Chapter One
At the time of the earthquake, Bertrand, Sasha, my now-dead son Maxim (our Max), and I were at a dinner my parents gave in honor of my brother Mitchell’s once-a-year visit. Before 2020, I thought getting trapped at one family dinner would have been sufficient to make me chew my leg off. We had no idea we would be marooned for good on Lulu Island. Even if going back to our house after the earthquake had been an option, we would never have left my parents in the ensuing chaos, and they would never have come with us. My brother Mitchell gave up the guest room and moved into the empty condo downstairs, till he could fly back to Boston. Dad died that first year of a heart attack while walking up the ten flights of stairs to the penthouse. Everyone who had preexisting conditions died early on; Dad had already had a triple bypass. Max died in last year’s cholera epidemic. Two out of billions dead.
Lulu stands in the foyer using stuffing from an eviscerated teddy bear to push up her push-up bra that promised magical cleavage.
Sasha, with her little book light (which she solar charges every day), prefers Tolstoy’s drama to ours.
Bertrand is dozing on the couch after doing his seventeen-hour-a-day doctor thing. Before 2020, after 2020, it makes no difference.
I think about the rumored sea salt coming in from the Oregon coast. I do not allow myself to think about our house in the last world with the screened-in front porch; our calico cat named Cow; my mint green, natural-gas Prius (fracking for natural gas was another really bad idea but I didn’t connect the dots); my best friend, Clu, who was just three doors down; or my easy going, playful son Max. Never Max. Old normal has flown away like the dodo.
I am devoted to creating new normal.