by A. J. Banner
Don jogged up to us, his face sooty and grim. “We can’t find a safe way in. I called 911 again. Responders are eight minutes out.”
How could so little time have passed? I pointed up at Mia’s bedroom window. “Get a ladder. Hurry!”
“You can’t go up there,” Pedra said, her eyes wide.
“We’ve got a ladder,” Don shouted. He and Jessie raced back across the street to their house.
I pulled the phone from my pocket, called Johnny’s cell. No answer, so I dialed information for his hotel and reached a perky-voiced woman at the front desk. “Give me Dr. Johnny McDonald’s room. It’s urgent.”
“Hold on, please. I’ll try that extension.” But the phone kept ringing in Johnny’s room. The clerk’s voice came back on the line. “He’s not picking up. I’ll put you through to his voice mail.”
I left him a frantic message and hung up, just as Don and Jessie returned with the ladder. Don propped it against the side of the Kimballs’ house, below Mia’s window. A group of neighbors gathered around; others dragged more garden hoses across the street, shooting crisscrossing arcs of water at the flames.
“Hold the ladder,” I said, my heart racing. I slipped my cell phone into my purse, handed the purse to Pedra.
“You’re not going up,” Don said.
“I can fit through the window,” I said.
“So can I,” Jessie said.
“You stay here. Don’t argue.” I elbowed my way to the ladder, grabbed a brick from the Kimballs’ side garden, and dropped it in my sweatshirt pocket as I climbed.
“Wait!” Pedra shouted. “Let Don go instead.”
“I’m fine!” I yelled down. “See if there’s another way in, something we missed.”
“We’re on it,” Don said, and ran around back again.
Verne Frenkel stepped forward and held the ladder in place. “Steady as she goes,” he said.
“Be careful up there,” Jessie shouted.
“Don’t let go of the ladder.” I kept my gaze trained upward. My knees turned to rubber, the palms of my hands sweaty. I clenched my teeth, determined to ignore my fear of heights. Smoke thickened in the air, stinging my eyes and making me cough.
At the top, I found Mia’s window open a few inches but locked in place. Inside, a night-light revealed the shapes of a dresser, a rocking chair, and a single bed. But no Mia. The alarm had gone silent. A sliver of light glowed around the frame of the bedroom door. The fire seethed on the other side, a monster trying to gain entry.
“Mia, where are you?” I shouted through the screen.
A small form crawled out from behind the bed. “I’m right here. I want my mommy!”
“Don’t move. I’m coming for you.” I popped out the screen. “Watch out below!” I dropped the screen to the ground. “Stay out of the way, honey.”
Mia cringed, crawling backward.
Holding the ladder with my left hand, I swung the brick in my right, broke a hole in the glass. I tossed the brick into Mia’s room, onto the floor, then reached in and unlocked the window. In a moment, I stood inside the room, a blanket of heat pressing on me. I stepped over crunching broken glass and scooped Mia into my arms. She felt much heavier than her thirty pounds. “Hold on around my neck. Don’t let go.”
She nearly strangled me with her grip. Two more steps and we reached the bedroom door, the heat almost blasting us backward. “Chad! Monique!” I yelled. No answer. “I have Mia!” Still, no reply.
I headed back to the window and climbed over the sill, a tricky maneuver with a child in my arms. “I have her!” I shouted. “Coming down!”
“We’ve got you!” Verne called up. “Hurry.”
On the way down the ladder, Mia grew heavier by the moment, although she was small for her age.
“Mommy,” she whimpered. “My Cinderella shoes.”
“We can get you new ones,” I said. Where were Chad and Monique? I hoped that Don had found them, that they had escaped.
“I’m scared,” Mia whispered, looking into my eyes.
“Me, too. But we’re going to be okay.” I clamped Mia’s small body between my arms, hoping not to drop her. The nauseating stink of burning chemicals blew through the air, and suddenly, something exploded overhead. A tempest of debris rained down through the smoke. Flames shot from Mia’s window, embers catching an updraft and landing on our roof, igniting the cedar shingles.
Jessie was shouting below. “Your house is on fire. Sarah, hurry!”
In an instant, crazy thoughts raced through my mind. My manuscript, the wedding photos, my journal, legal papers, passports. The painting of Miracle Mouse. Kamba wood carvings from my mother in the Peace Corps in Kenya. My wedding band on the dresser. I always took off my ring at night. I had to get back into the house, but I couldn’t rush.
Five more rungs and we reached solid ground. As I transferred Mia into Pedra’s arms, the wail of sirens approached in the distance. The fire had flared across our roof. The master bedroom lit up from within, illuminated in a dreamlike glow I could see through the skylight. More debris pelted down, and when I looked upward, a large black object was hurtling toward me in slow motion, a meteor, space wreckage tumbling end over end, down and down, and then I saw nothing at all.
CHAPTER THREE
I woke up in a drab gray room, a mask pressed to my face, feeding me moist oxygen. I reached up to touch my painful forehead, felt a rough bandage against my fingers. My head throbbed as if a concrete high-rise had fallen on my skull. Something pulled at the back of my hand, an IV dripping fluids into my veins. I wore a soft cotton hospital gown and socks beneath a crisp sheet and blanket. Where were my clothes? Where was my purse? I’d handed it off to Pedra.
I could make out an open door to a tiny bathroom, a window overlooking the woods, a metal countertop on which a paper coffee cup sat, the blue Shadow Café logo printed on the side.
Which hospital was this? How long had I been unconscious? By the angle of pale sunlight, I was sure it must be afternoon. A distant voice echoed on an intercom, soft-soled shoes squeaked past the room, and even through the mask, I smelled rubbing alcohol and other medicinal odors.
A deep, familiar voice spoke in a hushed tone just outside the door. I tried to sit up, but my limbs felt leaden. A few words drifted in here and there.
“. . . need to stay with her,” a man said. “I don’t know how long. She’s my wife.”
I pulled off the mask and called out, “Johnny!” My voice came out weak and raspy, but somehow he heard me. He strode into the room, dropping the cell phone into his coat pocket. Beneath the unzipped jacket, he wore a rumpled white dress shirt, and he had on black slacks, his dark hair a mess, his face pale and drawn. Despite his disheveled appearance, he gave off a forceful masculinity, a mesmerizing charisma. His brilliant blue eyes were filled with concern as he leaned over the bed and hugged me.
“Sarah,” he said. He kissed my cheek, my lips, and I reached my arms around his neck. How I’d missed the feel of him, the scent of pine on his skin.
“Where am I?” I whispered in his ear.
“You’re in Cove Hospital. You’ve got a concussion. You were hit by falling timber.”
Last thing I remembered, I’d been handing off Mia to Pedra. “How long have I been here?”
He checked his wristwatch, the silver band shiny in the light. “It’s almost two o’clock.” He sat in the chair by the bed, still holding my hand.
I felt like a dry leaf about to blow away. “The Kimballs? Chad and Monique?”
“They . . .” His words died, his eyes full of pain.
“What are you saying?”
He shook his head, squeezing my hand. His bereft expression told me everything. I went numb, my mind grasping for an image of Monique—her vibrant smile, her shimmering dress, everything about her in fluid motion. “No. It can’t be true.”
“I’m so sorry,” Johnny whispered.
I drew a shuddering breath, tears slipping down my cheeks. A mu
ndane memory came to me, of Chad brushing pepper off a salmon steak that Monique had marinated for the barbecue. Chad hated pepper. How could it be that they were both gone? “What about Mia?”
“She’s okay.”
“But she’s an orphan now. She—”
“She’s with her grandmother.” He climbed onto the bed beside me, his weight depressing the thin hospital mattress. He pulled me into his arms.
“What about everyone else?”
“The neighbors? Everyone’s okay. I sent a message to your mom. She’s driving to Nairobi, to a phone.”
“I don’t want her to worry—”
“You know she will.” He handed me a crumpled tissue from his pocket. “What the hell happened?”
I wiped my cheeks. “I have no idea. Everything was fine . . . A noise woke me up.”
“What kind of noise?”
“An explosion or something. What about our house?”
He interlaced his fingers with mine. “Badly damaged. Okay, ruined.”
“Everything? But the firefighters were on their way—”
“The second floor was already in flames. They couldn’t save it. At least, the house is not habitable.”
I remembered burning embers carried on the wind. But how could our entire home be lost? Monique and Chad dead? The room shrank; voices in the hall grated against my eardrums. “When can we go back? I need to see—”
“You need to stay here for a couple of days. We can go back when we know your head is okay.”
I let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “My head will never be okay, ever again.”
“I’m so sorry.” His pocket emitted a low buzzing sound. He pulled out his cell phone, glanced at the screen, then tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Homeowners’ insurance. I’ll call them back later.”
“You’re already talking to them?” But of course he was. Johnny had always been efficient. He thought ahead, a trait I admired in him.
“I had to make sure we have rental coverage for temporary housing,” he said. “I’ve been talking to Puget Sound Energy, the county PUD. The power and water were shut off. Everything’s gone.”
But no, not everything. Not our memories, not my perfect recall of the first time I’d stepped inside Johnny’s house. He’d invited me over for dinner, our second date, and he’d bought my favorite outdoor plant, a potted turquoise hydrangea. He’d forgotten to remove the price tag. But he’d melted my heart with his efforts to impress me, especially when he’d burned the lasagna. We’d ended up sharing peanut butter sandwiches by candlelight. I’d laughed at his jokes, told him about Miracle Mouse. He’d listened with rapt attention, watching my lips, sending waves of heat through me, his long-lashed eyes full of intent. And soon, the small talk had ceased. Now we would have to hold on to the memories—they were all we had to keep us going.
CHAPTER FOUR
My body and brain needed time to recover, the neurologist said. He was a birdlike man with large spectacles and a receding hairline. He repeated what Johnny had told me already: I’d suffered a concussion, a mild form of brain injury. I was under observation for a couple of days. I might experience headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of short-term memory.
That night, I drifted in and out of shallow, restless sleep. Whenever I awoke in a sweat, half-remembered dreams lingered at the edge of my mind. No, not dreams. Nightmares. Flashes of fire, falling timbers, the glow around Mia’s bedroom door. Sometimes I dreamed we were home again, the white bugbane flowers glowing in the moonlight, Monique standing on the porch, her hair blowing across her face.
Johnny grieved in his own quiet way. He slept on the hospital bed beside me, his body pressed against mine, ignoring the guest cot the nurse had unfolded for him. In the morning, he got up early and showered in the tiny bathroom. His suitcase sat on a fold-out table, still holding his conference wear: suits, ties, dress socks.
He ventured out to take care of business, returning with ill-fitting clothes for me, toiletries, and magazines. Thankful for my intact cell phone, I checked my voice mail and returned calls from friends, including a tearful message from Natalie, who had arrived in New Delhi. “I’m coming home,” she said. “Didn’t I say this would happen? Didn’t I?”
“It wasn’t a tree falling on the house,” I told her.
“But something hit you in the head. Could’ve been a tree branch.”
“I suppose, but—”
“This isn’t over yet. I feel something worse coming on. Only this time it’s not going to be a tree or a fire. It’s going to be less obvious, something insidious.”
“You watch too many scary movies,” I said. “You and Dan enjoy India. I’ll see you in a few months.” I hung up before she could protest. Then I called my editor, and when I claimed to be all right, someone else spoke through me, another Sarah, a shadow envoy created to fool the world.
My mother telephoned a few hours later when she reached Nairobi. Her distant voice echoed across the continents. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. My head still hurt, my thoughts fuzzy.
“Why don’t you go home? You can stay there as long as you want. Your room is made up. There’s a key under the turtle stone.”
She’d bought the gray stone turtle right before my father had moved out. I’d been nine years old. My mother and I had stayed in the house, a Craftsman-style bungalow in Portland, Oregon, until I’d left home at eighteen. Suddenly, I longed for my childhood bedroom with its serene view of a wooded ravine.
“Sweet of you to offer,” I said. “But it’s too far away. We’ll find something here. It’s going to take a while to get back on our feet.”
“I’ll come back.”
“No need. We’re okay.” My mother would only get in the way. She would try to be helpful, but I would sense her itch to travel, and she was doing more good in her village in Kenya, where she taught sign language to deaf children.
“I love you,” my mother said, a catch in her voice.
“I love you, too.” I hung up, tears in my eyes.
A series of visitors followed, including Pedra and Jessie Ramirez, who brought a vase of multicolored flowers and a greeting card with a picture of Wonder Woman on the front. The message inside read,
Kind and caring,
kick-butt, too,
saving little Mia,
that is you.
Nearly everyone on Sitka Lane had signed the card.
Come back to us soon. You’re a hero. We love you.
I dissolved into tears. I didn’t feel like a hero. What if I’d climbed the ladder sooner? Could I have rescued Chad and Monique as well? What was done was done. Pedra, Jessie, and I cried together in my hospital room, holding one another, grateful for what had been saved, grieving for what had been lost.
The next afternoon, while Johnny was out, the doctor returned to my room one last time before discharging me. He performed a quick neurological exam, testing my reflexes and responses—touch, hearing, smell, taste, sight.
Was I no longer physically myself? Could I not trust my senses? Maybe not. I’d awoken in the night and spotted a silhouette in the doorway, the shape of a man, but Johnny had been in the bed beside me, snoring softly. Terrified, I’d squeezed my eyes shut, and when I’d opened them a minute later, the man had disappeared. Perhaps I’d been dreaming. Or hallucinating.
After the doctor tested my balance and strength, he gave me a pass to leave the hospital. “But you need to rest,” he said. “No strenuous physical or mental activity for a while.”
“I have a new book coming out. I’ve got signings scheduled—”
“Cancel them.”
“But it’s the way I make a living.” I couldn’t turn off my mind. In fact, my neurons and synapses felt more active than usual.
“At least for a few weeks.” And then he was gone, as Johnny returned with shopping bags, which he placed on the counter next to a smattering of gifts from friends.
“I’m free,�
� I said. “Let’s go to the house.”
Johnny’s eyes darkened. “Remember, there is no house.”
“Still, I need to see.”
“If you say so. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.” He left his cell phone on the counter, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. A moment later, his phone buzzed. Unknown Number flashed on the screen. I answered, “Hello? This is Dr. McDonald’s—”
A dial tone blared in my ear. The words CALL ENDED lit the screen in bright red letters. I heard the toilet flush, and Johnny came out. “Who called?” he said, washing his hands at the sink.
“I don’t know. They hung up.”
His lips turned down, his brow furrowed. “That’s odd. I’ve had a few hang-ups lately.” He tore a paper towel from the roll and dried his hands.
“Someone stalking you?” I put the phone on the counter.
“Happens sometimes. They’ll give up, eventually.” He threw the paper towel in the trash, stood behind me, and wrapped his arms around my waist, both of us gazing into the mirror. He looked gaunt, with new worry lines next to his eyes. He’d been working too hard, not sleeping enough.
“I’m well enough to help you now,” I said, reaching up to touch the stubble on his cheek. “You don’t have to take care of everything.”
“I don’t mind. Doc said you need to rest.”
“We can still make decisions together.” But he was right. I barely recognized my reflection in the mirror—sallow skin, sunken eyes, limp hair. In the author photo printed in my books, my shiny hair bounced around my shoulders and I looked radiant, alive.
“We need to decide where we’re going,” Johnny said.
“Home. I want to go home.” I leaned back against his chest, an ache of nostalgia in my bones.
Johnny kissed the top of my head. “We can’t sleep in the ruins.” But I wanted to. By sheer force of will, I would make the ashes rise and reconstitute themselves into the familiar objects of home.
I turned to gaze up into his eyes. “I know it’s going to be hard, but—”
“We can start again in a new place,” Johnny said. “We could move to that town that gets rain year-round. Forks, where they filmed those vampire movies. It’s so wet there, nothing ever catches fire.”
