Tsunami

TSUNAMI/Mfln/ Wood VIOLET BEGAN TO NOTICE that some of the things she could see out the car window looked a Uttle odd. For instance, she saw a car lying upside down on the east side of the road. One of the doors was cracked open. This by itself would have been strange enough, something you don't see every day, but after another mUe or so, she saw another one. "Look at that," said Violet's mother, Ruth. They all craned their necks to look toward the ocean. "That boat way up on the beach. It's all smashed up." Violet's father slowed down as they approached a traUer, which was straddling the guardraU on the ocean side of the highway. As they veered around it, Violet could see part of a chair sticking out the doorway . The door was nowhere to be seen. "How did it get Uke that?" asked her brother Charles. Nobody answered. They sped up and soon began to see other strange things, especiaUy as they got closer to the Uttle town where they had planned to spend the night. Ruth pointed out that several trees had fallen along the sides of the road and that dozens of logs were floating in the surf down below the highway. Another odd thing was that seaweed was strewn along the ground everywhere they looked, and they could even see it clinging to the trunks and lower branches of the trees that were still standing. Violet noticed that aU over the ground, brown seaweed was mixed in with driftwood, roof tiles, tree branches, broken-up furniture and pieces of wood of aU shapes and sizes. She even saw a floor lamp lying on its side in the mud. "There must have been a strong wind last night," said Ruth, "but I don't remember one. Maybe we were sheltered up on the hill. But you'd think we would have heard it blowing. Nothing is where it's supposed to be." This was a lot of talking for Ruth. In fact, Ruth, who had been staring absently out of the window during most of the trip, was now sitting straight up in her seat, her hand on the dashboard. Her eyes were Uke search beacons scanning the landscape. Violet noticed that her father had fallen sUent. She was glad her Uttle sister Candace was asleep so that she wouldn't have to keep her quiet. Violet felt danger, not only because cars were lying overturned beside the road, and seaweed was hanging in the trees, butbecause her The Missouri Review · 165 mother's body seemed to reach out around her with every cell, and because the shadows that Uved in her mother's eyes seemed to be sUpping into the world that Violet knew. This had happened before, on the day four months ago that Ruth had gone away to the hospital. On that day, when Violet and Charles had gotten home from school, the brown house with the red shutters had been locked and empty. Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Horowitz, had come out of her apartment to meet them. She shook her head as she spoke. "Your father took your mother to the hospital. She's not weU." "She's not sick," said Violet. "Let's just wait," said Charles. He leaned over and whispered to his sister. "Mrs. Horowitz probably caUed the police again." He sat down on the top step and began picking at the paint. "I don't know if she's coming back at all," said Mrs. Horowitz. "You'U stay with me until your grandma comes." Violet felt her legs begin to fold up. She immediately looked up to the top of the highest buUding she could see. It was the old bank building three blocks away on Hollywood Boulevard. Behind it rose the tops of the Hollywood hills and the San Bernadino Mountains beyond. The mountains are so clear, thought Violet. The wind has blown away the smog and there they are, so clear and beautiful. When she looked back, Mrs. Horowitz seemed flat, Uke a cardboard sign in front of a store. Behind her, the lawn and sidewalk...