All His Angels Are Starving

Rain and wind battered her as soon as Nancy Huang Spencer took the stairwell out of the underground subway station. She struggled with her umbrella; the wind threatened to steal her away, and a part of her almost wished it would.

Her pink rainboots splashed through puddles. She crossed several streets, then turned the corner, and finally arrived at the upscale restaurant where she worked. It was just off Times Square, and even with the unrelenting rain, countless people bustled up and down the busy city blocks. Nancy stepped inside, smiled at the morning concierge, waved to the kitchen staff, then rushed into the women’s changing room to change and apply her makeup and convince herself not to cry.

Dressed in the white shirt, black pants, and black apron of her uniform, Nancy tied her hair back into a neat ponytail. Like her daughter, Nancy also had long dark hair. She was slender and pale and she’d often get hit on by men mistaking her for a student. Even with the ring on her finger, guys couldn’t seem to leave her alone, and a part of her still loved every bit of the attention.

That was how she ended up pregnant during her second semester in college by her Classical History professor. He was married with children and was tenured, and she didn’t want him to get in any trouble, so she didn’t tell him.

Her parents, furious, demanded to know who the father was, but Nancy kept quiet. Her friends, everyone she knew, begged her to get an abortion. This would ruin her life. She was only eighteen and being stupid and she couldn’t even admit who the father was.

But Nancy had held firm. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew she had to have this child. It wasn’t rational. She knew it wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t about pro-life or pro-choice like so many people had argued with her. It wasn’t even about her Catholic upbringing. The whole thing sucked. Being pregnant and the disapproval and bitter disappointment from her family. But she didn’t care.

She’d just wanted her baby more than anything. She dropped out of school and raised Jenny as best she could. Her parents let her live with them till Jenny was three, and then Nancy and her baby were out on their own. She’d done her best, hadn’t she? She’d found work. She stopped sleeping around and smoking weed; she’d sacrificed everything she could for Jenny.

She still woke up in cold sweats wondering if she had enough in her account to see herself and Jenny through the week. If she could keep the electricity on in their one-bedroom rundown apartment. If she’d have to tell Jenny that she was trying yet another diet and that’s why mommy wouldn’t be eating tonight; tap water would be plenty. It was strained, and maybe Nancy had screamed too often and lost her temper a lot, but it was the best she could do.

Nancy had tried talking to Henry about how she felt. She’d known him for four years now, and they were finally family, but he took Jenny’s side. He wanted her to do what was best for her, and while Nancy admired that... she didn’t want to let her daughter go.

“Fuck,” she whispered when she’d finished tucking in her shirt. She had to pee.

She got into a stall, undid her pants, and sat down, wishing she could call Henry, if only just to hear his deep, comforting voice. And she could pretend that she was at home, safe in his big strong arms, kissing and touching one another till nothing else mattered...

But intimacy felt impossible these days. Ever since Jenny announced her decision to go to Stanford and flaunting that dumb sweater all the time, it was one argument after another.

She couldn’t even remember the fight from this morning. It all blurred together. It was always something dumb. She knew it was dumb. But she couldn’t help herself. It felt like the only way to get Jenny’s attention these days. The girl seemed to be constantly pushing away.

Nancy knew the things she said to her daughter didn’t help at all. How could you be so selfish? Why do you want to leave us? Are you punishing me? It made her sound like her mother, and she didn’t speak to her mother.

“Stupid, stupid,” she said to herself as she flushed. Ever since Henry and Oliver moved in, Jenny had drifted further and further away. Oliver would follow Jenny around, begging to play games and watch movies, and she would just distance herself. She was irritable all the time, she stopped going to church, and now this Stanford thing was too much.

Why couldn’t she understand that all Nancy wanted was for her not to suffer like she did? Not to make the same dumb mistakes. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders and smoothed down her apron.

“Okay, Nancy,” she said to herself, eyes shut. “Big smile. Everything will be okay.” Tonight, she’d sit with Jenny and talk and figure it all out. And if Nancy had to move to California and take care of Jenny, then so be it.

As she pushed open the stall door, the lights flickered. The floor lurched violently, and she fell back onto the toilet seat. The door slammed shut, its metal parts rattling. She slid to the floor and brought her knees to her chest, hands over her head, trying to make herself as small as possible as everything shook. The water in the toilet sloshed, and the lid dropped with a loud bang. An earthquake? Here?

As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Nancy hesitantly lowered her hands. Other than the lights flickering, the rest of the bathroom looked fine. She got to her feet and stepped back into the changing room. Two other women were there, both of them looking as shocked as she felt but otherwise okay.

The taste of iron was in her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue. But it wasn’t too bad. Just a surprising shock. She sighed with relief, hoping the high school where Jenny and Oliver went was okay.

She pulled up her daughter's name and pressed call. It went to voicemail. “Okay,” she said to herself, pacing the room. It might've disrupted a cell tower or something. Or maybe everyone was dialing loved ones and emergency lines. There could be partial blackouts.

The other two women were saying something, both of them looking at their screens, but Nancy couldn’t think straight. Her heart was racing much harder than it had when she’d been stuck in the bathroom during the earthquake. Thoughts kept nagging and tugging, and she felt like she was choking. She called Oliver and got the same result. She texted both of them. Then called Jenny again. Nothing worked.

Finally, nearing the point of hysterics, she called Henry. He picked up.

“Oh my god, Nancy,” he said, breathing hard. In the background, there was incessant honking and shouting and the drumming of the rain. He must still be on his way to work. “Are you alright? I’ve been calling and calling, and nothing would connect.”

“Yes,” she said, hugging herself with one arm and still pacing. She was vaguely aware of one of her coworkers sobbing. “I’m safe. Nothing happened here. But I can’t reach the kids.”

Henry was silent.

“Henry? The kids, Henry. Do you think you can drive by the school?”

“Nancy,” he said, but then his voice broke. “Something’s happened here. I’m stuck in traffic. I don’t think I can get out anytime soon.”

“Are you hurt?” she asked, wishing she’d asked him that sooner. She was struggling against the urge to chew off her fingernails. “Henry, are you hurt? Is it bad out there?”

“No,” he said. He took a loud breath. She heard him moving around. “I’m in the car. I’m fine. But listen. A building here just... it’s gone. There’s just a big ugly hole in the ground now and people are freaking out. I’m freaking out.”

“What?”

Did something hit him on the head? What was he talking about?

He continued, “It was a hotel. The whole building... just gone. And look at the skyline. Nancy, this-”

The line went dead.

“Hello?” she whispered. She looked up as one of the others rushed out of the changing room.

The other one was sitting on a bench holding her phone. “The Empire State Building,” she said. “It’s gone.”

Nancy rushed over and looked at the phone. There was an ugly hole in the ground with exposed metal beams where the Empire State Building once stood. A massive crowd of people forming around it.

How could places just disappear? Dread and worry twisted into one sharp pain that throbbed from the center of her chest and radiated up to her head. She texted Jenny again. Then Oliver. The messages wouldn’t even send.

“Please,” she whispered over and over as she looked through the news websites. Article after article popped up, and she read every headline quickly before swiping for the next.

Global Earthquake Shakes Every Corner of the Planet. Scientists Baffled.

Buildings Vanish in Freak Earthquake.

Hundreds of Thousands Presumed Missing.

Millions without energy.

Hospitals, holy sites, schools, hotels, museums, warehouses... She was tapping furiously at this point. St. Peter’s Basilica, Oxford University, Masjid al-Haram, the Space Needle in Seattle; the lists just kept coming, each one longer than the last. She finally got to a webpage for New York.

Not daring to breathe, she scrolled through the list. Every few seconds, the page updated, and she lost her place and had to start again. An elementary school. A library. A hotel. A college building. A restaurant. She dropped the phone when she read Manhattan High School for the Sciences.

She rushed out of the changing room. In the main dining area, chairs were knocked over. Coworkers and the customers from the morning rush were huddled and taking pictures and consoling each other. Nancy felt like she was seeing them through a thick layer of plastic that cut her off from the rest of the world. Someone tried to speak to her, but she didn’t even recognize them. She marched out the front door and stepped into the pouring rain.

Traffic was completely clogged. She looked down the street seeing nothing but taxis and large SUVs and even a mail truck. Everyone was honking. The rain was relentless, somehow worse than before, and she knew there would be no way to get a cab in this.

Her feet moved on their own. She’d forgotten her boots and her coat. She was still in her restaurant uniform, running in black sandals. People were rushing back and forth; she weaved between them, her apron flapping, her arms pumping.

She slipped at an intersection when the strap of one of her sandals broke, and she broke the fall with her hands. Someone tried to help her up, but she pushed them away. Her pants were torn at the knees. Her palms were bleeding. Nancy yanked off her sandals and kept running.

The rain soaked her completely. Her ponytail whipped her cheeks. The pavement was unforgiving to the soles of her feet, but at least she didn’t have to stop at any lights.

It couldn’t be true. It was impossible. It must be a hoax. They must be lying. Buildings don’t just go missing.

It could be a sinkhole. Maybe that was it. Maybe Jenny and the others were buried and first responders were digging them out right now. Please, God, she begged with every bit of her soul. Please. Please just let them be okay.

By the time she got near the school, some nineteen long city blocks later, Nancy was bleeding profusely from her hands and knees and feet. She was drenched in cold rainwater and sweat. Her lungs were on the verge of collapsing. Every step she took burned, and she was sure there was a pebble or piece of asphalt lodged in her heel. She couldn’t see the school. It simply wasn’t there. The surrounding buildings seemed just fine, but the school, her children’s school was gone.

She pushed through the crowd of other parents wailing and shouting. She ducked under umbrellas and squeezed and squirmed her way to the front. She only stopped when she got to the blue barricades the police had set up. A cop shouted at her, something about staying back, the site was dangerous, but all she could hear was her own heart pounding.

She rubbed the rain from her eyes and blinked at the jagged hole in the ground. It was brown earth, with the rain collecting in a dark pool. As though some enormous entity had reached out and scooped the building up in an unruly fist.

She dropped to her knees, balling up her apron with both hands. She squeezed the cloth tight, unable to take her eyes off the gaping hole in the ground. She’d stopped crying. Stopped gasping for air. Stopped rambling. All she could do was stare.