by Nancy Thayer
She was cold. Carrying her tea with her, Joanna hurried back up the stairs to the warm oblivion of sleep.
Twenty-three
The next morning Joanna sat at the kitchen table, nursing Christopher, while Madaket puttered around, squeezing fresh orange juice and stirring a pot of hot cereal and honey for Joanna’s breakfast. It was a mild and oddly oppressive February day; the white sky seemed unusually low and the ocean looked heavy and dark and sullen, and the wind, when it came, was sudden and forceful.
“It’s so strange out there today,” Joanna remarked.
“They’re forecasting a storm,” Madaket replied cheerfully. She was wearing one of the sweaters Joanna had given her, a brilliant turquoise, over a long brown skirt, and thick brown stockings and her work boots. “Here’s your breakfast. Want me to take the baby?”
“No, thanks. He’s not quite finished. I can eat and feed him at the same time.”
Madaket took a mug of coffee and sat down at the other end of the kitchen table with a pad and pen. “I’m going into town this morning to stock up on supplies. Food. And a lot of videos. If it really blows, we might be stuck out here for a few days. And of course if it gets bad, all the planes and ferries will be canceled and the grocery stores will be empty.”
“You sound happy about it.”
“I love a good storm. Do you want some books from the library?”
Joanna shifted Christopher to her shoulder and burped him. “I want to buy some books at Mitchell’s. If we’re really going to get a big storm, perhaps I’d better go in with you while I can. Christopher can nap in his car seat.”
“Great. I’ll be ready anytime. Candles,” Madaket said, writing her list. “Flashlight batteries. Do we have enough diapers?”
“I think so. This makes me nervous. I’m going to see what the weatherman says.”
Joanna went off, Christopher snug in the crook of one arm and a hot cup of decaf in the other hand. Sinking onto the sofa, she set her mug on the end table and switched on the television and watched for the weather forecast. Christopher flexed his muscles eagerly. He was gaining weight, becoming a nice little bundle, plump and sweet-smelling in his blue terry-cloth romper. He had stopped crying every evening, had taken to sleeping several hours at a time during the night, waking Joanna for a feeding only once, and in the mornings he was active and happy and eager to play. She held him facing her on her lap, and put her hands under his arms, supporting his torso so that he seemed to be standing on her legs. He loved this. His eyes brightened while, with enormous effort, his fists clenched, his entire body tensed, he attempted to pull himself up, as if he thought he could stand on his own.
“Big boy,” Joanna cooed. “What a big boy.” Christopher shrieked with pleasure.
According to the Weather Channel, a major storm was headed their way this evening, or it might veer off into the Atlantic. National weather forecasters weren’t always accurate about Nantucket because it was so far away from the mainland. Joanna finished her coffee and headed upstairs with Christopher. She changed his diaper and carried him into the study with her.
Her desk was piled with notes she’d been scribbling to herself about ideas for Fabulous Homes. Vaguely she heard noises downstairs: the front door opened and slammed shut, Wolf barked joyfully, voices rumbled. The Snowmen had arrived. They’d probably finish the floor in the sunporch completely today. Good. Joanna had bought a little red automatic swing for Christopher. She could have Madaket assemble it and put it out there, and she would call the cable people to ask them to send someone out this week to move the television cable from the living room to the sunporch.
She turned to her work. Families. She’d made a memo to herself about the definition of the word “family,” which came from the Latin familia, meaning servants in a household, or just household. The first definition in Webster’s dictionary was “all the people living in the same house.” She wanted to do some research and have CVN’s Research and Graphics Department create some models, drawings, perhaps three-dimensional reproductions, of ancient houses, Roman houses, when the servants lived in the same house as the family they served. Also, she thought, scribbling rapidly, medieval homes. Castles and forts were lived in by the servants as well as those they served. Now, to the twenty-first and even twenty-second centuries: as more women joined the workforce, it became more important to have good, trustworthy, live-in help, which often meant, in the cities, at least, having a self-contained apartment for the nanny or cook or housekeeper.
She wrote as fast as she could with her right hand while with the left arm she jiggled Christopher against her body. When she glanced at him, she saw that he’d fallen asleep. He was so perfect, so lovely … and he was getting heavy. Quietly she padded down the hall and into the nursery, where she lay him on his tummy in his crib. He sighed a sweet high baby sigh and scooted up so that his little diaper-padded bottom stuck up in the air; his current favorite way to sleep. Joanna covered him with a light thermal blanket and stood watching him. Why was it that a baby’s sleep was so particularly hypnotic and pleasing?
“Joanna,” Madaket whispered from the door. “Are you ready to go into town with me?”
Joanna left the side of the crib and went out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. Now the nursery would stay cozily warm, without the long hallway leeching out the heat.
“I’ve changed my mind. I think I’d better stay here, Madaket. There’s some work I want to do, and now that Christopher’s settled in for a nap, I think I’ll have some time to concentrate. Let me give you a list of books I want you to buy. Just charge them to my account.”
Together the two women went into Joanna’s study, and Joanna wrote a few titles on a sheet of paper, and Madaket took the list and some signed checks from Joanna for the groceries and gas for the Jeep and some fresh flowers for the house.
“I’ll be back by lunch. Doug and Todd are working in the sunporch. They think they’ll be through today.”
“Good.” Joanna was not completely comfortable with this arrangement of relaying messages and knew she needed to talk to the men directly. But Fabulous Homes was on her mind, and she didn’t want to break the flow of ideas. She sat down at her desk. “I’ll see you later.”
She was aware of Madaket’s steps as the young woman went down the stairs, and she heard the front door slam and then the rumble of the Jeep’s engine and the crackle of gravel. Because the house was so large, she’d installed a monitor in the nursery, so that she could hear instantly when Christopher awoke or cried, and now she heard only the faint regular sounds of his breathing.
She focused on her work, but felt blocked and stalled. It seemed that motherhood had plugged the channels of her brain with molasses; she knew the good ideas were there, waiting in the crevices of her mind, but it took her true labor to force her way through the sweet muddle and laze of her head to find anything. She needed more coffee. Even if it did mean encountering the Snows.
Hurrying downstairs, she entered the kitchen and was surprised to find it empty. She looked into the sunroom. It was crowded with equipment: sawhorses, a tool chest, sheets of plywood, a new roll of carpet. But Doug and Todd weren’t there. She’d heard them come in only a few minutes ago. Where were they?
She went back into the kitchen, picked up her mug, took a carton of skim milk from the refrigerator, poured, and stirred. She put the milk back in the refrigerator and lifted her mug to her lips. Outside, the white sky had become tinged with an ominous gray and the ocean was leaping and frothing.
A thunderous boom split the air, shaking the entire house.
Beneath Joanna’s feet the floor moved, throwing her to her knees. Her mug flew out of her hand and across the room. She threw her hands out to catch herself as she fell. The noise was so tremendous she thought a jet had fallen from the sky, through the roof, and into the house. Through the kitchen door she saw the hall floor burst open, its golden boards cracking apart and flying upward. One wall of the kitchen groaned a
nd shuddered and broke open, flames flashing up from beneath the floor.
For a split second she knelt, stunned. More explosions roared through the air. Her mug lay shattered on the floor, the coffee spilled in a wide black shivering puddle.
Her mind jumped forward and signaled: Fire. Danger. Christopher.
Stumbling, she pushed herself up and raced out into the hall. A jagged hole yawned in the middle of the wide boards, and from it tongues of fire leapt upward. On the other side of the hallway, the living room was crashing inward, part of the second floor above it was groaning downward, and she could see part of the attic as the fire twisted up to the sky. Bits of flaming rubble, timber, burning wood, shot up as blast followed blast through the roof. Black clouds of smoke billowed through the house. She ran along the margin of the hallway, past the fiery hole, up the stairs, into the nursery.
Christopher was in his crib, screaming with fear. Joanna grabbed him up. She took a precious few moments to cradle him against her shoulder, murmuring, “There, there, darling baby, it’s all right, Mother’s here, it’s all right.”
She stepped back out into the hall, then stopped, trying to think. The center of the house was consumed with flames. More of the house was giving way as she watched, walls and floors cracking, screaming, as if the fire were eating off chunks of it, chewing it down into its burning belly. The back of the house was now a fiery pit, and the front stairway was rippling with flames. Oily smoke obscured her vision, rolled over her face, smothering her, making her cough. The noise was terrifying, as if a train were passing over them. Christopher screamed and thrashed in her arms. Heat blasted toward them.
She ran back into the nursery and with shaking hands swaddled her baby in blankets, taking care to cover Christopher’s face, but not too tightly. She pulled another blanket over her head and shoulders. She was moving as fast as she could, but already the air in the nursery was hot and thick with smoke and she was coughing spontaneously, continuously. She took time to look out the window: no. She and the baby would not survive a jump from this height. She had to face the fire.
Now flames were billowing up through the hall as if blown by the winds of hell. Wood crashed around her, bits of ceiling and draperies fell or floated upward on the inferno’s breath. But the front stairway still held, although the inner wall was a sheet of fire. Just a few feet farther down the hallway, the antique mahogany trestle table, with its silver bowl filled with white letters to be mailed, and its orange and blue porcelain vase of dried hydrangeas, tipped and slid and disappeared in the flames. Then the lopsided coatrack, one of Joanna’s treasures from the dump, fell. Soon the stairs would go.
She had no choice. Coughing, her eyes weeping from the sting of the smoke, she tightened the blanket around her face, leaving only enough room to see out of, and clutching her baby tightly to her breast, she plunged down the steps. Flames grabbed for her. She felt a searing pain as the hand holding the blanket over her head was scorched by the heat. Each breath was agony, as if she were swallowing glass, and she was dizzy, and the walls around her were sagging and bending so that she couldn’t see clearly.
She reached the bottom of the staircase. Between her and the front door a wall of fire raged. The house roared as it was ripped apart, crashing into the central core of the fire. Frantic, she looked behind her, but saw only fire. The heat was intense. Desperate for air, she took a few steps back up the front staircase toward the remaining front hall and bedroom where the fire hadn’t completely taken over. She looked helplessly down at the inferno. She couldn’t go through the flames. But she had to; it was the only way out. Without realizing it, she’d sunk to her knees, and kneeling, she coughed racking coughs, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs. She couldn’t think clearly. She was too dizzy to stand. She couldn’t get back to her feet. A smothering sensation came over her, she felt her eyes bulge, and she tried to crawl forward on one elbow, holding her baby with the other arm.
A figure loomed toward her through the oily thick smoke. Madaket was crashing toward them through the flames. Joanna felt Madaket’s arms embrace Joanna and Christopher, she felt herself and her baby being dragged through the flames. They were in the fire. Then they were going out the burning front door to safety. She fought not to lose consciousness, but her nose and mouth burned and it hurt to breathe.
It felt like the end of the world. She was aware of lying on the ground, on the gravel. Her arms were still around Christopher, her body curled over his. She could feel the heat and hear the crackle of burning wood, the scream and crash of falling lumber. Beneath her cheek the driveway was gritty and cold. It scratched her skin. Christopher was crying. Her breath burned in her throat. Someone near her was keening shrilly in pain. Then the noise stopped.
“Joanna, oh my God, Joanna.” June Lathern was there, weeping and babbling, her voice shrill with hysteria.
“The fire department’s on its way. An ambulance is coming.” Morris Lathern’s voice was calmer. He rolled Joanna onto her back, and loosening her hold from the baby, took Christopher from her arms. Christopher screamed.
“He’s all right, Joanna,” Morris said. “June has him now. He’s perfectly all right. Can you breathe?”
Joanna tried to say yes, but made only a hideous sound that felt as if it ripped apart the tissues of her throat.
“I’m going to carry you now,” Morris said. “Just a little ways, to get you away from the heat.”
Joanna felt herself being half lifted, half dragged, and she heard Morris grunt with exertion, and felt the effort and strain in his chest and arms.
“Go back to the house and get blankets to cover them,” he said to his wife.
Joanna heard Christopher’s crying subside and then dim as June went away.
A hideous stench, a smell like that of cooked meat, assaulted Joanna’s senses, filling her with terror. “Madaket,” she cried.
The word was unintelligible, but Morris understood. “I’m going to her now.”
Joanna lay on the ground on her side. Above her something large and black flew across the sky, dipping and flapping. The air roiled and trembled with fiery cannonades of thunderous sound, as if all the devils in hell were doing battle. Wrenching her body around, she faced her house. It was writhing with fire. Flames flared from the roof and poured out the windows. Great black clouds of smoke billowed up into the sky. Black flags of burned material floated upward on waves of hot air.
An enormous crash shook the air, followed by a pandemonium of sounds as beams, furniture, ceilings, walls, and floors collapsed in the fury of the fire. Sparks flew upward like brilliant orange birds, and instantaneous explosions ripped the air.
She was aware of the scream of sirens slicing through the air as a red fire truck, enormous and gleaming, raced into the drive. Behind it came another, and then an ambulance. The earth shook beneath her.
The fire chief, bulky in his black and yellow slicker and helmet, jumped out. She could not move anymore; she felt her consciousness fading, melting in the waves of heat.
The fire chief yelled, “What happened?”
From somewhere nearby Morris shouted back, “I don’t know!”
“Anyone else in there?”
She didn’t hear the answer.
She was aware of being strapped on a stretcher and slid into the ambulance. Gardner was there. June was there, with Christopher. The last sight she saw before they closed the ambulance doors was her house, now completely transformed into a towering frenzy of orange and black and purple flames. Huge sails of black smoke lifted off and swept toward the ocean.
Later, she understood she was in the hospital. Her throat was on fire. People moved around her and pricked her arms.
She awoke in the late afternoon. Pat was sitting on a chair with a book. Immediately she came to the bedside.
“What happened?” Joanna asked, but to her horror, only a croak emerged from her painful throat and mouth. A scream swelled in her chest.
Pat leaned forward. “You�
��re okay. Christopher’s okay. The smoke burned your throat and respiratory passages, but you’ll be okay.”
Where’s Madaket? Joanna asked, mouthing the words, beseeching with her eyes and her hands.
“Madaket’s alive,” Pat replied. “Now close your eyes. You have to rest.”
They brought her the baby to nurse at some point in the evening. She was thirsty, but could have nothing to drink. Tubes in her arms gave her necessary liquids.
She fell asleep, and woke in terror, screaming, thinking that it was happening again. The nurses came and gave her more shots.
She woke again in the late morning. She was in a hospital room. Milky sunlight poured through the window. In a chair near the bed, Pat sat reading a magazine.
“Hey, there. You’re awake,” Pat cried, looking up.
“The baby—” Joanna croaked. Her throat was sore and parched.
“Right here.” Pat gestured to a portable crib. Christopher was there, wearing an unfamiliar white garment, covered with a light blanket. He was on his tummy, bottom in the air, sleeping peacefully. “He’s okay. Not the tiniest part was burned. I’ll tell the nurse you’re awake.”
“No, wait. Pat—”
But Pat hurried away, shutting the door behind her.
Joanna looked around, looked down to see her right hand wrapped and taped with white gauze. The hand that had held the blanket closed around her and Christopher. She felt her face with her good hand. It was smooth and unbandaged. No pain. Because of the blanket around her, she’d come through the flames intact.
