“After a while,” Jeremy continued, “I went out to theChenato help bring some longshoremen back to the town. They were worried about their loved ones.”
“What about Valerie?” Gwen asked. “Did you see her?”
“Not then. But I heard from some folks that she was hurt and they took her to the nursing home to see the doctor there. They told me she was practically hysterical because she’d lost her baby in the flood. People were searching, but there wasn’t much hope.”
“How badly was she injured?” Peter asked.
“She fell into a crack that opened up in the road, and she broke her leg.”
Gwen turned to Peter. “She had a bad scar on her leg. She’d always said she fell off a bicycle, but maybe it was from that.” She returned her attention to Jeremy. “What happened next?”
Jeremy spoke with purpose. “Eventually, I got in my skiff and headed out to the cove where I’d built my cabin. No one knew about it—it was pretty secluded—and by then I was numb from the cold and everything I’d seen. I came close to shore, shut off my motor, andeverything got really quiet. I sat there in a daze, just floating and thinking about the last moment I saw Angie on the dock in her red coat. And then I heard something.”
“What did you hear?” Peter asked, sitting forward.
“A baby crying.”
Gwen’s pulse began to race. “Was it Valerie’s?”
He looked at her directly but didn’t answer the question. “I went back out on the water, hugging the shoreline, and saw the carriage parked on top of what looked like a giant raft, but it was a section of roofing. It must’ve come from one of the buildings that collapsed on the dock. So I went to fetch that baby in the carriage. I knew right then that it was a miracle, that God had sent that little soul straight into my hands for safekeeping.”
He paused and clasped his hands together, pressed them to his forehead.
“What happened after that?” Gwen asked, barely able to contain her concern.
“I towed the whole rooftop to shore. Then I jumped out of my skiff and pushed the carriage onto the beach.”
“And the baby was all right?” Gwen asked.
“He was fine,” Jeremy replied. “Tucked up cozy and warm in a thick wool blanket. But he was fussing and crying for his mother.”
Gwen pondered this. “That’s the baby you took to Valerie in the hospital.”
He turned toward Jane and seemed unsure about continuing.
“Let’s go into the kitchen,” she said, “and sit down for lunch.” It was clear she wanted to give her husband a break from these painful memories. “Then he’ll tell you the rest.”
Gwen and Peter shared a look of amazement, got up from the sofa, and followed Jane and Jeremy into the kitchen.
CHAPTER 24
Valdez
1964
Harborview Nursing Home, built in 1961, suffered severe cracks during the earthquake. Frequent aftershocks in the subsequent hours rattled the building and put everyone—patients and staff alike—on edge.
Valerie sat up in her bed with a cast on her leg. Her shinbone had cracked when she had fallen into the fissure on Alaska Avenue, but a brave soul had pulled her out of the hole in the earth and sent her to see the doctor at Harborview, even though she had protested vehemently, begging not to be taken away. Not when Cameron was still missing.
Now here she was, waiting in a state of utter despair. Each time someone new walked into her room or was wheeled past her door on a gurney, she asked frantic, desperate questions.
“Do they know if anyone’s found a baby?”
“Have there been any survivors at the waterfront?”
“Please, will someone help me?”
The answers were repeatedlyno—there was nothing anyone could do for her at present. She had to be patient. Each time she heard that word, her hopes were shredded. Her broken shinbone was nothing compared to the agonizing distress and misery over the loss of her baby.It was worse than losing a limb or dying. What could have happened to him? Her imagination ran wild, and her mind spun with horrific images of his carriage flipping over into the ice-cold water. He wouldn’t understand what was happening to him. He would attempt to cry for her, but seawater would fill his tiny lungs and ...
