Spurred into action, she ran to the narrow utility closet for the fire extinguisher. She scanned the instructions and then, with shaky hands, aimed the nozzle at the flames. Her filmy curtains were already gone and the flames were dancing along the row of tea towels and pot holders hung on a rack there.
She gasped in alarm as the foamy stuff seemed to be drawn out the window, rather than to extinguishing the flames. Even worse, the line of flame was still running along the wall, perforating the living-room wallpaper as it went. It passed behind a glass-covered photo of her parents’ wedding, the heat of it bursting the glass from behind and knocking it off the wall.
Mouth agape, she stared, then aimed the extinguisher at it. The tank fizzled.
She fought panic as heat and smoke quickly made the room uninhabitable. She snatched her purse off the table and ran out the door.
She dialed 9-1-1 on her cell and gave a shaky but clear account to the dispatcher, who told her to get her neighbors and go across the street, that the fire department was coming. “There’s no one in the building but me right now,” she said, breathless.
“All right. Wait across the street.”
David Lester, who lived next door to her, was in his second year at Coast Community College and seldom came home until late, but she pounded on his door anyway. No answer.
The Moffits, the young couple who lived next to the empty apartment upstairs, were on vacation.
Sarah hurried across the street. A crowd had begun to gather as dark smoke billowed out of her windows and flame was visible in the upper floor.
She was losing everything, she thought with an odd disconnection that probably had something to do with shock. It didn’t look as though there would be anything left. Her clothes. Her computer. Jerica’s bear! Sarah had bought it for her and the child had loved it. Her parents had given it to Sarah when Jerica died.
The whine of a siren announced the arrival of a police car. Ben and his partner, Grady Nelson, leaped out. Sarah ran across the street toward them, a dark SUV screeching to a halt as she crossed its path. She waved a distracted apology and continued to run.
Ben had already disappeared into the fourplex. As a fire truck screamed its arrival, she raced into the building. She heard Ben shouting her name from inside her apartment. She followed the sound.
“I’m here!” she screamed, trying to find the tiny hallway to her bedroom so she could retrieve Jerica’s bear from its spot on the bed.
She reached a hand out in the blinding smoke, sure she was at the hallway, when another strong hand caught it.
“Sarah!” Ben shouted. “What are you doing? Get out!”
“Okay, but I have to—”
“Get out, Sarah! Now!”
“No, I have to get the bear!”
“What? No!”
She yanked away from him. “Please, Ben...”
He pushed her bodily ahead of him and out the front door. He pointed across the street when she tried to push around him to get back inside. His face was smudged with smoke and his eyes hard with determination. This wasn’t the sweet man she’d been dating. This was the cop doing his job.
She tried to explain.
“No!” he interrupted, pushing her toward the sidewalk. “You can’t go back inside. Whatever’s in there isn’t anymore. Is there anyone upstairs?”
“No.”
“Pets?”
“Not allowed.”
He led her across the street, shouted, “Stay here!” then raced back to join Grady as he emerged from the building.
She stood across the street with her neighbors in silent disbelief. All around them, onlookers were talking about old buildings, smoke alarms, homeowner’s insurance, but she wasn’t following any of it. As they watched, the side window blew out and flames caught the grass that led to the concrete pad where residents of the apartment parked their cars. Her Jeep, the closest to the building, caught fire.
“No!” she cried, taking several steps toward it, but an onlooker stopped her.
“Not smart, ma’am,” the man said. “Look. That fireman’s going to get it.”
A fireman working that side of the building aimed his hose at the car. By the time he was able to extinguish the fire, the tires were gone. The car listed sadly, like a big, broken toy.
She was homeless. And she was probably afoot for a while, too. A weird calm overtook her as she realized that now she had no possessions. She began to pace, watching Ben and Grady run back down the front steps. Grady was on the radio attached to his collar, probably reporting in to Dispatch, and Ben was on his cell phone.
Sarah imagined tomorrow’s Beggar’s Bay Bugle headline: “Bay Apartments Burn to the Ground. Residents Unhurt But Lose Everything.”
What was she going to do? She’d think of something, but at the moment, her brain didn’t seem to be operating.
“Sarah.”
Sarah turned at the sound of her name and was surprised to see Jack standing there in the paint-smeared jeans and sweatshirt he wore to work in the carriage house. On his head was a pale denim baseball cap with the insignia of the Cavalry Scouts—crossed swords in gold—and the words US Cavalry. His eyes, under the bill of the cap, were dark with worry.
Emotion swelled in her and threatened to rise in her throat in a sob. She inhaled a breath and forced it down.
“Hi,” she said, her voice shaky and a little thin. “What are you doing here?”
“Ben called me.” He placed his hands gently on her arms as he looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
Before she could answer, he shook his head. “Forget that. Stupid question. Of course, you’re not okay.” He turned his head in the direction of the fire and swore under his breath. Then he refocused on her. “What I meant to ask was, are you hurt?”
She had to take another breath to keep the sob at bay. “I’m not hurt. Just sort of...” What? Shocked? Scared? Alone?
The sob erupted anyway. She tried to swallow it and that somehow made it louder.
“Yeah,” he said and wrapped an arm around her. “Come on. You’re going to stay with us. Ben said he has to ask you some questions about the fire, but he can do that later.”
How could she move into the same house as the man whose proposal she’d just thwarted? “What? No. I can’t just...”
“Sure you can.” Ignoring her attempt to argue, Jack pointed to his battered SUV parked at the curb down the street. “Why don’t you go sit in the car? I want to let Ben know that I’ve got you. I’ll be right back.”
She did as he suggested. As she sat in the front passenger seat, she caught a glimpse of Ben and Jack in conversation. Jack pointed toward his SUV and Ben looked in that direction. She waved.
Behind Ben she saw the blackened shell that had been her side of the fourplex: a smoky ruin in the middle of a grove of oaks dressed for fall. The outside of the apartment above hers was charred, all the windows were blown out and there was a hole in the roof.
That’s a picture of my life, she thought. Windows blown out. A hole in the roof.
She put her fingertips to her throbbing forehead, refocusing her thoughts. Other people were involved here besides her. It was hard to assess the damage to the two apartments on the other side, but they looked far less affected. She hoped that was true for the sakes of David and the Moffits.
It was clear that her life was about to change direction. She belted herself into the passenger seat and pulled down the makeup mirror.
She was horrified to see that she looked a little like a briquette with a nose and ears. The heat had done something to her hair and it stuck out in all directions. She groaned and dug in her jeans for one of the hair ties that lived in every pocket she owned. She caught her hair in a bunch and tied it up, catching the tail in the band, too. It was far from glamorous, but so wha
t?
She braced herself as Jack loped back to his SUV. She was feeling disoriented and a little scared. She’d been off balance in her life before—angry, heartbroken, hurt—but she didn’t remember ever being truly frightened. This was new—and unsettling.
She thought philosophically that she should probably get used to new. All the old stuff in her life had just gone up in flames.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACK CLIMBED IN behind the wheel and surveyed his passenger. She looked as though she’d been dragged through the proverbial knothole. Her face was smudged with smoke and she’d done something weird with her hair. She took a bumpy little breath while he watched her.
At last he said, “Okay, Sarah. Hang in there for a few minutes and we’ll get you home.”
She looked back at the burned building. “It isn’t there anymore,” she said.
“Home can be anywhere you hang your hat.” He started the vehicle and smiled encouragingly. That was a concept most people didn’t understand, unless you’d moved around a lot as a child, made camp with a hundred other guys in the most godforsaken places and had to find a way to stay sane. He was a master at it.
She wasn’t buying it. She rolled her eyes upward to indicate the top of her head. “You’ll notice I’m not wearing a hat.”
“Ah.” He pulled off his ball cap and put it on her head. “Problem solved.”
She gasped a laugh and had to make some adjustments, pulling the bottom of her ponytail out of the band and putting it through the sizing hole. She looked into the mirror and groaned. “I look a fright.”
Even with her cheeks blackened and her usually gorgeous hair tied like a bunch of green onions, she was still the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
“A hot shower will fix that.”
“I have nothing to wear after the shower.”
“I’ve got a shirt and a pair of pajama pants someone gave me that you can use to get you through today.” Jack shook his head and explained: “I sleep in my Skivvies, so the pajama pants are still in the original packaging. Then you can make a list of what you need and I can take you shopping if you want— Oh, there might be something in Mom’s closet you can borrow. She’s shorter than you are, but about the same proportions.”
“I can’t take her things,” she objected.
“Okay, we’ll call her and ask.”
Jack drove home in silence. Sarah sat with her head against the rest, her eyes closed. He took that to mean she didn’t want to talk, was probably overwhelmed. He understood completely.
Jack led Sarah upstairs to his parents’ bedroom at the back of the house. It was a nice room in blue and pale yellow with a quilt that matched the curtains. There were pictures all over the walls of him and Ben when they were kids. She stood in the doorway and looked around, then turned to him, her expression disconsolate. “Jack, it’s beautiful, but I can’t just move into their room.”
“They’re away until Christmas. You know that. They won’t mind.”
She stood stubbornly in the hallway and wouldn’t cross the threshold into the bedroom.
He dialed his mother and explained briefly what had happened. He had to hold the phone away from his ear when she expressed her horror.
“Ben told me to put her in your room,” he went on to his mother, “but she’s afraid you’ll object.”
“Put her on,” Helen ordered. She was a vibrant woman with a lot to share. That included giving orders to those she loved.
“I’ll put you on speaker,” Jack said.
A very one-sided argument ensued, with Sarah unable to get much in, just the occasional “But—” and “I—” while his mother kept talking.
“You will take over our room and that’s the end of it. And if you need clothes, you’re welcome to whatever’s in my closet. I have just warm-weather clothes with me, so there are sweats, sweaters, jackets. My jeans would probably be too short on you.”
“Mrs. Palmer...”
“Helen,” his mother corrected. “This is perfect. I mean, of course it isn’t perfect because you’ve lost all your things, but ‘things’ are just that. No one was hurt. That’s a good outcome to anything. When we come home, I have a Realtor friend who can help you find something to rent. But, for now, you’ll be there to help Ben and keep an eye on Jack.”
He rolled his eyes at that and Sarah smiled. “Also,” his mother went on, “in my Christmas-gifts-I’ll-never-use drawer, second one down on the right, under the black lace teddy—honestly, I don’t know what Gary was thinking—is an evening purse with my mad money in it. Help yourself to it if you need to buy some things.”
“But I—”
“We’ll settle up when we get home. Now, anything else?”
Assured that there wasn’t, love promised all around, Jack turned off his phone and looked at Sarah. “You go in and do whatever you need to do to get comfortable, and I’ll find those things I was telling you about.” He pointed to the television on the wall above the Colonial dresser. “I believe the remote’s in the bedside table on Dad’s side.” He pointed and then put a hand to the wardrobe-closet doors on one wall. “The clothes Mom talked about are in here.” He pushed open another door in the corner. “Bathroom. And feel free to take a nap, if you need one. We have some of the salad you made the other day for dinner and I’ll call for a pizza. Nobody has to worry about cooking.”
He thought she looked a little deflated suddenly, as though the reality of having lost all her possessions had just struck her.
He wanted to help, but he knew platitudes weren’t going to do it. He called on his military experience.
“You’ve heard the expression ‘Embrace the suck’?” he asked as he moved toward the door.
Sarah dropped her purse on the bed and sat beside it. “Nancy Pelosi, Minority Speaker, said that when her party had to compromise on something or other. Don’t remember what.”
“Actually,” he said, “she borrowed it from the American soldier. Sometimes, when things are so bad and there’s no escape, there’s a certain comfort in metaphorically wrapping your arms around the misery and making it a part of you. Eventually, your strengths will make inroads and it’ll change into something you can deal with.”
She met his eyes. “Did that happen to you in Iraq?”
“Somewhat,” he admitted. “It started ugly and remained ugly, but I figured if I didn’t resist having to be there, the ugly wouldn’t overwhelm me.”
“Did it work for you?” she asked with a certain interested courtesy, as though the question was part of a clinical study. “I mean, is it still a good thing if the ugly invades your dreams?”
Good point. He was never as together as he pretended to be. But she looked so invested in his answer that he was as honest as he could be, given his lack of understanding about what was going on with him.
“Frankly, I’m not sure.” He folded his arms and rested a shoulder against the doorjamb. “My nightmares are a mixture of my childhood and the worst of my military experiences.”
She turned more fully toward him, hiking a knee up on the bed, a pleat forming between her eyebrows. The intensity of her attention was at odds with her blackened cheeks and nose. He would have smiled if he hadn’t been trying to explain the darkest places in his soul. And if she hadn’t looked so serious in her eagerness to understand.
“In my nightmare, there’s an incident,” he continued, “where the Humvee I’m driving hits an IED and a few of my buddies are badly hurt. I see myself in the turret on top, tending to one of the guys whose arm was blown off and then I see a woman walking toward me down the lane. She’s wearing a white caftan and hijab. My gun is drawn because women sometimes strap bombs to their bodies and try to take out as many of us as they can. As she comes closer, I realize...she’s my mother.”
He paused, wondering how
to explain to her what his mother had been like. He said simply, “She was pretty awful at the mom job. I loved her because she was my mom, but my sisters and I were usually her last priority.”
“I’m sorry.”
He was, too, but he was over it. “The last words she said to me were, ‘Get away from me, Jack.’ Then, when she went to prison, she wanted no contact with any of us and refused all mail. Helen wrote her to tell her I was healthy and happy and doing well in school. It was returned declined.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to interfere with your adjustment to your new family.”
“Maybe. When I was ten, DHS told us she’d died of an overdose in prison, possibly bad drugs. She must’ve got them from a guard, and I can only guess she’d made the same deal with him that she made with every other man she lived with.”
It was clear to see in her horrified eyes that such a mother was an alien concept to her. He told her more about his nightmare, how his mother climbs onto the turret, struggles with him when he tries to push her away. “That was the morning I shoved you. I’m sorry. In that place between sleep and wakefulness, you were her.”
“Maybe,” Sarah said after a moment, “the awful things in your life have come together because of the way you take them on.” Apparently warming to her thought, she stood, that bent knee bracing her on the bed, her gaze distracted as she thought it through. “You know...the embracing-the-suck thing. The way you took care of your sisters and bought new bike tires rather than a new bike. You take things head-on, you don’t try to sidestep them and you don’t waste time on self-pity. So the bad stuff stays in your face, trying to survive.” She refocused her gaze on him and then laughed at herself. “Clearly, I know nothing about psychoanalysis, just that everything bad in us wants to hold on. Badness has a pulse, a soul. It lives. At least, that’s been true in my life.”
In My Dreams Page 6
