I brace the door as little, freckled fingers curl around the outside.
Shouldn’t it be slow when your world changes? It’s not my experience. It’s fast as lightning and stings as much. She was at the top of the stairs, alive, talking. A flush to her creamy skin from exertion. Now she lies on the black-and-white tiles of the entry hall, her body angled all wrong. Her mouth open. Her eyes still closed.
That hard, tumbleweed of reality is still pushing against my chest, trying to get me to release something. I pull at my clothes like they’re strangling me. I can’t breathe.
There were no words. There was no time. I didn’t get to say anything, barely opened my mouth before it was over.
It’s over.
I take a heaped breath in and hold it. My lungs bursting with numbing pain.
I turn to see my father perched at the top of the stairs, staring at me mutely for several seconds, the wail of more sirens gathering seeming otherworldly. The sky screaming for a take back. We move our eyes millimeter by millimeter to the body at the bottom of the stairs, neither one really wanting to see what we already know. Frankie’s tiny fists pound on the door like a heartbeat. “Nora, what’s wrong?”
Everything.
Everything.
Realization is heavy and it adds weights to my father’s shoulders until he sinks to his knees in a knight’s stance, mangled sobs heaving from his chest.
I think, He won’t move.
I think, He should run down and help her.
I know it won’t do any good.
She looks like one of Frankie’s dolls, a frozen sculpture, robbed of life, of grace. I almost expect her face to be cracked, shattered inwards like she was in fact shaped from porcelain. But she looks untouched. She looks like she was arranged this way, a mannequin that was never alive.
My father rotates slowly, still crouching, dirty-blond hair falling over his forehead. Hate waves creep toward me, pulling me to him. It’s a look I’m already very used to, but it darkens with every breath he takes.
Eyes half measured with tears and steely hatred, he whispers, “This is your fault,” and something inside me breaks, painfully pulled open with strong hands that hurt again and again. It’s my heart, my armor, my survival, all shattering and crashing to the floor.
Gently, I pry Frankie’s fingers from the bathroom door and close it carefully, ignoring her pleas. I don’t want her to see this. She can’t see this. Oh God, she can’t see this. Panic winds my breath tighter. I turn my back to the bathroom door, look up at the ceiling, which seems black and swirling with empty stars, and I scream.
3
Super
KETTLE
I like the way the metal of the fire escape creaks beneath my feet. The precariousness of it. It’s grating, rusty, and totally man-made. Ordinary people constructed these parts of the building for a practical purpose, and the outside is decorated with that commonality. It drags down the grandness of the stately brownstones, down closer to my level—in the dirt and oily puddles. But mostly, I like the promise of fresh air. The view from the top of a grimy building, an immaculate brownstone, or a department store is the same if you lift your eyes. Just sky, nothing else. When I’m up here, I can pretend. I can forget the outstretched hands, the hungry eyes, and the bellies that are never quite full. I can forget that five nights out of seven, I sleep wedged between a dumpster and a sewer pipe. Pretend that I can’t hear and feel the toilet flush every time one of them uses the bathroom.
This is my time to be alone. I don’t need long, but minutes where my mind can relax are precious.
Rocking back and forth on the platform, I put my hands on my hips and sigh, reminding myself that I’m luckier than most down there.
I swing my slightly too-big sneakers up over the concrete lip of the building and land with a thud on the roof. Dirt, leaves, and rubbish swish across the tiled surface. The pigeons don’t flee; they simply shuffle to a safer distance, huddling in a circle like they’re plotting something. A tunnel of warm air hits me in the face. It’s too warm. I put my hand up like I can touch it, scanning the sky and wondering where it came from. Rolling my shoulders, I feel a warm chill. It’s something odd and wrong that causes my skin to prickle, and my hair to fray and stand on end. It’s like anger rising. Steam pushing the lid of a pot up with frantic bubbling.
My nostrils burn. Singe. A smoky cloud slaps my eyes.
Fire.
I squint through the growing smoke, the black soot casting old pictures in front of my eyes. A small, blackened hearth in a flimsy, tar-papered building. Hands covered in calluses and needle pricks held out to warm themselves. The letters U and S not meaning what I thought they meant. Not ‘us’. Not us. Only them.
My head falls and I close my eyes, hearing the words, seeing the characters I’ve almost forgotten how to write, flaring black behind my eyelids. Head down. Prove your loyalty. Show respect.
Across the alley, the low-cost apartment building shudders with a chorus of screams and shouts as what was once a peaceful morning erupts into chaos. I snap back to the present and search the breaking structure before me.
Halfway down the apartment block, the fire escape groans and I watch as a mother, her baby tucked unceremoniously under her arm, scrambles down the metal rungs, her husband right behind her. Thick, black smoke physically shoves them from their home. She glances up at me briefly, opening her mouth but then closing it as her husband pushes her roughly in the back. Her eyes, her whole body, become focused on putting one frightened foot in front of the next.
I start toward the edge of the brownstone I’m on, realizing there’s nothing I can do from here. Taking a slice of the sky for later, I swallow what’s left of my peace, leaving an empty, unsatisfied feeling in the hollow of my stomach.
I breathe in deeply, wanting that taste of fresh air but savoring only acrid smoke. My ears are punctured by the gathering clamor of noise and panic. Plumes of blinding smoke pours from the windows of the apartments above as now, the fire really means business. The family carefully picks their way down the fire escape way too slowly. I pause, waiting for the sirens and lights.
It takes just five seconds for the first siren to scream.
Gripping the rails, I watch as a piece of charred cardboard floats lazily on the breeze, winding its way up into the sky like a spirit.
One long scream howls through the morning air and I turn to its origin, behind me in the brownstone. Confused, my head snaps back to the apartment building just as the cardboard shivers and disintegrates before my eyes, becoming part of the steady cloud that’s piping into the sky. The scream is crammed with pain and loss and all the things I know so well.
If I had time, I’d wonder why it is coming from the building not on fire. But I don’t have time. And wondering is for suckers. I blink, cough, and shake my head. I have to get out of here before the authorities arrive.
I jump over the roof barrier and land unsteadily on the metal staircase, wobbling and nearly falling straight over the edge. I hear Kin’s voice before I see his tiny form in the alley, shadowed by the smoke.
“They’re here!” he shouts with a hint of humor to his voice, like he enjoys the running. I want to roll my eyes but they burn from the smoke, and I settle for grunting.
Taking three steps at a time, I plummet through the levels of the building as fast as I can. My lungs burn and I can’t tell if it’s from lack of air or from the foul smoke that’s fast filling the atmosphere. The family keeps pace with me, floor by floor, and I watch them, distracted. My feet catch on a step and I hit the next platform hard, my cheek planting on the metal, my eyes on the couple and child. They are two floors from the ground when the mother stops. She doubles over and coughs uncontrollably. Holding her chest with her spare hand, she shakes her head ‘no’ to the father. She passes the baby to her husband.
Heat is building behind the thin, glass windows, the structure buckling above, my reflection vibrating like the surface of a bubble.
It’s so delicate. Our skin, our life. We’re held together by the thinnest of membranes.
The husband snatches the child to his chest and starts down, moving around her while she catches her breath. Not waiting. Don’t wait. The window explodes and shatters as he screams in panic. Like a waterfall we follow; the baby screams, I scream, and the mother screams as she is pelted with glass. The father hunches over the child protectively, his thick jacket shielding him.
I can’t hear over the sirens and shrieks. But I see the silent exchange, the mother telling the father to go on without her, his reluctant nod as he kisses her, clasps the baby tighter, and leaves. I grimace. They are so close that I can almost touch them. The mother lies still but for a burst of coughing as smoke wraps around her body like a blanket.
From below, Kin cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Jump down!”
I shake my head.
To hell with it.
I walk away from the edge and press my back to the ruddy, red brick wall, cursing at my cramped position. A four-step run up is probably not enough.
“Not… that…” I hear Kin initially shout and then his voice peters out, “…way,” as I press off the platform and launch at the opposite building, my hands outstretched, my eyes watering from the smoke.
The mother lies wilted on the platform.
I land with a metallic thump, missing her limp arm by a millimeter. She is cut to shreds by the glass, but she’s still breathing.
Below us, the husband sobs. Safely on the ground, he stoops, unsure of whether to lay his baby in the filthy alley and climb back up or take the child to safety. Smoke soon obscures my view of them and they disappear.
I squat down and talk to the woman through my pulled-up shirt. “It’s going to be okay, lady. Just put your arm over my shoulder and I’ll get you to the ground.”
She mumbles incoherently but she manages to stumble to her feet. I pull her to my back and half run, half fall down the last two flights of stairs. Her blood seeps through my clothing and her hold on me loosens. I grit my teeth and drag her out of the alley and into the street, while the husband frantically talks at me in Spanish. I honestly can’t tell if he’s happy or angry or what, only that he’s beyond upset and talking at a mile a minute.
I lay his wife down on the sidewalk as carefully as I can, and the husband bends down to kiss her. I think he’s happy. He motions to the crowd of emergency vehicles that have swarmed around the base of the building, and I know this is my cue. Coughing tarry junk from my lungs, I hover in the shadow between the buildings, slightly dazed with my hands on my hips. I just want to make sure they see her.
Kin’s strong arm claps onto my shoulder and drags me deeper in to the shadows. We peel around the corner, and he shoves me against the wall.
“What the hell, man?” he asks as he quickly checks me over for injuries, patting my body down like a cop frisking a pickpocket. “You’re not a super hero. You can’t pull stunts like that!” He sighs, releases my shirt, and steps back. “You do realize you can’t fly, right?”
I shrug and grin, swiping my hand over my face, which comes away black and sooty. Coughing again, I feel the smoke coating my lungs. “I came pretty close.” I wink. “Besides, what was I supposed to do—leave her to die?”
Kin steps back from me, opens his mouth to say something, and then pauses, his dark brows knotted. He’s having a moment. I can tell. He’s trying to decide whether to be big brother or friend. “Yes. It’s what they would have done if it were you.” Big brother, then. I shake my head even though I know he’s probably right. “You’re nothing to them.” He points at my cap pulled low over my eyes. “You hide your face… why? Because showing them, reminding them of who you are and what they did, makes them feel bad. Or,” he says, shaking a long, dark finger at me. “They think you’re the enemy. Either way, they just want to pretend we don’t exist.” He winces at the words. He doesn’t like talking to me this way, I can tell. He needn’t bother. I know what people think I am. I don’t need reminding.
“Don’t talk like that,” I growl. “We’re Kings, you and I.” I pump my fist to the air.
Kin’s head slowly dips. “Sure we are. Kings of the Alley, Kings of the Dumpsters!”
I shrug. The sirens are still winding round and round. A red light runs across the wall and disappears repeatedly. Firemen unravel their hoses and attempt to put out the fire.
“We really need to get out of here.” Kin’s dark eyes are darting and counting all the possible escape routes. “Be invisible, remember?”
“I remember,” I say craning my neck to make sure the mother is getting medical attention. I made the rules after all. Kin pushes his sleeves up his hard arms that have seen too much labor for a seventeen-year-old and turns away.
I stall.
A slippered foot appears at the corner, the velvet shining under a thin stream of sunlight. It’s coming out of the building I just jumped from, the building that the unholy scream came from five minutes ago. A teenage girl in pretty, expensive-looking clothes hovers at the edge of the crowd. She doesn’t flee like the others, the sensible people who can see the building might possibly collapse into the street. It’s like she’s tied to the bricks. Each step seems painful. Her sandy hair flies all over the place, beating her spine like a fan. Her shoulders pull in, and they shudder. Fascinated, I take a step forward, then an annoyed hand grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me back.
“I think we’ve risked our lives enough for one day, Superman,” Kin mutters as he overpowers me into a headlock. “Leave the pretty, rich chick to grieve over her wasted morning.”
I blink, and she disappears behind the fleeing families. “You’re right. Let’s go home,” I say, elbowing him.
“Home? Ha! Good one,” he says sarcastically.
I don’t respond.
4
After
NORA
We follow a stretcher covered in a white sheet, mountains and hills of cloth that can’t be my mother—it can’t—as it wheels out of the foyer doors. After what they’re calling ‘The Accident,’ we were evacuated from our building because of the fire next door. I carried Frankie down the stairs, holding her head against my shoulder to shield her from the scene, and we left Mother there, cold and alone, returning only when it was deemed safe.
I think I had hoped when we stepped back inside, she wouldn’t be there, but she was of course. She hadn’t moved, because she’s dead. The words catch in the back of my throat. She’s dead. Now the trolley squeaks on the highly polished tiles, carrying something that’s supposed to be her.
When the paramedics get to the brass doors, they shove the stretcher feet first into the glass, the whole bed bouncing as it goes over the threshold. I expect a gasp, arms to flap up in shock. Nothing.
I watch our reflections in the shiny surrounds of the door, long, languid beings with stretched faces. Another world. I glance at the sheet. I imagine lying there, my feet tucked in at the ends, my face clothed in heavy cotton, and I can’t breathe. Bringing a tightened fist to my chest, I suck in a breath as best I can although it feels as if I’ve swallowed a lump of coal. I have to keep it together. There’s a small child wrapped around my legs, and she needs me.
When they get to the stairs, the wheels fold up so they can carry it down. I cock my head to the side, wondering if she’s heavy. It seems like she should be heavier, like she’s set in concrete now, a statue.
Outside, the air should be fresh, clean, but it’s charred and wet. I look to my right at the burned-out apartment building. Maybe I should be looking to blame someone, the person who started the fire perhaps, but my mind is frozen, as blank as the confused expressions of the crowd watching a casualty being wheeled out of the wrong building.
They slide her into an ambulance. I rock back and lurch forward, an arm stretched toward the open doors. “I’m going with her,” I squeak. Clearing my throat, I say, “Please. Let me go with her.” My eyes search for any sympathetic
face, but no one looks at me. They’re all looking to my father for answers.
His hand clamps down on my shoulder and shirks me backward. Frankie’s skirts fly up in a gust of wind as she struggles to hold onto me. Don’t let go.
“No,” he utters under his breath. “Get in the car.” He does it carefully, controlled-like, so it looks like I tripped as he flings me at the sleek, black car waiting to take us to the hospital.
“Where are we going?” Frankie asks innocently as she shuffles to the middle of the backseat.
I slide in next to her and pat her glinting, gold-and-crimson hair. Her head is on fire and I’m about to douse those flames, squash her little soul until she’s just a smoldering pile of crumpled ashes. My voice catches in my throat, humming and spinning.
Father is talking to the paramedics outside so I take this opportunity to tell Frankie in a way I can control, before he takes a hammer to the truth and slams her with it.
Deep breath, heart on fire, heart trodden and bleeding.
“Frankie, Mommy had an accident,” I start, each word stinging.
“I know.” She nods solemnly. And I get the sense she also knows what I’m about to say.
I straighten my dress and gaze at my shoes, slippers. I rub my feet together, hoping he doesn’t notice that I forgot to change my shoes.
“She’s…” My lip is doing this quivering thing, and I don’t know how to stop it. I bite down on them for a moment, my eyes on my father, who is rounding the car and about to step into the passenger seat.
“Mommy is dead,” Frankie says matter-of-factly, her small hands clasped in her lap, her little legs pumping round and round like she’s paddling in a pool.
“Do you understand what that means, Frankie?” I ask, my eyes wet. I wipe my nose on the back of my hand.
[Paper Stars 01.0] Nora & Kettle Page 2
