“I got some nice shots of you tonight,” Everett told Maggie as he left her on her doorstep. She lived in an ancient-looking building that looked as disreputable as it did old, but it didn't seem to worry her. She said she had lived there for years and was a fixture in the neighborhood. He jotted down her address and told her he'd send prints of the photographs to her. He asked her for her phone number, in case he ever came back to the city. “If I do, I'll take you to dinner,” he promised. “I had a nice time talking to you.”

“So did I,” she said, smiling up at him. “It's going to take a long time to clean up the city. I hope too many people weren't killed tonight.” She looked worried. They had no way of getting news. They were cut off from the world, without electricity or cell phones. It was a strange feeling.

The sun was coming up as he said goodbye to her, and he wondered if he'd ever see her again. It seemed unlikely. It had been an odd and unforgettable night for all of them.

“Goodbye, Maggie,” he said as she let herself into the building. There were bits of broken plaster lying all over the hallway, but she commented with a smile that it hardly looked worse than usual. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” she said as she waved at him and closed the door. An evil smell had drifted toward them as she opened the door into the hallway, and he couldn't imagine how she could live there. She was truly a saintly woman, he realized as he walked away, and then laughed softly. He had spent the night of the San Francisco earthquake with a nun. He thought she was a hero. He could hardly wait to see the pictures of her. And then oddly, as he walked away from her building, back through the Tenderloin, he found himself thinking about his son, and the way Chad had looked when he was three, and for the first time in the twenty-seven years since he'd last seen him, he missed him. Maybe he would look him up one day, if he ever got back to Montana, and if Chad was still living there. It was something to think about. Some of what Maggie had said had gotten under his skin, and he forced it out of his head again. He didn't want to feel guilty about his son. It was too late for that, and would do neither of them any good. He strode off then in his lucky boots, past the drunks and the hookers on Maggie's street. The sun was coming up, as he walked back into the heart of the city to see what stories of the earthquake he would find there. There were endless opportunities to shoot. And for him, who knew, maybe even another Pulitzer one day. Even after the shocking events of the previous night, he felt better than he had in years. He was back in the saddle as a journalist, and felt more confident and in control of his life than ever before.





Chapter 3




Seth and Sarah started the long walk home from the RitzCarlton after the benefit. Her high-heeled sandals were nearly impossible to negotiate, but there was so much broken glass on the streets that she didn't dare take them off to go barefoot. She got blisters with every step she took. There were lines down and sparks spitting from live wires which they carefully avoided. They were finally able to hitch a ride from a passing car for the last dozen blocks or so, from a doctor returning from St. Mary's Hospital. It was three o'clock in the morning, and he had gone to check on his patients after the earthquake. He told them things at the hospital were relatively under control. The emergency generators were working, and only one very small part of the radiology lab on the main floor had been destroyed. Everything else seemed to be in good order, although patients and staff alike were visibly shaken.

Like everyone else in the city, at the hospital, they had no phone communications, but they were listening on battery-powered radios and TVs for news bulletins, to see which parts of the city had suffered the worst damage.

He also told them the Marina had taken a terrible hit again, as it had in the smaller '89 earthquake. It was built on landfill, and there were fires burning out of control. There were also reports of looting downtown. Both Russian and Nob Hills had survived the 7.9 earthquake relatively well, as had been witnessed by everyone at the Ritz-Carlton. Some of the western areas of the city had suffered severe damage, as had Noe Valley, the Castro, and the Mission. And parts of Pacific Heights had been badly shaken. Firemen were attempting to rescue people trapped in buildings and elevators, and still have enough manpower to fight the fires that had erupted in many parts of the city, which was no mean feat with broken water mains nearly everywhere.

As their benefactor drove Seth and Sarah home, they could hear sirens in the distance. And both of the city's main bridges, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate, had been closed since minutes after the earthquake. The Golden Gate had swung wildly, and several people had been injured. Two sections of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge had collapsed onto the deck below it, and several cars were reported crushed with people trapped in them. So far, the highway patrol had not been able to effect a rescue. Reports of people blocked in cars and unable to get out, screaming as they died, had been horrendous. So far, it was impossible to even guess at the death toll. But it was easy to assume there would be many, and thousands injured. The three of them listened to the car radio as they drove carefully through the streets.

Sarah gave the doctor their address, and was quiet on the way home, praying for her children. There was still no way to communicate with the house or the babysitter for reassurance. All telephone lines were down, and cell phones weren't working. The badly shaken city seemed completely cut off from the outside world. All she wanted to know now was that Oliver and Molly were okay. Seth was staring out the window in a daze, and kept trying to use his cell phone, as the doctor drove them the rest of the way. They finally arrived at their large brick house perched on top of the hill on Divisadero and Broadway, overlooking the bay. It appeared to be intact. They thanked the doctor, wished him well, and got out. Sarah ran to the front door as Seth followed behind her, looking exhausted.

Sarah already had the door open when he reached her. She had kicked her impossible shoes off, and was running down the hall. There was no electricity, so the lights were off, and it was unusually dark, with not even streetlights outside. She ran past the living room to go upstairs, and then she saw them, the babysitter asleep on the couch, with the baby dozing in her arms, and Molly snoring softly beside her, and candles lit on the table. The sitter was out cold, but stirred as Sarah approached.

“Hi…oh… such a big earthquake!” she said, waking up, but whispering so as not to disturb the children. But as Seth walked into the room and the three adults talked, the children began to stir too. Looking around, Sarah could see that all their paintings were wildly askew, two statues had fallen down, and a small antique card table and several chairs had tipped over. The room had a severely disordered look to it, with books spilling all over the floor, and smaller objects strewn around the room. But her babies were fine, which was all that mattered. They were uninjured and alive, and then as her eyes got accustomed to the dim room, she could see that Parmani had a bump on her forehead. She explained that Oliver's bookcase had fallen on her as she ran to get him out of his crib when the quake began. Sarah was grateful it hadn't knocked her unconscious or killed the baby, as books and objects had fallen off the shelves. A baby in the Marina had been killed in the 1989 earthquake that way, when a heavy object had slipped off a shelf and killed the infant in its crib. Sarah was grateful that history hadn't repeated itself with her son.

Oliver stirred as he lay on top of the sitter, picked up his head, and saw his mother, and then Sarah picked him up and held him. Molly was still sound asleep curled up in a little ball beside the babysitter. She looked like a doll, as her parents smiled at her, grateful for their safety.

“Hi, sweetheart, were you having a big sleep?” his mother asked him. The baby looked startled to see them and puckered his face as his bottom lip quivered, and he started to cry. Sarah thought it was the sweetest sound she had ever heard, as sweet as the night he'd been born. She had been terrified for her children all night, ever since the earthquake had begun. All she had wanted to do was run home and take them in her arms. She leaned down and gently touched Molly's leg, as though to reassure herself that she was alive too. “It must have been so scary for you,” Sarah said sympathetically to Parmani, as Seth walked into the den and picked up the phone. It was still dead. There was no phone service in the entire city. Seth must have checked his cell phone a million times on the way home.

“This is ridiculous,” he snarled, as he walked back into the room. “You would think they could at least keep our cell phones going. What are we supposed to do? Be cut off from the world for the next week? They better get us going again tomorrow.” Sarah knew, as he did, there was little chance of that.

They had no electricity either, and Parmani had wisely shut off the gas, so the house was chilly, but fortunately the night was warm. On a typical blowy San Francisco night, they would have been cold.

“We'll just have to camp out for a while,” Sarah said serenely. She was happy now, with her baby in her arms, and her daughter within her sight on the couch.

“Maybe I'll drive down to Stanford or San Jose tomorrow,” Seth said vaguely. “I have to make some calls.”

“The doctor said he heard at the hospital that the roads are closed. I think we're pretty much cut off.”