Acts of God by Mary Morris Page B

noted that the northeast corner of our house needed to be shored up and that the foundation seemed to be giving way.
    Under normal conditions I would have considered this news very bad, but Jade is such a warm, friendly girl and she greeted me with a great big hug and a no-big-deal smile on her face. Smacking her gum in my ear, she said, “Don’t worry, Mom. Like you always say, there are only solutions. No problems. How’s Grandma?”
    â€œThe same.”
    â€œHow about that old boyfriend of yours? Did you see him?”
    â€œOh, we spent some time together. He’s on his second divorce.”
    â€œSo you have things in common.” Jade gave me a big wink. I stared at my daughter with her close-cropped hair, her sharp, bony body.
    On the way home we stopped at Half Moon Bay Diner, a little cappuccino and sandwich place I’d stop at for the name alone, perched up high on the edge of the road so you can look down at the Pacific. It’s a place where I love to sit and Jade knew that, which is why she stopped there.
    Since I first saw it, this part of Northern California has always been just right for me, with its dramatic vistas, its crashing sea. But now as I munched on an avocado and sprout sandwich on pita, I felt distracted the way you do when you think you’ve left home with the coffee pot on.
    â€œSo, Mom,” Jade said, “did you see anyone? Did you do anything?”
    â€œOf course, dear, I saw lots of people and we did lots of things.” She sighed and I realized this wasn’t the kind of answer she wanted to hear. She wanted to know that something exciting had happened in my life, that I would be a different person now that I’d been away for a few days. I was afraid that once more the ordinariness of my life was a disappointment to her. Jade was young enough to still believe that you can walk into a room and a sea change will occur; that the earth will move.
    I’m the one who named her Jade. The Orient had once been a passing interest of mine, one of many passing interests, I might add. A place I wanted to visit. When I was younger, I’d sit for hours looking at pictures of those fine carvings out of stone. Rocks that contained an entire world. Swans, flowers, villagers going about their daily chores. Delicate, miniature universes imbedded in stone.
    When I told Charlie that I wanted to name her Jade, he said, “Why don’t you call her Sunset or Aurora? Give her a real California New Age name.” I’d told him for years I really liked the name. Except that now all her friends called her Jaded. She got a kick out of the grimaces I made when a friend called and asked, “Is Jaded there?”
    â€œWell, did you have any fun? ”
    â€œYes and no,” I said thoughtfully. Jade rolled her eyes as we munched our sandwiches. The sea crashed below. White spray blew up against the rocks. “It was interesting,” I told her. “It was nice to see everyone.”
    â€œMom,” Jade leaned over, squeezing my hand, “aren’t you ever excited about anything? Doesn’t anything get you going?”
    â€œYes, dear, you do.” I patted her cheek and she dropped my hand, determining me to be a hopeless case. With a sigh she handed me the keys to the car. “You drive,” she said, and she slept the rest of the way home.
    *   *   *
    When I pulled up in front of the house, gawkers lined the driveway. There were ten or twenty cars. More than I’ve seen in a long time. “What’re they doing here?” I asked her.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Jade said, “they’ve been staked out for days.”
    The house I live in was built by the poet Francis Cantwell Eagger on a plot of land where nothing would grow. A farmer sold it to him dirt cheap and Eagger spent half a century building his house. When he died, I bought it from his son, who had many debts of his father’s to