Crows of a Feather

Prologue: 1994

I don't remember much of the earthquake. The screaming, mostly, and the house collapsing on us. I remember my mom wrapping herself around me, and a cold wave of something, in the LA heat. She uttered some words— something that wasn't English or Spanish, Latin or any other language I'd heard so far. Then the world went up in flames. Roaring, tall red that ate everything I'd ever known.

Everything went dark for just a split second. Like God pressed the pause button and the whole world stopped. I don't believe in God, by the way, but dad did. I wish I could believe too; maybe then dad's rosary would mean more. Maybe it wouldn't feel cold against my chest, or maybe it would give me hope.

The people who found me didn't believe that I hadn't been alone in the house. There was no sign of my mom ever being there, except for the cross I clung to after she had pressed it onto my palm. ("Crucifix," I heard my dad remind me, even though he'd been dead for four years by then.)

I felt bad for not crying — you're supposed to cry, right? You're supposed to feel like your world has come crushing down and nothing else matters anymore, and you're supposed to feel alone and scared and unbelievably sad. But I didn't feel particularly sad or alone. I'm not sure I felt at all.

My mom didn't cry when dad died, or at least I never saw her. She let me do all the wailing. But she wasn't there anymore to hold my hand and say that dad was watching over us, or to sing me a foreign lullaby when the world felt too dark at night.

It was comforting, at least, to think that maybe they were together again.

Uncle Killian, whom I'd only met once before, lived in San Fransisco. I don't recall falling asleep in his Mini, but I woke up watching the approaching city and the fiery red sky as we made our way across Golden Gate Bridge.

I didn't know why we were crossing the bridge even though we were coming from the south, and I never remembered to ask. I probably should have. There were a lot of things I should've asked him when I still could.

Uncle Killian was, and had always been, an eccentric man. He had a British accent, a brown mullet like Billy Ray Cyrus, aviator glasses and only one arm. (Every time I asked how he lost the other one, he told a different story; my favourite one involved an alligator and three prostitutes.) He owned a second hand bookstore and so many old books I was sure he never actually sold any, just kept them to himself.

He had three ultimate rules:

1. Always be home for dinner. Uncle Killian let me go wherever I wanted as long as I was home by 7 o'clock. He said dinner was the most important time of the day even though he only knew how to make spaghetti and meatballs and mac and cheese.

2. Family doesn't lie. He didn't pressure me to talk about anything I didn't want to talk about, but lying was not tolerated. Uncle Killian, in turn, never lied to me. There were many things he left unsaid, but I could trust that the few things he did say were the truth.

And finally, 3. Don't go out on a full moon. He never explained this one. I figured it out on my own, some time later.

If you've ever lost a parent, or anyone you've spent a majority of your life with, you'll know the emptiness. Where I would have heard my mother laugh at a dumb joke, there was silence. Where I would've seen her smile, there was a blank space.

Adjusting was hard. The first two weeks I barely spoke to Uncle Killian. I was convinced that my mom was somehow still be alive and would come get me. She never did. Killian was good about everything, though. He didn't make me talk about my feelings or ask me if I was okay every ten minutes like some of my teachers had when dad died.