Gathering Lies - Meg O'Brien

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had lasted only a few minutes, and there were no more batteries because Timmy had forgotten to buy extras. Those few minutes, however, were long enough for us to hear that the quake had indeed been the Big One, and that Seattle was in chaos, along with surrounding cities from Olympia in the south to Victoria, B.C., to the north. The quake had been felt, in varying degrees, as far south as San Francisco, and as far north as Alaska.

      It was known that the San Juan Islands had been involved, the newscaster had said, based on reports from the U.S. Geological Survey. Helicopters that would ordinarily assess damage to those outlying areas, however, were in use transporting the many wounded and dead in the cities.

      As for rescue teams, they had been decimated. Workers who were at home were unable to get to their places of duty, and at any rate were involved in taking care of their own families, many of whom were missing or dead. Buildings and freeways had crumpled, much like those in the 1995 quake in Kobe, Japan. Those who had thought Seattle was prepared for such a disaster were in shock. No one had prepared for this—a 9.1, if it didn’t go up from there when all the reports were in.

      The last thing we heard before the radio’s batteries faded was that tsunami warnings had been issued for the entire west coast, from the San Juans south.

      I huddled in my fleece jacket and looked around at the other women. We had found Kim and Jane standing in a daze outside their cottages, which had been totaled. The farmhouse, despite its near ruin, seemed to have survived better than any other structure at Thornberry. Even the goat pen had been demolished. The goats had run off.

      When the aftershocks stopped, or at least slowed down, we would move inside and begin cleaning up. After that, we would all have to sleep and live in the kitchen until help arrived. We would have to pray it didn’t rain.

      Jane was sobbing, terrified for her children and husband in Seattle. She had drawn her knees up in a fetal position and refused to look at anyone. Grace had distanced herself from all of us, and Dana sat quietly, her eyes closed. She didn’t talk about the husband she’d left behind in Santa Fe. Amelia was stone-faced, and in just as much shock as the rest of us, but unwilling to admit it.

      I wondered why she had pretended all this time to be just like us—a guest who had been invited but didn’t know anyone here. Clearly, she was closer to Timmy, and even Lucy, than she’d let on. A strange old bird, tough on the outside but with surprisingly deep feelings inside.

      Kim Stratton had proven to have more gumption and selflessness than anyone would have expected. Though everything she had brought to Thornberry with her had been buried beneath the ruins of her cottage, she had helped Jane to carry her few salvaged belongings down to the farmhouse lawn. She sat silently, now, her long auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face smeared with dirt and sweat.

      As for me, I worried that I might not have a home to go back to now, and I worried that my mom would be going crazy without news. But that was all. I had severed ties with most friends and co-workers after the arrest. Or they had severed ties with me.

      There was Ian, of course. Had he survived the quake?

      And if so, did he wonder about me?

      Not likely. And not that I honestly cared. There had always been something about Ian I didn’t like—even when we were deep into sex, and had been together for months. In bed, I would look up into his eyes, eyes I had always thought were as lovely as a woman’s—long-lashed and ice-blue—and wonder what secrets lay behind them. When he betrayed me, I felt only a small jolt of surprise.

      So it was done. Over. Even my impending trial paled in comparison. All that mattered was getting out of this alive.

      As I thought that, the ground began to rumble again. Jane buried her face against her knees and sobbed. I and the others hunkered miserably into our blankets, and I thought I knew what they were thinking—the same thing I’d been thinking: Had the end of the world finally arrived?

PART III

      4

      The morning after the quake, a blood-red sun rose over the Sound, tinting the snowy tops of the Cascade Range. We had spent a miserable and frightening night on the lawn outside the Thornberry farmhouse. Aside from the cold and damp, there were the aftershocks, some of them almost as large as the original quake.

      We stirred and began to sit up.

      “I thought daylight would never come,” Dana said, rubbing her arms vigorously for warmth. “This has been the longest night of my life.”

      I was forced to agree. I had nodded off a few times, only to have nightmares of rolling ground beneath me—nightmares that turned out to be all too real each time I woke.

      I stood and shook the blanket from me, running fingers through my hair in a feeble attempt to straighten it. Since I’d cut it, it had grown out a few inches, and a natural curl made it tangle at night.

      I’d give my right arm for a shower, I thought. Or to wash my face. But even though the Thornberry kitchen sink stood miraculously untouched, the water line from the well’s reservoir had broken, and the pump no longer worked. Nor could we use the one toilet in the farmhouse that remained standing. Like soldiers on bivouac, we had dug holes in the ground fifty yards into the woods. Grace was responsible for this idea, as well as a large percentage of the work it took.

      “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going back inside,” Jane said, “not in the farmhouse or anywhere.” She gripped her blanket around her as another aftershock hit. We held our breaths till it was over, time suspended.

      Afterward, Jane continued, her voice noticeably shakier. “Aren’t these things supposed to get less and less strong as time goes on?”

      “Yeah, and people are supposed to prepare better,” Grace said pointedly to Timmy. “Why the hell didn’t you put away water and emergency food rations somewhere safe? Not to mention more portable radios, batteries, light sticks, camp stoves, propane lamps—” She broke off, cussing. “Where the fucking hell was your head, anyway? One cell phone in the whole damn place? And it’s under rubble now?”

      Timmy blanched, but didn’t answer. I thought I saw her lips tremble, but the light wasn’t good so I wasn’t sure. I was about to break into Grace’s diatribe when Amelia did that for me.

      “Timmy did her best,” she said defensively. “She couldn’t—”

      “Couldn’t what?”

      “Hush, Amelia,” Timmy said. “She’s right. Besides, she wouldn’t understand.”

      Amelia shot a contemptuous look at Grace and turned away.

      Grace shook her head. “You bet your sweet ass I wouldn’t understand. Sure, there are cans of food in the kitchen, but we can’t cook it, now that the line’s broken to the fuel tank. The stove is electric, and the generator’s useless without fuel. Besides that, whatever was in the fridge is spoiled by now. Or soon will be.”

      “Well, at least there are plenty of cans of food,” Dana said in a surprisingly irate voice. “We can damn well eat things cold! Besides, there’s plenty of oysters around here. They aren’t bad raw.”

      Grace gave a shudder. “And what do we do about water?” She held up a 12-ounce bottle of Perrier. “If these were all we could find last night, I doubt there are many more. Good God, Amelia, if Timmy had spent less on frills—”

      “I suppose you have all those things in your own home,” Amelia said angrily. “You’re prepared for anything, no matter what.”

      “You’re damned right, I am. It’s not like we haven’t had enough warnings in the past few years, even in New York. Not just about earthquakes, but blizzards, tornadoes, floods. And if you were any kind of friend to Timothea—which it seems you happen to be—or if you were a responsible person at all, you’d have made sure she stocked emergency supplies—”

      “Will you two

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