“Have a good trip.”
“I’ll try,” he says glumly, and heads off through the trees.
Clara watches, wondering if she’s ever going to see him again.
Should she chase after him and warn him about the earthquake?
Remembering Bobby—Officer Shelton’s—reaction, she decides against it. Maybe if the Tuckers weren’t about to leave town, anyway. But they, like Drew, will be out of harm’s way today.
I’m the one who needs to get moving.
And her stomach is really hurting now. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders if she should be concerned. But there’s only so much she can worry about at one time, and right now, she has to focus on finding the dog and getting the hell out of here.
“Dickens!” she shouts again. “Dickens!”
She listens, one last time, for the telltale sound of an animal scampering through the underbrush.
Nothing.
He’s going to be okay, she tells herself. But you can’t wait any longer.
She heads back down the hillside toward the house, again going over what she needs to bring with her. Toiletries, her cell phone, the checkbook . . .
Rounding the corner of the house to the driveway, she looks up and gasps.
“You little . . . Dickens!”
There he is, sitting on the front doormat, waiting for her.
“Where have you been? Didn’t you hear me calling you?” She bends over and scoops the puppy into her arms.
He laps her face with his tongue. His dog breath makes her stomach turn, but she doesn’t mind. Much.
She’d better pack some snacks, too. Or maybe even fix herself something to eat before she gets on the road. All at once, she’s feeling queasy in addition to the dull ache in her gut.
In the house, she hurriedly makes herself a peanut butter sandwich and eats it while she throws everything she can think of into the new Filson bag she got Drew for Christmas.
That seems like a lifetime ago. In a way, it was.
She gathers some clothes—her own and Drew’s, whatever is on the top of the piles in their drawers. Toiletries. Her phone and charger. Oh, and the checkbook and credit cards. The laptop! What else? Their framed wedding photo from the dresser, her new slippers, her pillow, his pillow . . .
Downstairs in the kitchen, she loads a bag with boxes of cereal and crackers, some fruit from the basket on the counter, the jar of peanut butter. She wouldn’t mind grabbing a couple of cold bottles of water, but she doesn’t dare open the fridge again.
She’d read somewhere that a woman’s sense of smell becomes more acute with pregnancy. Boy, is that ever true.
She herds Dickens out the door to the car and into the front seat, then loads the bags, one at a time, into the back. They’re pretty heavy. Her stomach is hurting worse.
You probably could have left a lot of it behind, she thinks, as she returns to the house for one last look. It’s not like they don’t have toothpaste or apples in San Francisco.
She goes into the kitchen to make sure the coffee pot and toaster are unplugged—they are—and spots movement in the window above the sink.
Startled, she sees that there’s a hummingbird fluttering around the feeder hanging outside the glass.
That’s strange. She could have sworn Doris once mentioned that it’s rare to see them at this time of year. And she hasn’t even filled the feeder yet with nectar.
She takes a few steps closer, frowning.
That’s a hummingbird, all right.
Maybe it’s some sort of sign.
About to turn away, she sees Drew’s orange medicine bottle on the windowsill.
She hastens over to grab it.
If it hadn’t been for the hummingbird, she never would have remembered it.
Maybe most people would chalk that up to coincidence. But in her world, everything happens for a reason. In her world, there’s magic.
Smiling for the first time today, she hurries back out to the car.
“Okay, we’re good to go,” she tells Dickens, who is wide awake and glancing anxiously out the window.
He snoozed all the way to town the last time she drove him someplace—but then, that was three years from now. He’s still a puppy, probably not yet used to being in a car.
Or maybe he senses that this isn’t an ordinary joyride.
Taking a long, last look at the house, she reminds herself that it will still be standing when she comes back. Of course it will. There isn’t a doubt in her mind.
Still, she feels a twinge of trepidation as she drives away. There’s bound to be damage, inside and out.
She heads south on the winding coastal highway, mindful of Dickens still sitting up straight and alert, as if he’s aware of the steep drop-off just beyond his window. There’s no shoulder here; just a few inches separate the car and the sparkling blue Pacific far below.
Clara should probably be glad it’s not a foggy day, because there are plenty of accidents out here when visibility is reduced. But then if it were foggy, she wouldn’t be out here in the first place.
Her stomach—it’s really hurting now. This isn’t good.
But you can’t do anything about it. Just keep on driving. Don’t think about it.
She turns her thoughts to the coming quake—yeah, there’s a brighter subject—going over again what happened back home during the Christmas Day foreshock.
Maybe she should have spent less time just now packing belongings that can easily be replaced and more time gathering—or at least securing—all the precious things that can’t.
Photos, papers—she had considered, and then discarded, the idea of taking them with her. It’s not as if there’s going to be a fire or flood in the house.
Rounding a curve, she adjusts the visor against the bright morning sun and wishes she’d thought to grab her sunglasses.
No, violent tremors can’t really damage photos or papers.
Glass—that’s a different story.
Another stomach pain.
Another curve ahead. Squinting, she readjusts the visor and is glad to note that the road straightens out a bit beyond.
She remembers all the broken glass crunching under her feet that day, when she and Drew were trying to clean up after the quake. Shards of glasses and plates, lightbulbs, a couple of tree ornaments—
“Oh, no!”
The snow globe.
Clara slams on the brakes involuntarily, then belatedly glances into the rearview mirror to make sure no one is right behind her.
She has to go back.
How could she have forgotten the most sentimental possession she owns? The best gift ever, from Drew on their first Christmas together.
And it’s made of glass.
About to make a U-turn, she feels a tremendous jolt, and the car sways oddly. Before she can react, the tires seem to vibrate. Dickens leaps off the seat and lets out a yelp.
This is it.
Dear God.
Instinctively, she clings hard to the wheel, frantic with fear as the world shakes violently around the car, and the puppy cowers on the floor beneath the passenger seat.
She had almost gotten away in time.
If she hadn’t stopped to pack . . .
Looking longingly through the windshield at the distant highway she’d been about to travel, she sees it buckle and roll like a length of billowing fabric. And then, right before her eyes, the unimaginable happens: a huge section of the road ahead gives way and tumbles into the sea.
One moment, the terrain is there; the next, it’s gone.
Clara gasps in horror.
She hadn’t almost gotten away.
She had almost been killed.
If she hadn’t stopped to go back, she’d have been on that stretch of highway. She wouldn’t have, couldn’t have survived.
Everything happens for a reason.
But it’s not over yet.
The landscape continues to quake around her, jarring the car. Cripplin
g pain sears her midsection. Dickens cowers on the floor. Beyond the window, mere inches of road separate the tires from the sheer drop-off.
Clara closes her eyes, and there’s nothing to do but ride it out.
Chapter Twenty-six
Heading back north on the two-lane coastal highway toward home, listening to an old Van Morrison CD meant to take his mind off his troubles, Drew is surprised at the traffic at this time of day. The cars in front of him have slowed to a crawl, and he’s beginning to wonder if he’s actually going to be able to make it all the way home and then back to the office again on time for work.
He should probably just forget about connecting with his wife this morning. It’s probably stupid to risk being late for a new job that was so hard to come by in this economy. The logical thing to do would be to turn around and head south again, to the city.
But for some reason, he’s not in the mood for logic this morning.
And he doesn’t just want to see Clara—he needs to see her. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s feeling an increasing sense of urgency about it.
Maybe because he’s so frustrated by the string of brake lights through the windshield.
Or maybe because she was so insistent when she called. At first, anyway. Before he said no, and she dropped it, as if she realized it was a lost cause.
It isn’t like her to back down so easily.
What was it that she had to tell him, and why—
Hearing sirens, he glances into the rearview mirror and spots flashing red lights coming up behind him. Cars are doing their best to get out of its way, but there aren’t many options.
Good thing he’s not on the southbound side of the road alongside the steep drop-off to the sea. There’s no shoulder on the northbound side, either, but at least he’s not teetering on a precipice as he moves right as far as he can to let the emergency vehicle pass.
Must have been an accident up ahead somewhere, because now another vehicle is coming up behind him, heading in the same direction.
An anxious twinge darts through Drew. He does his best to dismiss it, reminding himself that he’s not exactly feeling logical this morning. If he were, he wouldn’t be worrying that there’s some connection between the sirens and his wife. He wouldn’t be feeling so uneasy about her without any apparent reason.
Clara was safely back home again after her run to the store. He talked to her. He knows that. And anyway, San Florentina is still miles away from here.
With its hairpin turns, this road is notorious for accidents. Someone—some poor stranger—probably went off the road up ahead. Tragic—but it’s not his tragedy.
He just needs to get home, or turn around and get to work. One or the other. And he can’t sit here all day to figure it out.
He turns on the radio to see what’s going on up ahead. It’s rush hour. There should be traffic reports all over the dial. Prepared to search for one, he’s glad to hear an announcer’s voice as soon as the audio comes up.
“. . . on the coastal highway, and authorities are asking residents of areas surrounding San Florentina, where the quake was centered, to please stay off the roads so that emergency vehicles can get through.”
Quake?
But . . . that was the other day.
Why are they talking about it now, as if it just—
“Again, if you’re just turning in, a major earthquake has struck the coastal region north of the Bay area.”
Drew must have been too far away to feel the tremors, but Clara . . . she would have been right there. Right in San Florentina.
His blood runs cold.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Time has passed since the terrifying pitching and rolling came to an end.
How much time, Clara, drifting in and out of consciousness, doesn’t know.
Interminable time.
Maybe five minutes, maybe an hour.
Huddled on the seat of the car with Dickens beside her, she knows only that the quake is over, and that she survived . . .
And that something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Dickens peers at her, making the sorrowful squeaking sound that’s become a refrain punctuated by screaming sirens in the distance and the crashing Pacific far below.
Clara wonders whether he sees the blood, or smells it.
It’s hard to miss, soaking her clothes from the waist down and smeared all over her hands. At first, she tried to stanch the flow as if that could save the baby, though she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was already too late.
The agony gripping her body, though, has yet to subside. If anything, it’s getting worse. So bad she’s afraid it’s going to kill her. Unless it already has.
Maybe she didn’t pass out earlier. Maybe she died, right here, on a cliff high above the ocean, so close to home.
And now she’s . . . a spirit?
But if that’s the case, she’d be floating somewhere above her body, wouldn’t she? That’s what she’s read. There would be no more pain.
Amid the fog of pain, she has reminded herself that she can’t be dead, because she lives to see the future. She’s still going to be around three years from now.
Unless she was wrong about that. Maybe she was—is—a ghost. A Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, haunting her own future.
Dickens nuzzles her face with his wet nose, and whimpers.
Maybe she really is dead, lying here in the car, covered in blood.
But if she’s dead, she’d be cold, and right now, she feels as though she’s burning up.
She needs fresh air.
Mustering all her strength, she reaches over to pull the handle. It takes a few tries. She’s so weak.
At last, she feels it give.
She pushes the door with the last of her strength, and it opens just a crack.
Not enough, though.
Air. She needs air.
Realizing one of her feet is pressed against the door, she thrusts with all her might. It seems to weigh a ton, but at last, it swings open and a salt breeze fills the car.
She inhales gratefully.
She’s alive. Definitely. Alive, and it hurts to breathe, but breathe she must. In, out, in, out, pain slicing her midsection, a heavy shroud of darkness stealing over her once again.
Beside her, thppy barks excitedly.
Too late, she realizes her mistake.
“No, Dickens!” she screams—or at least, tries to scream, as the dog leaps over her body toward the escape.
But her voice comes out a faint croak, drowned out by the sickening sound of squealing brakes.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hearing a bark and a far-off knocking sound, Clara opens her eyes.
Sun is streaming through the bedroom window. Not the thin, pale blush of early morning, but the unmistakable bright light of mid-afternoon.
Groggy, she looks around to get her bearings. She isn’t beneath the covers; she’s lying on top of the quilt, fully clothed—a nap? The clock reads 1:47.
She glances around, noting her belly, the boxes . . .
Welcome back to 2012.
“Drew?” she calls hopefully.
No reply, but Dickens is barking and again, she hears a knocking coming from downstairs. Someone is at the door.
Please, let it be him.
But why would he knock?
Maybe he locked himself out, forgot his keys . . .
Please, please, let it be him.
She hurriedly stands, briefly grasping the headboard to steady herself before heading for the stairs.
Dickens meets her at the bottom, still barking anxiously at the door. Through the window, she can see a man on the doorstep. Of course, it isn’t Drew.
Her heart sinks.
Drawing closer, she can see that he’s holding a clipboard. There’s a large truck parked on the driveway with the back doors open, and a second man is setting up a ramp there.
The movers, obviously.
Still, bred on street sm
arts, Clara stops at the door, calling, “Yes?” through the glass.
“Delivery for Becker,” the man calls back over Dickens’s incessant barking.
“Delivery?” she echoes, shrugging to show him that she must have misunderstood.
He motions for her to open the door.
Hesitating, she weighs the odds that he and his accomplice are going to throw her into the back of the truck.
Deciding to take a chance, she reaches for the knob and opens the door a crack, holding Dickens back by the collar.
“We have your crib and changing table,” the man informs her promptly—and impatiently.
“Excuse me?”
“Crib.”
“Crib?”
“And changing table.”
“For me? Are you sure?”
He glances pointedly at her hugely pregnant stomach, then consults the clipboard. “Got it right here. Drew Becker. That you? You ordered a crib and changing table on December nineteenth from the Lullaby Lounge in an Francisco?”
“That’s my husband.” Heart racing, she tightens her grip on the dog and opens the door wider. “Are you sure this is where you’re supposed to deliver it?”
He looks at the address on the form. “Yup.”
Why not the new house? she wonders, puzzled. Did we change our minds about moving?
The deliveryman checks his watch.
“Um, that’s fine,” she tells him. “Bring it in.”
“Where do you want it?”
“Upstairs,” she decides quickly.
Yes. In the room with the yellow walls.
“And you want the crib assembled.”
It isn’t a question, but given his expectant expression, he wants an answer.
Yes?
No?
She settles on, “I don’t think so.”
“It says here it should be assembled.”
Then why are you asking me? she wants to retort, suddenly weary. Not physically—emotionally. Weary of wondering what’s going on in her life, of never knowing whether she’s going to wake up three years from now or three years ago or . . .
“You paid for the assembly,” the deliveryman informs her, after flipping through his invoice. “If you don’t want it, I’m going to have to call my boss.” He reaches for his phone.
The Best Gift Page 18
