“Thank you so kindly,” I reply with forced calmness. “But I want to be there. They might find my grandmother’s lapel watch or something else of sentimental value. I just want to be there.”

He nods and tells me he will see if in the morning he can find a carriage to take me there. The rest of the evening passes too slowly for me. I awaken the following morning at sunrise, well before the rest of the house. Chester is in fact able to locate transportation for me. When a carriage comes at half past eight, I bid Libby good-bye and thank her for her kind hospitality but explain that if all goes well, I will catch an afternoon train back to San Mateo and will no doubt see her again soon.

“I need to get back to Kat,” I tell her, knowing she will understand this. We do have that in common, she and I. We love our children.

“I’m so very glad I saw you standing there yesterday,” she says as she hugs me good-bye. “And we were very nearly finished at our own place, and I would have missed you. It is so fortunate that we were both there at the same time.”

“Quite so” is all I can say in return, but then I think maybe it is fortunate that Libby saw me. Maybe it is good that I didn’t just attempt to disappear, but that now the police think Martin Hocking did not come home as expected the day of the earthquake and is perhaps missing within the disaster, as are many others. Rather than feeling like I need to be invisible, I feel that I will instead soon be liberated. It is only a matter of time.

“You will let us know the minute Mr. Hocking is found, won’t you?” Libby says, releasing me.

“I promise.”

“Don’t give up hope, dear Sophie. I’m sure he will turn up.”

“Of course.”

“And do please tell Mr. Hocking to rebuild. Almost everyone on the street is going to. You will tell him, won’t you? I want you for a neighbor again!”

I smile, nod. I think I understand why Libby would like me to return to San Francisco. I am the kind of friend to whom she can count on feeling sweetly superior. Her affluent friends probably make her too often fear that she doesn’t quite measure up. But not me.

“I’ll tell him,” I say.

She sends me out to the carriage with a boxed lunch and a parasol because, she says, there are no more leafy trees on our street to provide shade. She stands at the door to her cottage, waving good-bye with one hand and the other holding the tiniest mound at her waist.

I arrive at the ruined house just as the workmen pull up.