“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 bythe 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 familyhad 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 sheapplied herselflike 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.”
chapter 69:CLAIRE
Claire walked into the Depot with Bridget beside her.
She’d had a rock of worry sitting in the center of her chest since her father called her this morning.
“Meet me for lunch at the Depot with your sisters. We have to talk.” Dad had refused to say more.
Claire had planned on seeing her father off this morning at the Depot, but the tone of his voice didn’t bode well for a happy goodbye. Red said he’d keep Jenny, and told her not to worry when he kissed her goodbye.
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked him. He and Dad had talked a long time that first night. Red told her Dad had apologized to him about the wedding, and that made her worry even more. That was so unlike her father.
Now Red said, “I think it’s a good thing he wants to talk to you all together.”
“Do you think he’s sick?” Bridget asked after she picked her up at the Red Cross headquarters in Ennis. “Maybe he has cancer, or TB.”
“Maybe he is going to try to convince me to come home again,” Claire said.
