The Dead And The Gone Read Online Free Page B

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