The Journal (Book 5): Fault Line

by Deborah D. Moore

  The lantern was on the bottom shelf, where she thought it would be, and she sighed with relief. The light it gave off was weak and barely lit a small area.

  “The batteries must need changing, Holly. I know there are more upstairs in a drawer.” Still talking to the dog, Christine put the lantern handle over her good arm and used the flashlight beam to take them back up the stairs.

  She found the new batteries without difficulty, but removing them from the package proved to be challenging one handed. Even using the scissors to cut the plastic cover wasn’t easy with the package sliding around on the counter. Tears of frustration built up in her blue eyes. Christine set it aside to remove the bottom of the lantern. After struggling with it, the flap finally came off and she replaced the spent batteries. Light flooded the kitchen.

  “Okay, Holly, what else should we be doing while we wait for Trevor?” Christine asked her dog. Holly wagged her tail then sat by her feed dish. “Hungry are you?” She laughed and dropped a scoop of dry feed into her dish, spotting the nearly empty water bowl. As she filled it from the tap, she recalled what else Trevor had done when the tornado was approaching.

  Christine took the lantern out to the cold garage to find the water buckets. She set one in the bathtub and let the water run. While the bucket and the tub were filling, she filled the two juice pitchers with water and left them on the kitchen counter. When the second bucket was full, she set one in each of the two bathrooms for flushing. With the tub full of clean water, flush buckets ready, and drinking water available, she sat down with the couch blanket in the living room to wait, Holly at her feet.

  ***

  Trevor slowly drove around an accident, the empty vehicles left in the center of the intersection. When the SUV skidded, he took his foot off the gas to slow the car and regain control. Working in Alaska had its benefits; he’d learned how to drive in snow and on ice.

  He made a wide turn onto the next street and was stopped by a tree blocking the road. Sparks were crackling from the power lines the heavy ice-laden branches had brought down. Trevor rolled to a stop and then backed up even slower. The next street over was clear of trees, however, there were two cars parked haphazardly. It would have been a squeaker on dry pavement, impossible on ice. He passed that street and tried the next one, the rain coming down even harder.

  “Crap, it’s getting hard to see!” he muttered. Even with the defrosters going at maximum and the wipers working hard, the ice was building up and he had only a six inch hole to see out of. He looked around and, not seeing any headlights in any direction, he stopped in the middle of the road. The icy wind blasted his face when he stepped out of the car with the ice scraper. Struggling to stay upright on the slippery road, Trevor cleared most of the thick ice off the windshield, hoping he didn’t have to do it again before he got home. He shivered, melting ice trickling down his neck.

  Trevor turned onto their street a half hour later. He breathed a sigh of relief even as he drove around more branches and a tree hanging low, just barely making it under the icy limbs.

  He spotted their house and a glow in the front window. As he approached the driveway, he slowed even more and turned the four wheel drive SUV up the gentle slope, seeing the garage door open.

  “Thank you, Christine! You’re learning well.” He pulled straight into the shelter, got out, manually pulled the overhead door down, and secured it. Trevor was relieved to see the PT Cruiser safely in its spot.

  “Christine, I’m home!” he called out, letting himself into the house from the garage. He stumbled over the boxes of food on the floor and wondered why she had left them there and not on the table.

  When she heard him calling her, Christine tossed off the blanket and grabbed the lantern, bumping her arm in her haste. She groaned and Holly whimpered.

  They met in the hallway and Trevor hugged her, causing her to cry out.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I fell on the ice and hurt my arm. I’m so glad you’re home, I was really worried… and scared.” She leaned her head against his chest.

  “How bad is your arm?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t taken my jacket off yet to look, but it sure hurts. And I’m still cold from the drive.”

  Trevor took the lantern and set it on the kitchen table. “Sit here. I’m going to find the other lantern so we have more light, then I’ll start a fire in the fireplace.” He took the flashlight and hurried down the stairs. Finding what he wanted, he stepped into the garage to fill the other lantern with kerosene.

  “That’s really bright, Trev. I didn’t know we had that one.”

  “I saw it the last time, but since it takes fuel not batteries, I thought it best to not use it in the basement. It will also add some heat. I’ll be right back.” He took the smaller lantern to the living room to start a fire.

  “Okay, let’s look at your arm now,” he said when he returned. “We do have to take your jacket off though.” He pulled the right sleeve down over her hand while she pulled that arm up. He spotted blood on the other sleeve and knew it wasn’t a good sign. “This might hurt. Are you ready?” When she closed her eyes and nodded, he pulled the sleeve down as quickly, yet as gently as he could.

  She cried out in pain as the bloody sleeve of her shirt was exposed.

  “Christine, look at me. No, not at your arm – at me. Okay, that’s good.” He kissed her nose. “I don’t believe in shading the truth, so I’m going to tell you that your sleeve is bloody. We won’t know how bad it is until I can see all of it. I hope you’re not too attached to that blouse, because I’m going to cut part of it off,” he said lightly, making her smile.

  “Just do it, Trevor. I can’t feel any worse.”

  He retrieved the scissors she had left on the counter and began snipping away the sleeve from the elbow down.

  “Hey, I can always have this as a short sleeved shirt,” she joked with a wince.

  “That’s my girl.”

  Once the fabric was removed, Trevor could see the long gash. “Okay, I see a cut, but no bones poking through the skin. That’s a good sign, Christine, a very good sign.”

  “How could I have a cut without having ripped the jacket?”

  “I don’t remember what it’s called, but if there is enough pressure on the skin during an impact, it can cause the skin to split even though it was padded. Can I wash some of the blood away for a better look?” Christine nodded and they went to the sink where Trevor ran some warm water and splashed it on her arm to remove the drying blood.

  “Hand me that towel,” Christine said. She wet the towel and wiped her arm with enough pressure to remove the blood. She held her breath as she worked. When she was done, she let out that breath with a gush. “Damn, that hurt!”

  Trevor smiled down at her. “You’re something else! Now let’s sit again by the light.” Trevor took the wet towel and a dry one as they sat, and he dabbed away the oozing blood until it stopped. “This doesn’t look too bad. I’m going to get the first aid kit.” He left the room, put another log on the fire, and then returned with some bandages.

  “At least you don’t have to clean out the wound,” Christine said. “My dad had to do that once when I fell roller skating. I landed on my knees in a mud puddle, scraping them pretty bad. Now that hurt.”

  Trevor wrapped some gauze around her arm after placing a few gauze pads on the open wound. Then he produced a ruler and an ace bandage. “Before you even ask, the ruler will act like a splint, just in case there is a fracture, and the ace will hold it in place.”

  “You’re handy to have around,” Christine said, grinning at him.

  “I want to thank you for leaving the garage open so I could pull right in,” Trevor replied. “That was really smart. Now let’s sit by the fire and keep warm.”

  ***

  Chief Martin Mallory parked his squad car in front of his house, and let out a breath of relief. He clipped his radio to his belt, zipped up his jacket, and stepped out of the car,
immediately slipping and going down on one knee, saved by still having hold of the door handle. Standing, he inched his way to the trunk and removed the box of groceries, thinking what a good friend Trevor had become.

  Thankful he had a short front lawn, he stepped hard, breaking the thin ice to get some traction on the brown grass. Slowly he made it to the front porch and set the box down, gripping the hand railing to steady himself on the single step. The overhead awning had offered little protection from the continuing onslaught of icy pellets. The front door opened.

  “Oh, Marty, I’m so glad you’re home!” Marion said. “I’ve been listening to the weather and the alerts. It’s really bad and they say it’s going to get worse.” She opened the door wider as her husband shoved the grocery box with his foot. She knelt down to pick it up at the same time he did, and they bumped heads. They both laughed and she brought the box inside.

  “I’m surprised we still have power,” Marty said, taking the box from her and setting it in the kitchen.

  “The TV alerts have said that most of the city is out, about thirty-five thousand. I guess we’re the lucky ones,” she replied. “Is it real bad out there?”

  “Yeah, it is. The good news is that what accidents there are should be all there is. Most everyone can’t even get to their cars now. Considering even I can’t get around, maybe the town council will see fit to let me have a set of studded tires!”

  “Who is at the station?”

  “I sent everyone home an hour ago. The 911 dispatcher is handling what calls come in, and will call on my radio if there is anything I need to handle personally,” Marty answered. “In a way, this is good, keeping everyone off the streets. Before I left, I had a call from John Diego in Indianapolis. They were hit first with this power outage and looters have taken advantage of it. He thinks us smaller cities may be next. I don’t know what there is left to loot, but it isn’t much.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Ice pellets continued raining down throughout the night, coating the already treacherous roads and walkways with an inch of ice, turning to a rare snowfall by morning. At noon, the system that created the havoc moved on and eventually dissipated when it merged with the warmer air coming up from the Gulf.

  The snow and ice melted slowly over the next forty-eight hours when the air temperatures returned to a normal sixty degrees, leaving behind muddy roads, slushy yards, and hundreds of broken trees blocking the streets. Repair crews, unaccustomed to working in the icy conditions, were slow to get to the downed powerlines, and salt trucks common in the northern states were non-existent. Volunteers armed with chainsaws and trucks aided where they could and cleared main thoroughfares in record time. Side roads and residential areas took longer.

  ***

  “I hear chainsaws!” Trevor said to a sick Christine, who pushed away her tea.

  “Is that good?”

  “Yes. It means someone is clearing the downed trees, which means I’ll be able to get you to the hospital,” he answered. Trevor had been worried ever since Christine woke with a fever yesterday. It had been three days since the ice storm and although the ice was starting to melt, the number of trees that had been brought down was overwhelming the work crews. “I’m going out to see where they’re working.”

  Christine nodded and lay down on the couch. Her arm ached furiously all the way down to her fingertips and now her head did too. Trevor had changed the bandage every day and said there were no visible signs of infection, though there could still be something going on deep in her arm. They had over the counter painkillers but no antibiotics. The ice was too treacherous to drive on, and there was nothing close enough to walk to. She felt miserable.

  “Christine, honey, wake up. The ambulance is here to take you to the hospital,” Trevor said softly to her. He wrapped her in a blanket and took her to the waiting gurney.

  ***

  Doc Adams met an anxious Trevor in the waiting room outside of the OR.

  “Christine’s wrist is broken. X-rays showed it was a clean fracture of the ulna that wouldn’t have punctured the skin. Her falling on her hand did that, but the fall is also what tore the skin. The two injuries are basically unrelated except for when and where they happened. She was lucky you stabilized the entire arm so it couldn’t move around. It needed very little adjustment to be set and the wrist has been casted to allow healing of the contusion. I still don’t understand the infection, but she’s being pumped full of antibiotics now and should be fine in a few hours,” Doc Adams informed him. “I’m going to give you a Z-pack from my private stock. Make sure she takes all of them starting tomorrow. I want to see her in a week.”

  ***

  Christine was enjoying a lazy morning. Her short wrist cast rested on the table while she sipped some coffee and read a book on her Kindle. When her cellphone rang, she automatically reached for it, not paying attention to the specialized ring tone until she looked at the caller ID.

  “Daddy?” She sat up, almost dropping the phone.

  “Hey, baby girl!” John said.

  “Oh, Daddy, where are you? Are you okay? I’ve been so worried about you!” she burbled out, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m okay. The past four months have been difficult at times, but I made it, with help,” he answered in his soft North Carolina drawl. “How about you? I tried to call a couple of times, but the cell towers were down up here.” Even under duress, John talked to her in a soothing, calm voice.

  “We had an ice storm two weeks ago. I fell and broke my wrist, that’s minor though.” She wondered if she should tell him about the earthquake. “Are you coming home soon? I’ve got so much to tell you.”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Green Way to see if they can arrange a flight,” John told her.

  “You’re not at the Green Way house? Where are you?”

  “I’ve been staying with… a friend, since Christmas.”

  “A friend?” Christine smiled to herself. “A lady friend?”

  John chuckled. “Yes, a lady friend. You’d like her. And your grandmother, is she alright too?” he changed the subject. Talking about Allexa was going to hurt.

  “I talked to Grandma last week and she’s doing just fine. She and a few of her friends are staying together for now, so they’re all safe.”

  “That’s great. Hey, baby girl, I gotta go, I’ll call again soon!” He hung up quickly.

  ***

  Allexa had found John on the back deck. He knew he looked a bit guilty, so quickly explained using the phone. “I’ve tried to keep it charged. After the power yesterday, I thought I would try.” He took Allexa’s hand and grinned. “I just talked to my daughter.”

  “Oh, John, that’s wonderful! How is she? And the rest? Your mom and sister?”

  “Everyone is fine,” John answered, secretly wanting to call his daughter back.

  ***

  “Trevor, I talked with my dad today!” Christine told him excitedly when he got home.

  “That’s great! Is he okay? I know you’ve been worried. How long has it been since you’ve heard from him?”

  “It’s been almost five months. Since the earthquake. I think he found a girlfriend up there that took him in,” she giggled. “I tried to call him back but it went straight to voice mail.”

  “Everyone should have someone.” Trevor gave her a gentle hug. “How’s the wrist? Do you think you’d be able to come to the store with me tomorrow? It’s starting to get busy again.”

  ***

  While Trevor worked on the financial books for the store at the kitchen table, Christine set a lawn chair in the backyard and sat while she played fetch with Holly. The air was mild and the sun was still warm. White clouds resembling wet feathers painted on a deep blue canvas skidded across the sky and her mind drifted like the clouds as she thought about her father.

  Who was this woman he was staying with? Did he love her? Was he going to quit mining to be with her? Would Christine lose his financial
support? Guilt surged over her. How was it she felt happy for his happiness, yet resentful toward this person who may have saved his life? She dialed his number again on her cell phone and again, it went to voice mail. She called her grandmother to let her know she had finally heard from John.

  ***

  Three weeks later, Christine got another call from her father.

  “Hey, baby girl, how’s the weather down there?” John asked, his voice subdued.

  “Daddy! It’s beautiful down here. Are you coming home?” Christine asked, remembering he always asked about the weather just before he came down.

  “Yeah. Green Way thinks it would be good if I took some rotation time. I’ll be there in a day or two.”

  ***

  John had been back to work and staying at the communal house in Moose Creek for over three weeks. The work liaison, Simon, had noticed a change in John’s demeanor.

  “Let’s talk outside,” John suggested, mixing himself a strong rum and cola.

  They sat near the break wall that led to the marina at the edge of the bay. The waves from Lake Superior crawled up to the shore, depositing bits of flotsam: twigs, seaweed, seagull feathers. The breeze was still cool in the April afternoon and it ruffled John’s jacket.