I almost answered, but another guest was coming down.
The evacuation seemed to take forever.
Finally, Sophie appeared beside Karen.
“That’s everyone,” she said.
Karen descended without looking at me.
Emergency responders arrived moments later. They checked on the guests, including the man with the sore ankle, and kept everyone away from the staircase.
Nobody had fallen through the deck.
But a section near the railing had cracked and sagged enough to make the danger unmistakable.
I sat on my front steps, shaking.
For nearly 20 years, that rooftop had been the safest place I knew.
Now I couldn’t stop imagining what might have happened if I’d waited another five minutes.
Sophie approached me while the others gathered near the sidewalk.
“Are you Evelyn?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry about all this. Karen told us you invited everyone.”
I looked up.
“She said what?”
“She said you’d agreed to let us use the terrace. That you might come upstairs once we were settled.”
