Earthchapter11

While Kelly slept, I walked to the road. Jon, of course, came with me. Josh stayed, sort of on guard over Kelly. Josh had said he wanted to be an obstetrician. Maybe he was hoping Kelly would go into labor.

I couldn�t get used to the idea that Kelly was just one year older than me. How oculd she be having a baby? She was just a teenager.

And yet she was so much more.

I�d felt like more than a teenager, too, untill my father came back. Now I was happy to be in his care. Maybe that was the difference. Kelly had no parents. She had no choice about growing up. I could do it at my own pace. And in these last couple of days, the pace had been fast.

The geologist whom I�d spoken with the day before had returned. This time she was working without helpers, but she wasn�t alone. A television crew was filming her and pointing a long padded microphone in her direction. She was standing next to the crack in the road where she had planted little plastic flags and spray-painted lines and circles.

�I don�t understand this rupture,� she was saying. �It doesn�t look like and earthquake fault. It doesn�t look like a landslide, either.�

Was Karen watching this woman on television as I was watching her in person?

A man in the television cre � the one who was holding the microphone � asked her, �What were you hoping to find?�

�Offset,� she said. �In the 1906 earthquake, the earth slipped as much as twenty feet along the fault line. That is, if you had a fence that went across the fault line before the quake, afterwards you had a broken fence with two sides twenty feet apart. But in this earthquake, after all the shaking, we can�t find any offset.�

�What does that mean?� asked the man with the microphone.

The woman wiped her brow. She said, �It means, we don�t know what happened here.� She tapped her clipboard full of notes. �But we will.�

�If you had to make a guess right now, what would you say?�

She thought a moment. It seemed to me that she already had a theory but was reluctant to say it. Finally, she gave in: �I�d guess that the energy of the earthquake concentrated in the ridgetop, even though the hypocenter was deeper that usual � eleven miles below the surface. The ground simply shattered. It�s called ridgetop spreading. The cracks on this ridge are like the cracks on a rising loaf of bread. Like stretch marks. It appears that the earth moved up, not over. It�s as if the mountain shrugged it�s shoulders.�

My mountain, Loma Prieta, had shrugged her shoulders. We may love her. But she obviously didn�t care one way or the other about us.

�We won�t have all the answers about what happened here for a long time,� the geologist continued.

Suddenly she pointed at me.

�There,� she said. �There�s the geologist of the future.�

Now the cameral was aiming at me � and Jon beside me. Was Karen watching? Was the whole world watching?

�Someday this young man will go off to college and then come back to this mountain and figure it all out.�

I was embarrassed. I didn�t know what to do with my hands. I smiled for the camera.

Jon pretended to vomit.

I could have killed him. I could have killed the geologist, too, for putting me on the spot. But she was right. Someday, I hoped, I would figure it all out.

Joey and my father returned dirty and tired from working on the water system. They also returned with a bag of groceries. The store was open, though supplies were low. He said that the store manager had refused to take any money for the food we �looted� from them on the night of the quake. He made it a donation.

My father had bought tortilla, cheese, a red onion and a can of refried beans. He asked me, �What�s Spanish for help?�

�Ayudar,� I said.

Kelly had just come out of the tent from her nap.

�Ayudar?� my father said. � Quesadillas?�

It wasn�t the right way to day it, but Kelly understood. �Okay,� she said.

We must have looked surprised to hear her speak the English word.

She giggled.

�Hablas ingles?� I asked. Do you speak English?

�Okay,� Kelly said.

�Why didn�t you say so?�

Kelly stared at me blankly.

�Will you help my father make quesadillas?

The same blank stare.

�Do you speak English or don�t you?�

Kelly grinned. �Okay,� she said.

We went back to Spanish.

Kelly helped my father make a sort of fried quesadillas. Josh hovered on the sidelines. I stayed around to translate, but I wasn�t needed. When my father handed Kelly a knife and an onion, the meaning was obvious. �Okay,� Kelly said, and she sliced. As they heated the tortillas in a frying pan, my father handed the spatula to Kelly and raised her eyebrows questioningly. Kelly lifted a tortilla, inspected the bottom and said, �Perfecto.�

When dinner was ready, they both seemed proud of the result, although Kelly kept trying to explain that these were not what they called quesadillas in El Salvador. My father just kept smiling, not understanding. Clearly he was taking a liking to Kelly. So was I. Kelly had a childish toothy grin (with crooked teeth) but the bearing of an older woman.

While my father washed his hands in the water from the hose, he pointed out how much cleaner the water was, though the pressure was still low. He and Joey and some neighbors had fixed the filter and shored up the dam as best they could. Apparently, they hadn�t had a language problem, either. A shovel and a washed-ut dam needed no translation. My father said Joey hadn�t spoken a word all afternoon. He seemed the strong, silent type. Also, he was wary. I bet he�d been cheated � betrayed � many a time.

It was wonderful to have clean water. You don�t appreciate the simple things until you lose them.

I thought of Mr. Wright. If he could have walked, he would have been up there helping to fix the dam, too. Unrehearsed. Fumbling. An everyday sort.

I thought of Jon pretending to vomit on camera when the geologist was talking about me, and I was thinking that he was a very small hero indeed. But actually, I had to admit, I was glad that he was feeling at least a little better, that the old Jon was coming back, the Jon whom I knew and� loved.

Yes.

I had to admit it. I loved the little creep. In the structure of our family, we were bolted.

We wouldn�t all fit around the card table, so we spread a blanket on the ground and sat in a circle. Before we could eat, Kelly bowed her head and muttered a few words. Then she crossed herself.

�What did she say?� my father asked.

I translated: �Bless you, Jesus, that we are alive and safe. Thank you for what we have.�

My father looked at out split-apart house. He looked down at the road, where a boulder still lay on the crushed car. He looked at the ashes of the shed that had once been home to Joey and Kelly. He looked toward Mr. Wright�s yard, where there was no longer any house at all, just chickens scratching in the scorched earth.

He looked out over the ocean and up at our redwood trees standing so calmly in the rays of the setting sun. He looked at Jon, who was fidgeting, waiting for a sign that he could dive into his food. His eyes met mine, and I don�t know what he saw. He looked at Josh, who had removed his headphones for the meal. He looked at Joey where beads of sweat had plowed clean tracks down his dirty brows and cheeks. He looked at little Kelly, with one hand resting on the shelf of her gigantic belly.

�Thank you,� my father said, �for all that we have.�

* * *

Kelly had started a tradition. From then on, we started every meal with a thank-you for what we had. And on those following days, it seemed, beyond ourselved we had very little.

Friday morning right after breakfast a gray Jeep with an official county seal on the side pulled up at our house. Joey and Kelly beat wings and disappeared like quail. Out of the Jeep stepped a man wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard. He took one brief look at our house and stapled a red tag to the doorframe.

It was condemned.

My father was furious. He blew up at the guy. He said that only rhe old part should be red-tagged and that we should be allowed to use the new addition.

Blowing up at a bureaucrat is not the way to get what you want.

The Jeep departed; Joey and Kelly returned; my father fumed. The red tag remained.

A wind was picking up. They sky was a moody gray, growing blacker. Blown leaves were whipping against my legs.

And then it rained.

We sat in the tent. Joey and Kelly stayed in their separate tent, Kelly singing softly in Spanish � the same song, again and again. It sounded like a lullaby. Joey remained silent. The raindrops sounded like fingernails tapping on a tabletop. The nylon roof shuddered in the wind. The sleeping bags got damp spots where they touched the walls. My father�s eyeglasses steamed over. From outside came the scent of wet earth; from inside, wet wool.

We read books. We talked. We got bored. We were too crowded. We got on each other�s nerves.

When it came time for lunch, my father couldn�t face preparing food in the rain. He told us to all get in the car � Josh, Joey and Kelly, too.

�Where are we going?�

�Aunt Annette�s.�

There were six of us � dirty, wet, smelly � packed into a five-seat car. I felt like a dust bowl refugee.

Aunt Annette lived in Cupertino in a suburban ranch house. It was like coming into a different world. She had heat. She had electric light. She had running hot water. Telephones. Cable TV. Clean carpets and chairs. Windows that closed. I took a shower. I put a load of clothes in the washing machine. I walked comfortably barefoot to the kitchen and found Josh and Kelly mixing some dark batter.

�Brownies.� Josh said. �I�m showing Kelly how to make them. Can you believe sh�es never had a brownie in her life?�

I smiled. I was feeling relaxed. It had been a long time since I�d felt so clean and so calm.

�Josh,� I said, �it�s good to have you back.�

Suddenly Josh looked serious. �Yeah, it was fun. I mean, to see you again. I mean, the earthquake wasn�t fun. But, you know ��

�I know.�

�These brownies are for you. And Kelly. And give one to Diane, too, if you see her.�

�You can give it yourself.�

�No. That�s what I�m trying to say, Just.�

�What?�

�I�m going home. Your father just called the airline. There�s a flight in two hours.�

Why now? �It�s too soon,� I said. �They shouldn�t make you go. I bet I can talk them into letting you stay a couple more days. At least through the weekend. They shouldn�t ��

�It was my idea,� Josh said.

I must have looked puzzled.

�I�m in the way,� he said. �You don�t need me here. And I found what I was staying for.�

�You did?�

�I mean I�ve sort of like totally been sorting things out.�

�You have?�

Josh looked me square in the eye. �Say hi to Chris for me. Tell him I�m sorry I was such a jerk. Give him a brownie, too. Would you? I hope you give him lots of brownies. For the rest of your life.�

�I�m not exactly ready to marry him,� I said. I was embarrassed. My father was hearing this. Jon was hearing it. I was in for some teasing.

�I�m just saying it�s okay if you do,� Josh said. �And okay if you don�t. I mean, either way, if it�s all right with you, we can still be friends. Right?�

�It�s all right with me, Josh. It�s like totally all right.�

He was wearing a shirt that he�d borrowed from me. I said he could keep it. He looked to me like the Josh of old: taller, thinner, longer haired, but still a companion of mice and puppies � and pregnant teenagers. And I knew that if some emergency came up � for instance, if on the way to the airport we came upon a car accident � Josh would want to leap out and give first aid or CPR or at least offer a brownie.

But we passed no accidents.

�Good-bye, Josh,� I said at the departure gate.

We hugged. He still smelled like butter and cocoa.

�Thanks for your help. I know you�ll be a good doctor someday.�

�Obstetrician.�

�Right.�

Josh looked one last time at me and Jon, my father and at Joey and Kelly, who had never been in an airport before and were huddled together, gaping and whispering. �Goodbye,� Josh said. �It�s been like totally amazing.�

Then he walked on to the plane.

Driving home, passing all the torn-apart houses, the landslides that had been crudely bulldozed to the side of the road, the leaning telephone poles, the flashing lights of trucks where people were working even in the rain at night to string up wires and clear fallen trees, my father said, �It looks like a war.�

Coming back to our tents in the dark, in the wetness, I thought of the meaning of Loma Prieta. It�s Spanish for Dark Hill. That night, it seemed very dark indeed.

�Let�s move into the house,� my father said. �The new part is safe. It may not have windows or doors, but at least is has a roof.�

�But it�s red-tagged,� I said.

�I�m not going to stay out of my house just because the county is afraid I�m going to sue them or do something stupid.�

So that night, we moved into the addition.

We camped on the plywood floor. From where I lay in my sleeping bag, I could see the sturdy bolts of the hold-down in one of the corners. It reassured me.

Some time in the dark of morning, I awoke fuzzy-headed from a strange dream hearing an even stranger sound. It came from the old part of the house. Muffled. Distant. A ringing.

I shined my flashlight. In a window frame I caugh the yellow eyes of a raccoon. Like me, it seemed to cock its ear toward the sound. In a corner I saw the glint of the hold-down. In sleeping bags, all unaware of the sound, lay my father and Jon. Under blankets lay Joey and Kelly, his arm draped over her belly. Curled against Jon lay Greta the dog. All sleeping. Still the ringing. I stood up and walked to the edge of the addition. There was now a twelve-inch gap between the new and the old house with rain falling through, and I didn�t dare step across. I shone the flashlight over the buckled floorboards past the crumbled walls with the smell of wet plaster dust stinging my nose � and there in the beam lay the source of the sound. Our old avocado-green telephone was ringing its heart out.

We were connected again. We were back in civilization. Though I was afraid to walk across and pick up the handset, I stood and stared at the lovely old phone.

Finally, the ringing stopped.

I went back to my sleeping bag. The raccoon was gone from the windowframe. My family remained sleeping � a family that had grown to five people in an unfinished house that had split in half. The raindrops tapped. The hold-downs held. Bolts.

Good old bolts.

THE END