Free Monte Vista Village, Toxic Soup (The Survivor Diaries) by Lynn Lamb

blasting out a reply but we have actually been getting along well since that day. Maybe this is a silver lining in this horrific catastrophe. We can start again fresh now. We don’t need to make the same mistakes as we have before.
    “I’ll keep it together,” I replied with an honest smile.
    He brought over my tennis shoes. “Here, put these on.”
    I picked up the lantern and turned it up to its brightest.
    “When I opened the door, the first thin g I noticed was how hard it was to open. The debris that had settled in the carpeting was fairly thick. I pushed the door completely open. I heard a gasp coming from my mother who was standing behind me.
    One of our family jokes has always been about my mother, the neat freak. The girls and I would laugh at her obsessive cleaning of the kitchen counters and sweeping of the floors. We poked fun at the way she would re-sweep the entire floor if she found even a small spe ck. She always said that she enjoyed cleaning. I sure hope she wasn’t kidding.
    Our room looked like a hurricane hit it. Ha, ha. I guess that expression will now be passé. So I will correct myself for this new world we live in. It looked like a bomb exploded.
    The bed was turned over and there was glass on the floor from the television and the full sized mirror we once admired ourselves in. Maybe it was good that it was gone because I know I am a disheveled, dirty mess now.
    I shut the door and moved on to inspect the other two bedrooms. It was more of the same.
    I took a deep breath and opened the doors that led to the stairs. I was surprised to see that some of the wooden stairs were split and others were just gone. I made my way up carefully, skipping those that I could tell, even in the lantern light, would not be able to hold my weight. I stopped mid-way through. “Mom, you can’t attempt this. It’s too dangerous. Please just stay down there,” I implored.
    “This is my house. I need to see the damage,” she argued.
    “No,” I yelled. “You really don’t. At least, not now.”
    I guess that she is not used to her mild -mannered daughter using this tone with her. I heard a “humph” and saw her go back behind the doors.
    Mark came from out of nowhere and grabbed me by my arm to support me and a look passed between us. We both knew the severity of the damage and in that instance I think we both knew that we were in this thing together for the long haul.
    At the top of the stairs I hel d up my lantern. Our house looked like a warehouse with rows of the plastic tub that contained our food and water. We had moved most of the furniture out of the kitchen, the formal dining room and the living room when we started to stock up. The containers of water were so heavy that they looked like they had stayed put pretty well.
    “I got the food and other items back into place,” he said. “Right there are the potty patches for Hershey. I used the baggies to clean his poop but there isn’t much we can do about his pee. I was going to use a cleanser on it, but I realized I can’t, because the smell would throw him off.”
    “ It’s okay, Honey.” I wrapped my arms around his big chest and held on for a long time while I took in the scene. “You have done an amazing job here. I am sorry if I haven’t seemed grateful enough. Thank you! And from now on we will do it together.”
    “You have been too hurt, Laur a. I need to tell you how thankful I am that you are alright. When the rumbling stopped, I went over to you and it was really bad. Sit down, Laura,” he pointed to one of the chairs that had weathered the storm.
    “I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want to completely freak you and Annie out, but when I lifted the table from you, you were lifeless. Your mother was unconscious, but breathing.” He kneeled on the ground next to me. “Laur a, you weren’t. I started CPR but I wasn’t getting a pulse. I just kept going, I don’t know how long for. It was like I was floating above