Doors

I don't remember there being earthquakes when I was little. Or maybe there were, but they were in California which was a million miles away, the place where oranges grew on trees and everybody had swimming pools. It only seemed right that some of them might have to fall into the earth; I mean, you can only have so much luck.

Here in Brooklyn, Eva sits on the floor painting a picture of a door. A door to where? I keep asking. Just a door, she says. On the phone, my mom's voice is wiry. She says that back in Oklahoma the earth shook so hard her husband turned on all the lights in the house. It's like he thought the world wouldn't end if you could see it.