“No,” I said. “Don’t come here.”

“I don’t think you should be alone right now. I’ll borrow my father’s car and I’ll be right—”

“No, don’t come here. I’m going home. Meet me at my house.” I went to hang up and then changed my mind. “Thank you for coming…thank you.”

CHAPTER TEN

I pushed “redial” on the phone again. There was silence for a few seconds and then I could hear it trying to connect, trying to circle the world and reach a phone in Thailand. Twenty-five, thirty, maybe forty times I’d hit “redial” as I drove home from the dorm. Each time it was the same. I couldn’t even get through to the international line—a busy signal was telling me that all the lines were taken. I knew if I just kept trying, sooner or later I’d get through. Maybe this time…a busy signal. I pushed “end” and put the phone down on the seat beside me.

I put both hands on the wheel. The roads were slick. It wouldn’t help anybody if I ended up in the ditch. I just had to concentrate on the road, slow down, and pretend that everything was all right, even if I didn’t know anything for sure.

I reached for the phone again—and stopped myself. Maybe there was no point in even trying right now. Perhaps it was the phone that wasn’t working. I’d be home in a few minutes and I could try again from there. Maybe there would even be a message waiting for me from my parents, telling me that everything was okay, that they were fine.

Who was I kidding? If I couldn’t get through to them, how did I expect them to get through to me? At my end, the problem was just that all the international lines were being tied up with hundreds of thousands of people doing what I was doing, desperately trying to make contact with somebody. At their end, there would be telephone lines down, maybe the whole infrastructure destroyed. How could I even hope that they’d been able to call me? And even if, by some fluke, they had got through, they would have tried to call my cellphone or my dorm room and not left a message at home.

I turned onto the street and saw our house, with Mom’s car in the driveway. For a fleeting, illogical micro-second I thought, Oh, she’s home. I pulled my car in behind hers and hurried to the door.

The house was quiet and empty. I had known that it would be—that it should be—but it just seemed wrong. I turned on the television, partly because I needed an update but more because I needed some background noise, to hear sounds, voices, so I wouldn’t feel so alone.

When I picked up the phone it was beeping rapidly, indicating that there were messages. I felt a little surge of adrenaline. Maybe…just maybe. I punched in the code.