by Nevada Barr
A shard raked her left shoulder. The first hot pierce of glass then the rip as it clawed into her. All Polly felt was fury that it slowed her down. Grasping fistfuls of a rhododendron bush, she wrenched herself free from the window’s jaws and fell. Stiff branches caught at her clothes and grabbed at her hair until, screaming with rage, she made it onto the lawn. Staggering to her feet, she began to run. The house was small: two bedrooms separated by a short hall, with a bathroom on one side and the living room and kitchen on the other. It was no more than forty feet from her bedroom window to that of her daughters. In true nightmare fashion, the distance lengthened. Polly felt as if she forged her way through waist-deep mud, yet when she reached the corner of the house, her speed snatched her feet from under her on the dew-wet grass and she fell.
Two feet, hands and feet, it was all one to Polly. She clawed her way through the dense wall of sharp-spiked holly she’d planted beneath the girls’ window as a natural security fence. Cupping her hands around her eyes to shut out the streetlight’s glare, she peered through the burglar bars she’d had installed on this one window so she could sleep nights, unafraid of someone creeping into her children’s room and taking them, as those girls in California and Utah had been taken.
Billowing smoke pushed down from the ceiling like alien clouds in an old science fiction movie. Wraithlike and malevolent, it poured upward in a sheet from underneath the door. Emma’s Tinkerbell nightlight flickered in and out of focus. Inanely Polly thought, Clap if you believe in fairies.
The girls were asleep, each in her own little bed.
Or dead.
The thought hit Polly’s brain with the force of a wrecking ball, and she cried out, grabbing the ornate cast iron as if she could rip the bars from their moorings. “Gracie!” she shouted. The window was open a few inches, enough to let in the breeze. Polly pressed her lips to the crack, “Emma, Gracie, wake up!”
“Momma?” came Gracie’s sleepy reply.
“Wake up, honey. We’ve got a fire in the house and we have to go outside.” Polly’s voice was higher than usual, but she sounded reassuring. “No need to panic,” she said as much to herself as her daughter.
“Momma? Where are you?” Gracie was sitting up in the bed now, staring at the smoke crawling up the far wall.
“At the window, honey. Here. That’s right. I’m going to get you out. Wake up your sister, but don’t scare her, okay?”
Polly pulled on the bars. They were iron and screwed into the side of the house. She tried to shake them. They didn’t even rattle.
“Firemen will be here in a minute,” she promised. The little house was old: shingled roof, oak floors, walls of wood and plaster. A two-hundred-thousand-dollar tinderbox.
“Gracie, stop,” Emma whined.
“Wake up, Momma said. The house is on fire.” Gracie’s voice quavered, but she was pretending not to be scared. She was being brave for her sister. Polly thought she would die of love for her. With a guttural cry that brought both children to the window, she wrenched on the bars. They didn’t so much as creak.
“Stay by the window, my darlings. You hear me? Put your mouths up to the crack and breathe this good air. Don’t open it any wider, okay? It will make the fire want to come in faster. You just sit tight. Don’t open the door. I’m going to get you out.”
Breaking this tenuous connection with them hurt so deeply, pain knifed through her chest. Praying she wasn’t having a heart attack, Polly tore free of the holly and ran to the front of the house. Orange light danced in waves of heat. Gouts of flame cut through smoke billowing from the windows. Paint on the front door bubbled. Great heat blisters popped and breathed white vapor.
There was no way in. She wouldn’t live long enough to reach her children. The girls would die alone.
Polly howled and heard Gracie scream. Then white light blindsided her. She fell to her knees, images of the house exploding burning behind her scorched eyeballs.
Engine roaring, a truck pounded over the curb and smashed through the azaleas to lurch to a stop on the lawn. The door flew open and Marshall leapt from behind the wheel.
“Where’s the fire department?” he yelled as he ran across the lawn. “My God, you’re bleeding.”
“They haven’t come.” Polly grabbed his wrist and dragged him toward the side of the house.
“Where are Emma and Gracie?”
“Inside,” Polly cried. “Emma and Gracie are still inside. Marshall, I had security bars put in!” The words tore her throat. “I don’t know how to get them out.” Polly’s fingernails clawed into the flesh of his wrist as she pulled him through the slash of leaves to the window.
“Momma!” Gracie screamed. Polly could scarcely see her for the smoke. It was coming out the window now. Behind the glass Gracie’s pale face shone like a ghost.
Marshall tore free of Polly’s grasp and ran. “No!” Polly shrieked, but he was gone.
Gracie was crying. Polly squeezed her face tightly against the bars trying to see her child. The iron was hot.
“Momma, Emma wouldn’t stay. I tried to make her, but she got away. Momma, she opened the door, and I can’t see her. I can’t see her.”
“Emma!” Polly shouted. Smoke burned her eyes. “Emma, you come back! Come to my voice, baby.”
“I couldn’t stop her, Momma. She pulled away so hard, and she’s so fast.” Tears streaked white as they cut through the grime coating Gracie’s face.
“I know, honey. Emma is as quick as a bunny. Stay at the window, baby. You stay right here.”
Emma was dead, and Gracie was going to die.
“Give me your hand. That’s a girl.” Polly pushed her fingers through the narrow opening, raking the skin from her knuckles. “The fire trucks are on their way. Emma!”
“Don’t move!” came a command, then a crash so loud Polly and Gracie shrieked.
Marshall raised the sledge hammer and drove it into the side of the house a second time. A hole was opening through the siding. Smoke trickled out. He struck again, and the hole was big enough for a small person to crawl through. Two more quick blows, wood shattering inward, plaster dust swirling into the smoke, and a narrow door half the height of a man was made between two upright two-by-four studs. To Polly it was a miracle. She’d not known a hammer could so easily knock a hole in a house.
In a heartbeat, Marshall was through the breach. “Gracie,” she heard him call.
“Go to him, baby. Quick as a wink.” Polly said urgently. She let go of her daughter’s hands. “Go to Marshall, baby.” Gracie’s ghostly face slid into the smoke. Polly fought the need to call her back to the window. Within seconds she was through the hole, coughing. Polly grabbed her and held tight.
“Get away from the house,” Marshall shouted. “I’ll get Emma.”
Knowing there was nothing else she could do, arms wrapped around Gracie, Polly led her to the sidewalk across the street. Even fifty feet away, the heat was palpable. The roof over Polly’s bedroom was intact, but the side of the house up under the eaves was burned away, and flame licked at the shingles.
On her knees on the concrete, Gracie held against her, Polly imagined Emma, small pink feet on floorboards hot as a griddle, ruffled nightie ablaze, her silky hair crackling like lightning. Had Gracie not been between her and the fire, she would have walked into it to stop the pain of the vision.
Smoke ceased to trickle from the hole Marshall had made and began to pour.
Faintly in the distance Polly heard sirens, fire trucks racing from whichever functioning stationhouse had taken them in, the ranks of firefighters depleted by those who’d evacuated and never come back. Gracie’s crying became a slow, steady keen. Polly rocked back and forth trying to soothe them both.
A firefighter came up to them as his fellows rolled out the hose. A second engine arrived, lights and horns blaring.
“Anybody inside?”
“Yes,” Polly heard herself saying as if from a great distance. “My daughter.”
&nbs
p; The fireman’s face hardened, and she supposed he was trying not to telegraph his thoughts. Because the loss of Emma was not to be borne, Polly looked away from him.
A gout of black smoke burst from the hole Marshall had knocked in the wall of the girls’ room.
Gracie started to struggle, trying to get free of Polly’s arms. No!” Polly cried and held her more tightly as if Gracie, too, would run into the flames to be with Emma.
“Momma, let go. Look!”
At first Polly saw nothing; it was as if the fire had burned her retinas. Then from the smoke, a shape emerged.
“Momma, it’s them!” Gracie cried.
Black as a chimney sweep, Emma clinging to his neck, Marshall fell through the jagged gap in the side of the house, staggered to his feet, and fell a second time. Polly started to run to them. A fireman stopped her. She fought him until he shook her, yelling, “Ma’am, ma’am, it’s not safe.”
Two others ran to help Marshall. The first took Emma; the second lifted Marshall from the ground. Keeping a firm grip on Polly’s upper arm, her fireman got on his radio, asking for the status of the ambulance.
“Anybody else inside?” he asked Polly.
“No.”
“Just your husband and the kid?”
“My fiancé,” Polly said. Then with a vehemence that surprised her, she repeated, “He is my fiancé.”
19
The day Marsh met Polly, he had gone mad. Or gone somewhere. Danny had felt him leave-a sucking sensation that left a vacuum behind, a north wind snatching away a coat, the dentist drawing a living tooth. Now, three months later, he and Marsh were standing shoulder to shoulder in the Methodist church on St. Charles waiting for the bride. If Polly had been younger, it would have looked suspiciously like a shotgun affair.
The church’s steeple was missing, smashed by Katrina.
The guests had to enter under scaffolding.
And it was too fucking hot for a wedding.
Though the church was air-conditioned, Danny could see the beads of sweat at his brother’s hairline. Marsh was getting what he wanted, and it scared him.
It should scare him. It should scare everybody, Danny thought.
It was the fire.
Marsh appearing on scene in the nick of time and playing hero. Just as the fire was getting started, Marsh had phoned Polly and awakened her.
Such perfect timing. Danny wondered if Marsh knew more about how the fire started than he should have.
Danny wasn’t worried about trouble with the law. Wind and flooding had damaged electrical wiring. Debris had piled under and around buildings. Police and fire departments were desperately understaffed. The loss of Polly’s house was one of many in the months following the storm.
Whispering at the far end of the room cut into his thoughts. He felt Marsh tense. They were not touching but a connection had been forged between them as kids; Danny knew his brother, felt his brother, as another part of himself. In more ways than most people realized they were the same man.
At the end of the room, the doors opened a few inches, giggles trickled out like water over rough stone, then they clicked closed again. The judge smiled. Marshall smiled back. There was an expectant murmur from the guests: partners from Marsh’s firm, Tulane people on Polly’s side. All seemed delighted these two were joining together in holy matrimony.
None of them could see Marsh-or Danny for that matter. All they saw was the shiny careers the two men had built around themselves. Polly was marrying a man no one but his brother could see.
The door reopened and Emma and Gracie, in identical high-waisted dresses of lavender, silk sashes a shade darker, and neat white Mary Janes, marched solemnly into the church. Danny winked at Emma, making her laugh. Her older sister quelled her with a look, and the two of them finished their dignified walk up the aisle, then retired, one to each side, like small pastel soldiers on parade.
Emma and Gracie were the only children Danny had ever bothered to get to know. To his surprise, he rather liked them. Before Emma and Gracie, he’d tended to think of children as much like animals, only stickier. Children were as unlike animals as they were unlike adult humans. There was a basic fiendishness in them, a primal distrust of the rules, that he found fascinating.
Fluttering like purple butterflies, Emma and Gracie settled.
Marshall ’s attention remained fixed on the empty doorway. Danny amused himself by imagining his brother’s eyes sproinging from their sockets, his tongue rolling out in a long red carpet, and his still-beating heart zooming out on extension tongs in the tradition of moonstruck cartoon characters.
True love. Hallmark made a fortune off the concept, as did more self-help authors than should ever see publication.
Danny had a sneaking suspicion it was the American version of bread and circuses. As long as the masses could be kept entertained pursuing the holy-and expensive-grail of True Love they didn’t tend to pay much attention to the systems that were bilking them.
A moment of dramatic tension, and then the recipient of Marshall ’s lost heart stepped into the doorway: Polly Deschamps née Farmer, divorcée, mother of two. She wore a dress of pewter with daffodil piping, colors that set off her silver-blonde hair. The collar was mandarin and closed with a frog that matched the piping. The style was pure fifties, from the years when fashion worshipped Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.
Ms. Deschamps was nobody’s fool.
Seldom had Danny met anyone, man or woman, around whom he felt so unpleasantly transparent. There was a rich undercurrent in her eyes. He’d seen hints and shadows that suggested she took very little for granted. Not the person one would want to try to keep secrets from.
Polly turned and there was a tantalizing susurration. Few fabrics moved the way silk did.
Danny admired her taste. Polly did not conform to the trivial. She defined her own beauty. Earlier in her and Marsh’s courtship, Danny flirted briefly with the idea of winning her away from his brother. It wasn’t that he wanted Ms. Deschamps; he just wanted to remove her from his brother’s life before somebody got hurt. He had discarded the notion as soon as he realized it would be an either/or thing: he could either have Ms. Polly or he could have his brother. He chose Marsh. A no-brainer, as the vernacular would have it.
Polly stepped from the apse. With an innate-or, this being the Deep South, more likely a learned-sense of feminine theatricality, she twitched the full skirt clear of the door frame, looked up from beneath bangs that seemed windswept even in the still, warm air of the chapel, and smiled.
Danny felt the push under Marsh’s sternum, the ache across his shoulders, and knew the effort it cost his brother not to dash down the aisle and take her into his arms.
Polly knew it, too. Danny read it in her face. Then he felt it, felt her, inside Marsh, inside his brother. He tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn’t fill with air. She was in Marsh’s head and spine, reaching out through his hands, looking out through his eyes. She was inside and all over him. All over them. And Marsh opened himself to it like he had never opened himself to anyone since he was a little boy.
A white-hot point lacerated the back of Danny’s left eye. A central core of him shook. He was having a heart attack or a stroke. An aneurism, a fall of black, killing blood, trembling and pulsing, was breaking, bringing down eternal night behind his eyes.
“Danny? Danny? Hey man, you okay? Danny boy? Should we call a doctor or something?”
Marsh’s voice brought him back to the world, the room. It was over, done. The ceremony concluded, the bride kissed, and all the while Danny had been dying. He looked from Polly, to Emma and Gracie, to the pastor. They looked back, their faces ludicrous with concern.
“Brother, are you okay?” Marsh said. He laid his hand on Danny’s shoulder and Danny began to breathe again.
“Overcome is all,” he said. “I’ve missed having a sister.” He smiled and opened his arms to Polly.
MINNESOTA, 1975
Susan Smith. Killed
two little kids. Drowning. See, this I can understand. People look at what she did and say, “Oh, my God, how could anyone be so cold and heartless?” I can see doing it. Who knows what she was thinking, but maybe it went like this. Here she is, this down-and-outer. Maybe not much money and no hope of getting any. She’s lonely all the time, and she’s got these two little kids. The kids are stressed out, crying all the time and fussing, and she’s worn out with taking care of them and herself. Then, here comes this boyfriend, and she sees maybe a way out. So she falls hard. He has only one problem with taking her out of her misery. He doesn’t want the kids. In my movie, she’s torn up by this, miserable, but she sees no life for her or the kids without this boyfriend. She doesn’t want them in a foster home with all that shit. So she thinks the only way to save herself and keep her boys from being passed around is to quietly end their little lives. Blaming a black man, I can’t go there. That’s pure cowardice. But the murders. Sure.
20
People changed. People, not Richard. Watching his reflection in the mirror as he knotted his tie perfectly, he knew that at twenty he was better looking than he had been at fourteen, or fifteen, or seventeen. His shoulders had broadened, and his chest filled out his suit coat nicely. The baby-fine, wavy, brown hair had grown darker, but not by much, and his jaw had firmed up. Richard paid only cursory attention to the physical changes. He could not remember a time he had not felt precisely like he did now, like himself.
