Free Ear to the Ground by David L. Ulin

upright. “I just …” he mumbled, his voice softer than a whisper, his body limp at Grace’s touch. “Shhh,” she said. “Don’t worry.” His keys glittered where he had thrown them, and Grace picked them up as they started up the stairs.
    Grace sat Charlie on her couch and went into the kitchen, where she started brewing coffee and spread some store-bought cookies on a plate. With Ian spending less time here,the place was neater and better stocked; she’d grown used to finding things where she’d left them, of being able to enjoy what she’d bought. There were nights, of course, when her empty living room seemed as expansive and lonely as Siberia. But on this night, all that seemed part of someone else’s life.
    Grace set the coffee and cookies on a tray, and carried the whole arrangement into the living room. She couldn’t help laughing at herself. All her life, she’d strived for distance from her mother’s domesticity. Yet here she was, entertaining. Still, Charlie needed something, and this was all she could think to do. He was sitting in the center of the sofa, head tilted all the way back, brow furrowed like a freshly plowed field. “Coffee?” Grace asked, and Charlie lowered his head slowly.
    â€œSorry,” he said. Then, by way of explanation: “My grandfather. Grandfather.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œD’y’know my grandfather was a seismologist? D’veloped the Richter Scale. Pasadena. Pasadena. Said the earth could tell us things, if we knew how to listen.”
    Grace didn’t know how to respond. “My grandfather’s a doctor,” she said. “He lives in New York.”
    â€œThey have fault lines in New York.”
    Five minutes later he was heaving into her toilet, as she stroked his back self-consciously.
    Grace awoke to the chatter of birds, and stripes of sunlight fell across the living room floor. She wasn’t sure where she was. Her legs felt heavy and her neck was stiff, and she had difficulty moving. Then she realized she was still on the couch, and that Charlie was snoring lightly, with his head nuzzled into her lap. Looking at him, she felt a pleasant tingle in her loins, and wiggled a little deeper into the cushions. Soon her pleasure turned to apprehension, though, and she quickly inched out from underneath him. Way to go, Grace, she thought. Way to keep complicating your life.
    Out of habit, she clicked on Good Day L.A., but seconds later it was interrupted by a live newscast carrying some kind of breaking story. We finally bombed Bosnia, she thought, or maybe the president got shot. Grace rubbed her eyes, and on the screen she could make out a graphic: two numerals and a decimal point, carved out of stone: “8.9.” She looked more closely. Dan Rather looked rather grim. “… cannot say whether California will be declared an a priori emergency zone. Dr. Richter is the grandson of the man responsible for the scale with which we measure the force …”
    Grace looked over at Charlie, and called his name. When he didn’t stir, she looked back at the TV and stood motionless. Suddenly aware of her surroundings, she heard a sound from the street like bees buzzing, and went over to the window. There, Grace saw about a dozen reporters—some on the landing, others standing along the stairway and on the lawn. The one closest to her front window talked on a cellular phone and scribbled something onto a back-pocket pad. From the television Grace heard the name “Richter” come twice in succession and she turned to find Charlie’s picture emblazoned on the screen. “Charlie!” she yelled, and he stirred. The first thing her next-door neighbor saw that morning was himself, on television. He looked up at her like a child, eyes wide and red. “What’s going on?” he asked.
    At 8:45 that morning, Michael Lipman called