Expatriates Read Online Free Page B

bottles were then installed so that they were half inside and half outside of the hut. During the day, each bottle provided the equivalent lighting of a 50-watt lightbulb.
    The family’s most valuable possession was a dark blue Mitsubishi L300 minivan. It had come to them providentially—a gift from a wealthy friend in New Hampshire who had heard that the Jeffords were in need of transportation on the island. It was one those “God Things”—a wire transfer for twelve thousand dollars arrived just a day after Peter and Rhiannon had prayed together for the first time about their need for a vehicle. Peter often said that the Mitsubishi L300 was too fancy a vehicle for a humble pastor. The modern boxy-looking vehicle seemed incongruous parked beside their modest nipa hut parsonage. The Mitsubishi was just one year old and had only fourteen thousand miles on the odometer when they bought it two years before the Crunch, when their daughter, Sarah, was only five years old.
    In the months leading up to the Crunch, and in the first week of the hyperinflation, Rhiannon spent many hours on the phone and on Skype with her older sister, Janelle, who lived in Florida. The sisters had grown up together on a remote cattle ranch outside of Bella Coola, British Columbia. Though they now lived a world apart, they still felt a very close bond. With the unlimited calling provided by Janelle’s voice over IP phone, they were able to talk for about an hour each weekday. It became a daily ritual for Janelle to call at eight A.M. —which was eight P.M. for Rhiannon. They would both do their household cleaning, laundry, and dishwashing while they shared news and stories.
    Rhiannon also received care packages from Florida and British Columbia via balikbayan boxes. These two-cubic-foot boxes would take between thirty and sixty days to arrive. Many of these packages containing clothes and other essentials were sent by her brother, Ray McGregor, who lived in Michigan.
    Ray was definitely the oddball of the McGregor family. He was a Canadian Army Afghanistan war veteran who had gone on to study military history at Western University in London, Ontario. In his senior year, however, he had dropped out to work on a book about World War II veterans in Michigan.
    Often living in a fifth-wheel “toy hauler” camping trailer towed behind his pickup truck, Ray had first lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and later relocated near Newberry, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Most recently, he kept his trailer parked on a sprawling farm that belonged to the Harrison family. Four generations of the Harrisons had lived on the farm. Ray had met the Harrisons when he began a series of taped interviews with Bob Harrison, who was a B-24 bomber pilot in World War II.
    With the exception of a few of his articles that were published in
Military History
magazine, Ray was a failure as a writer. He had never found a literary agent who was willing to work with him, and his four uncompleted manuscripts had never been published. He made most of his meager living cutting firewood.
    The last e-mail Rhiannon received from Ray before Internet service was disrupted read:
    Dear Rhi:
    Things are getting bad here, even in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I parlayed the last of my cash into food and fuel. The inflation is so crazy that to wait just one day would mean I’d only get half as many groceries for my money.
    I talked with Mom and Dad via Skype. I’m not sure how it is in the P.I., but here in the U.S. the phone lines are getting flaky AND are jammed with calls. Dad said they are doing okay, but they sound befuddled by the economic situation. Dad asked me for advice on finding a stock that would be safe to invest in. Ha! I suggested putting all of their remaining cash in food, fuel, salt blocks, bailing twine, and ammo.
    My old friend Phil Adams told me that I need to “Get Out of Dodge” ASAP. The plan is for Phil to meet me at the