flipflop_diva

The sky is blue when she locks the front door behind her, a short list clutched in her hand. The farmer’s market to pick up some vegetables. A stop at the grocery store for milk. A detour to pick up her favorite ice cream.

If she times it right, it won’t take more than thirty minutes.

--

The sky is turning gray when she heads back down the road to home, the vegetables and the milk and the ice cream tucked safely in the back seat. She watches the swirls of smoke billowing into the air and hopes everyone is safe.

(Little does she know then that a gender reveal party has just gone disastrously wrong. Little does anyone know then that this is just the beginning.)

--

The sky is almost completely clouded over by the time her best friend rings the doorbell a few hours later. She invites her in, and they chat excitedly. They have many plans — wine to drink, a steak dinner with fresh vegetables to make, ice cream to eat, a hot tub to relax in and a lot of talking to do. In the morning, they are going to go shopping.

They don’t spare much though for the sky darkening above them.

--

They can’t see the sky hours later when they settle into the hot tub, but they can’t see any of the stars that usually dot the world above them either. They can smell the smoke though. It fills the air and their noses and causes their eyes to water a little.

They make it through a glass of wine before heading back inside. There, they turn on the news and watch the coverage of a fire that is less than a mile away and completely uncontained.

For the first time all day, they begin to really worry.

--

They wake up early the next morning to a house that is beginning to smell of smoke. They walk outside to the front yard — the woman, her husband and her best friend — and all they can see is smoke. All traces of blue in the sky are gone.

They don’t see flames yet, so they still have time.

--

They are already starting to pack — fear and uncertainty taking over — when there comes a loud pounding on the door. They glance at each other when a loud voice yells, “Police!”

They answer the door to find a police officer on their porch. They are now officially in an evacuation zone, and everyone needs to leave. The fire is getting closer, and if it jumps the ridge, they will be right in its path.

They say they are already packing, and the officer thanks them. They don’t close the door yet. Instead, they watch as the officer walks over to their driveway and marks a huge X on it in chalk. The Xs mean they were talked to face to face. The driveways without markings mean there was no answer or they haven’t gotten there yet.

They go back inside. Almost immediately the phone starts ringing. Friends, family, children. “Are you okay? Do you need somewhere to stay? How close is the fire? Please stay safe!”

--

She looks around at her house, at her clothes, at her photos, at everything she has accumulated over an entire lifetime.

This is a moment she has thought about for much of her life. What would she take in an emergency? What does she need? What doesn’t she need? She thought she knew, back when it was hypothetical. She had a list and an answer, ready for whenever the time came.

The time is here, and now she’s unsure. What do you take when you might lose everything else? What do you want to hold on to and what are you okay losing? The clothes in your closet? The china passed down from a grandmother? The art projects from a grandchild that now hang on the refrigerator?

She’s always been a realist, always been pragmatic. She starts with her clothes, her toiletries. A friend of a friend who lives out of the danger zone has an empty freezer they can use so they pack up the meat they just bought the other day.

They grab the computers and the tablets and the picture frame that flashes through photos.

Her husband walks around, from room to room, taking pictures of all the photos hanging on the walls. They can’t take those, but at least they won’t lose the images. Their wedding day. Family reunions. Children as they grew up.

They have three cars they can use — two of theirs and her best friend’s. SVUs all three of them. They can get a lot in.

They start bringing suitcases and boxes and bags out to the cars, filling in every possible space. They’re focused on being fast, on being thorough but she can’t help but look at everything she’s leaving behind one last time — what if she never sees it again?

Finally, they are ready. There is nothing left to pack.

Her husband isn’t going to leave. Not yet. He wants to stay “until I can see flames,” he says. She doesn’t like that idea — the power keeps going out and his phone is hardly reliable in the best of times — but he is stubborn, and she knows there is no use arguing with him.

She kisses him goodbye and tells him to please, please be safe, and he laughs and says of course he will.

She and her best friend head out. The world is hazy by now, smoke everywhere. They don’t have to drive far before they can see the flames, before they can see roads blocked off from traffic.

They turn in the opposite direction, head to her best friend’s house an hour away.

--

The next two days pass more slowly than any day has ever passed. They watch the news almost non-stop. She answers calls from more friends and more family. She texts her husband constantly and he replies when he can.

He’s fine, he says. He’s safe. He’s cleaning ash out of the pool. No, he doesn’t want to leave.

She pulls up her neighborhood Facebook page and joins in to the conversations. The fire hasn’t jumped the ridge, but the wind is supposed to pick up, and nothing is safe.

She barely sleeps, lying in the dark and worrying, about her husband, about their life. What will they do if they have to start all over again? Where will they go? Will they stay here or go somewhere fresh?

She doesn’t have answers. All she has is fear.

--

The third day dawns with good news. The wind is dying down and the fire nearest them is being contained. It looks like they are going to be safe.

She and her friend watch the news and scroll Facebook and talk on the phone to concerned friends and family, but the fear lessens and she feels like she can breathe again.

Thirty-six hours later, the evacuation order is lifted. Their area is safe. The fire has been stopped.

She and her friend get back in their cars, still loaded with all their stuff, and head back to her house.
The unpacking process takes longer than the packing did.

“Let’s not do this again,” her husband grumbles.

She hopes they never do.

Non-fiction. This is my parents' story. The El Dorado fire, which started at a gender reveal party in a forested area, was right by their house. It was a terrifying few days!

Thank you for reading! This was written for a new adventure in the