It has been about two weeks since the Eaton Fire destroyed our town, Altadena. On the night of January 7th, we were having dinner under a string of solar powered camping lights, which Wes had hung across our dining room in our dark home. The wind was beating relentlessly against the windowpanes of our old house, little rocks and branches pelted against the glass and the loud sound of every gust sent shivers down my spine. I tried to play it cool for Zoe. I showed her how we could shine a flashlight over Magnatile towers to cast colored shadows on the floor, we played hide and seek in the dark, we ate Chinese take-out and cracked opened fortune cookies. I suggested that we play some board games after dinner, but Wes was on edge, distant, pensive, absorbed in his mental calculations of the immediate future. This is not new for him--in fact, it's something that often bothers me: his lack of presence in the moment and his constant preoccupation with planning the next steps. Sensing the all too familiar, yet ominous tension, I snapped at him. We were approaching the situation from opposite angles, and that made an already uncomfortable situation even more unsettling. We bickered for a little bit, but then agreed that I should just focus on entertaining Zoe so that he could think, as he was in no position to sit down for a game of Bingo at that moment. It was clear that we were both worried about the way things were going. Just as I was deciding to pack an overnight bag to take Zoe to my parents' house so that we could at least get some decent sleep, we found out about the wildfire that broke out in Eaton Canyon, only five miles away. Wes said that he didn't think that it would blow in our direction. Then, he took a cursory glance out the back door window and saw the mountains to the East, etched in a bright orange glow. "Shit," he said.
