Susan Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It

“Check your cell phone,” I told Mom when I came back in, so she did, and hers wasn’t working, either.

“I guess cell phones are out in this part of the country,” she said.

“I’m sure Matt’s okay,” I said. “Why don’t I check e-mails? Maybe he sent us one from his laptop.”

So I went online, or rather I tried to go online, because our Internet connection was dead.

“He’s fine,” Mom said when I told her. “There’s no reason to think he isn’t fine. The moon is right where it belongs. Matt’ll call us when he has the chance.”

And that was the one thing Mom said all evening that turned out to be true. Because about ten minutes later, the phone rang, and it was Matt.

“I can’t talk long,” he said. “I’m at a pay phone and there’s a line of people waiting for me to finish. I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m okay.”

“Where are you?” Mom asked.

“In town,” he said. “When we realized our cells weren’t working, some of us drove to town just so we could phone in. I’ll talk to you tomorrow when things aren’t so crazy.”

“Be careful,” Mom said and Matt promised he would be.

I guess it was around then Jonny asked if we could call Dad, and Mom started trying to reach him. But the phone lines were crazy all over. I asked her to call Grandma in Las Vegas, but we couldn’t get through to her, either.

We sat down in front of the TV to see what was happening to the rest of the world. The funniest thing was that Mom and I both jumped up at the exact same moment to get the chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen. I beat her to it, and brought the plate in. We all started devouring them. Mom would eat a cookie, sit still for a few moments, then get up and try Dad or Grandma. Jonny, who’s really good about limiting the number of sweets he eats, just kept ramming cookies into his mouth. I would have eaten an entire box of chocolates if there’d been any in the house.

The TV connection went in and out, but we never got cable back. Finally Jonny thought to bring out a radio, and we turned that on. We couldn’t get any of the New York stations, but Philly was coming in strong.

At first they didn’t seem to know much more than we did. The moon got hit, like we’d been told it would. Only something had been miscalculated.

But before some astronomer could come on and explain to the rest of us just what had gone wrong, there was a bulletin. First we heard it on the radio, and then we got enough TV reception to see it as well, so we turned the radio off.

Whoever was broadcasting the news must have heard it over his little earphone, because he actually turned pale and then said, “Are you sure? Has that been confirmed?” He paused for a moment to listen to the reply, and then he kind of turned to face the camera.

Mom grasped my hand and Jonny’s. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through this.”

The newsman cleared his throat, like taking an extra few seconds was going to change what he had to say.

“We are receiving reports of widespread tsunamis,” he said. “The tides. As most of you know, the moon controls the tides. And the moon, well, whatever happened this evening at nine thirty-seven PM—and we don’t know just what really did happen, but whatever it was—the tides were affected. Yes, yes, I got that. The tides seem to have swelled far beyond their normal boundaries. The reports coming in are from people in airplanes who happened to be flying overhead at the time. Massive flooding has been reported all over the eastern seaboard. There has been some confirmation of this, but these reports are all preliminary. Sometimes you hear the worst and it doesn’t prove that way at all. Wait a second.”

I quickly thought about who I knew on the eastern seaboard. Matt’s in Ithaca and Dad’s in Springfield.

Neither one was anywhere near the ocean.

“New York City,” Mom said. “Boston.” She has publishers in both cities and goes there on business.

“I’m sure everybody’s fine,” I said. “You’ll go online tomorrow and send everybody e-mails and make sure they’re okay.”

“All right, we are getting some confirmation,” the newsman said. “There are confirmed reports of tidal waves twenty feet or higher in New York City. All power there has been lost, so these are very sketchy reports. The tides don’t seem to be stopping. AP is reporting that the Statue of Liberty has been washed out to sea.”

Mom started crying. Jonny was just staring at the TV like it was broadcasting in a foreign language.

I got up and tried Dad again. Then I tried Grandma. But all I got was the busy-circuit signal.

“We’re getting an unconfirmed report that all of Cape Cod has been flooded,” the newsman said. “Again, this is unconfirmed. But the AP is reporting that Cape Cod,”—and he paused for a moment and swallowed —“that Cape Cod has been completely submerged. The same seems to be true of the barrier islands off the Carolina coast. Just gone.” He stopped again to listen to whatever was being said through his earpiece. “All right. There is confirmation of massive damage to Miami. Many deaths, many casualties.”

“We don’t know what he’s saying is true,” Mom said. “Things get exaggerated. Tomorrow morning we may find out all this didn’t really happen. Or if it did, it wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought it was. Maybe we should just turn the TV off now and wait until tomorrow to see what really happened. We may be scaring ourselves for no reason whatsoever.”

Only she didn’t turn the TV off.

“There’s no way of knowing the number of deaths,” the newsman said. “Communication satellites are down. Telephone lines are down. We’re trying to get an astronomer from Drexel to come to our studio and tell us what he thinks is happening, but as you can imagine, astronomers are pretty busy right now. All right. We seem to be getting a national feed again, so we’re cutting to our national news bureau for a live update.” And there, suddenly, was the NBC anchorman, looking reassuring and professional and alive.

“We’re expecting word from the White House momentarily,” he said. “Early reports are of massive damage to all the major cities on the eastern seaboard. I’m coming to you from Washington, D.C. We have been unable to make contact with our New York City headquarters for the past hour. But here’s the information as we have it. Everything I’m going to announce has been verified by two sources.”

It was like one of those lists on the radio to let you know which schools were having snow days. Only instead of it being school districts in the area, it was whole cities, and it wasn’t just snow.

“New York City has suffered massive damage,” the anchor said. “Staten Island and the eastern section of Long Island are completely submerged. Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard are no longer visible. Providence, Rhode Island—in fact, most of Rhode Island—can no longer be seen. The islands off the coast of the Carolinas are gone. Miami and Fort Lauderdale are being battered. There seems to be no letting up. We’ve now had confirmation of massive flooding in New Haven and Atlantic City. Casualties on the eastern seaboard are believed to be in the hundreds of thousands. Naturally it is far too early to tell if that number is excessive. We can only pray that it is.”

And then, out of nowhere, was the president. Mom hates him like she hates Fox News, but she sat there transfixed.

“I am broadcasting to you from my ranch in Texas,” the president said. “The United States has suffered its worst tragedy. But we are a great people and we will place our faith in God and extend a helping hand to all who need us.”