“Can I grab a cup of coffee?” she asked cautiously, her dark hair piled on her head. She was incredibly sexy. “I usually go to a spinning class today. I guess everything’s going to be closed for a while,” she said, as Debbie handed her a mug of coffee, and Meredith poured two, for Tyla and herself. Tyla was a pretty woman, but her style was plain.
Debbie had set out orange juice for the kids. Will drained his, and Daphne offered Martha a sip before she drank hers. Meredith smiled as she watched her, and they all sat down at the kitchen table. Ava poured herself a bowl of granola, when Meredith showed her where it was, and all Tyla wanted was a piece of toast and her mug of coffee. Debbie was using an electric stovetop to make the pancakes, since the gas stove and ovens were off.
They talked about the damage in the city, as the two kids ate their pancakes. And halfway through the meal, Andrew walked in, wearing scrubs, looking exhausted.
“I’ve been up all night,” he said, as Debbie handed him a mug of coffee, and he sat down at the table with the women and children.
“Breakfast?” Debbie asked him, and he shook his head.
“I ate at the hospital cafeteria before I came home. I just stopped at the house. One of the beams in the dining room is on the floor. I don’t think there’s a dish left in the kitchen, and there’s a tear in Will’s bedroom ceiling. I called our insurance adjuster, and all I got was voicemail,” he said, stretching his long legs out ahead of him. He glanced at his wife’s arm, and gave her a glance when he saw the bruise. “Why are you wearing your soccer uniform?” he asked his son, “there won’t be a game today.”
“It’s what Mom brought me to wear,” he said in a small voice. His father didn’t look like he was in a good mood. He was tired after the long night. He’d been at the hospital working nonstop for twelve hours.
“I have to go back at three o’clock. We’re all working double shifts. Half the people in the city must have broken something last night,” and many were still buried. An apartment building in the Sunset had collapsed, emergency teams were still digging people out, and people who had left their offices late were still trapped in elevators all over the financial district. “They’re estimating it will take five or six days to get to everyone downtown. And one of the bridges in the South Bay collapsed, they’re still pulling people out of the water, but they’re taking them to Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, and Alta Bates in Oakland. We’ve got more than we can handle now.” They’d had emergency drills for an event like this for years, but once it happened, it never went quite as smoothly as they hoped, or the way it had been planned. He spoke to his wife in a low voice. “I don’t see how you and the kids can move back in until we get the mess cleaned up and some of the damage fixed, I don’t have time to pursue it, and all of the contractors must be closed. But all the hotels are jammed, and a lot of them don’t have power yet.”
At the hospital, they had emergency generators, but even there, there were areas that were dark and they couldn’t use. They’d had to send the last wave of injured to SF General and UCSF. They were over their maximum limit of patients they could deal with now, and people were still showing up in droves. It was going to be a very tough few weeks for health professionals all over the Bay Area. They were bringing in nurses from neighboring states, as fast as they could get them, and a flock of doctors from L.A.
He was still describing the situation to them when Joel Fine walked in, and the two men exchanged an appreciative glance. They had hit it off from the moment they met. Joel didn’t greet either of the women, nor the two children, and started talking to Andrew as soon as he sat down, while Meredith watched them, and Jack showed up to help his wife in the kitchen. The two employees looked somewhat sullen, and anything but pleased to have a house full of guests, due to their employer’s largesse, inviting neighbors she didn’t even know to come and stay. And none of their houses were sound enough to move back into yet, and wouldn’t be for some time.
Peter and Arthur Harriman walked into the kitchen as the others were finishing breakfast, and Debbie collected their plates and put them in the sink, grateful that the dishwasher was running, thanks to the generator. She felt like she was a one-man restaurant serving all of them. And if they stayed, they’d expect lunch and dinner too. Every restaurant in town was closed. And so were most of the grocery stores. Luckily Debbie had just done a massive grocery run right before the earthquake. And from her youth, she was good at making food stretch. She guessed that with canned and frozen food, as well as fresh, and a huge amount of pasta, she would be able to feed the whole group for several weeks, not that she wanted them to stay. But she could provide meals for them if they did. And all around the city, restaurants were giving away free food, before it could go bad. And a few generous grocery stores were open and doing the same, with frozen and perishable food.
Arthur thanked Meredith as soon as he heard her voice, and walked toward her, using his white cane. “I haven’t slept that well in years. Thank you for putting us up so kindly. What can I do to help you today?”
“Not a thing, Mr. Harriman.” She smiled at him. “It’s an honor to have you here.” They sat down at the table, and Debbie took their breakfast order with a somber expression, as Jack went to answer a pounding at the back door. The bell at the front gate wasn’t working, and the gate had to be opened manually, using a key. When he returned, a tall erect man with salt and pepper hair, in a military uniform, walked in, looking businesslike and serious, and he smiled when he saw the two children. The adults were all surprised to see him in their midst. Meredith approached him quickly, and he introduced himself. She noticed a number of stripes and stars on his uniform and wasn’t sure what they meant. She wondered if the city was now under martial law, and how it would affect them if so.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” he said pleasantly. “I’m Colonel Charles Chapman, retired Air Force. I’m attached to the National Guard, as liaison to the Office of Emergency Services. I’m one of several retired officers walking the neighborhood today, going house to house to see if you need help. The National Guard troops have been deployed downtown to stop the looting, and it will be a while before the OES can get to all of you, but we’re trying to assess how bad the damage is in the residential neighborhoods. Do you all live here in this house?” He looked around the group at the table, and wondered if they were a big family living in the enormous house. Everyone appeared to be hale and hearty, and he noticed Andrew in medical scrubs, and other than two large broken urns with plants in them at the back door, he hadn’t seen any significant damage when he walked in. There was broken glass all around the house, and some broken windows, but Jack and Debbie had cleaned it up in the early morning hours before anyone got up. There were bags of it where they left their trash for the garbage collectors who hadn’t come, and probably wouldn’t for several days.