June 25, 2006, 11:35 p.m.  BOOM!

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t move. I was sure that Osama Bin Laden had flown a plane over Falls Church, straight to Jackson Street, dropped an atomic bomb and blown up the house next door. I sat on my couch in a sudden thick blackness, my heart in my stomach, my stomach in my feet. I could hear faint tinkling glass. The torrential downpour of the rain outside became much more audible and violently louder. Then, I found I couldn’t breathe.

“Dad,” I whispered, coughing with every breath. “Daddy…” a little louder, “DAD!!!”

“Margaret, are you okay?” came my father’s voice feebly from the other side of the house.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…come here! What happened?” I yelled back, my voice breaking with every syllable.

I pulled out my cell phone, which was always glued to my side, and opened it; its artificial blue glow shone ferociously in the frightening black of my house.

My house…my house…my house! Why was a tree in my house? Enormous, gargantuan, looming, the tree from our back yard had ripped itself from the earth and crashed onto our roof; it lay diagonally across my house. All I had was the light from my cell phone, debris was still ripping from the ceiling and falling to the floor, and my parents were on the other side of the tree. The air was a thick vapor of dust and insulation my dog stood at my side whimpering, and my parents were on the other side of the tree. I was standing in the family room with my dog, it was pitch black, I couldn’t breathe, the thunder shook my body, I was being rained on, and my parents were on the other side of the tree.

Luckily, my dog is not a stupid one, she knew to stay put. I waved my phone for my parents to see and they crossed the disaster in the living room to join me in the family room. My dad opened the kitchen window and yelled to the terrified neighbors who had begun to congregate on the street, “IT’S OKAY! WE’RE ALL FINE!”

I heard my mother say to herself, “Oh, gracious.”

My dad opened the back door, the only available exit in the house now, leaving from the family room. The uprooted tree had unearthed right outside the door – a huge, massive, and intriguing monument of disaster and hideous natural beauty.

“Holy s…,” the profanity accidentally spilledg from my chattering teeth. “Sorry, Dad,” I remembered my manners. “It’s fine, sweetie,” he replied back. “Let’s go outside.”

That night I had been watching “The Hills Have Eyes” in thin pajamas. My room was upstairs so I could retrieve no clothes. I stood outside in the midnight storm holding on to my dog; I eventually had to lock her in my car. I had to let the windows down a bit so she could breathe. My car got soaked and hairy.

I stood beneath the storming sky, practically naked, thoroughly soaked, and humiliated as police and other emergency people came to my destroyed home, asking questions of my parents who I am sure had gone into some state of shock as they were acting oddly normal and without urgency. Me, on the other hand, I’ll admit that I had a hysterical moment by my car – sobbing and hyperventilating. I had no idea of what to do, and the only person that came to my head to call was my friend Alina.

She arrived almost immediately, embraced me in the rain, and let me weep into her arms. She removed her sweater and gave it to me and she took me in to stay the night.

Neither my parents nor I slept much that night.

For the majority of the summer we lived in the Marriott Town Suites by Larry Graves Park. I did travel a lot this summer so I was never really home, but then again when I was home, I was never really “home.” I discovered that I spent maybe one or two nights in that hotel room; I was always trying to sleep at other friends’ houses. I couldn’t bring myself to call a 2-roomed hotel suite my “home.” We then moved into an all-paid-for rental house on Brook Drive.

We weren’t even allowed to go back into our own home. Insurance had deemed it too dangerous. My home was dangerous. Nevertheless, I gave the insurance company the imaginary “finger” and I went to my house with my father. It broke both our hearts, although neither of us verbalized it, for me to stand on his crushed grand Yamaha piano to climb over the tree, up the stairs, and into my room. When my feet struck the deeper notes of the lower octaves, they rang out eerily into the house.

I saved what I could from my room: my laptop, camera, iPod, some favorite pillows, my baby blankie. It is odd explaining the appearance of my room. The tree, fallen from one end of my house, lay the diagonal length of the house, finishing off on my closet and out (on) my window. My closet was crushed; I couldn’t get any clothes or shoes. It looked like a hungry dinosaur had chomped off a corner of my room.

I had to jump on my father’s piano to get down. The notes screeched out obscure minor chords, reverberating into our living room with no mercy.

The tree had busted our attic. Boxes that had once held family treasures were strewn out across the floor among the insulation and bricks and dust and leaves. There were kindergarten Christmas tree ornaments on the floor – a roughly cut piece of construction paper with some glitter and pasted-on noodles, something only a parent would save. Preschool art projects, soaked with rain. A box labeled “Mom’s Treasures” had split open, her and Dad’s first date’s movie ticket stub was soiled. A tiny handmade cotton baby dress lay crumpled and brown under a branch. A single red sparkly shoe (“Like Dorothy’s shoes! Right, Mommy? Just like the Wizard of Oz!”) lay among the wreckage in our living room.

Rooms in my home are empty now. Insurance cleared them out so they could start working (they have yet to begin). My clothes were all specially dry-cleaned and sent back to me. Most of them turned out fine, with the exception of some – one of my precious shirts from Chile was ruined. I was fuming; I wanted to demand a plane ticket to Chile solely to replace it. Naturally, I wasn’t granted one. However, I did get to buy new shoes! All for free, because all mine were destroyed.

A line of storms at the beginning of the summer of 2006 did a lot of damage in various locations all over Northern Virginia. One of these fated sites was 412 Jackson Street. This is not just an address, a place, a building that a tree destroyed; it was my house, my family’s home.

Where is home now? Is it here, on Brook Drive? Is it still on Jackson Street – an empty broken shell of a house under a big blue tarp? Is it my car? My best friend’s house? The senior alcove? My dance studio?

If ever I’m leaving a place, like school or dance class for example, and I am faced with the following question, I find myself hesitating.

“Margaret, are you going home now?” The truth is, I don’t know where I’m going.