“I think just after ten, maybe ten-thirty.”

“No, I mean in New York. If it’s eleven hours later here then it’s about eleven-thirty, just before midnight. She’ll still be up…up celebrating Christmas…it’s still Christmas in New York.”

That thought echoed around my head. It was Christmas, but this was no Christmas celebration, no miracle…unless you considered us still being alive a miracle.

“Can you imagine how worried she’ll be if she hears about this but doesn’t know we’re safe?”

I could only imagine how she’d feel, how I would feel.

“We have to talk to her before she hears about it on the news,” my father said.

“But it won’t be reported immediately, will it?” I asked.

“No, even something big like this would take at least a few hours to get reported. We’ll call her as soon as we get back up to the lobby.”

As soon as he said it, we both knew that wasn’t going to work. Even if they did push aside the overturned taxi, the phones would have been ripped out or ruined.

“I’ll get a taxi and go inland until I find a phone that works. I’m going to need to find our money, or credit cards, or something. Come on.”

We passed by the first bungalow. The windows and front door were all smashed and gone. The roof was wet and a lounge chair was stuck in the palm leaves. My father kept walking, and I stopped and looked inside. The bungalow was a complete disaster. It was almost empty, and the few items of furniture that remained were piled up against the far wall in a tangled mess. I didn’t see anything that would show that anybody had been there. There was no clothing, no shoes or personal things littered about. Whatever had been there wasn’t there any more.

Maybe the other bungalows hadn’t been hit this hard, maybe ours would be fine. I ran to catch up with my father, who was moving very quickly. Before I reached him he disappeared into our bungalow. I ran through the thick, wet sand, as fast as I could.

I skidded to a stop as I entered. The floor was ankle-deep in sand. There was practically nothing left. The whole room had been scoured of almost every single piece of furniture. The one exception was the TV, smashed and sitting in the corner. My iPod had been sitting on top of the TV. All that remained were the pictures on the wall. They were attached to the wall with screws, and the wave of water couldn’t pry them loose. There was no way anything could have survived this. Something powerful enough to take away furniture wasn’t going to spare our clothes or papers. It had taken everything.

Then I had a terrible thought. If my mother had gone for that nap she would be dead. We might not even have been able to find her body. She would have been washed out to sea.