A Theory of Small Earthquakes Read online

  Each slogan delivered a memory of a demonstration, a meeting, a political act—come out, come out, wherever you are—made personal. Zoe starred in every scene.

  SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL. Their ridiculous, romantic Mariandaughter year.

  U.S. OUT OF GRENADA. Signing petitions in Tappan Square, Zoe’s body pressed up against Alison’s for the first time.

  U.S. OUT OF MY BODY. Saying yes to their new life in Berkeley, where Zoe’s mom had always wanted her daughter to be.

  MONDALE FOR PRESIDENT: AMERICA NEEDS A CHANGE. A losing campaign for president, starting to lose their love.

  STOP UNWANTED SEISMIC ACTIVITY. When everything shook and changed and rattled and fell apart.

  WELCOME HOME, NELSON MANDELA. Finding each other again. Making a friendship. Making a family.

  Alison wondered if any of it had done any good: the wimmin’s studies projects, the petitions, the marches, the boring electoral campaigns? The coming out? The going in?

  Of course it has, she thought. She could draw a straight line, so to speak, between Mariandaughter’s over-the-top dogma and Justina’s calm self-assurance; between two women marrying each other on TV in San Francisco City Hall and gay marriage spreading to New Paltz, New York; between protestors and bad wars ending and bad laws being overturned and bad ideas slowly, slowly, slowly changing to good.

  All of it had made Alison who she was and all of it had given her what she had: a good and getting-better career, a good and getting-better man, a great and getting-even-greater kid, who wore a BUCK FUSH button to Berkeley High School, which Alison had lied to get him into because she knew they’d let him wear a button like that to school.

  And Zoe. Alison had Zoe. Her everything, who kept everything. The mirror. The bumper stickers. The Volvo. Her.

  Alison had made a life on a fault line crisscrossed with fissures, walking on unsolid ground. Nature, and her nature, kept that time bomb ticking. Any minute the whole thing could come crashing down. But Alison’s life felt different now. She felt different now.

  Maybe there was an upside to aging, which also brought wrinkles and pounds and gray hairs. Maybe there was an upside to living in an earthquake zone, where unwanted seismic activity produced stunningly beautiful scenery and imminent disaster in the same place at the same time.

  Right there, right then, with Zoe in the next room sick and scared, Alison could say this with certainty. The four of them—the five of them now—had built something solid and true, right on top of a shuddering lie.

  Mark would never be the love of her life. Zoe sat in that chair. She always had, and if Alison’s optimism was warranted, she always would.

  But Mark was the partner Alison needed: steady, uncomplicated, unfailingly kind. Unlike Zoe, unlike Alison’s mother, he kept himself at just the right distance. He didn’t scare her or come after her or know her better than she knew herself. He didn’t make her fight to protect herself, claws outstretched, back against the wall.

  Alison needed both of them. And finally, finally, what she wanted was what she had. She would go on having it because Zoe would be okay.

  Her eyes drifted to the bumper sticker she and Zoe had brought home from Gay Pride in 1989, the summer they were trying to conceive. LOVE MAKES A FAMILY, it said, NOTHING ELSE, NOTHING LESS.

  We did that, Alison thought. We made a family out of love. Not the way we meant to do it. Not the way most people do it. But we did the best thing any family can do. We raised a healthy, happy child. And who knows? One way or another, we might get to raise another one.

  “Al?” Zoe called.

  Normally, Zoe’s voice told Alison whatever she needed to know. But Zoe’s tone wasn’t saying whether she’d opened the envelope or if she had, what she now knew.

  Alison was surprised to realize that it didn’t much matter. She knew who Corey’s father was. Corey knew who his family was. No DNA test could challenge that or change it.

  “Al?” Zoe called again, her voice edged with impatience. Alison smiled. Zoe was bossing her around. That had to be a good sign.

  Alison paused, her hand on the doorknob. Once she faced the truth in that envelope, the truth on Zoe’s face, there would be no more denying it. No more not knowing it. No more pretending not to feel whatever it made her feel.

  “Al!” Zoe’s voice was more insistent now.

  That’s my girl, Alison thought, and she opened the door.

  acknowledgments

  Words fail, except these two: Thank you.

  Alfred Corn, Andy Ross, Anne Connolly, Anne Lamott, Avril Gau, Ayelet Waldman, Barb Burg, Caroline Leavitt, Christina Baker Kline, Cornelia Durrant, Dani Shapiro, Dawn Raffel, Drew Maran, Elisa Tanaka, Elizabeth Rosner, Ellen Sussman, Ilsa Brink, Jane Juska, John McMurtrie, Joyce Maynard, Julie Whitten, Kate Christensen, Kathleen Caldwell, Katie Crouch, Kayne Doumani, Kim Hubbard, Lalita Tademy, Leslie Berkler, Lolly Winston, Lorraine Glennon, Meg Wolitzer, Michael, Abe, Rosie, Sophie, and Zeke Chabon, Michelle Richmond, Nancy Johnson, Nicole Lamy, Pamela Redmond Satran, Patricia Chao, Peter Barnes, Philippe Bompard, Rita Maran, Roxana Robinson, Sabrina Sayre, Sandra Slater, Sheri Holman, Sid and Anny Maran, Siobhan Cassidy, Susan and Tony DiStefano, Susanna Sonnenberg, Suzy Parker, Terry Gamble, Terry McMillan, Word of Mouth New York, and Word of Mouth Bay Area.

  Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Mesa Refuge, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo. Precious. Priceless. And they all need money. If you can, please send them some.

  Independent bookstores, independent booksellers, independent readers: unsung heroes, keeping writers and writing alive. Buy local!

  My agile, able, and adored independent publisher, Soft Skull Press. Charlie Winton, Jack Shoemaker, Laura Mazer, Maren Fox, Jodi Hammerwold, Julie Pinkerton, Liz Parker, and Sarah Cantor.

  Dan Smetanka, My editor, my better literary half, my prince.

  Linda Loewenthal, agent, friend, and human being extraordinaire. I can’t imagine doing this without you.

  Katrine, l’amour de ma vie, maintenant et pour toujours.

  about the author

  Meredith Maran is an award-winning journalist and the author of several nonfiction books, including My Lie, Class Dismissed, and What It’s Like to Live Now. She’s a book critic for People, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Boston Globe, and she writes for many national magazines. The mother of two grown sons and one growing grandson, she lives in Oakland with her wife. Since she published a poem at age six in Highlights for Kids, she’s dreamed of publishing a novel. This is her first.

  You can reach her at www.meredithmaran.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

  reading group guide

  1. When we meet Alison, she’s full of judgments and fears. Did these characteristics make you dislike her, identify with her, want to know more about her? All of the above?

  2. When Alison was mocking Oberlin’s feminists, trust fund kids, lesbians, guilty white liberals, and pretty much every other group on campus, did you laugh at her or with her? How did her prejudices resemble or challenge or differ from your own?

  3. If you’ve never been attracted to someone of the same gender, did Alison’s lust for Zoe help you understand same-sex attraction? If you’ve experienced same-sex attraction, did Alison’s feelings ring true?

  4. How did Alison’s relationship with her mother impact her attraction to Zoe?

  5. What were Alison’s real reasons for wanting a child so badly? How did her true motivations play out in the kind of mother she was to Corey?

  6. Did you find it credible that Mark accepted Alison’s ex-lover as a member of his family? If so, why? If not, why not?

  7. What were the healthy and unhealthy aspects of Alison and Zoe’s romantic relationship? Of their friendship? What did each of them contribute?

  8. What did you think of Alison’s decision not to tell Mark that Corey might not be his biological child? What did you think of Mark and Alison’s decision not to tell Corey that Zoe was his mother’s ex-lover?

  9
. How do you see the distinctions between privacy and secrecy? Between withholding and deception? Are you keeping any big secrets? If so, why and to what effects? Have you ever regretted disclosing a truth?

  10. The novel parallels twenty-two years of American history and twenty-two years in the characters’ lives. What did you learn about how the external world impacts the inner world and vice versa?

  11. As this novel goes to press, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has recently been overturned, Jane Lynch recently became the first out lesbian to host the Emmy Awards, and gay marriage is legal in six U.S. states and Washington D.C. Do you think Alison would have stayed with Zoe if being gay had been as acceptable in 1989 as it is in 2012? Was Alison being a coward or a good mother by choosing to raise her son with a man instead of staying with Zoe?

  12. Did reading this novel change your thoughts or feelings about what makes a healthy family and/or what makes a family healthy?

  A Theory of Small Earthquakes copyright © 2012 Meredith Maran

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

  Copyright Conventions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eISBN : 978-1-593-76474-6

  Soft Skull Press

  www.softskull.com

  An imprint of COUNTERPOINT

  1919 Fifth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710