag-out. She was going to be an adult and stay reasonable.
She just hoped Dad would, too.
“Dad,” she said carefully. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not going home with you.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way?” he said, turning on her with his brows pulled down. “How exactly am I supposed to take it?”
This wasn’t starting out well.
“They need my help at the Red Cross Center,” she told him.
“You’ve done enough,” Dad objected. “You’ve been at it for a week.” He used the voice that said he was right and she was wrong, and she felt the aggravation that always came when she tried to talk to him about something important.
“Dad,” she said now, sitting down on the bed so that they weren’t facing each other like boxers ready to go a round.
“I could have been one of those people under the mountain.” She didn’t like to remind him of how close she had come to dying, but it was the truth.
“My friend died there. A lot of people died.”
Dad’s face softened and he sat down on the bed beside her.
Frannie mourned Jerrylynn, even though she’d only known her a week.
That night had been terrible, but also the most important thing that had ever happened to her.
For the first time in her life, she wasn’t Claire and Bridget Reilly’s kid sister.
She wasn’t Jonny’s girlfriend or the school troublemaker.
She’d done a lot of stupid things to try to show people she was an adult, but that night she’d really grown up.
“I want to help,” she said simply. “I need to help.”
Frannie didn’t feel like she’d done enough—or that she ever would. She had survived and others had died. She didn’t know if it was by the grace of God, like Bridget said—or stupid luck. But she knew she couldn’t just walk away.
The days after the quake, she’d volunteered to be a slide walker.
She and a bunch of others—kids and housewives and people from the Red Cross—walked all over the avalanche that covered Rock Creek Campground, searching for clues of who might be missing.
They didn’t find much—fishing gear and camping equipment, mostly.
She’d found a single small child’s shoe that had made her actually cry, thinking of how it could have been Jenny under that mountain of rock.
Then she’d found the dog. The poor thing was wandering the rocky slide area, matted and covered in mud. Frannie had forgotten all about Sadie. She gave the poor thing a bath and some food and brought her to see Paul, who was working in the Red Cross’s makeshift office in West Yellowstone.
“She saved my life,” she told him as Sadie sniffed his ankle cast. If Frannie had been able to sleep that night and stayed in the tent, who knew if she’d be alive today?
She took Sadie to Livingston when she and Bridget went to Mrs. Wilson’s funeral.
Bridget wasn’t happy about a dog in that fancy car, but Connie and the twins started crying when they saw Sadie, and Mr. Wilson got teary-eyed.
“What else is there for you to do?” Dad asked now. He was really trying, and she felt a rush of appreciation. Maybe this would work.
“The thing is,” she explained, “nobody knows who was at the campground that night.” The Red Cross had received thousands of calls and telegrams from people who thought maybe they had family or friends at Rock Creek. “They need me to help with making the list of possible missing persons.”
“How do you do that?” Dad asked.
“I mostly follow up on telephone calls.” Yesterday, she got a call from a woman in Iowa City.
She said her son and his wife and kids had been in the area and she hadn’t heard from them since the earthquake.
Frannie did some detective work and found out that the family had registered as visitors at the museum in Virginia City on August 17, the day of the earthquake.
She marked them on the list as possibly missing and said a prayer that they were somewhere else.
“And Dad”—Frannie couldn’t disguise the excitement in her voice—“I met the director of operations for the Red Cross, and guess what?”
He raised his brows as if nothing would surprise him now.
“She’s a woman!” Frannie couldn’t believe it herself. “She’s in charge of the whole operation and she travels all over the country wherever there’s some kind of disaster.” What a cool job.
Dad was quiet for a while, then he patted her hand. “I’d hoped you’d come home with me,” he said, “but I can see this means a lot to you.”
Wowsa. Was it really going to be this easy?
“It’ll just be a month, Dad. Two at the most. And maybe”—she wasn’t sure about this, but he looked so dejected she had to tell him something good—“maybe when I get home we could talk about college.” She figured if she applied herself like everybody told her to do in high school, she might be able to get a cool job with the Red Cross.
His brows went up and she could see that got his attention. “Will you at least stay with Claire? So I know you’re safe?”
She’d done it. They’d gotten through a whole discussion without arguing.
Boy howdy. She threw her arms around her dad and kissed his cheek.
That surprised him even more than the stuff about college.
“I’ve already got a neat place set up with the other volunteers,” she said.
“But I promise, I’ll check in with Claire every day. ”
She’d try to remember to check in with Claire. She really would try.
“Let’s go.” Dad looked at his watch, and now that she’d said her piece, she noticed Dad was looking a little nervous. “We’re meeting your sisters at the Depot before my train. There’s something we need to talk about.”