Anne Tyler - Digging to America

Isn't this fun? Jin-Ho's mother said. It's just like camping out! And it won't be for very long. Pretty soon BG and E will have it fixed.

But all evening, they stayed in the dark. They read picture books by candlelight, and at bedtime they climbed the stairs with the flashlight from the kitchen utility drawer. They left the flashlight lit and standing on Xiu-Mei's bureau so she wouldn't be scared, but she cried anyhow and Jin-Ho was a little bit worried herself. So they both ended up sleeping with their parents. The four of them lay in a row on the bed, which luckily was king-size. Outside the wind was roaring and the trees were making crackly sounds and every now and then a handful of rain flung itself against the windowpanes. Jin-Ho's mother had left one window propped open an inch because she'd read somewhere that otherwise, the house might implode. Jin-Ho's father said no, that was tornados, and they argued about it awhile until Jin-Ho's mother went to sleep. Not long afterward, Jin-Ho heard her father get out of bed and tiptoe over to the window to shut it. Then he came back and went to sleep too. Xiu-Mei was already asleep, although still from time to time she took a faint suck on her pacifier. Outside the wind went on and on till Jin-Ho started feeling mad at it. Several times she heard sirens. She wondered if their house was floating in the harbor yet. So far it felt pretty solid, though.

Then it was morning and she was the only one there. The window nearest her was matted over with leaves, which gave the room a greenish tinge although the weather seemed sunny. She climbed out of bed and went to look more closely, but she couldn't see; so she went to the other window and looked through that. The front yard was a mass of tree limbs. A huge old oak from across the street was lying on its side, extending into their yard and almost completely hiding her father's station wagon. He had parked it out front last night because the patio furniture was using up his half of the garage. Only a patch or two of the station wagon's gray roof showed from beneath the branches.

Downstairs, Jin-Ho's mother was making toast by holding a slice of bread over the stove with a pair of kitchen tongs. Xiu-Mei was stirring a bowl of Cheerios around, and her father was on the phone. Well, good, he was saying. You're luckier than we are, then! It looks like it could be days before we get our power back. He listened a minute and then he said, Thanks, Mom. But even assuming we could make it over there, one of our cars is smushed and the other's trapped in the garage with an elm across the driveway. We'll just have to leave things where they are and not open the freezer door, I guess.

He was wearing his pajamas and the red plaid bathrobe he ordinarily saved for weekends. When he got off the phone, Jin-Ho asked him, Aren't you going to work? and he said, Oh, I doubt any of my students will be showing up today, hon.

Do I have school?

I don't imagine it's open. In any case, how would you get there?

Jin-Ho's mother came to the table with the piece of toast, which was streaked with black and smelled nasty. I don't want it, Jin-Ho said, and her mother said, Fine, because I'd prefer you eat some kind of cereal. We need to use up the milk before it goes bad.

When is BG and E going to fix our electricity? Jin-Ho asked.

I don't know, honey. There are thousands and thousands of people all in the same boat, according to your daddy's little radio.

Aren't you glad now I bought that? Jin-Ho's father asked her mother. I told you it might come in handy!

He was a sucker for gadgets. It was the cause of a lot of arguments between the two of them.

From breakfast time till lunch time, the whole family worked at cleaning up the yard. Of course they couldn't do anything about the Cromwells' oak tree, which crossed the street completely and blocked all traffic, or the elm that lay in front of the garage. But they collected the smaller branches, and the sprays of leaves still green and wet and healthy-looking, and they stuffed them into garbage bags and lugged them to the alley. Jin-Ho found a bird's nest. There weren't any birds in it, though. She was in charge of the little tiny twigs, which she put in a plastic bucket that her father emptied from time to time. On either side of them their neighbors were cleaning up too, and people called back and forth to each other in a friendly sort of way. Mrs. Sansom said one house down the block still had electricity. They were letting their neighbors run long, long extension cords to power their refrigerators. If BG and E doesn't get things fixed by tonight, she said, I vote we combine all our perishables and have a great big neighborhood cookout on our grills. Jin-Ho thought that sounded much better than using up the foods at home. She hoped BG and E wouldn't get things fixed. The weather was cool and breezy and pleasant, with a fresh smell to the air, and she had never seen so many of the neighbors out in their yards at one time.

For lunch they had an omelet to finish off the eggs. Then XiuMei went down for her nap, and Jin-Ho watched from her parents' bedroom window as the tree men worked on the oak tree in the street. Their saws were angry-sounding, like hornets. They cut a passageway for cars through the middle of the trunk, but they left the base in the Cromwells' yard with its roots clawing the air and the top in the Donaldsons' yard all leafy and bushy, still hiding their station wagon. Jin-Ho's father said they would have to see to that later, when it wasn't a state of emergency. He took Jin-Ho out to count the tree rings after the men had left. Mr. Sansom was counting too. It wasn't as easy as you might expect, though, because one ring sometimes blended into another and they kept losing track. The trunk had a strong, sharp, sour smell that caused Jin-Ho's mouth to water.

Now her mother was fretting seriously about her frozen foods. She had casseroles stashed in the freezer that she had spent a lot of time preparing, she said. Jin-Ho said, That's okay; we'll bring them to the cookout and grill them, but her mother said, You can't grill spinach lasagna, Jin-Ho. She wasn't talking anymore about what fun this was, and she had stopped saying, Think of the poor Iraqis, which was a good thing, in Jin-Ho's opinion.

In the end, there wasn't a cookout after all. Mrs. Sansom must have forgotten she'd suggested it. As twilight fell the neighbors disappeared indoors, and all that Jin-Ho could see of them was the glimmer of a candle here and there in a window.

Jin-Ho's mother carried the flashlight down to the basement and came back with a casserole. I just whipped the freezer door open and whipped it shut again, she said. I don't think I raised the temperature all that much, do you? She put it straight into the oven, but since it hadn't been thawed it took forever to cook. They were waiting, waiting, waiting, and reading books by candles again because there was nothing else to do. Right after supper, which didn't happen till nearly eight, they all went to bed in the king-size bed. Jin-Ho's mother didn't even wash the dishes. I'll do that tomorrow morning, when I can see, she said.

This is how people used to live, I guess, Jin-Ho's father said. Arranging their lives by the sunrise and sunset.

Jin-Ho's mother said, Whatever.

They didn't have their baths, either, although it had been two days now. That was something else that would have to wait till morning.

And why bother getting up early when they couldn't see to do anything? They slept so late that Jin-Ho's grandpa had to wake them by banging on the front door. Hello? Hello? he was shouting, because the doorbell didn't work. Jin-Ho's mother went to let him in while the others got dressed. Nobody mentioned baths. By the time Jin-Ho came downstairs, her grandpa was sitting in the kitchen watching her mother burn the toast. Jin jin! he said. How do you like roughing it?