NINETEEN
Patrick ripped off his sleep mask and tossed the covers back in one fluid motion. The room was dark, quiet. Too quiet. His noise machine had stopped . . . noising. The air-conditioning was not humming. What time is it? He strained to hear the sprinklers on the back lawn; depending on the time of night he could sometimes use their gentle hissing to orient himself. He listened for the kids. Was one of them crying? Calling his name? He leaned forward to look for them, thinking perhaps he’d finally caught them in the act of sneaking in, but they were not there. Only Marlene, who had taken to sleeping on the end of his bed, was curled up in a tight ball. So why was he awake? Was it a dream? He struggled to wrap his mind around his last memory. Was it Joe? He’d been returning recently in Patrick’s sleep; two nights ago he was a steward on an airline wearing a uniform with a slick tie clip. He found Patrick in a first-class aisle seat and, crouching down, said, “There you are. You’re supposed to be in 3-D.”
Then, BOOM.
The room lurched, bending Patrick at the waist, first forward, then back against his upholstered headboard like a rag doll with too little stuffing. He was confused, stupefied. Marlene leapt to her feet and let out a surprised howl as she clung with her claws to the duvet. Patrick looked at his bedroom door; it rumbled in the frame. Someone was trying to enter, to do harm, to kill him. The bed pitched forward again, and then up and down, rising an inch in the air before slamming down again on the floor. He grabbed a fistful of covers like they were the reins of a bucking mare. Not someone.
Something.
Artillery. A ghostly presence. Evil.
Earthquake, Patrick realized once he’d eliminated everything else. And then said it again out loud to confirm. “EARTHQUAKE!” For a split second a warmth washed over him, a certainty that he was going to die. And he was . . . okay. Not horrified. Death wasn’t welcome, but he was tired of needing to have all the answers, tired of people fighting him—it seemed an acceptable conclusion. Why did this need to go on? He’d lived, he’d loved, he’d done less than some but more than many; he’d be remembered.
Marlene growled, her legs wide, miraculously keeping her footing. It snapped Patrick to attention. He lunged for her, tucking her like a football close to his side as the flat-screen toppled from its stand. The TV landed with a crash.
The kids.
It hit him with a fresh jolt triggered not by the friction of moving tectonic plates but a seismic shift deep inside him. He was no longer responsible for just himself, and it was instantly more than the fresh realization each morning that he needed to get out of bed and make Maisie eggs or pour Grant’s cereal or entertain them to distract from their grief.
He was responsible for keeping them alive.
Patrick leapt out of bed. He whipped open his door and ran through the living room to the other side of the house. In the hallway he found Maisie leaning against a wall between the guest rooms, her face twisted with an unforeseen anguish, her features all slightly out of place like she had just sat for a cubist painter. Patrick reached out, grabbed her hand, and yanked her close into his side. The ground kept shaking and he heard crash after crash from the living room that sounded like the entire fireplace crumbling brick by goddamn brick.
“Doorway!” he barked, guiding Maisie into the door frame to her room. Marlene wriggled and squirmed as much as Maisie held him tight.
“Grant’s hurt!”
“WHAT?”
The ground belched one last violent lurch and then rattled like a fading echo until everything calmed to a fragile stillness. Patrick looked around, trying to remember everything you were supposed to do in a quake. The gas line? Was that supposed to be checked? Maybe he should shut it off at the source. Fill the tubs with water until the taps stopped running clear? In case they needed the water in the coming days? Get anything out of the fridge they might need imminently in case of an extended power outage? But then Maisie’s words came into sharp focus.
“Where’s Grant?”
Maisie was crying and clung to her uncle’s shorts.
“GRANT!”
He squeezed Maisie’s hand and yanked her across the hall to find his nephew in his bed. He wasn’t moving. Did he sleep through this? Was that . . . possible?
“Grant.” Grant didn’t move and Maisie burst into terrified tears. Patrick leaned forward to give him a good, well—shake. But he stopped just shy of touching his nephew when he saw blood on Grant’s face. He let go of Maisie and eased Marlene on the bed to place both hands on the boy’s shoulders. A quiet washed over him, the kind that came with adrenaline and a pounding heart. Maisie’s crying faded, blending into the dull roar inside his ears; it was like he was submerged in water, his pool perhaps, the rest of the world’s sounds drowning in a calming whoosh.