Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

  “You found your way okay?” she asked.

  “I always do.”

  “Thank you for coming, Cassie.”

  I shrugged. “There wasn’t really a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice,” she said. She half-turned to lead me inside. “Can I help you with your bag?”

  The idea was almost funny, as I watched her work her way back up the two little steps. “I don’t think you can,” I said.

  Inside, the house was tiny—and not just because everything’s bigger in Texas.

  Just past the door was a living room barely big enough for a love seat and two chairs in front of a stone hearth. Beyond that was a kitchen area with a farmhouse table. That was it. Past the kitchen door, out back, I could see a garden, and beyond that, the water. From the living room, a crooked little eighteenth-century staircase crossed in front of a window, up to the second floor. There didn’t seem to be a right angle in the whole place, and the wind outside made the house creak like a ship.

  “This place is like a dollhouse,” I said.

  She smiled like I’d offered a compliment. “Isn’t it?”

  Nothing about any of this felt real. I felt like a live person who’d just showed up in a Disney cartoon.

  Yet here I was.

  “Can I fix you a snack?” she asked, almost like I was a kid just home from school. She assessed my state. “Or get you a drink? Or would you rather just unload your things and get settled?”

  No, she could not fix me a snack. What was I, twelve? “I’ll take my stuff up,” I said.

  “My bedroom and studio are the next floor up,” she said, “and the whole attic is yours. It has its own bath, so you’ll have everything you need.”

  “Is it always this windy?” I asked.

  “Always,” Diana said, like it was a selling point. “Because we’re out here on the jetty. We’re not just near the water, we’re on it.”

  I looked around. “This place must be two hundred years old.”

  She nodded. “Two hundred and fifty. A fisherman named Samuel McKee built it. He and his wife, Chastity, raised eight children here.”

  “There’s some irony there.”

  “There are stains on the kitchen floor where they used to pickle the fish.”

  Off to the side was a porch the length of the building that Diana used for a pottery studio and shop. She had made up a profession for herself: She was a dishmaker. It wasn’t a real category, and I’d spent my life explaining it when people said, “Huh?” But here in the house, it seemed plenty real. She made dishes and cups and saucers—threw them on the ceramics wheel, then hand-painted them with glaze and fired them. She specialized in gardens and animals, bright colors and polka dots. She made whole sets. And the shop was bright and cheery like the dishes. She sold other fun kitchen items to round out the selection—tea towels and aprons and napkins—all in charming patterns and fabrics.

  “It’s a terrible living,” she told me once, “but it’s fun.”

  I could tell it was fun. Just from looking.

  “How did you find this place?”

  “Oh,” she said, glancing out the window, “it belonged to Wallace.”

  Wallace was the man she’d left my father for. The cheater. We didn’t talk about him. “He gave it to you?”

  “Left it to me,” she said, nodding. “After he died.”

  A pause. I’d never met Wallace. I knew about him, but I’d refused to meet him in the same way I’d refused to visit Rockport. I’d blamed him. I’d been angry. I’d been far too absorbed in the pain he caused me—and my dad—to see Wallace as anything other than the source of all my problems. Now, of course, it was too late. He’d died when I was in college.

  “It’ll be yours one day,” my mom added then.

  “I don’t want it,” I said, too quickly. She couldn’t just make me move here and then give me a house.

  She blinked. “Oh, well, that’s okay. But I’ll leave it to you anyway. In my will. You can sell it, of course, if you want.”

  “You don’t have to leave it to me.”

  “Who else would I possibly leave it to?”

  “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “No. I agree. Hardly our first order of business.”

  I looked around the room.

  “I’m so grateful to you for coming,” she said after a minute. “I know you gave up a lot to be here.”

  There it was again. That magic she had for draining my anger: her gratitude, her sympathy. She didn’t make things easy. With my dad, things were always simple. He was dedicated, true-blue, kindhearted, and tough. You knew exactly where you stood with him, always. No layers of conflicting feelings to sort through. He was just a good guy, plain and easy.

  But there was no feeling I had about my mom that wasn’t mixed with other feelings—often opposite ones. Everything was always tinged with something else.

  Plus, I couldn’t get over the eye patch. It gave her a strange, incongruous vibe—as if Laura Ingalls Wilder had turned pirate.

  Assessing her gave me a flutter of fear through my chest, and in response to fear, I always got all-business. “Let me take a look at that eye,” I said, stepping toward her and reaching toward the patch, relieved for something to do.

  She lifted a hand to block me. “Not sure that’s a great idea.”

  “You do know what I do for a living, right? I see this stuff all the time. You can’t shock me.”

  “I know,” she said. “This is different.”

  “I might be able to help you,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Just let me take a look.”

  She wasn’t going for it. “I’ve got a whole team of doctors. Don’t concern yourself with it.”

  “Isn’t that the reason I’m here?” I asked. “To concern myself with it?”

  She shook her head. “You’re just here to help me up and down the stairs. And do the driving. And buy the groceries.”

  “That’s really all you want?” I asked. Seemed like just about anybody could do that.

  “That’s what I need,” she said. Then she took my hand and squeezed it. “What I actually want, after all these years, is to spend a little time with my long-lost daughter.”

  Seven

  DINNER WAS HOMEMADE lobster bisque and a salad with greens from her garden—and I felt both grateful for and annoyed by how delicious it was. I’d been thinking I’d just take a sandwich up to my room, but she’d cooked everything already and set the table. With her own charming dishes.

  Plan B: Eat quickly and say good night.

  Having dinner together was worse than I would have expected. Apparently, we’d forgotten how to talk to each other. Attempts at chatting just flared and died. “This town is too cute to be real,” I’d say. And she’d say, “I agree.” And then we’d listen to the wind creak the house until somebody came up with another idea.

  All of it made worse, in my opinion, by the fact that it never used to be like this back when she was my mother.

  We’d been close, before. We’d watched every movie Jimmy Stewart ever made, side by side on the sofa. She hadn’t been like the other moms, all rules and criticism. She’d been more like a friend than a parent. No minivan, for example: She drove an emerald-green, highly impractical vintage Volvo that she’d named Barbara. It was in the shop half the time, so we had to take the bus, and when I begged her to get a better car, she responded that she’d had Barbara longer than she’d had me. Case closed.

  “Do you still have Barbara?” I asked her then.

  “Yes,” she said, “but she’s in the shop.”

  “As usual,” I said, and it was nice to share the memory.

  My mom had married my dad, she’d once told me, because he’d told her she was fascinating.

  “Who doesn’t want to be fascinating?” she’d said.

  But they weren’t much alike. She was a dreamer who had trouble keeping straight what day of the week it was, an
d he was a high school math teacher with a buzz cut—all practicality—who coached basketball. Still, he was kind, and fair, and loyal.

  I had not seen it coming when she left. Neither had he. We had thought we were happy.

  It was on my list of things I would definitely never ask her about.

  Across the table, Diana made another attempt. “I know it’s a big change, coming here. I’m glad to introduce you around town.”

  I waved her off. “No thanks. I’m good.”

  She frowned. “Just a little jump-start on making friends.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not here to make friends.”

  I sounded like a contestant on a reality show. She held on to that frown. “What are you here for?”

  “I’m here to”—I paused a second. “I’m here to do my duty.”

  “Your duty?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not appreciating her mocking tone. “You’re old, you’re half blind, you’re broke, and it’s my duty to come here and help you.” Okay, I’d also come to avoid getting fired. But the truth—the real truth—is that I would have come anyway. I would not have held to that no. Eventually, guilt would have prodded me into doing the right thing, even if the threat of being terminated had sped things up a bit. “I’m here to help you, as requested,” I said. “For one year.”

  She looked disappointed.

  What more did she want? I’d shown up, hadn’t I? Did she really have to guilt-trip me for not being happy enough about it? “What?” I demanded.

  “It just doesn’t sound very fun.”

  “I’m not here to have fun.”

  Her shoulders went up in a little shrug. “Is fun out of the question?”

  “Yes,” I said, with a decisive nod. “Fun is out of the question. I have too much to do. I have to take care of you. I have to get in better shape. I have to prove myself at a firehouse that already hates me. I have to rebuild my life.”

  “Without fun.”

  She was like a terrier with this “fun” thing.

  I stood up, pushing my chair back with a scrape. “Time for bed,” I said.

  She looked at the clock on the wall, then raised her eyebrows. “It’s seven thirty.”

  I wasn’t letting her win. “I’m an early riser.”

  She nodded, then, after a second, said, “I just wanted to invite you to come to crochet club.”

  Crochet club? I gave it a beat.

  “It’s right next door,” she said, gesturing. “At my friend Josie’s house.”

  “I don’t crochet.”

  “You don’t have to crochet. You could knit. Or wind yarn balls.”

  “You want me to wind yarn balls?”

  “It’s very soothing. Or sew something. Maybe a little potholder?”

  “I don’t sew potholders either.”

  “The point is, it’s more about hanging out and visiting.”

  “I’m just not really a joiner. Of clubs.” That was true. Human connection had its upsides, but it sure was a lot of work. The risk-reward ratio was low, at best.

  “You joined the fire service,” she pointed out, as if she might win this conversation.

  “That’s not a club. That’s a job.”

  “Pretty clubby for a job, though.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “I avoid the clubby parts.”

  “Just come for ten minutes. You’ll love it.”

  Did she really think she could tempt me with the phrase sew a potholder?

  “And it’s not just crochet,” she went on. “We usually put on a rom-com, too.”

  She was not helping her case. I shook my head. “I have one day left to finish memorizing all the streets and fire hydrant locations in Lillian.”

  “Good grief,” she said.

  “It’s called knowing the territory.”

  “You have to memorize them all?”

  “I’ve been working on it ever since I got the job. I’ve got flash cards. Maps.”

  She nodded, sighing with resignation.

  I took my plate to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. She watched me the whole time. Did she really think I’d come here to crochet? Or watch rom-coms? This was exactly what I’d feared. She wanted to bond. But I didn’t bond. With anyone.

  I walked toward the staircase.

  She followed me.

  “It’s not going very well, is it?” she said, as I started up.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This. Now. Tonight.”

  “It’s an odd situation. We’re suddenly living together after ten years of…” What to call it? “Not living together.”

  “Feels kind of like a first date or something. An awkward one.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said then, hoping to shut the conversation down. “I don’t go on dates.”

  She peered at me. “What does that mean?”

  Oh God. Now I’d started a conversation. “My generation doesn’t really date,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “I guess it just seems kind of artificial.”

  “What do you do instead?”

  I kept thinking each answer I gave would be the last one, and then I’d be released to go on up. But she kept stopping me—snagging me there on the staircase. “We hang out. Usually in groups.”

  “But then how do you ever get close to anybody?”

  “I guess it depends on how you define close.”

  “How do you have conversations? Get to know each other? Fall in love?”

  “I told you,” I said. “I don’t fall in love.”

  “Surely you do, a little bit.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Love is for girls.”

  “You are a girl,” Diana pointed out.

  I didn’t even try to hide the scorn in my voice. “That doesn’t mean I have to be girly.”

  Did we really have to have this conversation? I lifted my foot to the next step. I just wanted to go memorize fire hydrants. I sure as hell didn’t know how to explain it to her if she didn’t get it already. “Love makes people stupid,” I said at last, hoping to cut to the chase, “and I’m not interested in being stupid.”

  “Not always,” she said.

  “Women especially,” I added, not bothering to hide my impatience. “It makes them needy and sad and pathetic. And robs them of their independence.”

  “Independence is overrated,” my mom said.

  “Love is overrated,” I countered. Then my notes from Captain Harris popped into my head, and I added, slapping the banister for emphasis, “Love is for the weak.”

  I needed that on a bumper sticker.

  She wasn’t letting that stand. “Love is not weak,” she said, like I couldn’t have shocked her more. “It’s the opposite.”

  I took another step up. “We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.”

  But she wasn’t releasing me. The wind creaked the house. “Choosing to love—despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway … That’s not weakness. That’s courage.”

  I have to give myself credit here for not snorting and saying, We can talk about courage after you’ve walked through actual fire. She wanted to talk about courage? I could talk about courage all day. And you weren’t going to find it in a rom-com.

  But I really just wanted to go to my room. “Okay,” I said in a pleasant voice. “Whatever you say.”

  Now she pinned me with her stare. “It’s my fault,” she said, after a second. “For leaving.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, but there was that anger again, swirling itself into the mix. It kind of was her fault. She had been the first person to show me how terrible love could be.

  The first, but certainly not the last.

  She nodded now, like she’d figured something out. “You were fifteen when I moved out—”

  “Sixteen,” I corrected again. “It was my sixteenth birthday, the nig
ht you left.”

  Who does that, by the way? Who leaves her husband—her family—on her daughter’s birthday? One of the great unanswered questions of my life, but I wasn’t asking it now. We’d be here all night.

  “You were so infatuated with that boy you liked. What was his name? Hank? Harold?”

  “No one in my generation is named Harold,” I said. “It’s like asking if his name was Egbert.”

  She was squinting at me now, like she had me cornered. She snapped her fingers at me. “What was his name, though?”

  I sighed. We had to do this? Right now? “His name,” I said, ready to get it over with, “was Heath Thompson.”

  Saying it released a funny, acidic sting in my chest. The second person who had ruined love for me. Also on my sixteenth birthday, as luck would have it, on the very same night in a spectacular one-two punch of abandonment. My sixteenth birthday. The night I’d spent pretty much the rest of my life trying to recover from.

  She barely even remembered it.

  But I was not—not—going to get into that. I glanced up the stairs like I was late for an appointment or something.

  “You were in love with him. I could tell. You doodled his name constantly.”

  I held very still.

  She pointed at me like she was winning, like we were reminiscing about something pleasant. “I thought you were going to give yourself carpal tunnel.”

  “That wasn’t love,” I said, totally poker-faced. “That was delusion.”

  But she looked pleased with herself, like we were really getting somewhere. “Whatever happened with him?”

  I took a second to marvel at the question.

  I knew, of course, that there was no way she could be aware of “whatever happened” with Heath Thompson. I never told her. I never told anyone. In fairness, I couldn’t resent her for that. But something about the chitchatty tone of her voice as she asked about it, like she was just getting the update on some friend’s vacation plans or something—maybe even the idea that she could just not know, could have spent the past ten years obliviously making tea and watering hydrangea beds in this stupidly cute town—that, suddenly, really pissed me off.