Page 17 of The Starfish Sisters

“She’s been deep into tsunamis the past few weeks,” Steph says. “They had a section on them in school. Emergency preparedness week.”

“Tsunamis wouldn’t make it to Portland,” I say. “There are mountains in between.”

“Yes,” Jasmine says, “that’s correct. But itisa tsunami zone here. Where would we go?”

I crumble tortilla strips into my soup. “Where do you think we should go?”

“Straight out the front and up the hill.”

“Very good.”

“But it’s really steep. How would we climb? Especially if, like, it’s raining or something?”

“That’s a good question,” I say. “We can do a trial run if you want.”

“Maybe I do,” she says. “Did you know that a tsunami from Japan reached Oregon after the earthquake in 2011?”

“I didn’t know that!” Suze exclaims. I suspect she does know, but this is why Jasmine loves her. Like my grandmother, and very unlike me, Suze has a gift for loving people as they are. “Did it do any damage?”

Jasmine is only too happy to fill her in, and then Suze brings out her jewel. “You know,” she says, “I was in Sri Lanka when that really big tsunami hit.”

“What? You were? Did you get hurt?”

“No, I was really lucky. I was filming a movie and we were high in the jungle when it happened. Our hotel was completely wiped out.”

“I remember that!” I cry, and an echo of the painful worry I felt when the whole place went off the grid runs down my spine.

Steph scowls. “Maybe—uh—careful?”

“No!” Jasmine protests. “I’m not a baby, Mom.”

“We can talk about it another time,” Suze says, and she’s instantly apologetic. There’s something deferential in the angle of her head, and the way she crumbles a tortilla strip between two fingers. I haven’t seen this in years, and it makes me furious with her brutal father, with the people who attacked her, the media who’ve made her life a misery at times.

“It’s fine, Suze,” I say, frowning a little at my daughter. “I’m sure Jasmine heard all about it at school.”

“I did! Can I go get my notebook? I have all the details in there.”

Her mother nods, wearily. “Sure.” When Jasmine has bolted upstairs again, she says, “She’s so full of everything right now. She carries this notebook with her everywhere—school, swimming lessons, the grocery store, everywhere.”

“It’s exhausting to be a working single parent,” I say, but see immediately that it’s exactly the wrong comment. She can be so prickly and defensive. I don’t know where it came from. Then again, maybe that’s me, too. Not that I like admitting it.

“Oh, yeah, Mom, as I was always very aware.”

“Steph. That’s not what—”

“Whatever. I really do need to go.” She pushes back from the table.

Suze covers Steph’s hand. “Finish your soup, darling girl. Your mom didn’t mean anything.”

Steph settles. Gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’m just ... freaked.”

“I know.”

Jasmine sails from the foot of the stairs to the table, notebook in hand. “Okay! This is about the tsunami in Japan.” She regales us with a dozen bullet-point details.

“That’s amazing,” I say. “It reached all the way to Oregon!”

“But the big problem is, there’s a really big fault off the coast of Oregon, and when it has its next earthquake—”