their entire lives, fell down before he walked away from her. He got a fresh start. He hopes she got the same.)
He walks down to Derby, turns, and heads into the residential neighborhoods concealed behind the commercial veneer, tucked oh-so-neatly out of the public eye, where tourists and visiting parents never see them. This is the part of Berkeley where the rebuilding is the most visible, because this is the part of Berkeley that has, for the most part, refused to change. The people who live here cherish their Victorian homes, which now stand shrouded in scaffolding, being restored to life one shingle and piece of careful wiring at a time. There was an entire street that chose to go without electricity for three weeks because of the chance one of their houses could catch fire; when they were rewired by a team of electricians, they celebrated with a block party that lit up the sky for miles around. The rents here are low, if you can find someone who’s willing to trust their renovated darling to a stranger.
Roger’s duplex occupies the ground floor of one of those Victorians, although “floor” is a bit of a misnomer, since he only has half of one: they walk around the holes, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, and sometimes he pretends to be a tightrope walker and sometimes he just wishes he could go to the bathroom without worrying about winding up in the basement.
There’s an ancient orange cat curled up in a box on the porch, one paw covering half of his face. Roger pauses to bend and give him a gentle pat, using the motion as an excuse to check that old Bill is still breathing. No one knows how old the cat actually is, but he’s lived longer than any outdoor cat Roger’s ever known, and he’s steeling himself against the day the good old fellow’s heart gives up and lets him slip quietly away.
Old Bill’s side rises and falls in a shallow but steady rhythm. One more day for the best cat in Berkeley, then; one more night for the best cat in the world. When Roger looks up, the front door is open, and Erin is smiling at him.
He smiles back.
“Good day at school?” she asks, reaching down to grasp the lapels of his jacket and pull him to his feet. He comes without resistance. It’s best not to fight when a beautiful woman wants him to do something, he’s found. It makes things more pleasant for everyone.
“Pretty good,” he says, and leans in, and kisses her—a gesture she returns with enthusiasm. When he leans away again, she’s smiling. So is he. “How’s the congregation?”
“Congregating,” she says deadpan, before laughing at her own joke.
Erin is the only one of the three people who shared Dodger’s off-campus apartment to remain at UC Berkeley. Candace was killed trying to shield a group of preschoolers from debris. Dodger vanished. Erin remained. She waited outside the apartment, clutching old Bill, until the shaking stopped. Then she put down the cat and went to see what she could do to help. She turned out to be surprisingly good with her hands, citing a family history of construction and medical work. Roger ran into her three days later, outside one of the triage tents. Awkward, he’d asked how she was doing. She’d told him about Candace, about the way their apartment had shaken and crumbled in on itself, about going back to dig clothes from the rubble. He’d asked if she wanted to come back to his place, which was still standing, even if there was no running water.
She’d moved in that afternoon. When he’d moved out three weeks later, switching to someplace safer, with plumbing that actually worked, she’d come with him. Their first shared apartment had had two bedrooms. This one does too, but one of those rooms is an office, filled with all the books he won’t allow in the room where they sleep. The Unitarian church where she serves as a minister is only half a mile from their current address. Like him, she walks to work most mornings. Like him, she favors feet over other forms of transit.
For both of them, on some deep level, the ground is still shaking, and always will be.
Erin kisses him again before stepping to the side and letting him in. She closes the door behind him, shutting out the world that isn’t theirs, that wasn’t designed to contain and comfort the