“Says who?” Cleo replied belligerently. “He never mentioned it to me. I don’t remember you saying you had any long, heart-to-hearts with him.”
Maya glared at her sister. “Don’t you have any understanding of human nature? He—”
“Ladies,” Axell interrupted, blowing dust off his hands, “I think we can give up any hope of finding anything tonight. We need to get the kids home and look for other options in the morning.”
“It’s early yet. I’ll stay here,” Cleo declared, flipping through the journal.
Maya intercepted Axell’s look and shut her mouth. Cleo was probably safer out here in the rural isolation of the school than at the shop with drug dealers running loose. “It feels odd having ancestors.” She stood and brushed herself off.
“You want ancestors, start with the living ones,” Cleo called, carefully opening the crumpled letter. “Our father has aunts and uncles and cousins out the wazoo back in Texas and Tennessee. You can have a family reunion.”
Maya didn’t comment. Her sister remembered their early days of traveling from place to place much better than she did, and even she remembered all the long-boned, harsh faces of distant aunts and uncles frowning on them. She didn’t think she wanted to get better acquainted with all those grim relatives who hadn’t wanted them.
“All right, so we fell from a lousy family tree. It makes a good excuse for our faults and foibles,” she replied airily, skirting around boxes toward the door. “Maybe the one we really ought to dig into is our mother’s maternal side of the family. Someone had to pass on good sense.”
“I promise you, you don’t want to go there,” Axell muttered, opening the door and pointing to the hall. “Believe me when I say you came by your eccentric genes naturally.”
Cleo shot Maya a look of disgust. “Homeboy knows something.”
Maya grinned back. “Homeboy has connections.” She smiled sweetly at her husband. “Headley’s been at it again, hasn’t he? Spill.”
“It’s hearsay,” he warned. As both women watched him expectantly, he sighed. “According to Headley, your mother’s mother was the black sheep of the Arnold family.”
Cleo looked blank. Maya grinned wider.
“The mayor’s family? We’re the black sheep of the mayor’s family? Can we call him up and tell him now?”
Axell caught the nape of her neck and shoved her out the door. “Don’t you dare. And if you greet him in church as ‘cousin,’ I’ll disown you.”
“Won’t be the first time,” Cleo called airily as they departed.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Constance shouted in alarm from the floor below.
“Mr. Axell, Mr. Axell! Fire!” Matty yelled in excitement.
Exchanging looks of panic, Maya and Axell dashed down the stairs.
Flames licked at the walls of the woodshed behind the kitchen. They could see it the instant they hit the bottom of the stairs and the uncurtained window popped into view.
Axell slammed his cell phone into Maya’s hands. “Get the kids out and call 911. I’ll look for a hose.”
“There’s a connection on the right,” she shouted as he raced toward the kitchen door. “Cleo!” she yelled up the stairs. “Get down here now! Fire!”
Pounding the cell phone, gathering up Alexa, and shooing the two excited children toward the front door, away from the fire, Maya didn’t even consider what valuables might be left behind. She’d never learned appreciation for material things, but she knew the value of human life.
Shouting directions into the phone, she listened for Cleo’s feet on the stairs, and satisfied she heard them, herded everyone out the door.
She couldn’t leave the children to help Axell. Anxiously, she sought a place in the side yard where they could keep an eye on him. The old shed contained nothing more than spiders and snakes, as far as she was aware. It was the proximity to the house and Axell’s determination to stand between it and the fire that scared her. She heard the hiss of the hose and smelled the smoke the instant he turned the water on the flames.
Cleo ran out carrying an armful of old books and letters. Frantically, she glanced up at the house, then back to where Axell fought the flames. She dropped the papers at Maya’s feet. “It’s not at the house yet. Are there blankets in there?” Apparently remembering the stack of cots and blankets in the back room they’d passed, she darted back up to the porch.
“Cleo! Wait!” Maya screamed after her, but bent on helping, Cleo dashed inside.
“Mr. Pig!” Matty wailed. “The fire will hurt Mr. Pig!”
Oh, Lord, please don’t... Maya couldn’t phrase the petitions she wanted most. Save Axell, save Cleo, save the school, save the animals... The list was too endless for debate, and she wafted wordless prayers heavenward as she crouched beside Matty, and hugging him as well as Alexa, watched the flames leap higher.
Constance gnawed on her bottom lip and clenched her little hands as she watched the shadows illuminated by the growing fire. Axell attacked the highest flames with the hose. Cleo ran out the back door with a stack of blankets and began beating at the sparks leaping to the dry grass and dead brush of the uncleared lawn between shed and kitchen.
As sirens wailed in the distance, Maya wondered what could possibly have set off a fire in an unused shed. There was no wiring, no cans of gasoline, no gas lines, no heaps of chemical-laden rags, no nothing but old wood and spiders.
And spiders didn’t light fires.
Thirty-five
I’m not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.
Soot-coated, soaked, and sweating, Axell wearily trudged past the charred embers of the woodshed and the storage building containing all the school’s yard maintenance equipment. Volunteer firefighters continued dousing the back of the house and the smoking ruins of the outbuildings with water pumped from the school’s well.
They’d managed to protect the school building from all damage except to a few charred boards of the kitchen porch. They hadn’t managed to protect Axell’s sense of security.
Floodlights illuminated the overhanging shrubbery and trees of the front yard, where neighbors had gathered in the balmy Carolina night. Mosquitoes buzzed and fireflies flickered in the shadows of the fence rows. Normality was slowly returning, but not for him. He’d never be the same again.
He could see Maya relentlessly hugging Alexa, her other arm around Constance’s shoulders, while Cleo sat on the ground with Matty clinging to her neck. Neighbors had brought pots of coffee for the firefighters, people milled about the lawn, but Maya and the children formed an island of their own, an island he’d almost lost.
Insides wrenching, Axell strode briskly past firemen rolling up their hoses and hauling down their ladders. The damned school wasn’t worth it. Maya could start one somewhere else. He should have let the thing burn to the ground. That would have ended the debate once and for all.
The fire chief had confirmed arson.
Axell wanted to believe that whoever had set the fire didn’t know anyone was inside. Normally, no one would be at this hour. He just couldn’t imagine how anyone could miss the lights upstairs and the car in the drive. Someone had tried to kill his family.
He couldn’t face that kind of loss again. He’d survived the deaths of his parents, his wife, and his son, but he didn’t think he could accept the loss of Constance, or Maya or Alexa or Matty. He didn’t want to remember the blank, lonely existence he’d led before their arrival. He didn’t want to admit his failure to protect them.
It was his job to see them safe, and he hadn’t done his job when he’d bowed to Maya’s wishes to keep the damned school. It was time he started listening to his head instead of the mindless muscle below his belt — which stirred uncontrollably the instant Maya flung herself into his arms and buried her face against his filthy shirt, unheeding of his stench and grime.
Axell gathered her up for a brief moment of thanksgiving. Then, ignoring the turmoil of his heart, he kissed her hair, checked Alexa’s serene expres
sion, and set Maya back on the ground. “Take the kids home. I need to talk to the officers. They’ll give me a ride later.”
Maya stared at him with eyes wide with hurt. She was so damned transparent sometimes, it scared him. She’d have to learn to live with him as he was. She could create all the happy illusions she liked, but it was his duty to beat reality into submission when it threatened life as he knew it. She wasn’t going to like what he was about to do. The knowledge cut like a scalpel through some vital part, but he was strong. He would endure whatever it took to see her safe.
He hadn’t known what he was doing when he got mixed up with her. Maya filled his life like the joyous balloons he’d loved as a kid. She made life sparkle, decorated it with laughter and surprise, and gave him the kind of chest-pounding hope he’d never thought to know.
He loved her.
The realization was too huge to swallow all at once. Off kilter, Axell reached for Constance and hugged her against him. She wrapped her skinny arms around his waist and more love welled inside him. He didn’t dare express the emotion spilling through him — not in front of a crowd. His father’s training was ingrained.
“Cleo can take the kids home,” Maya said quietly. “I’ll stay with you.”
Oh, God, that’s just what he didn’t need. He’d rather keep Cleo here. At least her cynicism was on his side. But he couldn’t tell Maya that. He couldn’t puncture her dream-spun rainbows right now.
“Axell!” The shout over the murmurs of the crowd jerked Axell’s head in the direction of the drive.
The mayor.
Ralph Arnold hurried over the trampled grass, not a blow-dried hair out of place, not an inch of his immaculate suit revealing a wrinkle. Axell groaned inwardly, then with a definite Maya twist, offered his grimy hand as the mayor stopped in front of them.
Ralph looked at Axell’s filthy palm, glanced at his sooty face, then nervously smiled at the women and children. “Everyone’s safe!” he said with relief, pretending Axell’s outstretched hand didn’t exist.
Maya apparently caught the byplay and offered a half grin to Axell before donning her usual vague expression when confronted with someone she couldn’t relate to. He was learning all her tricks, it seemed.
“No thanks to the arsonist,” she replied sweetly. “We could have all been roasted alive. Would you have put a marker beside the new road in remembrance?”
Ralph looked rattled and turned to Axell for guidance. No matter how much he despised the man and his politics, Axell couldn’t believe the mayor capable of arson. He shrugged. “It’s been an unpleasant evening, but I think I have news you’ll want to hear. We need to get together in the morning.”
Maya shot him a suspicious look. “I’m still not selling.”
Damning her perceptiveness, Axell calmly met her gaze. “Cleo is ready to sell, aren’t you?” He glanced in his sister-in-law’s direction. His sister-in-law. Damn, he’d exchanged a busybody mother-in-law for an ex-con sister-in-law. It didn’t matter. Protecting his wife and kids was what mattered.
Cleo glanced suspiciously from him to the mayor and shrugged. “No skin off my nose. It’s Maya’s dream, not mine.”
Maya’s dream. Axell wanted to stop the discussion for now. “We’ll talk in the morning, Ralph. Everyone’s nerves are shot tonight.”
“I won’t sell, and that’s final.” Maya gathered up Alexa, caught Constance’s arm, and glowered at her sister. “We’re going. Have a good chat.”
Axell recognized the sinking feeling in his stomach as she walked away, but he was prepared for that, much more than he was prepared for the sudden urge to shout at her to come back.
He didn’t want to be divided from Maya in any manner, physical or emotional or in their hopes for the future. For a little while, he’d almost felt as if they were one whole, as if their physical joining had truly brought them together in heart and soul. But that was patently ridiculous. Grown men did what they had to do, and usually got yelled at for it.
Maya had always declared she went with the flow. Maybe she would drop the scheme for a school now that she had Cleo and those rental properties to occupy her mind.
Axell ruthlessly blocked out the memory of Maya painting the picture of misfits and poor children standing on the outside, looking in, yearning for the love and understanding she could provide. Schools were for learning, not sentimental claptrap.
If only he could block out the fear that Constance could easily have become one of those misfits.
***
February, 1977
It’s over. She’s left, taking her babies with her, not even knowing why the storm broke over her innocent head. Perhaps she’ll be happier with her husband’s family, away from the stench of her father’s cowardice and the cruelty of her mother’s kin.
What difference does anything make now? I have an offer of easy money, money that can some day go to my daughter and her babies. They’ll be too far away to be affected by anything I do here. Why not paint the whole damned town with tar? Helen would have loved the irony.
The Arnolds deserve to have their faces rubbed in the dirt they strive so desperately to pretend doesn’t exist in their pretty little town.
***
Axell followed the light in the family room as he entered the house well after midnight. He hadn’t expected Maya to wait up for him. She must be totally wiped by now. He certainly was.
He needed a hot shower, and a long soak, and clean sheets with Maya’s sweet-smelling curves in his arms, and then he thought he could sleep for a week. Heaven was having Maya to come home to. He was aroused just thinking of her sleepy kisses. She’d forgive him for his plans to sell the school. Maya simply didn’t have it in her to hold a grudge.
Prepared to scold her for waiting up, Axell stopped dead in the doorway at the sight of Sandra flipping pages of a magazine.
“Well, it’s about time,” she said huffily, standing up. “Constance has been crying for hours. What do you intend to do about it?”
Constance? Axell blinked and tried to rearrange his relaxing thoughts of showers and bed to this new perspective. “Where’s Maya?” he asked cautiously.
“Gone, of course.” Sandra threw the magazine down. “You really didn’t think she’d hang around once she came into a little money of her own, did you? Those kind only think of one thing.”
Gone? Axell dragged his hand through his hair, realized he was smearing soot, and grimaced. “Where did she go?” he asked in genuine puzzlement, although his stomach was telling him exactly where she’d gone and why.
“How should I know?” Sandra asked arrogantly. “I’m not a mind reader. She dropped Constance off, packed up Matty’s toys and the baby’s diapers, and left. She’ll probably be back for the rest sometime. You can ask her then. I’m going to bed.”
Icy cold numbed him as Sandra swept past. Maya would never have left Constance behind if she’d simply meant to spend the night with Cleo. He hadn’t believed she would leave Constance at all. She loved Constance.
Maya had a heart full of love for everyone.
Clutching his grinding gut, Axell sank to the couch, oblivious to what his filthy clothes did to the upholstery. She’d left him. She’d walked away. Over the damned school. He knew better than to think she’d left him because of money. Maya didn’t have any idea whatsoever how much those properties were worth and wouldn’t care. But she was completely capable of leaving him over a principle.
Let her, dammit. She was so frigging determined to swim away at the first sign of trouble, then he’d damned well let her go. He didn’t need this hassle, worrying about Constance and Alexa and Matty and Maya and that damned school and a arsonist and how the ex-con sister and her drug dealer friends mixed in.
What if she’d gone back to Stephen?
Oh shit. Oh hell and shit and damn them all there and back again.
Wanting to shout his agony and confusion from the rooftop, Axell bit back his moan as he heard the pitter-patter of bare feet in
the hall.
Constance. How the hell would he explain it all to Constance?
***
“He looks like hell warmed over. You’re crazy to do this to him.” Cleo collapsed in the dilapidated wooden chair Maya had retrieved from some junkyard. It now adorned the upstairs room of the school where Maya had taken up residence. Cleo glanced around at the sheets draped over stripped wallpaper and broken plaster and wrinkled her nose. “This place looks worse than that apartment Mama rented.”
“I don’t remember that,” Maya answered absently, feeding Alexa a spoonful of milky cereal. She didn’t want to be told Axell looked terrible. She wanted to hear that he was going on happily without her. He hadn’t let Constance return to school.
“Leaving him was stupid,” Cleo admonished. “All you had to do was refuse to sign the papers if you didn’t want to sell. He would never have thrown you out for that.”
“Remember that family we stayed with in L.A.? The ones with the lovely pink-frilled bedroom?”
Cleo glowered. “Yeah, the ones that had a holy cow when you painted purple roses on the walls. So what?”
Maya glanced at her in disapproval. “What do you mean, so what? They threw us out, didn’t they? I tried to make the room prettier to show them how much I loved them, and they threw us out. Is it so hard to make the comparison?”
Cleo stared at her sister in disbelief. “Is that what this is all about? You left so he couldn’t throw you out? Are you crazy? That man’s blind-deaf in love with you. He worships the ground you walk on. He’s a damned Don Quixote who would have walked in a burning building for you. And you threw him away so he couldn’t do it to you first? I can’t believe we had the same parents!”
“You don’t understand anything.” Maya wiped Alexa’s chin. She’d thought of all people, Cleo would understand. Selene was barely speaking to her for leaving Axell, but he hadn’t even called. That was proof enough in her mind.
She’d finally pushed him too far and he was relieved that she’d left without forcing him into a fight. Now he only had Constance to protect, and he didn’t need to worry about arsonists and drug dealers. She knew how his mind worked. He wanted to keep everything in his world in neat little compartments where he could take care of them. The school didn’t fit, so he wanted to get rid of it. She understood that. She simply couldn’t live with it.
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