Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

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.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Meredith said graciously as she walked up to him and they shook hands. “I actually live here, and these are my neighbors from the three houses adjacent to this one. They had quite a lot of damage, so they’re staying here with me.”

“How bad is the damage?” he asked, looking at the others, and Peter, Joel, and Andrew reported what they had seen so far, but admitted that they hadn’t been able to assess it thoroughly the night before. “Your gas is turned off, I hope?” he asked them and they all nodded.

“We have our own emergency generator,” Meredith explained to him, “but it’s limited as to the power it gives us.” Debbie was cooking on an electric stove, fortunately. Meredith guessed that the gas might not be turned on for several weeks. “The rest of the neighborhood was dark last night,” she reported to the colonel, which he already knew.

“And it will be, possibly for weeks, or even months.” There was a collective groan when he said it, and he smiled, and looked at Meredith. “You’re kind to take your neighbors in. Most of the houses I’ve been to so far have several additional people staying there, who couldn’t get home across the bridges, or whose houses are too damaged to be safe. Was anyone injured here last night?”

“A few cuts and bruises, nothing major, Colonel,” Meredith answered. “We were all very lucky. A lot of broken glass. I think we’ll need an engineer to assess how sound our houses are before people move back in.” But hers was solid and had withstood it well. On closer inspection, Jack had discovered a crack in the façade of the house, but it was more cosmetic than structural. Meredith’s house was not at risk. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she offered. He hesitated. He had many more houses to visit on his morning rounds, but it was tempting. They looked like a congenial group, and their hostess was an attractive woman with a gracious manner that was hard to resist.

“A quick one.” He smiled at her. He’d been making home visits for four hours, and was grateful for a break. “You’re a doctor?” he asked Andrew as he joined them and sat down, and Andrew nodded and smiled at him. His family knew what no one else did, that his mood could go from tropical sunny to arctic glacial or volcanic in an instant. At his best, Andrew was personable and appeared to be a great guy. His demons lurked just beneath the surface, carefully kept out of sight.

“I am. I’m an orthopedic surgeon. We’re on emergency status with double and triple shifts. I’m going back in a few hours. We had a busy night.”

“The casualties have been higher than we projected,” the colonel said as he took a sip of the steaming coffee, “but the death toll isn’t quite as bad as we feared with an earthquake of this magnitude.” It had been an 8.2 on the Richter scale, which was serious business, and more powerful than the 1906 quake. But the city codes for earthquake-proof construction had protected many people, and reduced the potential damage. In poorer neighborhoods with old houses, and on landfill, many homes had collapsed. “They put us old dogs to work, checking out the neighborhoods. I live nearby, so I was assigned to this one. I’ve been knocking on doors all night.” He didn’t look tired and he had a calming manner that reassured them all. “I retired two years ago, but I stayed in the National Guard, for situations like this. I’ve seen some bad earthquakes in my time, in war zones and underdeveloped countries where there were no codes for their construction, and the devastation after an earthquake like this is heartbreaking.” He had a relaxed, easy manner, spoke to all of them, asked Will about his soccer team, and asked Daphne if the Tooth Fairy had been to visit her for all the teeth she was missing, and she said she had, she had gotten a dollar for every tooth. When Colonel Chapman got up to leave, Meredith walked him through the main floor, out the front door, and let him out the main gate with her key. He handed her a card with his name, and OES cellphone number. “I’ve got the phone on me at all times. If you have a problem we can help you with, don’t hesitate to call me. It’s nice of you to take your neighbors in,” he said kindly.

“It would be pretty awful if I didn’t, with a house this size,” she said modestly.

“Still, I’m assuming you don’t know them, and you seem to like your privacy.” He motioned to the gate, the wall around her property, and the tall hedge that almost hid the house from the street.

“I met them yesterday, and there’s no privacy at a time like this. They’re all very nice people.”

He hesitated for a minute at the gate. “I know this sounds ridiculous, but I have the feeling we’ve met somewhere.” There was something about her face that was haunting him, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. “I was based in Washington, at the Pentagon, for the last ten years before I retired from the Air Force, and I moved out here two years ago when my wife died. I needed a change of scene, and figured it was time. I don’t know if we met here or in Washington, but I have the feeling our paths crossed somewhere.”

“I haven’t been out much in a long time,” she said cautiously, not wanting to explain it to a total stranger. She wondered if he had seen her movies in the past, and it hadn’t clicked for him yet, and she wasn’t going to tell him.

“Well, give a shout if there’s anything we can do for you.”

“I think we have everything under control,” she said as she smiled at him, “but thank you.” He walked through the gate then, waved and headed down the street at a good clip, crossed the street at the corner, and she saw him knock on the door of a large handsome house. An older woman answered and he went inside, and she went back to the others. They were milling around the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next. They all wanted to go back to their homes and check out the damage in daylight. She heard Andrew Johnson growl at his wife in a barely audible voice, as they walked up the stairs so Tyla could get her bag.