Home Fires

by Luanne Rice

  “Allow this couple’s daughter to live,” Matt prayed with tears veiling his eyes, “as you couldn’t allow ours. Don’t let them suffer as Anne has this last year. As I have. Bless Karen’s soul, even as you keep Maggie safe on earth. Please, Lord, bless us all.”

  ANNE felt exhausted from the effort of making her arms and legs move constantly against the cold current, and from the knowledge that the end was near. No matter the outcome, good or bad, it would occur in the next minutes. Hugh Lawson and Thomas were swimming out, pulling the long towrope between them. Now they split up: Thomas came toward her while Hugh dove down to attach the hook to the beetle’s front axle.

  Pulling her back, farther and farther away from Maggie in the car, Thomas wrapped his arms around Anne.

  “We have to give Marty enough space to pull her out,” he explained when Anne tried to struggle against his embrace.

  “Will this work?” Anne asked, her teeth chattering. Half turning, she looked through Thomas’s face mask, hoping to see reassurance in his eyes.

  “It has to,” he said.

  Now Hugh was sidestroking over, his air tank glinting in the eerie blue light. Hugh gave a thumbs-up, and the great hydraulic winch began to grind.

  It strained and whined, like the spinning wheels of a car stuck on ice. Anne focused her eyes, for any sign that the car was budging.

  Did Maggie realize that this was it, that the winch would either pull her free or not? Was Maggie aware? That during the next moments she would either be freed from the car or drown at the bottom of this creek?

  All through the past year Anne had tortured herself with the same questions. Did Karen know? During the fall had she realized what was happening? Listening to the high-pitched whine of the winch gears, Anne stifled her sobs.

  Cacophonous mechanical noise: metal punches in a factory, presses in a print shop, work trucks rumbling out of the city garage. Water magnified the ugly sound, filling Anne’s ears. She stared at the car, its front end seeming to lift ever so slightly.

  Then, peace. With no tension on the towline, the winch motor settled down to a gentle hum.

  “The car?” A voice called from the bridge, and then another voice. “The car!”

  Where the car had been, there was only flat, black water. The car had sunk without a trace.

  “The axle broke,” Thomas said. Taking a deep breath, struggling out of his air tanks, he started swimming. Anne followed behind, gasping for breath.

  “Was it here?” Thomas yelled to people on the banks. “Is this the spot?”

  “Right there! My baby!” Anne heard Gabrielle scream. “Maggie, Maggie!”

  Thomas dove.

  HOLDING his air tank in his arms, Thomas Devlin breathed steadily through the regulator. Awkwardly, he unhooked the light from his belt, shone it along the creek bottom. Eelgrass fluttering in the current, a school of mackerel, and there: the car.

  The car had slid off the tree trunk, its four tires resting square on the silty, pebbled bottom. It wasn’t going anywhere now, so Thomas had nothing to lose. His light caught Maggie, her cheeks full with her last breath of air, her left hand clawing at the windshield. And here was Ned, swimming fast toward the car.

  There was not a sound in the world except for Thomas Devlin’s heart beating in his own ears.

  Get back, he gestured with his hand, urging Maggie away from the windshield. But of course she could not see him. All Maggie Vincent could see was his bright light, shining through Old Whisper Creek like a cruel full moon.

  He took one last breath and then, because he needed to use both his hands, he dropped his light. Shrouded in black water, he planted his feet on the car’s crushed hood like Ahab on the white whale. Using his air tank as a weapon, like a harpoon, he struck the windshield again and again. Now Ned was beside him, beating the glass with his fists. Each time the metal connected, Thomas heard a gentle ping.

  On the fourth try, he felt the windshield give way. Ripping the glass out with their bare hands, he and Ned reached in for Maggie. Struggling, she clutched their wrists. They pulled, but she was stuck.

  Fumbling, Ned took a breath from the regulator, then eased the rubber mouthpiece into Maggie’s mouth. She fought, terrified at first, but then she began to breathe. Watching Ned cradling Maggie’s head, feeding her air, made Thomas realize that Ned was saving the woman he loved, and he felt flooded with pride.

  Pushing Maggie against her seat, feeling his way because he could see nothing, Thomas Devlin put his feet through the windshield and wedged them against the caved-in side door.

  Suddenly, an army of white lights began swimming from his left. Pinpoints at first, like candles being carried in a distant procession. They drew closer, fanning out, surrounding the submerged car and bathing it in shimmering light.

  With one monstrous heave, Thomas Devlin kicked out the dent in the crumpled door, freeing Maggie’s trapped right arm. Wrapping her in his arms, as gently as possible, for it was obvious that she was badly hurt, Ned eased her out through the windshield.

  The men surrounded Thomas, Ned, and Maggie. Hugh offered Thomas a breath from his regulator, and Thomas saw Ned pressing his own mouthpiece to Maggie’s lips.

  His heart full, his chest aching, this is how Thomas Xavier Devlin, former altar boy, namesake of the saints, father of Ned and lover of Anne, saw it:

  They were angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, the men of the Island Volunteer Fire Department. And here they were, bearing Maggie Vincent, alive, straight to heaven, direct to paradise, safely home to her parents and Anne and all the people who loved her, miraculously back to the place where she belonged.

  A cheer arose among the crowd, from the bridge over Old Whistle Creek back to the cars parked two deep along Cross-Island Highway. Policemen surrounded Gabrielle and Steve, who had to be helped down the bank because they couldn’t see through their tears. The divers and Anne floated Maggie in to shore, Anne and Maggie’s heads pressed so close together you almost thought they were one.

  Shrieking with joy, Gabrielle waded straight into the creek, embracing Anne, lunging for Maggie, being carefully restrained by Chief Wade, who reminded her gently that they had to be very cautious, at least until they determined the extent of Maggie’s injuries.

  Steve and Gabrielle knelt in the shallow creek, on either side of their daughter, whispering in her ears as the EMTs strapped her securely to the stretcher, Gabrielle’s hands fluttering, from Maggie’s hair to her eyebrows to her throat. Bright lights from the bridge illuminated the three Vincents like actors in a play, like figures of the holy family in the floodlit crèche on the church lawn at Christmas.

  Standing tall, watching her family, Anne seemed oblivious to the fact that she wore nothing but a black lace bra and panties. Water flowed off her beautiful body, so magical and feminine, like Venus in The Birth of Venus, only without the scallop shell, only more magnificent than any woman Botticelli had ever painted.

  The Uffizi Gallery, in Florence. How long ago had it been? Their second year of marriage? Their third? They had stood before the famous painting, so large it occupied a whole wall. Throngs of tourists surrounded them, pressing forward, pressing them together.

  They had gazed upon the famous painting, so famous that everyone in the world knew it, you wouldn’t be surprised to see it on a Hallmark card, a children’s cartoon show, the crass place mat at any seafood joint, they had gazed at it for many moments, trying to figure out its magic.

  The crushing crowd pressing them together, so that feeling Anne’s bottom press against him, Matt had grown aroused, had reached around her to cup one breast and kiss her neck, right there among a hundred tourists in the Uffizi Gallery, and staring straight at Venus, holding his wife, Matt had known he had the more beautiful woman.

  And there she was now, knee-deep in the muddy creek, naked except for her lace underwear, the bra one Matt recognized well, one he had brought her from Christian Dior last summer, an offering, a sleight of hand to keep her fro
m realizing that he was having an affair behind her back.

  Matt gazed not at Maggie Vincent, his niece who had so narrowly escaped the sweet spot of death, that perfect window of opportunity where life can end instantly. That moment when you might not even recognize how lucky you were to escape, how grateful you should feel.

  Matt didn’t gaze at Maggie, whose life had been saved by the same capricious forces that had let Karen die. He gazed with eternal love and deepening regret at Anne, his wife, who was being embraced, being swaddled in warm, dry blankets, by the man she loved. He narrowed his eyes, to focus on Anne and that man.

  Anne, who couldn’t take her eyes off of Maggie—as if she still couldn’t believe they’d been able to save her, as if she were afraid the tide could rise and sweep Maggie away.

  Matt watched Thomas Devlin hold his wife, caress her face, pat her hands with his own, as if trying to warm them, as if his weren’t at least as cold as hers after spending all that time, over an hour, in the tidal creek. Now Anne looked away from Maggie, to Thomas Devlin. She reached up, held his face, and smiled into his eyes. She was speaking to him, but Matt couldn’t, didn’t want to, hear what she was saying.

  Thomas Devlin encircled Anne with his arms. His love for her was plain. And the way Anne looked at Thomas Devlin left Matt with no doubt that her heart was overflowing. Matt stared, boring the image into his brain. He was so intent on committing the picture to memory, he almost didn’t notice that Anne was looking in his direction.

  Staring at him.

  Alarmed, at first. She looked worried, as if she feared that Matt would interrupt the scene. Their eyes locked, and the longer she watched, the more her fear melted away. His mouth twitched in a half smile, and she smiled back. Good work, kid, he thought. You saved her.

  Now, noticing that Anne was looking into the crowd, Thomas Devlin followed her gaze. No smiles here. Matt stared, expressionless, his eyes narrowing just perceptibly. Thomas Devlin didn’t look away, and he didn’t loosen his grip on Anne.

  “Take care of her, you bastard,” Matt said, not possibly loud enough for anyone to hear. But Thomas Devlin nodded. As if he knew exactly what Matt meant, as if he were prepared to lay down his life for her. Matt let himself nod back.

  A flurry of activity. The cops clearing the road, bullhorns bleating that it was time to leave. They’d gotten Maggie strapped in safely. Sirens beeping, people running to their cars. Thomas Devlin kissing Anne, saying something. A quick glance at Matt. Easing himself away, then lifting one end of Maggie’s stretcher. A kid who could only be Devlin’s son lifting the other.

  Overhead the pop pop pop of helicopter rotors. Pop pop pop. Coming in loud and fast.

  “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to move. We need to load the girl into LifeStar,” said the polite young police officer who had initially let Matt and the Vincents past the yellow lines.

  “I’m her uncle,” Matt said, holding Anne’s gaze with his eyes.

  “Still, sir. Please.”

  Matt nodded, saluting Anne. She tipped her head back, raising her hand.

  “Okay, officer,” he said. “Good job.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Even as the helicopter hovered overhead, Matt whispered to the woman who had been his wife, “I love you.”

  And then he left.

  Chapter 23

  Maggie stayed in the hospital for three weeks. She had four operations for a broken jaw, a fractured right lower leg and ankle, a fractured right wrist, and minor plastic surgery for the cuts on her face.

  She had her jaw wired shut. Stainless-steel wire holding her jawbone in place. They fed her chalky milkshakes through a straw, and it was nearly impossible to talk.

  She wore a long leg cast on her right leg, up to her thigh. Her leg had been so stiff in anticipation of the impact, her right foot instinctively pushing down the imaginary brake, that her foot and ankle had gotten mangled. Both bones in her lower leg, the tibia and fibula, had shattered. The surgeons had implanted stainless-steel screws for at least six weeks, probably eight.

  In her right wrist she had a colles’s fracture. Although Maggie couldn’t remember, the doctors told her that when she saw the crash coming, she had probably thrust out her right hand to brace herself. As her palm smashed the dashboard her wrist became a train wreck: an “S” deformation up to her elbow.

  Maggie wore a long arm cast, up to her shoulder.

  She had a contused kidney, which sounded scary but which actually meant “bruised.” But it meant having tons of uncomfortable tests and IV pylograms, where doctors shot dye into her body and by magic it bypassed all her other organs and went straight to her kidneys.

  Her parents practically lived at the hospital. Well, not exactly, but they had rented a room with long-term rates at the Howard Johnson in Kenmore Square. Every day Maggie’s mother would tear a sheet off the calendar on Maggie’s wall, to show how fast the time was passing.

  Her parents had gone home to the island for the funerals. At first they told Maggie they were taking care of business matters, but when Maggie scowled, turning her head away to glower at the wall, they admitted the truth.

  “We thought it would upset you,” her mother said. “That you won’t be able to be there.”

  Maggie nodded, starting to cry. She had to keep her emotions under control, to keep from forcing her jaw open. You can’t cry hard and keep it inside, Maggie was learning. But the thought of Vanessa, Kurt, and Eugene in their coffins, being buried in the ground on this beautiful sunny day, was too much for her to stand.

  The memories came pouring in, and her chest started heaving so hard, she was rocking the bed. All she wanted to do was scream. Just scream! For the fact that she had listened to Vanessa drown, unable to do one thing to stop it. Her mother tried to hold her, to calm her down, but Maggie was out of control. She was weeping and thrashing, screaming inside, and she was going to explode.

  Her mother ran for the nurse, and suddenly the nurse was rushing in with a syringe, and she stuck it into the spongy orange thing on the IV machine, and the cold drug ran straight into Maggie’s veins and made her forget.

  When her parents returned to the hospital that night, they looked pale and tired, but they didn’t tell Maggie anything about the funerals. And Maggie didn’t ask.

  Her mom had had to call and cancel all the reservations for June and early July at Fitzgibbons’. That part made Maggie really sad, and although she didn’t speak—couldn’t, really—she must have shown her mom with her eyes.

  “Honey, being with you is more important. We only have one daughter. Daddy and I are staying right here until we take you home.”

  When she went home, the doctors told Maggie she would need a wheelchair for a while. Maggie didn’t care; she wanted to get out of this place that smelled like ammonia. Ned wrote letters, and he called. Even though she couldn’t really talk, she loved hearing his voice. He had taken some medical books out of the library so he could read about her injuries, and he would explain certain things to her that the doctors had left out.

  Anne visited on her Tuesdays off, and for some reason, that was when Maggie would feel saddest. She would think about her friends, what had happened. She would remember being with Anne in that black water, and they both would start to cry. Quiet tears, though. Not an explosion, like before. Just both of them sad.

  The odd part was, Anne never talked on her visits. Everyone else seemed to think that because Maggie couldn’t speak, they should talk twice as much. Her parents, even Ned, proved they had amazing talents of small talk, of making conversation about things you had never thought possible. But Anne just sat there, reading or holding Maggie’s hand, as if she had decided to save her words for a time when Maggie could come back with some of her own.

  Maggie’s parents spent every day at her bedside. Her father would occasionally get a scowl on his beardy face and have to excuse himself, but her mother was there all the time. Maggie’s mother had the strongest look of love and concern
in her eyes. Maggie could feel it seeping straight into her bones, as if directed by hypodermic infusion.

  Maggie had been too hurt to apologize to her mother right away. But after a while, when her painkillers began to wear off and the truth of her feelings poked through, she let her left hand stray across the woven white blanket to her mother’s.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Gabrielle had been dozing. Startled, she wakened at Maggie’s touch.

  “Hello,” Gabrielle said.

  Maggie gestured that she wanted a pen.

  Although Maggie was right-handed, she did her best with her left hand.

  I’m sorry, she wrote in squiggly scrawl, for going in the car when I was grounded. If I hadn’t, this might never have happened. They might still be alive.

  Her mother took a long time reading the note, and then she looked straight at Maggie.

  “What happened to them is not your fault. Do you understand me? Yes, you used poor judgment by getting in that car. But you are in no way responsible for their deaths. I know you’re sad, honey.”

  Maggie nodded.

  “When Dr. Scheer takes the wires out, we’re going to find someone for you to talk to. A good psychologist, to help you make sense of everything. Ned’s father recommended someone… .”

  Maggie nodded, then closed her eyes. She was really awfully tired.

  One day her parents arrived with Cheshire-cat grins on their faces. They looked ecstatic, and just seeing them made Maggie’s eyes start smiling. Her father did a corny little wiggle across the floor, waving an envelope in the air, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  What’s that? Maggie asked, tossing her chin.

  “Your SAT scores,” her father said.

  “Your father said we shouldn’t open your mail,” her mother said, “and I said that I absolutely agreed as a matter of principle, but in this case we didn’t want to show you if the news was bad.”

  Did that mean she had done well? Maggie’s eyes darted from her mother to her father. Her father had made a cage around her with his arms, and he was looking at her so seriously, as if he was honestly seeing her, that Maggie had to wonder whether this was the genuine Steven B. Vincent. He opened the envelope, placed the paper on her blanket, where she could clearly read the results: