Chapter Twenty-Seven

THEY’D MADE IT to the cabin, turned lights on, dropped their stuff off in respective bedrooms, and settled in comfortable leather armchairs next to the wood-burning stove in the great room. Connor turned on the radio, a little turquoise box on the kitchen counter that reminded him of his childhood.

That was when they got news of the earthquake.

“A 6.1 earthquake on the Richter scale awakened Seattle early this morning.” The NPR reporter’s voice soberly delivered the news. “For most of the city, damage was minor, and most residents didn’t even wake when the trembling began and ended, all in the space of a few seconds.”

“Thank god for that,” Miranda said. “Still, it feels weirdly like the apocalypse.” She took a bite of one of the Kind bars Connor had picked up at a Starbucks on the way up. The newscaster’s voice droned on, and he wished he had heard more because a radio report couldn’t be rewound.

“Right.” Connor was distracted. He didn’t want to talk. Ever since they left last night in the driving rain, he’d had a weird, almost psychic feeling that something bad was about to happen. It wasn’t illogical, given their circumstances, but he was chilled, afraid to let down his guard, even in this relatively safe environment.

He ate his Kind bar and sipped his coffee, knowing that, in about an hour, the station would deliver another news update.

And it did. This time he heard the dreadful news that caused him to sit bolt upright and to regard Miranda with his mouth hanging open, breath caught.

“Oh no,” Miranda moaned.

“We have to go home.” Connor stood.

Once again, Connor urged Miranda to hurry and pack up her things. His heart raced, and he couldn’t quell the nausea and anxiety that threatened to overtake him. He called all the neighbors in his condo building, checking on them.

Not a single one answered.

He wasn’t surprised, but he was shattered.

Numb, feeling as though he was in a dream, he rushed Miranda out of the cedar-shingled cabin into the outdoors. The morning betrayed nothing of the tragedy he’d just learned of on the radio. Outside, the day was cool, crisp. The sky was an intense shade of blue with just a few strands of cloud, high up. The towering pines surrounding seemed to pierce the blue.

The news report had been brief, but shocking.

“Do you want me to drive?” Miranda asked once they’d thrown their stuff in the trunk and gotten in the car.

Connor at first refused, but when he had trouble getting even his trembling forefinger to push the button that would start the car, he turned to his daughter. “That’s probably a good idea.” They traded places and started off.

Miranda said, “It’ll be okay, Daddy.”

“No it won’t,” he said, staring out the window. “It will never be okay again.”

“You have insurance. They’re just things.” He knew she was simply trying to comfort him, to allay the worry he was certain he was broadcasting, even without words.

“Please. I can’t talk now.”

“Okay.”

Talking was one thing. He could barely think as the pristine Pacific Northwest landscapes with its sweeping vistas swept by. They barely registered. All he could see in his mind’s eye was his lovely condo building, where he’d spent a good part of his adult life, in rubble.

Although damage was slight from the quake, the one big casualty had been Connor’s building and a couple of others, all situated on a bluff above Lake Union. The location had always afforded the most breathtaking and serene views, but the fact that the building teetered on the edge of a downhill slope had made it particularly vulnerable.

When the quake hit, the earth beneath the building had opened up. His home had crumbled and tumbled into the blackberry-choked ravine beneath it.

The newscaster had said there was nothing left of these buildings. Westlake Avenue, below the bluff, had been buried under tons of earth and the rubble of the collapsed condominiums.

He had to get back. He had to see what nature had wrought.

What more could he possibly lose?

 

CONNOR HAD TO park at least a mile south from the condo on Dexter Avenue. “I guess we should be happy we can get this close,” he told Miranda as he maneuvered into a tight parking spot on Newton Street, near the Swedish Club.

Dexter Avenue, where his home once rose in white stucco and red-tile-roofed Spanish glory, was blocked off from both directions for about a mile north and south. Westlake Avenue, below it, was buried in mud, a huge fallen pine, blackberry vines, and building rubble.

Traffic was a mess, a nightmare, a snarl that promised no untangling—ever.

“Happy is relative,” Miranda said. “But I guess we should consider ourselves lucky we left. We might not be alive now if we hadn’t.”

“Right.” Connor put his head on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he could bear seeing the destruction. Part of him wanted to complain aloud, to grieve yet another loss in his life, but he had neither the breath nor the will to say another word. He simply allowed himself to breathe consciously to try to slow his hammering heart. In. Out. In. Out. Long slow inhalations and exhalations.

To no avail—he remained in a paradoxical state of numbness and high alert.

He couldn’t let himself lapse into self-pity and the belief that the universe itself had been pitted against him.

He looked over at his daughter. “We should get this over with.” Without waiting for her reply, he powered the car off and stepped out. When Miranda emerged from her side, he used his remote to lock up the car, thinking again how lucky he was to have found this prize of a parking space.

It’s the little things. There’s always something to be grateful for, huh?

They headed north, tense, silent. Smoke and dust still hung in the air, making the overcast morning even darker, as though night had fallen before lunchtime. Even from this distance, they could hear commotion. Sirens. Excited voices clamoring. The whoop, whoop, whoop of a helicopter overhead. The Aurora Avenue bridge, high up and in the distance, was bumper-to-bumper. A smell, not unpleasant, pervaded: scorched earth, and something like plaster dust.

Miranda touched him. “Are you sure you want to see this, Daddy?”

“What am I gonna do?” He continued his quick and relentless pace forward. “This isn’t something we can avoid. I have to see where we stand…or not.” He couldn’t look at her. As he walked, he said, “I understand if you don’t want to come with me. Just hang out in the car. I won’t be long.”

Miranda yanked on his arm, forcing him to slow and meet her gaze. “Of course, I’m coming with you. Of course.”

They continued on in silence.

Connor sucked in a breath as they neared what was left of the building. There were barriers set up, but around them were countless emergency vehicles and news vans with satellite dishes on top.

“Oh, this is terrible!” Miranda cried.

Connor couldn’t even vocalize that much.

He could tell himself what he was seeing was a scene from a disaster film. Maybe that way, he could create distance from the loss.

He shrugged. It wouldn’t work. What he saw in front of him was as painful as a sledgehammer to the face. And yet, he couldn’t look away.

“God,” he whimpered, maybe in shock, maybe in prayer.

The building had collapsed. His home, gone, just like that.

He grabbed Miranda’s hand. There was no getting around the barriers and through all the emergency personnel and news media. He led her across the street to the little park he never knew the name of—some guy, Thomas something? The green space was on a rise, and a quick walk to the top would give them a good view of all that had occurred.

At the top of the hill, with Aurora Avenue traffic whooshing behind them, they looked down.

How do you describe a loss so utterly devastating it breaks your heart and clutches your gut with an iron grip?

You don’t. Even when you make a living from words, sometimes they’re inadequate.

The condo building Connor had lived in for so many years was gone. In its place was a giant crater, rebar sticking up. The parking garage beneath the building was buried under rubble, ash, and mud. Connor assumed the cars within had been crushed. There was no trace of the swimming pool at the front of the building.

Everything had slid down over the bluff and onto Westlake Avenue.

Connor wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. But all he could manage was an awed silence. He felt almost a reverence for what nature could do, so quickly, brutally, and completely. In a weird way, he was impressed. All of this chaos and destruction probably took less than a minute to achieve.

He had a flash—when he’d first viewed the unit. It had been a spring day and the lake outside shimmered a deep blue. A seaplane skimmed across its surface, buzzing like a giant bee. To his left was the steampunk ruins that created Gas Works Park. Along its rises, people lay out, sunning themselves. Someone was flying a bright red kite.

He pushed the happy memory away because it hurt too much. That was when the worst cost of all hit him—his kind and friendly neighbors.

Had they all gotten out? Had anyone been hurt? Killed?

He thought of their faces, their smiles, their laughter, the gossip at the mailbox, the sharing of food and good cheer at the annual holiday party and summer pool bash. Where were they all now? There were only twelve units, and Connor knew everyone well. He also knew that many of them were elderly and that earthquakes and landslides could happen in the blink of an eye.

“I hope everyone got out. God, did they have enough warning? Enough time?”

Miranda simply stared at him, lower lip quivering and eyes filled with tears. She’d turned her back on the carnage, presumably because she couldn’t bear to look.

He’d find out if everyone survived soon enough. Even though he wasn’t much for prayer, he sent one up for his neighbors anyway.

The wreckage and its rubble contained more than just plaster, wood, concrete, metal, and glass. It held all of his memories. Times with Steve. Holidays and celebrations with Miranda. Lonely but productive hours at his computer, creating the worlds and the enigmas of Juanita and her sidekick, Boots.

Inside the condo was just about everything he owned, clothes, jewelry, furniture, artwork. Personal mementos. Photographs of Miranda growing up. A cookbook his grandmother had put together and had run off on a mimeograph machine as a Christmas present one year. His awards. His printed contracts. The translations and various editions of his stories that had come out over the years. His computer with his books, his current work-in-progress, and his ideas and plans for future stories.

He supposed the latter was safe in the cloud. But who knew? Who expected their world to be ripped away in an instant? As much as he tried to safeguard things, no one could adequately prepare for such total disaster.

He couldn’t blame Trey. Not for this.

Connor surprised himself—he hadn’t thought of the man nor his betrayal since they’d arrived in Seattle. Suddenly, although the threat of him was no less lethal, his mind was preoccupied by this loss. There simply wasn’t headspace for so much bad.

And Steve? Dear, sweet, precious Steve, whom he now knew—after he was gone—how much he loved him. What would he think of all this? Would he comfort Connor, sharing in the tragedy? Would the trauma of all this have brought them back together?

He took one more look at the disaster, still not believing it. “We should go back to the car. I’ll get us a room somewhere downtown, and we can start checking things out—insurance and the like.”

Miranda didn’t say anything. When she turned to him, her face was once again a little girl’s, crushed.

He took her in his arms and held her. “We’ll get through this.” He offered her comfort and confidence that all would be well, in spite of not feeling it himself.

Into her hair, he whispered, “All I ever wanted was to be free.”

She pulled back a little to regard him.

“Free. You know? Free to live, to love. To have my own home and not worry about losing it. To have a partner in life and not have to worry that he would leave me, or—” He cut himself off with a breathless and quivering sigh. He swallowed hard and continued. “Or die.” He blinked away the tears gathering in his eyes. “All I ever wanted was freedom from worry—that I had a place in the world, a home, a family, a certain regard. Freedom to believe that I was at least as smart as the next guy and couldn’t be played for a fool. Freedom in knowing that my place in the world was a safe one.

“All of that’s gone.

“I should have known better. ’Cause everything changes. Obviously. Nothing, not things, not love, not hope, not family, lasts forever. They go away. We all die.”

He closed his eyes, almost wishing the hole below him where his home had once stood, his refuge and sanctuary, would swallow him up and bury him too.

What did he have to live for now?

And then he saw her, really saw her. Miranda. His proudest creation. His most valuable one.

And he felt ashamed, so much so that a hot flush rose to his cheeks.

“Oh, Daddy,” she said, grasping both his hands in her own. “Don’t talk like that. You have me, you know. And things like love and hope? They’re always with us.”

“I know, sweetie. I know. I’m just in a state.”

“I don’t blame you.” She led him down the path that would set them back on Dexter Avenue. Without turning around, she said, “You’ve taken good care of me all my life. I know you’re strong and capable, but I want you to know I’m here to take care of you too. Always.”

Connor was too choked up to say anything in response. He simply followed her down, down until the park ended and the sidewalk began.

He didn’t look across the street.