By the time she made it downstairs to the kitchen, Cami had almost convinced herself that Reese was right—everything would blow over, and this was nothing more than media hype to boost ratings. She poured herself the first cup of coffee of the day, inhaling the rich scent of the prime Colombian roast Reese enjoyed so much. Wrapping her hands around the warm mug, she stepped over to the kitchen table and sat, peering through steam rising from the mug at the pristine view of their backyard.
Any time she worried about something, whether it was finances, health, or family—or volcanoes on the other side of the world—Cami knew she could sit at her table and look into the forest preserve that bordered their yard and let peace drape over her.
Instead of following the American custom of cutting the grass short and throwing up fencing around their property, closing themselves off from the natural world, Reese and Cami had decided when they’d bought the place to treat it more like a vacation spot. They’d left the yard to its own devices, with ample space for Cami’s garden, tended lovingly between guide trips. The garden, a wild-looking greenspace that overflowed with lush, edible foliage, provided more than enough vegetables and herbs throughout the long growing season. It kept Cami and Reese busy canning and dehydrating what they couldn’t immediately eat, saving the harvest for winter.
Every time she looked out the kitchen windows, Cami found herself on the trail, on a guide, deep in the Rockies. That was where she truly felt most at home, and experienced peace. She took a sip of coffee and grimaced.
“I could sure use some of that peace right about now…”
After a few more moments of solitude, Cami watched as Amber found her way down to the kitchen, her hair tussled on one side of her head and eyes barely open. She staggered into the room like a zombie, drawn to the smell of the coffee mug waiting for her on the table.
"I hate you,” she moaned as she plopped down at the table side. Then she wrapped her hands around the mug Cami nudged across the table, and sighed. "And I love you." The first sip hit Amber like a bolt of lightning. Her eyes opened wide. "This is dad's stash?"
Cami smiled over the rim of her own mug. “Mmmhmmm.”
Amber leaned back in her chair and laughed. "He's gonna be so mad.”
Cami shrugged one shoulder. “He’ll get over it."
As they sipped coffee, Cami relished the fact that she could sit and talk with her daughter about anything and everything or nothing at all. The conversation rambled on from the coffee they enjoyed—and how much it cost—to Amber's friends at school and what they’d been up to over the summer, to when Amber planned to pack for the flight back to school, and what she’d do with herself for two weeks in Bozeman, Montana before classes resumed.
The entire time, nibbling away at the back of Cami’s consciousness, was that barely suppressed fear over the Canary Island volcano and the possible tsunami it might've spawned. Reese was out there somewhere…a thousand miles away, fishing offshore in the deep blue ocean.
Cami closed her eyes. Why hadn’t he listened to her?
Soon enough, they’d finished their second cups of coffee, and Amber returned upstairs to get ready for the day. First up was heading into town so Amber could buy supplies for her apartment at school. At first, she’d been reluctant to accept Cami's offer of charity, but when Cami offered to ship to campus anything they bought so that she didn't have to take it on the plane, Amber reluctantly agreed.
Cami smiled, listening to Amber get ready upstairs. She and Reese had raised a fiercely independent daughter who didn't like to rely on anyone for anything—even her parents—so when Amber finally agreed to let Cami buy some food and toiletries, it'd made her day.
As Cami washed the mugs, she hummed to herself in false contentedness. No matter how she distracted herself with chores or planning out the day, she felt a constant urge to pick up her phone and check the latest updates on the volcano and any possible tsunamis. In fact, as soon as Amber had disappeared upstairs, her resolve had broken and Cami picked up her phone, hurriedly thumbing through page after page of prepper forum posts, looking for clues she might've missed in the shockingly incomplete news.
A few tidbits of information, mostly from overseas news services, seemed to confirm that something happened out there. European seismologists had been tipped off by America’s National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska about anomalous wave signatures detected by its network of deepwater buoys.
On the surface, that meant nothing, Cami concluded as she finished drying their plates. But it could mean something. She knew from her research that tsunamis gained their legendary size only when they approached land. A few blips from buoys out in the middle of the Atlantic might just as well be caused by gusts of wind.
Cami leaned forward over the sink and stared out the window, for once not seeing the trees, grass, and squirrels in the yard. At that moment she would've given her right arm to have unfettered access to the NTWC in Alaska. If a tsunami had been triggered, why hadn’t they said anything?
But she didn't have that kind of access. Frowning, Cami picked up the wet, clean coffee mugs and used a towel to dry them. She had to focus on what she could control, and not worry about what might be. Amber only had a few more days before she flew away for another long school year, and all too soon, her baby girl would graduate college and move away from home. Despite her worry over Reese's safety and
