He was in bed and sound asleep in the dark house, when he heard a tremendous crash outside, followed almost as quickly by two more. He got up and glanced out the window again, and saw that the biggest tree in his garden had fallen over. He went outside in his pajamas and a slicker to look at it in amazement, and saw instantly that it had sheared off a corner of the roof when it fell. And when he walked back into the house and stood in his living room, there was a gaping hole open to the sky, as the rain poured in. He needed a tarp to cover it, but didn't have one. All he could do for the moment was move the furniture out of the way so it wouldn't be ruined by the rain. He had been unable to determine what the other two crashes had been. The rest of the trees around the house were swaying violently in the wind, but none of the others had fallen, and the rest of the house appeared to be undamaged, until morning.

He had been unable to sleep for the rest of the night, as he listened to the storm raging around him, and it was still raining the next morning, when he got up at first light, he put on boots and his slicker again, and took a walk around the house to survey the damage. The hole in the roof was ugly, several of the shutters had been torn off, and two big windows were broken. There was glass and debris everywhere, and the garage had been severely damaged and was flooding. By sheer luck, he had put all the boxes to store on long wooden tables, so none of their papers and mementos had been destroyed. But he spent the rest of the morning moving them into his kitchen. The living room looked like a disaster area. He had moved the rugs and furniture in the middle of the night, and set down tubs and towels to catch the rainwater coming in through the hole in the ceiling. It was a part of the living room that protruded beyond the rest of the frame of the house, and there was a branch coming through it, and some of the fine old paneling had splintered from the impact. He learned from the newspaper that morning that at least a dozen people had been killed, mostly by fallen power lines, or trees, and hundreds had been injured around the state. Thousands were temporarily homeless and huddled in school gymnasiums as lowlands flooded. It was a storm of mammoth proportions.

And as he made one more trip from the garage to the kitchen, carrying a large box, he saw what must have caused the second and third crashes the night before. Two trees had fallen in his neighbor's garden. They were smaller than the one he had lost, but had nonetheless done considerable damage when they fell. There was a small woman with dark hair, looking mournful and dismayed as she assessed the destruction, and she happened to glance up at Quinn as he walked past her.

“Mine came right through the roof at four o'clock this morning,” he said cautiously. “I heard two more crashes, it must have been your trees going down,” he observed, and the woman nodded. And none of them were small trees, it was very impressive. “How bad is the damage?”

“I'm not sure yet. It looks pretty nasty. The house is leaking like a sieve, and I've got Niagara Falls in my kitchen.” She looked frightened and worried. Quinn didn't even know her name, he knew the house had sold just after Jane died, but he had never met the family who bought it, and had never been interested in who they were, and still wasn't. But he felt sorry for her. She seemed to be dealing with it on her own, and it made him think of Jane, who had handled anything and everything, and every possible crisis and disaster on her own, in his absence. He assumed this woman's husband was of the same breed as he had been, a man with a job that took him far from home on New Year's. At least half of the New Year's Eves of their marriage Quinn had spent alone in other countries in hotel rooms. And obviously, this woman's husband was no different.

“I've got some spare buckets, if you need them,” Quinn offered helpfully. There wasn't much else they could do on New Year's Day, and it was easy to figure out that every contractor in the state would have his hands full by Monday morning.

“I need a roofer. I just moved in, in August, and they said the roof was sound. I'd love to send them a picture of the kitchen. It looks like someone turned on the shower.” The storm had also broken nearly half her windows. The house was even more exposed than Quinn's was, and less solidly constructed. It had changed hands several times in the past dozen years, and Quinn paid no attention to who lived there, although Jane always made some small effort to welcome new neighbors. But he had never seen this one, or her husband, even in passing. She had a faintly desperate look as she tried to clear away some branches. It was still pouring rain and the wind was still ferocious, though not quite as vicious as it had been in the early hours of the morning. The damage looked like what he'd seen in the aftermath of hurricanes in the Caribbean, or typhoons in India. It was definitely not what one expected to experience in San Francisco.

“I'm going to call the fire department and get them to put a tarp on the roof. Do you want them to take a look at yours too?” he offered. It seemed to be the least he could do, and she nodded gratefully, looking wet and distracted. The damage all around them was upsetting, and all up and down the street, people were doing what they could to clear away fallen trees, pick up debris, and tie down what they could to minimize further damage, as the storm continued raging.

“I'm not sure a tarp will make much difference,” she said, looking unhappy and confused. She had never had to handle a situation like this. Nor had Quinn, and he somehow felt that Jane would have been far more efficient than he was. But he had to manage on his own now.

“They'll tell you what you need. I'll ask them to bring several tarps, just in case.” And as an afterthought, he remembered his manners. “Sorry,” he said, reaching a wet hand over a low hedge, as he juggled a box in his left arm, “I'm Quinn Thompson.”

“Maggie Dartman,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. She was small, and had tiny, graceful hands, but her handshake was strong. She had long dark hair that hung down her back in a braid, and her hair was matted against her head in the driving rain. She was wearing jeans and a parka, and looked soaked to the skin, and he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was very pale, and had big green eyes that looked anything but happy. He couldn't blame her, he wasn't pleased with the damage to his house either.

“Bad luck your husband's not around,” he said sympathetically, making an easy assumption. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, and there were no children afoot, which made him wonder if she was even younger, and hadn't started a family yet. These days everyone got started older. She looked at him oddly when he mentioned her husband, started to say something, and then didn't. And a moment later, Quinn left to call the fire department. They had had hundreds of calls like his, and said they would be over in an hour or two to cover the hole in his roof. He dutifully mentioned his neighbor, and told her the fire department would be over to help, when he went back to get the last box in the garage, and saw her dragging a branch out of her driveway.

“Thanks very much,” she said, and nodded. She looked like a drowned rat, and he was tempted to offer her an old raincoat of Jane's he was sending to Goodwill, but didn't. There was no need to get too friendly. She seemed polite, but she was also reserved, and a moment later, she went back into her house. He wasn't sure, but as he saw her go, he thought she was crying. He wondered how many times Jane had cried when she had to cope with emergencies without him. And as Quinn went back into his own house, thinking of it, he felt guiltier than ever.





4


THE FIRE DEPARTMENT COVERED THE HOLE IN QUINN'S roof, and as he had promised, he directed them to check on his next-door neighbor. By late that night, the storm abated, but the damage throughout the state had been tremendous. Like everyone else in town, he called a contractor on Monday morning, and a roofer. He found their names on a list Jane kept on a bulletin board in the kitchen. The roofer just laughed when Quinn called him.

“Let's see,” the man said, sounding harassed but good-natured. “You're! the forty-eighth call I've had this morning. I think maybe I can get to you sometime in August.”

“I hope you're joking,” Quinn said drily. He was not amused. He was also not used to dealing with problems like this. Whatever happened around the house, even something of this magnitude, would have automatically been Jane's problem. Now it was his, and he had to admit he didn't enjoy it. He had dialed the roofer and the contractor more than a dozen times each before he got through to either of them. Everyone who'd suffered damage in the storm was obviously frantic to get someone to repair it as quickly as they could, and he was no different.

“I wish I were joking,” the man at the roofing company responded. “There's no way we can do it.” He gave Quinn four names to try, all reputable firms, he said. And the contractor did the same when Quinn called him. He gave him the name of two well-known contracting firms, and a third number that he said was a young carpenter who had gone out on his own a few months before, but did fine work, and he highly recommended him. Predictably, the two contracting firms were as busy as the first one. He still hadn't found a roofer yet, and feeling exasperated, Quinn called the young carpenter the first contractor had recommended. Quinn was beginning to realize that getting the repairs done was going to be far from easy.

There was an answering machine at the number when he called, and he left a concise description of the damage, explaining what had happened. And the last roofer he called agreed to come and take a look the following morning, but he warned Quinn when they spoke that there were a good six or eight weeks of work ahead of him by then. It looked like Quinn was going to be living with a hole in his living room ceiling and a tarp over it for a long time. This was not the way he had planned to spend his final months in San Francisco.

It was eight o'clock that night when the young carpenter finally called him. He sounded matter-of-fact and businesslike, and apologized for the hour of the call. He said he'd been out looking at storm damage since early that morning. Quinn was just grateful that the man had called him. He offered to come by at seven the next morning if it was all right with Quinn.

“I'm doing a quick job for a friend tomorrow. All their bedroom windows broke, and they have a brand-new baby. I'd like to come by and see you on the way there, if you don't mind my coming that early. I want to get his windows taken care of before I start any big jobs.”

“Are you already booked by anyone else?” All day Quinn had been hearing that people had three to six months of work lined up from the storm, and he was beginning to feel desperate. He couldn't even think of selling the house until he repaired the damage the storm had done.

“Not yet. I saw eight or nine potential clients today, but I haven't signed any contracts yet. I don't like to take on more work than I can handle. And a lot of people feel more comfortable with bigger firms, where they know they can count on big crews. I have three subs I use when I need them, and whenever possible I do the work on my own. I keep better control of the job that way, and it keeps the prices down, although it's a little slower going, but not much. I don't have to correct anyone's mistakes that way. Why don't we take a look in the morning and see what I can do for you, Mr. Thompson?”

“Sounds good to me,” Quinn said, feeling relieved. He would have met him at five in the morning, if he had to. He liked the way the man sounded. He sounded straightforward and sincere, honest and responsible. His name was Jack Adams. And then Quinn told him about the trouble he'd had, understandably, finding a roofer.

“I've got a good guy I work with in San Jose. I'll call him tonight and see how booked up he is. He might be able to come in for a couple of weeks. I'll let you know what he says tomorrow.”

“Perfect.” Quinn thanked him and hung up. It would be wonderful if he could put the whole job in this man's hands, and trust him to take care of it for him. He might even be able to do whatever else was necessary to get the house in shape to sell it.

Quinn went to sleep that night, in the bed he had shared with Jane, and for once he didn't read her poems and journals. He went straight to sleep, after thinking about getting the house in shape again, and hoping that Jack Adams was the man to do it.