Page 25 of Smoke Season

“Why does Astor get an Apple Watch but not me?” Annie had whined when Mel had presented the “present,” which to Sam was nothing more than responsibility disguised in pretty gift wrap.

“It’s not an Apple Watch, and it’s just to use in emergencies,” Mel had said. They’d shown Astor how to push the button for 911 and had disabled just about everything else.

“I should at least get to playPlants vs. Zombies,” Astor had grumbled.

Sam smiled at the memory. Yanking his Buff high over his face and calling out to Astor that he’d be right back, he trotted the hundred yards or so up Highline to Claude’s place. The smoke and ash raining from the sky brought an instant ache to his chest, and, not waiting for Claude to get to the door, he let himself in, surrendering to a coughing fit in the foyer. A pile of framed photos had already been stacked there: Claude and Ingrid on their wedding day, in ... what? 1960? ’65? Claude’s framed diploma from Johns Hopkins, 1971. A portrait of their son, Peter, at a graduation ceremony, maybe college, maybe grad school. Peter and his wife and daughter on a beach. Sam thought he remembered they’d moved to Santa Rosa, or maybe Santa Cruz. So much for only packing the quilts.

“Hello!” he called once he’d caught his breath. “Claude?”

“In here!”

He was in Ingrid’s old sewing room, which, Sam saw now, was still stacked with quilts, bolts of material, and batting on shelves that ran floor to ceiling. He managed to stifle a moan. No way they were going to salvage all of this.

“I’ve pared it down,” Claude said, pointing at one large moving box stuffed with folded quilts. “Though it was damned difficult.” He looked pained, the rare frown lines back, leaving deep creases on his tanned face.

Sam hoisted the box to his hip. It weighed an absolute ton, but he knew how hard it had been for Claude to resign himself to leaving the vast majority of Ingrid’s creations behind. He didn’t complain as he braved the smoke again to heft it into the back of Claude’s ancient Ford pickup with a grunt. He made a second trip for the framed photos, then returned to the sewing room. “What else?” he asked.

Claude looked over the room, at a loss. He picked up a framed cross-stitch:Home Is Where the Handkäse Is.Ingrid had made the dish for the girls once, as a treat. To say sour-milk cheese had not become a Bishop family favorite would be the understatement of the year, but the gesture had touched Sam. He smiled sadly now as Claude returned the cross-stitch to its place on the wall. “Maybe Level 1 will hold,” Claude said hollowly.

“Maybe.” The fire was still traveling west, after all, away from their ridge.

Sam must not have sounded convincing, because Claude pressed, “What you said before ... You’re not planning to go sooner, are you?”

Sam stared down at his phone. He’d been trying to get ahold of Mel again, to no avail. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. He raked his hand through his hair. “You and I both know: Level 1 can turn into Level 2—even higher—just like that.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “And if Level 3 is inevitable, I’d rather take my time about it, not have it catch me by surprise. But on the other hand ...” He stared back out at the smoke, hands fisting at his sides in frustration at the lack of clarity, figurativelyandliterally.

“Annie can’t risk the air quality outside,” Claude finished for him. He sounded firm on this point.

Sam nodded. “If it weren’t for that, we’d probably already be gone.” All of them together, Mel included, like the family they used to be, if Sam had his way.

As if to punctuate this point, he stared out Claude’s living room window at the sight of a small but steady trickle of family vehicles already on the road: their most proactive neighbors,withouta medically compromised family member to consider. Soon enough, though, all but the most stubborn would follow suit, with cars stuffed to the gills with duffels and camping gear, dog kennels and crates.

“You’ve got all Annie’s meds, right here,” Claude reminded him. “Her oxygen, her canula, all that stuff needs power ... another reason not to be on the road right now.”

Sam nodded. He knew that was true.

“And if you do have to leave, you’ve got that portable power bank, that Goalie thing—”

“The Goal Zero,” Sam corrected. He’d bought it to keep Annie’s medical equipment juiced when they had appointments in Portland or Seattle. He needed to make sure it was charged, plus gather more portable water, and maybe pack the Yeti with ice. The Goal Zero was in the garage next to—

Sam’s stomach dropped out from under him in a sudden realization. “Shit! Claude! I lent the Goal Zero to Kim last month, when her neighbor had that graduation party. She dropped it back off at the Eddy.”

Claude’s aura of comforting assurance slipped a bit upon hearing this. Actually, it fell off his face altogether. “You mean you have no way of keeping her equipment charged in case of evac?”

“I thought it was here!”

Claude gathered himself. “All right now, son, all right.” He laid a hand on Sam’s arm. “You just have to go get it, that’s all.”

He delivered this task like it was a routine run to the grocery store for a stick of butter, but that firm tone he sometimes adopted, especially when it came to Annie’s medical needs, was back.

“How can I? I can’t leave Annie!”

Claude turned from the window and took one more long look around his living room. He paused to straighten one of Ingrid’s afghans where it rested, folded, on the arm of the couch and then exhaled a breath that sounded to Sam like he’d been holding it for a long while. “You can, if I’m here.”

“Wait, what?”

But Claude was already yanking his Buff up over his face and tugging open the front door. “I’m gonna wait this out over at your place,” he said. “You head into town.” He held up a hand as Sam attempted to interrupt him. “Yes, I know ... it’s been a minute since I practiced medicine, but trust me, son. You don’t forget forty years of ongoing training in a hurry. I know the drill ... Pulmonary care, inhaler, the whole nine yards. Besides, while you’re in town, you can assess the air quality in case it’s gotten better for our little miss.”

“Hold up, now,” Sam called, trotting to catch up as Claude set off. They hadn’t hauled Claude’s hoses to the front porch yet, hadn’t unkinked the coils and hooked them up to the water faucet. “Claude, we can’t leave your house unprotected.” When the older man didn’t turn back, he added, “Can we at least discuss this?”

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