Chapter 38
“Honey, you’re shaking.” Mom sinks onto the bed beside me as I check my phone, confirming that the alert that woke me was, in fact, for Grand Trees. I never updated my location after Abby signed me up. I still have the town set as my primary weather zone, too.
I couldn’t bring myself to change it, because my heart is still there.
I don’t respond; instead, I dial Caleb again.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve tried him since Dad delivered the news, but each time it goes straight to voicemail.
I worry for a moment that he’s blocked me, but I’ve tried Abby and Adelaide, too, and Mom has called several friends, with no luck.
Mom wraps her hand around my wrist and lowers the phone from my ear.
“No one has service. We will have to wait.”
I stand and pace. “Wait? We can’t wait. How can you be so calm?” My voice cracks on the last word, and I slump over, hands on my knees.
“Honey,” she says, “I’m terrified, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“I have to do something. I can’t sit here.” I envision rubble, fallen trees, leaking gas lines, and fire. I can’t be idle not knowing whether Caleb’s safe. Even if he’s unscathed, will he survive after he inevitably plays hero?
“He’s scared of earthquakes,” I say through a sob. “What if he’s trapped somewhere, alone? Or with Abby? What if one of them is hurt, and I . . .”
Mom brings her hands to my shoulders, somehow supporting me with her small frame.
She tugs me upright until we’re eye to eye.
She studies me, her expression growing from confused to knowing as she swims before me, her face a watercolor behind my unshed tears.
“Eden,” she sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me? ”
My mouth forms the words, but I barely get out, “What?”
“I didn’t understand what was going on with you two.” She wraps her arms around me, holding me, swaying me, shushing me as I cry. “But you love him, don’t you.”
My tears are confirmation enough.
She missed so many of my milestones but is here to soothe my first real romantic heartbreak and hold me up as I fall apart.
“He wasn’t mad that you were taking me away; he was hurt that you were leaving him,” she deduces, scolding me in the way only a mother can.
“I think it was a bit of both,” I confess.
“You should have told me. I would have been overjoyed. It’s a dream to have two of your loved ones love each other.
” She pulls back until we’re face-to-face.
“That’s why you wanted to stay. Oh, honey.
” She drags her thumbs across my cheekbones, wiping away tears.
“I would have stayed if I had known.” Mom’s gaze travels over my face, and she gasps. “That’s why you didn’t tell me.”
I pull back and try my phone again, sending Caleb another text, which goes undelivered like the last twenty. “Mom, I need to go to him. I promised if the world were ending, I’d—”
“Eden,” she admonishes. “The world isn’t ending.”
“His may be,” I choke out. “And he’s probably so scared. When we had that little quake, you should have seen how rattled he was . . .” My voice cracks again, but Mom becomes steel.
“Caleb is a survivor. He will be okay. All we can do is sit tight and wait for news.”
Dad sneaks in through the patio door as I brew a pot of coffee, still waiting for the phone to ring. I take one look at him and know Mom filled him in. He cradles me in his arms, patting my back in a there-there gesture he perfected when I was a kid who needed more comfort than he knew how to give.
“I’m sure your Caleb will be fine,” he says when I pull away.
My attention snags on the “your,” because he’s not mine. I lost all right to claim him. But my body disagrees. I’m keyed up, queasy, antsy, unmoored.
“I need to go,” I say. “I can’t wait around for news and wonder if he’s dead.”
Dad and Mom share a look I don’t understand before Dad says, “It’s a terrible idea to go into a disaster zone, but I can’t physically stop you. And if you insist on going, all I can do is stay here with your mom so she isn’t worried sick alone.”
About ten miles from Grand Trees, I come up to a checkpoint blocking the road. There are a few men in uniform, and I want to scream at all of them. Why are they standing around blocking the road instead of helping? But I need to keep my shit together if I have any hope of getting past them.
When I pull up at the barricade, a barrel-chested man in a tan uniform approaches the driver’s side. “All roads in are closed, ma’am. It’s not safe, and we need to keep it clear for emergency personnel.”
I reach for the center console and hand him a card with shaking hands. He takes my outdated business card, scanning it and biting his lip.
“I didn’t think the Red Cross could make it out this quickly.”
I point to the back of my car. “I came ahead with some supplies.”
I have packs of water, batteries, flashlights, and nonperishable food stacked past the window. If he looks in my trunk, he’ll find blankets and a portable generator. I raided my emergency supplies and packed everything I thought could be helpful.
He peers through the rear window and back to the card. “All right. Watch out for the flares stationed up ahead. There’s a possible landslide.”
He shoves my card in his back pocket, and I should worry that impersonating a Red Cross employee will come back to bite me, but I don’t have it in me to care. Besides, I didn’t lie. I am bringing supplies, and that business card isn’t counterfeit; it’s just three years old.
He waves me forward, removing the cones to let me pass.
There are several cracks that run through the length of the pavement, so I hug the left lane, dodging tumbled rocks and tree branches littering the way.
My radio signal fades as I get deeper into town, and I turn it off.
NPR hadn’t shared much on the drive here; the extent of the destruction is unknown, and there are multiple reports of fires, collapsed buildings, and injuries within a hundred miles of the epicenter.
The reporter shared that the area began experiencing seismic activity, called foreshocks, this spring.
I wonder—fuming—how I didn’t know the small quake could be a warning of the big one to come.
I hang a right and look for the abandoned fishing skiff that marks the turnoff to Sonny’s.
It has been crushed by a redwood branch.
I pull around the bend to Caleb’s. His truck isn’t parked out front, which must mean he’s safe, that he left here after the quake under his own power.
It must. I reject my lizard brain offering other options—that Caleb had to rush Abby to the emergency room, or Houdini to the vet, or he was sleeping elsewhere, in another woman’s arms.
But still, I hop out of my car and race up the porch steps. I knock but there’s no response, so I try the door, which is unlocked. It’s a disaster inside—toppled lamps, artwork thrown from walls, kitchen cabinets flung ajar. The counters and floor are covered with shards of porcelain and glass.
“Caleb? Abby?” I call out.
But a frenetic search of the house confirms that they aren’t home.
I try Sonny’s next. It’s standing but didn’t fare as well; the porch collapsed, leaving the front door inaccessible.
A heavy branch from the ponderosa fell, puncturing the roof, and is now cantilevered off the main house.
It isn’t safe to poke around, and Caleb’s truck isn’t here either, so I head into town to check if everyone is gathered there.
There’s a felled redwood blocking the road about a mile from the town center.
I reverse until I come to a fork in the road and head up to Camp Colibri on autopilot, dodging debris and a section of asphalt that collapsed into the hillside.
My adrenaline has worn off, leaving me jittery, edgy, and with a bone-deep fatigue.
Camp seems deserted, but something tells me to stop, although I’m barely able to take in the damage and chaos. My voice is raw from calling Caleb’s name when I hear rustling from the trail that leads to Colibri Peak.
“Caleb!” I yell before an overzealous howl calls back in response. I run toward it, gasping in relief when I see Houdini charging me, nearly tackling me on the patio in the welcome court.
But Caleb doesn’t appear, and it looks like Houdini’s here alone. Worry rises like a tidal wave. Houdini is trembling and drooling but burrows into me as I wrap my arms around his torso.
“Houdini, what’s wrong? Where’s Caleb? Abby?”
He whimpers in response, and really, what was I expecting?
“Caleb?” My voice is tight from panic. I stand, running aimlessly, trying all the locked doors of the lower camp, screaming Caleb’s name into windows. I start up the way Houdini had come to search the upper camp, but when I glance back, he isn’t following. “Houdini.” I pat my thigh.
He glances at me over his shoulder but runs toward the parking lot.
“Houdini!”
He stops, but only to see if I’m coming.
I jog farther up the trail and am met with an urgent howl. An incessant, earsplitting racket. I put my hands on my hips, watching him wail beside my passenger door. I need to think. If Caleb is here—inexplicably, without his truck—it will take me hours to find him on my own.
But why on earth would Caleb have been here during the earthquake in the middle of the night? The dog wouldn’t lead me away from him if he were trapped and bleeding out, right? Houdini’s naughty, sure. But he’s nothing if not loyal.
With a resigned sigh, I trudge down the path. When I get close, Houdini paws at my car door, trying to flip the handle. I shake my head at him for being predictably ridiculous and at myself for following his lead.
I let him in, and he jumps to the passenger seat when I slide in, circling five times, knocking the glove compartment open with his tail. Piles of disorganized paperwork spill to the floor. This dog. I clutch his face between my palms, kissing him on the nose.
“You are the worst dog. But the best boy. Now tell me where Caleb is.” He looks back at me with his chocolate puppy eyes, cocking his head to the side.
I want to scream. To cry. But I don’t have time for those luxuries. I’ve tried all the obvious places. Knowing Caleb, the town would be well versed in evacuation routes, gathering spots, and contingency plans.
Wait, yes, I do know Caleb. And he did educate the town on all those things—the weekend I came to town. I cup my forehead, trying to remember any part of that day before Mom’s fall and ambulance ride.
I ran into Abby. She was handing out town maps as coloring pages. I didn’t take one, though. Then Caleb and I argued. Mom fell. I drove Abby to the hospital.
Abby.
The clock in my head is stuck, ticking at the same moment over and over.
Before my conscious mind figures it out, I glance to the floor of the passenger seat, spying a crushed origami crane and a fortune teller that just tumbled from my glove compartment, the ones Abby made while on the way to the hospital.
I gather them in my fist—as Houdini gives me an opportunistic kiss on my cheek—and unfold them, flattening them against my thigh.
The crane is a fire-preparedness handout, and the fortune teller is a list of emergency supplies to keep on hand.
I lean across Houdini again, grabbing a folded star—and bingo—the town evacuation routes and meeting zones.
And there, in the left column, is my answer.
After an earthquake, Grand Trees will set up an emergency command center so residents can check in, receive supplies, and create an action plan.
Residents should meet in the town square.
If it is inaccessible, the high school gym will serve as the backup.
I grab Houdini by his scruff and kiss him again. “You, sir, are a genius. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”