Valley of the Moon (42 page)

D
espite all the mess—broken china, cutlery scattered all over the floor—the dining hall was structurally sound. The kitchen crew brought out a meal of bread, butter, and fruit. Those who had an appetite ate in stunned silence. Vivi sat on my lap wearing her headphones.

Suddenly Joseph stood. “Did you hear that?” he said.

People looked up from their food.

“Hear what?” I asked.

He bent forward, listening intently. “
That
. That rumbling.”

“Another aftershock?” I clutched Vivi.

“No, it's not an aftershock. It sounds—like a wagon,” he said.

Joseph ran out into the meadow, the rest of us trailing behind him. He stopped fifty feet or so from the fog. A moment later we heard the unmistakable sound of an axe slicing through the air and a dull thunk as it hit wood. Then a man's voice.

“This way!”

The fog swirled and then a patch cleared. For the first time in years, the mist dissipated enough to allow a glimpse into the forest. A wagon was revealed. And then another. And, oh my God, there was a group of men clearing a path.

One of them saw us and lifted his hand in greeting. “There are so many trees downed! We got here as soon as we could.”

The fog gathered, swirled, and thickened again, and the man disappeared.

Joseph turned to me, his eyes wide. “That's Jake Poppe. He owns the general store in Glen Ellen.”

“The fog!” shouted Fancy. “It's lifting.”

And it was. The wall of fog that had briefly reasserted itself began to lift again—for good. Great chunks of it floated off. It thinned to a mist, and in a matter of minutes was gone.

Jake Poppe walked toward us, axe slung over his shoulder.

“Joseph,” he said. “Goddamn. Looks like you were hit pretty bad, too. I'd hoped you'd fared better. I'm sorry.”

Joseph pulled Vivi behind him, shielding her from Jake's view. With one quick movement he palmed Vivi's headphones off and passed the Walkman to me.

“Do you smell that?” asked Jake.

I dropped the Walkman into the tall grass, then focused on trying to make sense of what had happened. Time had reset itself. It was 1906, the morning of the first earthquake.

And that smell?

That was San Francisco burning to the ground.

This was how great change happened. Suddenly and all at once—fate jumped the tracks. An airplane flew into a building. A cough was diagnosed as stage four cancer. A fertilized egg embedded itself in a womb.

All of us lived on fault lines. We just pretended we didn't.

“Don't worry,” said Jake, clapping Joseph on the back. “I know it looks bad now. But we'll clean this up. We'll rebuild. Who knows what the future holds?”

We, in fact, knew exactly what the future would hold. In eight years the world would be at war. In twelve years 50 million people would die of the Spanish flu, and on October 29, 1929, the stock market would crash. Ethnic cleansings were coming. Genocides. The clearing of the rain forest. Cultures would be lost. Animals would go extinct. A man would walk on the moon and a woman would walk on Mars. There'd be droughts, floods, and blizzards. There'd be a third world war. There'd be another flu—this one so virulent, 100 million would perish.

I looked at my family, at their dear, familiar faces. I thought of the face that was missing.
All
the faces that were missing. I gathered them in my heart.

We would do this together. We would begin again.

Time no longer tethered us. Love did.

I'm very thankful to the following people who read early drafts of this novel and offered their expertise, editing, and encouragement: Joanne Hartman, Robin Heller, and Anika Streitfeld. To those who gave their support in myriad different ways: Kerri Arsenault, Brigeda Bank, Laura Barnard, Elizabeth Bernstein, Deni Chambers, Rodes Fishburne, Katie Fox, Sara Gideon, Kaarlo Heiskanen, Roberto Horowitz, Pat Jimenez, Jacob Marx Rice, Lisa Ruben, and Mary Ann Walsh.

I'm extremely grateful to my editor, Jennifer Hershey, for her tireless efforts, as well as the rest of the wonderful crew at Ballantine: Gina Centrello, Susan Corcoran, Caroline Cunningham, Sanyu Dillon, Deborah Dwyer, Kristin Fassler, Kim Hovey, Steve Messina, Paolo Pepe, Sharon Propson, Allison Schuster, Matt Schwartz, Scott Shannon, Anne Speyer, Kara Welsh, and Theresa Zoro.

Thanks to Lynne Drew at HarperCollins.

Abiding thanks to my agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman, as well as Tracy Fisher, Amy Fitzgerald, and Alicia Gordon.

And finally I couldn't have written this book without the support and love of Ben Gideon Rewis and Ben Hunter Rewis.

Valley of the Moon

Wife 22

The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After

M
ELANIE
G
IDEON
is the bestselling author of
Wife 22
and
The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After.
Her books have been published in more than thirty languages. Her work has appeared in
The New York Times,
the
San Francisco Chronicle, More, Shape,
and
The Times
and the
Daily Mail
in Britain. She was born and raised in Rhode Island. She now lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son.

melaniegideon.com

Facebook.com/​MelanieGideonAuthor

@MelanieGideon