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one of them, and neither of them wanted me to. While they don’t love each other in a romantic sense, we are all one family now, and Ike and Ishah are the closest brothers—or half-brothers—I’ve ever seen.
    During the transition, I tap Kiljan’s shoulder and hitch my thumb backwards a few times. While he looks in the rearview, the three scientists in the back seat crane around to see what I’m motioning toward.
    On the phone, I hear a door open. “Hey Min—” Bell’s voice cuts short. “What’s wrong?” That Bell can see that normally hard-to-ruffle Mina is upset means she really looks upset.
    Mina starts to talk, “Abraham is—”
    Then Bell’s voice is loud in my ear. “Baby, what’s happening?”
    I smile at the obvious differences between the women. They even speak at different volumes. “Volcano. No biggie.”
    “Don’t play,” she says. “Mina looks worried. Like, really worried. You always said you’d give it to me straight if you were ever in trouble.”
    She’s right. I did. But I never thought I’d be in trouble when I said that. Still, total honesty is how a relationship with two different women works. “I’d put my odds of getting out of this at sixty percent.”
    “Dear Lord Almighty,” she says. Bell, unlike Mina and me, is a church goer. A true believer. Despite our strange familial lifestyle that she freely admits is ‘living in sin.’ And while I don’t share her beliefs, her earnest love of God, the Bible and all the things that go along with that, have helped me realize that Christians aren’t nearly as bad as the politicians who have hijacked the religion.
    “Bollocks!” Phillip shouts. “It’s glacial flooding!”
    “It’s gaining on us!” Diego adds.
    “Who was that?” Bell asks. “Who did I just hear?”
    “Colleagues,” I say.
    “Why are they shouting?”
    “Because our odds just reversed.”
    “Oh, Lord Jesus.”
    “Listen, baby. I love you.”
    “Love you, Abe.”
    “Give the phone to Ishah.”
    “Ishah!” Bell shouts, and I can hear the warble in her voice. “Daddy’s on the phone!”
    I hear his small voice asking questions as he approaches, but it’s lost in a burst of static. “Daddy...you...where...”
    “Ishah?” I say, and then I shout into the phone. “Ishah!”
    “—addy?”
    The signal cuts out. “God damnit!” I start to dial the number again, but Kiljan stops me with a tap on the shoulder. He points ahead where a small hanger and landing strip emerge at the center of a valley. I recalculate our odds to fifty-fifty, and then look in the side view mirror again. I realize they’re not remotely that good. A churning wall of water, just a mile back, cascades down the hill behind us. I clutch the phone in my hand, heartbroken over not being able to speak to Ishah, who is perhaps the most sensitive and intuitive person I know.
    Goodbye, Ishah, I think, hoping that if Bell’s God is real, he’ll convey the message for me. Love you, son.

 
     
    5
     
    “You have got to be joking,” Phillip complains, and this time I wholeheartedly agree with him. The superjeep kicks up a trail of dust as it roars down the side of the runway—a stretch of compressed, unpaved earth—headed for a small hanger at the far end. It’s not the runway’s condition or the hanger that’s disconcerting, it’s their positioning. To take off, we’re going to have to fly toward the flood water and cloud of ash rolling at us.
    “Could be worse.” Diego grips both front seats, holding himself upright as Kiljan hits the brakes. “There could be no airplane.”
    There still could be, I think, but I keep the dire prediction to myself. It’s bad enough that Diego is jinxing us with his positivity. Before the jeep comes to a complete stop, I shove open my door and slide down to the ground. In my mind’s eye, I charge to the hangar door, kick it in if I have to, and save the day. Reality is a bitch. When my feet hit the hard ground, my legs wobble and