Alex hadn't thought about people being on the subways when the flooding first began.
He felt a wave of panic and had to tell himself to calm down. It would be easy enough to find out if Mami was all right. All he had to do was call the hospital and confirm that she was there. Sure, they weren't supposed to call her at work unless it was an emergency, but they hadn't heard from her in over twenty-four hours and that was emergency enough.
Mami had the hospital number written on the scratch pad she kept by the phone. Just seeing it comforted him. He picked up the phone, but it was dead.
For an instant he went crazy. The phone was dead because Mami was dead. But then he realized how foolish that was, and he began shaking with silent laughter. No wonder they hadn't heard from Mami. It was a miracle the phone service had lasted as long as it had, long enough for Papi and Carlos to call.
Alex went back to the TV and switched to the station with all the international news. Their newscaster was interviewing a distinguished-looking scientist about how long it would take before things got back to normal.
"Things may never get back to normal," the scientist said. "I don't want to be an alarmist, but I know of nothing humans can do to return the moon to its orbit."
"But surely there must be something," the newscaster said. "NASA must be working on a solution day and night."
"Even if they can come up with something, it may take months, even years, before they can implement it," the scientist replied. "What happened yesterday will be nothing compared to what lies ahead."
"You're not suggesting we all panic," the newscaster said in that calming, don't-panic voice Alex associated with TV when things were at their worst. "Surely panic is the one thing we shouldn't do right now."
Before Alex had a chance to find out what the scientist's alternative to panic might be, the electricity went out again.
Alex cursed under his breath. No phone, no electricity, two kid sisters depending on him to take care of them until their parents returned. God certainly didn't want to make things easy for him.
Or for anyone else, he thought. Floods in the subways. Devastation throughout the world. How many people had died in the past two days? Thousands? Millions? How long would it take before Carlos was back at his base? How long before Papi could return from Puerto Rico, before the hospital could let Mami go home?
Stop it, he told himself. You're starting to sound like Aunt Lorraine. One dramatica in a family is enough. No matter how7 bad things were, he couldn't allow himself to be frightened. Not as long as he was responsible for Briana's and Julie's well-being.
Alex went back to his bedroom and picked up his notebook. Knowledge was the enemy of fear. Before every debate he always wrote lists of his argument's strengths and weaknesses. He'd do the same now.
He made three columns and labeled them: what i know; WHAT I THINK; WHAT I DON'T KNOW.
Under what i know he wrote:
No subways
Floods
Moon closer to Earth
Carlos all right
Bri and Julie all right
School on Monday
There didn't seem much point writing down what he'd heard about Europe or Massachusetts. People there could make their own lists.
He bit on his pen and thought. Then he wrote: Food in the apartment.
Of course that was assuming Julie had packed things besides mushrooms and candy bars.
But Mami had Wednesdays off, and most likely she'd gone to the supermarket to buy groceries. Alex made a mental note to check the kitchen cabinets, but he doubted there was anything to worry about when it came to food.
He looked at the lists. Under what i don't know he wrote: How long it will take for things to get hack to normal.
Apparently no one knew that. But just because no one knew didn't mean things wouldn't get back to normal. He might have had the bad luck to catch the only pessimistic scientist on TV.
And, he reminded himself, New York always survived. It had to. The United States, the whole world, couldn't manage without it. It might take a while, and there might be a lot of politicking involved, but eventually New York bounced back from any misfortune. He lived in the greatest city in the world, and what made it great was its people. He was a Puerto Rican New Yorker, strong by birth and by upbringing.
Puerto Rico. Bri had heard from Papi. He lifted the pen to write Papi all right in Puerto Rico under the what i know list until he realized he didn't really know that at all.
What exactly had Briana said: She'd gotten a phone call, there was a lot of static, she thought she heard a man say, "Puerto Rico," and she was certain it was Papi.
Papi's family came from Milagro del Mar, a small town midway between San Juan and Fajardo, on the northern coast of Puerto Rico. When Nana died on Sunday, Alex had been sad, but he really didn't know her all that well. Then again, Mami's mother had died before he'd been born and Mami had no contact with her father, so Nana was the last of his grandparents. But that wasn't reason enough for him to go to Nana's funeral. Mami couldn't leave her brand-new job, and Carlos was too far away. So Papi had gone to Puerto Rico on his own, meeting up there with his two brothers and their families in that little town on the coastline.
It might not have been Papi who called. It might have been one of his brothers. Or it might have been a wrong number, someone asking for "Peter or Ricky," and Bri just assumed the man had said Puerto Rico.
Alex told himself to calm down. Maybe it had been Papi who'd called and maybe it hadn't. It didn't matter. There was no reason to assume the worst, but it was safe to say Papi wouldn't make it home on Saturday, liven if everything miraculously snapped back to place, there'd be long delays, the same as when it snowed and flights got backed up. If New York didn't have electricity or working phones, neither would San Juan.
The image of a twenty-foot tidal wave flashed through his mind. What defense would Milagro del Mar have against that? Could anyone survive?
He shook his head. It was as dangerous to think about that as to think of tunnels flooding and people drowning in the subways. Until he heard differently, he was going to assume Papi was safe in Puerto Rico and Mami was safe in Queens. He just wouldn't put anything about them on his list.
Alex stared at the list. He'd written nothing under what i think. The truth was he didn't want to think. He wanted to wake up to hear Papi cursing him out and Mami defending him and Bri and Julie fighting over who hogged the bathroom worse. He wanted the moon back where it belonged and pessimistic scientists to crawl under rocks. He wanted a full scholarship to Georgetown and summer internships with United States senators. He wanted to be the first president of the United States of Puerto Rican descent.
More than anything, he wanted to know his parents were safe. He couldn't make himself think "alive and safe." They had to be alive. They were just gone, that's all. Papi was gone for Nana's funeral, and Mami was gone because the hospital needed her. Just gone for the time being, the same as Carlos. Both of them worried about Alex and the girls. Both of them trying to get home.
If the subways were out, Mami would have to get back to Manhattan by bus. With traffic what it was, that could take hours. She wouldn't like seeing all those bags of food scattered around, though. Alex decided to ask Bri and Julie to put the food away. They knew where things went in the kitchen better than he did.
It would be harder for Papi to get back, but not impossible. Planes would start flying again eventually. Papi could get a bus from the airport to Port Authority and walk the couple of miles uptown if he had to.