Home Fires

by Luanne Rice

  Thinking of Karen that way, in “heaven” with other angel children, depressed Anne so deeply that for two days she put the project away. But at the end of the second day, she added a gray dove, the pigeon Karen had been trying to catch when she fell. She changed Karen’s somber red mouth to a smile. Anne felt a little crazy, but less depressed.

  Her next collage in the series was a tunnel of deepening shades of red, meant to evoke a beating heart or maybe, she realized as she progressed, a baby in the womb. It was at once the most human and the most abstract collage she had ever done, but bending over it, she felt content. She found stamps containing the blue reds of blood, without a trace of orange, and she slivered over a hundred shards in the precise size and shape of a baby’s fingernail paring.

  Making these collages made her think of life and death and Karen, and they brought her peace.

  Whenever she stopped, to eat or take a walk or sleep, she burned to get back to work. Away from her worktable she would sometimes think of Thomas Devlin. He stuck in her mind like a splinter, something that didn’t belong there. For so long Anne had thought of herself, Matt, and Karen as a family. That dream had fallen apart, just as Thomas Devlin’s had.

  She couldn’t stand the thought of letting someone new be important to her. Wouldn’t it be disloyal? To Karen? The best part of Anne’s life had been marriage and her child. That was over. Anne couldn’t imagine anything good like that again. Evoking Karen, their family, was the closest Anne would come to happiness. She could do it through collage.

  Thomas Devlin had swooped out of the smoke, a giant guardian angel who’d saved her life, and now he was gone.

  Done with.

  These collages, the Heaven series, would never be sold. Anne would work on them from now until August, one a month, getting herself past the anniversary of Karen’s death. No one needed to know. Other people would consider it morbid; Gabrielle would be appalled. But working on the series would help Anne get through: she knew it was right.

  She would need money.

  Rent, gas, telephone, dinner, postage stamps.

  Since Thomas Devlin’s departure from the island she had stopped thinking of “meeting people,” “friendly offices.” She wanted only to sequester herself with memories and work, but she required an income.

  That is why, late Thursday afternoon, she went to the ferry office to apply for a job.

  STANLEY Gray, manager of the island terminal and childhood friend of Anne and Gabrielle, had gone to Salisbury, Maryland, on steamship business; Anne was about to leave, but Peggy Lawson stopped her.

  “First, let me tell you how sorry I am,” Peggy said. “About your daughter. I sent a mass card.”

  “I know. Thank you,” Anne said. So many friends had written and sent flowers. Somewhere she had a list; she had intended to write back and acknowledge everyone, but somehow she kept putting off the task.

  “It must be … awful for you,” Peggy said, her eyes glittering. Anne didn’t necessarily assume that her intentions were malicious. The best-meaning people couldn’t help being avid for the details. But Peggy had been a mean gossip as a young girl, and Anne doubted that had changed. She just nodded.

  “So,” Peggy said, her lips tightening. Anne could see that she felt rebuked. “You’re looking for work?”

  “Yes. I saw the ad.”

  “Ah.” Peggy was a secretary in the office. Suddenly Anne wondered whether this was such a great idea.

  “Maybe I should come back when Stan—”

  “I’m in charge of hiring,” Peggy said. “We’ve commissioned a new ferry, and Stan spends most of his time at the shipyard.”

  “Well, I’ve worked in offices,” Anne began. She paused, waiting for Peggy to start the interview. Her overwhelming impression was that of a smirk on Peggy’s face. Outside, the air horn blasted, announcing the arrival of the four-thirty ferry.

  “Anne,” Peggy said with exaggerated patience. “I simply can’t see it. This is a meat-and-potatoes job. The pressure in high season … well, you know. You’ve stood in line waiting for tickets, watching us go crazy behind the desk.”

  “I can handle it,” Anne said, watching Peggy light an exceedingly long cigarette.

  Peggy rolled her eyes, enjoying this moment.

  “I know Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3—”

  “We use Lotus for bookkeeping.”

  “I want the job,” Anne said.

  “It’s high-pressure—”

  “I know. Like you said, I’ve been on the other side of the desk. So have you.”

  “Hey, I live on this island,” Peggy said. “Middle of July, I’m in the standby line at midnight for a six A.M. boat. You think I like getting out of bed before the sun comes up? Try explaining that’s what it takes to some of the idiots who rent for two weeks and think they own this place.”

  “I know,” Anne said, remembering with no slight embarrassment how Matt had once, three summers ago, successfully bribed Peggy to let him on a sold-out boat so he and Anne could go home four hours early on Labor Day.

  “People won’t take to this,” Peggy said.

  “To what?”

  “To the idea of you working the reservations desk.”

  “Why not?”

  Peggy took a long drag on her cigarette and blew a meaningful stream of smoke into the air. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I’m not saying I agree.”

  “But what?” Anne felt sick to her stomach. Maybe she wanted to hear the rumors, what people were saying about her. She had sensed bad feelings everywhere, from the volunteer firefighters to the waitress at Ruby’s.

  “Nothing,” Peggy said. “You’d better wait for Stan.”

  “Peggy,” Anne said, her voice unsteady. “You have to tell me.”

  “Anne, don’t do this,” Peggy said, avoiding Anne’s gaze. “I’m awfully busy right now. If you need a reason, it’s just that people see you as the Fifth Avenue type. Above it all.”

  But Anne knew that Peggy was lying about the reason. She sensed a holier-than-thou attitude in Peggy, the superiority of one mother judging another mother. Karen had died because Anne was bad, or careless, or all of the above. Such a thing could never happen in Peggy’s family. Imagining Peggy following the story on the news, night after night, Anne felt something harden in her chest.

  “I’m not above anyone,” she said.

  “Well …”

  “Okay,” Anne said, barely able to catch her breath. “I’d better wait to talk to Stan.”

  “Mmmm,” Peggy said, feigning indifference. She turned her attention to some paperwork, busily smoking in the process.

  Anne left the office.

  The ferry had docked. The sun had just gone down behind the buildings at the head of Transit Street. The harbor was bathed in golden-amber light, but the parking lot was a dark pocket. The off-loading cars had their lights on.

  Anne stuck her hands in the pockets of her parka and headed up the hill. Her body quivered with intense anger and frustration. She felt rattled, trying to figure out the veiled sanctimony or derision or whatever it was in Peggy’s voice. Peggy mentioning the mass card she had sent for Karen, and it made Anne want to scream. Peggy hadn’t even known Karen!

  Anne’s good friends, the ones who cared for Anne, Matt, and Karen, had sent cards or brought casseroles, acts of kindness and sorrow that Anne couldn’t even remember and knew it didn’t matter. But Peggy, sending a sympathy card to a woman she obviously held in contempt, was too hypocritical for Anne to stand. She started to cross the street.

  A horn sounded, and Anne jumped.

  God, she felt like ripping the throat out of someone. She headed for the driver’s window with sharp words racing through her head. She had the fleeting impression of a red truck or Jeep, a cab up off the ground. Her palm smacked the driver’s window.

  “Anne,” came the voice.

  It was Thomas. He had rolled down the window. Now he was reaching for her hand.

  Anne stood there,
in the middle of Transit Street, holding Thomas Devlin’s hand through the window of his truck. His eyes had the same understanding as before. Staring into them, she felt her fury melt.

  “Can I get in?” she asked, the words barely audible.

  He nodded. People behind him beeped their horns, but he didn’t seem to care. He got out of the truck. He put his arm around Anne’s waist and helped her into the cab. She slid across the bench seat, her thigh grazing the gear shift, in a dream state.

  He drove straight up Transit Street, past her building. She hardly noticed. He didn’t know where she lived; the question of where they were going shimmered through her mind and disappeared. She just leaned back and felt warm air gusting out of the truck’s heater.

  The evening star hung just above the horizon in an amber sky. It would last as long as the sun took to set, and then it would dip behind the earth’s curve. When they were children, Gabrielle had told Anne that the Indians who had once inhabited the island believed that the spirits of their beloved ones became stars, traveling through the sky until eternity, watching over their families on earth.

  Staring at the evening star, Anne thought of Karen. She wanted to throw her arms around the star, pull it down to earth. The desire was electric, and it sizzled through every nerve in her body. She wanted Karen right now. She wanted to hold her daughter on her lap, surrounded by the truck’s heat. A primal howl ripped out of her throat.

  Blinded by hot tears, Anne hardly saw the truck pull to the side of the road. She felt Thomas slide across the seat, wrap her in his arms. The sound of her own sobs rang in her ears, muffled by the wool fabric of his jacket. She felt him petting her hair, the back of her neck. He didn’t say anything; he just let her wail.

  The agony of not having Karen. Of Karen not existing. There was a hole in the world, everything draining out. Karen’s body in the cold ground. Under the snow, marked by the stone that would live forever. Images too horrible to believe flashed through Anne’s mind: Karen at the window, Karen feeding the pigeons. There. Gone. Karen’s tiny coffin. Karen’s bones. Her Heaven collage couldn’t change any of it.

  “Oh, my God,” Anne cried. She was suffocating. She would cut them into pieces, those stupid collages she had thought could “help her through.” Gasping, she felt Thomas Devlin lean across her body and roll down the window. Instantly, cold air flowed into the truck.

  “Breathe,” he said.

  Minutes passed; she opened her eyes. She wiped away the tears and looked west. No evening star; the sky just above the horizon was barren. Anne shuddered. Her eyes felt unbearably heavy. At that moment she felt she could go to sleep and sleep forever. The star had set.

  Thomas Devlin pulled her across the bench seat. Numb, she let him drive with his arm around her shoulders. He drove like a one-armed man. With his right hand holding Anne, he drove with his left, now and then taking it off the wheel to make lightning-fast shifts. Small sobs hiccuped from her chest.

  They headed cross-island, toward the big house. Anne wondered why he was taking her there, then realized that he probably thought she had returned after the fire.

  “My family’s house is empty,” she said. “That number you called was at an apartment in town.”

  “I live out here,” he said, and she felt his breath, warm in her hair. “You need to have dinner. I want to make it for you.”

  Anne didn’t reply. She stared at the spot in the west where the evening star had been. It would be back tomorrow night, if the sky was clear. If only I could see Karen once a day, she thought, closing her eyes. I would trade anything to see Karen once a day.

  She must have fallen asleep. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, but she had a thousand dreams of Karen. Dreams as clear and beautiful as blue sea glass, filled with colors and laughter and the smells of a sleeping baby. Everywhere: deep blue sky. Images of Anne and Karen riding the funicular to a snow-covered alpine village; of rich island potato fields, the early-morning smell of dark earth encompassing Anne and Karen as they raised their faces to the sun; of castle building on their favorite island beach, with heartbreakingly beautiful blue water everywhere, Anne somehow knowing it was the last castle she and Karen would ever build together.

  When Thomas’s truck bumped down his dirt drive, Anne wakened with her cheeks wet.

  “Here we are,” he said, holding open the truck door. They walked to the door side by side, and Anne was aware of feeling slightly uncomfortable. She wondered whether she had made a mistake in letting him bring her here. He had seen raw emotion the likes of which she’d never shown anyone—not Matt, not Gabrielle—and she felt embarrassed.

  “Thomas, I think I’d better go home,” she said, stopping halfway down the walk.

  “I think maybe you need company,” he said gently.

  “No, I’m okay. I just … sometimes I think of her, and it … it’s too much. That’s all.”

  “I used to say that,” he said. “I wanted to be alone all the time because if I was with someone they might want to talk about the fire, they meant well and everything, but they didn’t know.”

  “Thomas—” she wanted to put her hands over her ears.

  “It will get better,” he said, bending so his mouth was very close to her ear. “I promise you.”

  “You can’t know,” Anne said. Standing in the frozen mud, she held tight to her vision of Karen. She wanted to go home and work on her collage. She would do a sandcastle. The best sandcastle in the world.

  “I want to help you,” he said.

  Anne shook her head. Her eyes were dry. Rubbing them with her fists, she said, “I have work to do.”

  “Stay,” he said. “We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

  “I have work …”

  He stood close by, and she could feel him looking at her. This part of the island was very dark. There were no street lamps, and he hadn’t left any lights on in his house. She couldn’t see his face.

  “You can’t work on an empty stomach, can you?” he asked after a moment. “I have some groceries in the car. I thought I’d make you some soup.”

  “Oh,” she said, thinking that soup sounded good. A canopy of stars, the winter constellations, filled the sky and silhouetted his massive shoulders.

  “Mushroom-barley soup,” he said. “With the best French bread you’ve ever had. I bought it on my way home from a bakery in Massachusetts.”

  “Okay,” Anne said. In that instant she felt the tension in her back knot up, then begin very slowly to spin itself out. But she was still thinking of her stamps, of what she could use to make a beautiful sandcastle, one Karen would be proud of.

  “Good,” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice. He unlocked the front door.

  Inside, he turned up the thermostat first and switched on a light second.

  “Be right back,” he said, running out to the truck.

  Anne stood in the middle of the living room, looking around. There was a braided rug, made from colorful scraps of tartans, checked wools, and what appeared to be old tights. Ansel Adams posters hung on the walls, photographs of soaring mountains and craggy canyons. The sofa and chairs looked comfortable, well sat in. But the room’s most striking feature was its abundance of clocks.

  Anne counted twelve clocks. With so many timepieces, some obviously antiques, you’d expect some to be off by at least a few minutes. Amazingly, these clocks all showed the same time.

  Thomas Devlin stomped his feet on the mat and entered the room. He swung a blue canvas duffel bag off his shoulder, laying it by the stairs. His arms were full of grocery bags. Anne hadn’t seen him in the light yet; looking at his face, she steeled herself against the shock she always felt upon seeing his burns. But the warmth in his eyes made her smile without even realizing it.

  “Are you just getting home?” Anne asked. “From your visit with your son?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding at the paper bags. “I did my food shopping on the mainland. It cos
ts about half what it does out here. Plus, wait till you taste the bread. Can I get you a beer? Or a glass of wine?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Say it’s wine—do you like red or white?”

  “Both.”

  “Say it’s red, and you were forced to choose between a nice Burgundy and a nice Bordeaux—what would it be?”

  The question reminded her of something Matt would ask; coming from Thomas Devlin, it seemed incongruous and made her smile. “Depends,” she said.

  “Leave it to me,” he said, nodding reassuringly.

  She watched him disappear, in the direction of what she assumed to be the kitchen. Feeling slightly awkward, she leaned down, to see what books he had on his bookshelf. A lot of Hemingway, Rex Stout, Simenon, Rendell, and Follett. A stack of Sports Illustrated and a few copies of Road and Track. The Ultimate Motorcycle Book. The Joy of Cooking. Yearbooks from the Boston Latin School, Deerfield Academy, Boston College, and the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. Six leather-bound photo albums.

  A moment later she heard Thomas standing behind her.

  “I was just thinking,” he said. “It’s nice and warm in the kitchen.”

  “I wasn’t sure whether you mind having an audience when you cook,” she said.

  “I thrive on it,” he said, giving her that radiant half grin.

  “Okay, then,” she said, following him down a dim, narrow hallway.

  The kitchen was tiny, but he moved around with ease. He had placed wine glasses on the blue tile counter, and Anne glimpsed the Burgundy he had chosen: a 1982 Corton. Opening the bottle, his movements were deft and graceful. She saw him glance at the cork upon removing it, nothing more. He was following a ritual that was neither awkward nor pretentious.

  “Corton,” Anne said admiringly.

  “It’s my worst vice. I love good wine.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a vice,” Anne said, watching him fill their glasses to the bottom of the curve.