The Storm and the Safe Harbor

In early summer, when Clara was thirty-five weeks pregnant, a freak Pacific storm of almost winter fury battered the Northern California coastline. Ninety-mile-an-hour gales whipped thirty-foot swells against the granite cliffs of Big Sur, rattling the reinforced thermal glass of the estate and knocking out municipal power grids across Monterey County. Inside the Glass House, the industrial backup generators hummed flawlessly, keeping the interior warm, bright, and insulated from the…