Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  “You’re taking too much of it on,” I said.

  “But a little boy is dead,” Roxanne said. “He was three, and he’s dead.”

  “I know. It’s terribly said. Awful. But you didn’t do it. Not on your watch.”

  “My kids,” Roxanne said. “The watch doesn’t end.”

  She turned away, walked toward the house. I turned to Clair, gave him a pat on the shoulder and followed Roxanne. She was picking Sophie up as Sophie snuggled with the cat, a tiny orange tiger. It scrambled down, ran to its mother, one of Clair’s barn cats, lying on the step. Sophie whispered to her mom and Roxanne said, “He’s too little to leave his mommy. Maybe when he’s a little bigger.”

  Sophie slid down, too, and we crossed the yard, started down the path, Sophie twenty feet in front, walking point.

  “I thought you were allergic to cats,” I said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Roxanne said.

  “You don’t have to do that. I mean, just because . . .” I hesitated.

  “Because what?” Roxanne said.

  Because you’re overcome with guilt, I thought. Because you want to prove to yourself that you’re a good person, a good mother.

  “Because the cat needs a home,” I said.

  Roxanne didn’t answer and we walked down the path between the alders and birches and then a big clump of lilacs, at the edge of our backyard. Sophie was singing “I’m going to get a kitten,” over and over. We went in the sliding door off the deck, and I stood in the kitchen and listened. The house was still but for Sophie’s singing and the clank of dishes as Roxanne emptied the dishwasher. Then she herded Sophie up the stairs and I heard the water run. I went to the front windows, one side of the house, then the other. The road was empty, the woods still.

  Until next time.

  I climbed the stairs to the sound of splashing. The bathroom door was open and steamy, soapy air was floating from inside. I stepped in. Roxanne was sitting on the closed toilet seat, her legs crossed. Sophie was in the tub, shaping her hair with shampoo suds.

  “Look at me, Daddy. I have a . . .” She looked at her mother.

  “A Mohawk,” Roxanne said.

  “A Mohawk,” Sophie said.

  “Very nice,” I said. “I think that should be your new hairdo.”

  “Mommy could get one, too,” she said, “so they know she’s my mommy.”

  “I’ll pretend I don’t know you,” Roxanne said.

  Sophie laughed. Squashed her Mohawk down. I stepped outside of the room and Roxanne followed. She took a deep breath, stood with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t torment yourself.”

  “Easy to say.”

  “None of it is easy. It’s awful. Horrible. But it’s not your fault. And Sophie’s starting to notice.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Jack,” Roxanne whispered. “Sorry if I can’t just breeze along like nothing happened, like a little boy isn’t dead, like my decision didn’t put him in a place where his life ended. Sorry if I’m a little down in the dumps about it. Sorry if I can’t be sexy and loving and the perfect mother and the perfect wife and smile my way through the day while we may be sued and the mom is cracking up and some nut-job druggie is on the loose and my husband is being pursued by some horny drunken artist woman and seems to like it.”

  “I’m not being pursued,” I said.

  “No, and everything is just fine in your world, Jack. Sorry if I’m such a downer.”

  And she turned away, stepped into the bathroom, and said, “Time to rinse, soapy monster.”

  That night the tension didn’t ease, Roxanne simmering, me brooding, Sophie chirping and chatting. She wanted extra books at bedtime and we sat with her perched between us and a stack of books beside her. Blueberries for Sal. One Morning in Maine. The idyll that was Robert McCloskey. Sophie asked how old the girl was in the pictures. She asked why we didn’t have a boat. She asked if she’d ever have a brother or sister. She asked if Beth had any other children. She said she was going to get a tattoo when she grew up. Like Beth. It was going to be a picture of Pokey.

  Halfway through Make Way for Ducklings, Roxanne’s phone buzzed. She sprang off the bed, was down the stairs in a flurry of steps. I heard her say, “Yes, uh-huh. Okay. Great. No, I’m so glad you called.” I felt my body relax. Sophie said, “Mack, Lack, Quack.”

  Roxanne came back upstairs, into the room. She looked better, around the eyes. I got up, went with her to the hall. Sophie was quacking. Roxanne said, “They tracked the phone. Something about triangulation, with cell-phone towers. He’s in New Bedford, or around there. Police down there are looking for him. Foley said he thinks they’ll pick him up soon.”

  “So you can relax,” I said.

  “You, too,” Roxanne said, and she smiled, gave my hand a conciliatory squeeze. I squeezed back. Sophie called, “You guys are missing the best part.”

  We went back in and sat. Roxanne started reading. The ducks were eating popcorn, tossed from a swan boat. Roxanne turned the page and looked at me and smiled.

  We made love that night after Sophie was asleep. It began with a touch, Roxanne’s hand on my shoulder. Then a gentle kiss. Then a quiet relentlessness, like this was going to happen, let nothing and nobody stand in the way. We didn’t talk. Our sighs were barely audible. We were righting the topsy-turvy world, one kiss, caress, squeeze, thrust at a time. And then we lay together, Roxanne’s back tucked into my front, my arms around her, just under her breasts. I felt the in-and-out of her breathing, the touch of her feet as she intertwined her legs with mine. She leaned down and kissed my arm. I kissed her neck. She said, “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

  I said, “Yes, we are.”

  And then we were quiet. A robin cackled somewhere, disturbed on its roost. A June bug banged the screen. My phone rang, a distant but insistent buzzing.

  I felt Roxanne tense as she untangled her legs from mine. I rolled out of bed, picked my boxers up from the floor, and pulled them on. Went down the stairs, saw the phone blinking on the kitchen counter. I picked it up, said, “Yeah.”

  “Jack.”

  “Lasha?”

  “Am I calling too late?”

  She was whispering.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “What?”

  “There’s another one.”

  “A fire?”

  “A house,” Lasha said.

  “Right now?”

  “Call just went out. Somebody saw flames.”

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “No,” she said. “Nobody was living there. It was for sale.”

  17

  The fuel gauge in my truck had quit a few months back but the trip thing worked, and I could safely go 300 miles between fill-ups. At the stop sign at the end of Route 220 I glanced down, saw 321.8.

  “Damn,” I said. I drove east on Route 17 until I hit the Quik-Mart. I pulled in, checked my wallet for cash, started pumping. Watched a swarm of mayflies swirling around the lights above my head. Then there was a splash as the gas pump went past full and splashed gasoline down the side of the truck. A voice said, “Nobody light a match.”

  I looked around the pumps. A beat-up Jeep Cherokee, primer-black, oversize tires. The guy had his back to me, finished pumping. Army fatigue jacket over a black hooded sweatshirt. He turned to rack the hose. A hard, lean face, a couple of days’ worth of beard. He looked at me. An alertness in his eyes, dark and staring with a sort of wired wariness.

  “Teach me to watch the bugs,” I said.

  “Good for you,” he said. “Nobody sees nothin’ anymore.”

  And then he climbed up into the Jeep, slammed the door shut. The windows were blacked out and he was just a shadow behind the glass. I heard the woof of a dog, the guy saying “Backseat.” And then the Jeep pulled out and away.

  I watched, thinking there was something very different about him. Like he was on some s
ort of mission and the rest of us were just bystanders.

  I stepped across the puddle, went into the store, and took a napkin from beside the hot-dog steamer, wiped my hands. I fixed a coffee and paid, went back out to the truck. The gas had mostly evaporated. I spilled coffee on my jeans, cursed, and went on my way.

  The sign was by the road. CALL TORY OR RITA. There were pickups parked up the driveway, red dash lights flashing. When I got out of the truck, I could smell the smoke, primal and acrid. As I trotted up the drive through the trees, I could see the orange glow. Coming out of the trees, I could hear the crackle and pop.

  It was a little after eleven. The house was a big colonial that overlooked the river. A circular drive paved with gray pebbles, carriage house connected to the house, a barn beyond that. Fire spilled out of the roof of the main house, shooting twenty feet into the dark sky. Firefighters clomped by in their big boots, shouting to each other as they unraveled hoses, hooked them up to a pumper truck. Hoses were trained on the fire from two sides, like guys pissing on a campfire.

  I took a picture.

  I backed out of the way as a second tanker started moving, edging closer to the blaze. I spotted Ray-Ray holding a hose, one shoulder pulled forward. Paulie and Casey strode by, Casey carrying an ax—a disturbing sight. Chief Frederick was directing the operation, waving the tanker back with two hands, like one of those guys who direct planes on the runway.

  He turned, saw me and scowled. I fired off another shot, just to make him flinch. Another firefighter was trotting by and Frederick reached out, grabbed him by the shoulder, said something and pointed back at me.

  The firefighter looked, trotted over. It was Peter Johnson, the trucker. Behind his plastic face shield he looked apologetic.

  “Jack,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “The chief says he can’t have civilians in front of the fire lines.”

  I could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

  “I’m not a civilian. I’m the press.”

  “I know, but he said—”

  There was a whoosh and we turned as flames burst through the roof near the ridgeline. I snapped off three shots.

  “When they go, they really go, don’t they?”

  “We’ll knock it down,” he said.

  “Place was vacant?”

  He looked toward the flames, hesitated.

  “It was for sale.”

  “But was anyone living there?”

  “I don’t know. People are saying—can this be, whatever you call it?”

  “Off the record? Yeah.”

  “People say the owner, he may have come up. To check on things. Listen, I gotta go.”

  “And he’s in there?” I said. “Jesus. You couldn’t go in there and get him?”

  Johnson stared at the flames. “It was fully involved. I mean, there was no way to get in there. We tried. The heat, it was … Somebody said he was in there. If he was …” He shook his head.

  I looked toward the building. The garage was part of an attached shed. The building was a mass of fire, the framing showing as a dark crisscross of lines. The silhouette of a car was barely visible.

  Flames burst through the roofline, cinders rising into the dark sky like a volcano was erupting. Flashing lights and smoke and heat and people shouting—I could see how the arsonist could get off on this. The power to create this amazing thing.

  Johnson turned and trotted away, his figure silhouetted against the firelight. I watched the flames, prayed there wasn’t anyone—

  “Oh, my God.”

  I turned. It was Rita, running across the yard toward me, her face wan and washed-out, hair tied back. Yoga pants and flip-flops and her company fleece. Tory behind her, jeans and the company polo untucked. His hair was askew, eyes wide and mouth open. They trotted by, Rita saying, “Oh, my God. Not another one. Oh, dear God. No. Where is Dr. Talbot?”

  Tory passed me, too, his boat shoes untied and flopping. He stopped beside her, hands at his side, and stared at the blaze, the flames shooting from the roof. A portly firefighter moved to them, explaining the situation and waving them back like a farmer herding sheep out of the road. When he’d driven them to me, he stopped.

  “I cannot believe this,” Rita said. She gave Tory a disheartened look. “We had this couple.”

  “Seriously interested,” Tory said. “If they liked it, they were gonna pay cash.”

  “He just came up to clean a few things out,” Rita said, putting her hands to her mouth like she was praying. “His wife died last year. This was a summer place.”

  “Where is he from?” I said.

  “Westport, Connecticut,” Tory said. “Vascular surgeon. Retired.”

  “It was just too much for him,” Rita said. “Without Mrs. Talbot.”

  “No kids,” Tory said.

  I watched what was apparently Dr. Talbot’s funeral pyre, listened to the crackle of burning beams

  “What’s his first name?” I said.

  “Bert. For Bertrand,” Tory said.

  “He’d say to me, ‘Please, Rita. Call me Bert.’ Oh, he was such a sweet man. A real gentleman.”

  “There’s always a chance he isn’t in there,” I said. “The heat was too strong for the firefighters to make a search. We won’t know for awhile.” Flames spread across the roof, chimneys silhouetted against the smoke. “Maybe he got out.”

  The firefighters started a new hose on the roof. Water gushed. Steam rose into the sky. A window blew out of the dormer on the second floor, glass shattering, and the crowd took a step back.

  Rita bit her knuckle. Tory shook his head.

  “Who do you think would do this?” I said. “I mean, this isn’t some old barn.”

  “A very sick person,” Rita said.

  “But not Woodrow, that high school kid,” I said. “He’s in the hospital.”

  “I never thought it was him,” Tory said.

  “Seems somebody did,” I said.

  “I think it’s pretty clear,” Tory said.

  “Tory’s been thinking about this,” his wife said.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “That kid couldn’t move around town like this,” Tory said. “Clomping around in his big boots and coat? No offense, but that big flabby goof? No way.”

  “So who, then?” I said. “And why?”

  Tory stared at the flames, lost in his own thoughts. In the end it was Rita who stepped in.

  “There’s this army veteran,” she said.”

  “Really.”

  “Afghanistan or one of those places. They come back with all sorts of problems, you know. It could be him.”

  “I suppose some of them do,” I said. “Who’s this guy?”

  “I really shouldn’t say.”

  “Between us. Just so I know if his name comes up later.”

  Rita hesitated. Tory was still staring at the flames, his eyes glittering in the firelight. I waited.

  “Louis,” she said. “Louis Longfellow. He’s from here, too.”

  The wind shifted and smoke billowed over us. We moved. Two women saw Rita and came over and gave her big hugs. Condolences, apparently—but for what? The lost commission?

  The two women moved away.

  “So this Louis?” I said.

  “Right,” Rita said. “Grandparents grew up here. Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow. His parents sold the house. They live outside Philly. Ardmore, I think. I may have that wrong.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “You know the big center-chimney cape on the River Road? With the big red barn?”

  I shrugged. Tory still stared, said nothing.

  “Well, the family, Louis’s parents, sold the house and five acres to an obstetrician from Rhode Island—this was ten years ago—but the family kept the rest of the land and a camp. Two hundred eighty acres, two thousand feet on the river. Three years ago I could have gotten eight hundred thousand for it, easy.”

  “Huh,” I said, thinking this was a cold s
ort of conversation to have while somebody burned.

  “Used to be the out-of-state money only wanted coastline. But the coastal market is totally through the roof, so rivers are being discovered, especially if you have ocean access.”

  Her eyes gleamed in the firelight.

  “I see.”

  “Ginny Longfellow died last year. Ovarian cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Rita didn’t appear to be. “Dan, that’s for Danforth, he’s like fifteen years older than her. I think he’s in assisted living.”

  We stood. The fire crackled. A tanker backed out, horn beeping, and was replaced by another.

  “Louis,” I said, directing the question at Tory. He seemed to have checked out.

  “Only child,” his wife said. “I make him for a bit of a black sheep. I mean, the army? With all this family money behind him? And it isn’t like he went to West Point or anything. He just joined up like some, I don’t know . . . dropout.”

  I thought of Clair. He and Rita would not hit it off.

  “I actually went out and knocked on the door of this place where he lives, Tory and I—just a cabin, really. You’d have to bulldoze it.”

  “Did he come to the door?”

  “No. I knocked a couple of times, turned around to leave. And he’s standing there. With a gun. A rifle. And this gigantic dog.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I introduced myself. Held out my hand.”

  “He didn’t take it?”

  “No way. Said one word. ‘Go.’ That was it.”

  “So you did?”

  “Hey, I know when a deal isn’t forthcoming. I put my card on the porch floor and vamoosed.”

  “Good decision.”

  “He’s clearly mentally ill. PTSD, or whatever you call it.”

  “Doesn’t mean he’s an arsonist.”

  “That’s what Harold said,” Rita said, leaning closer. “He said he was thinking it was the kid, Woodrow—the way he wouldn’t look at anybody when he came into the store. I said, ‘Harold. What about Louis Longfellow? Probably trained in explosives, who knows what else. He could burn a building down in his sleep.’ ”

  “Harold wasn’t going there?”