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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 TOpark 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. Thewhoop, whoop, whoopof 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.”
