MORE ON THOSE FIRST HOURS

(If you haven’t as yet, be sure to scroll down and start reading from A SHAKY EXPERIENCE.)

I slid the window open and peered out. My heart pounded in my chest, while my voice remained calm and low. “Where have you been?”

The scene seemed to unfold in slow motion, even her blinking, while everything else but her face went fuzzy. Like a sudden attack of tunnel vision. “In Viña. Mom.”

“I know that. But where?”

What a ludicrous interrogation. What did it really matter where she had been? She stood before me—whole.  I should have been jumping up and down yelling hallelujah. And not with that glass barrier between us. Instead . . . “It’s been two hours.” What I should have said was: “Oh, honey. I’m so glad you’re safe—you and your friends. Now, why don’t you take them all home? Their parents will be frantic. Then you come back and we’ll just talk, have a cup of tea, and keep each other company until the electricity comes back on.”

Instead I grilled her, wanting to know why she didn’t come right back. And then she told me the part that I said wouldn’t make me happy: “We were outside, taking a walk along the ocean. After the earthquake hit, which we hardly felt, we decided to just hang out for a while longer until everybody else and the screaming calmed down. Until Javier pointed toward the water and said, ‘Hey, guys, the water’s receding!’” Her eyelids fluttered. “We bolted for the car, Mom. And then we took the long way home because we figured there’d be a lot of traffic.”

They took the long way home. “How long did you ‘hang out’ until you came back?”

She gazed toward the ground and dug the toe of her tennis shoe into the dirt. “A while.”

“A while.” Shaking my head, I wanted to throttle her and hug her at the same time.

About an hour later she returned. By then, I had the whole house pretty well scoped out and the piles of debris ready to scoop into the dust pan. She didn’t want to talk. Or drink tea. She just wanted to go to sack out. My mouth probably hung open when she trudged upstairs to do just that. She’d return soon—it gave her the creeps.

I angled the dining room chair, ready for a quick escape, and drew the pencil and paper toward me once again. Are Nate and his family all right? My daughter-in-law and her children? My other son is in the United States and probably frantic with worry. Who knows how long the phones will be down?  And how about my husband? He had gone south, but where exactly? Questions, just questions. And at that moment I had no idea he had spent the night in the epicenter.

Each aftershock tied the knot in my stomach even tighter. It became impossible to discern between replicas and the involuntary quaking of my body from inside out. I sat there. Waiting. Waiting for the sun to rise over the Andes just like it did every morning.

What’s going on in the country: A friend, Fernando, took food down to Concepción, a disaster zone. He reported that although he had expected find people needy, he had not prepared for the desperation on people’s faces. The load of supplies they carried in the truck was to be divided between Concepción and the coastal town, Tomé. But when they got done distributing the food in Concepción and determined to leave and move on to Tomé, they were almost unsuccessful. I got no details, but desperation makes people do crazy things. When Fernando handed two cans of dry milk to a man for his children, the man broke down in gratitude. What can be more heart-wrenching than your children crying from hunger?

April arrived at Curicó yesterday and went immediately out to the farm areas, where there tends to be more a spirit of solidarity. The people received what was offered with thankfulness, but if they thought a neighbor needed it more, they would say so. Tomorrow they are taking off for Constitución, one of the most disaster-wracked parts of the country. The plan is to go up into the hills where the government has not arrived yet. My heart quickens at what they might find there.