The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  They stared at her. Abby never shouted at them, she never swore at them, she never looked at them that way.

  Sirens cut through the air, and they ran to the curbing. “There’s a duffel—” Doug began, but his attention was taken by two fire engines coming to a stop in front of their house, and two police cars that stopped across each end of the street, blocking any traffic that might come. Firemen leaped from the trucks, uncoiling hoses while others unhooked long ladders from the sides of the trucks.

  After that, everything blurred together for Abby. She saw neighbors come out of their houses, but she and Carrie and Doug shrank into the shadows of the trees between their house and Mrs. Pierce’s. More neighbors arrived, pulling coats over pajamas and nightgowns, calling out, but Abby shook her head.

  “We don’t need help; we’re fine.”

  “But, honey—” a neighbor said, and Abby cried again, “We’re fine!” her voice rising, and at her vehemence the neighbors backed up a little, still close enough to help if anyone asked. Numbly, Abby and Carrie watched flames fill the second-floor windows. “Our bedrooms,” Carrie whispered, trembling, while Doug jumped around them, his fears about the house and worries about his carvings swept away by the thrill of being so close to the firemen and the excitement of the trucks, their lights flashing the whole time, the firemen shouting back and forth, heavy ladders screeching as they were set up against the house, hoses snaking across the sidewalk and their small front garden, and the loud hiss of water. Even the policemen were exciting, though they stayed beside their cars, out of the firemen’s way.

  Abby was transfixed by the flames: greedy, voracious, yellow, orange, red, green, magenta, shooting straight up, whipping back and forth as if to make sure they consumed everything, with strange noises, like high winds, like whistling. In the awful, flickering orange light that lit their street, she stared at the fire, terrified by the hugeness of it. This was nothing like the lovely fires they made in the fireplace in their library; it was more like the fireballs they saw sometimes in movies. And when the windows shattered in the heat of the flames, shards of glass falling to the flowers below, she shrank from the destructiveness, and tears came to her eyes. The world was a place of dangers she’d never comprehended. How did people live, knowing that? How did they get through each day if they knew danger was always waiting and even their house, which had always kept them safe, could be destroyed?

  “Our house, our poor house,” Carrie whispered over and over, “my beautiful chair and curtains, and my bed, and my journal, oh, my journal…” and Doug heard her and stopped jumping and stood beside her, watching the two upper floors almost hidden by flames, and when Carrie began sobbing, he did, too.

  Abby put her arms around them and held them, thinking she shouldn’t have yelled and sworn at them; terrible things were happening, and all of them were afraid. “But we’re safe and we’re together,” she said, “and that’s the most important thing. Nothing else really matters. We got out in time—”

  “And called the firemen,” Carrie gulped. “You called them. You’re the heroine. I’m going to write about it, Abby the fantastic heroine, you woke us up and forced us out, dragged us out, and saved our lives, and rescued us from burning up into black, shriveled, stinking—”

  “Carrie!” Abby said sharply, hearing the hysteria in Carrie’s babbling.

  “What?”

  “Just…calm down.”

  “How can I? We almost burned to death.”

  “Mack did,” said Doug. His eyes were scrunched and he bent over, coughing. “He’s dead.”

  “We don’t know that,” Abby said. “I don’t think he was there.”

  Carrie looked up, her face streaked with tears, speckled with bits of ash, her eyes red and puffy. “If he’s not dead, where is he? I mean, he didn’t come downstairs, we would’ve seen him. And he didn’t jump out the window… did he?”

  They looked up at the third-floor windows, and down to the ground. “The duffel!” Doug said. “I saw it, you know, when we came out, and then the fire engines came—”

  “There’s clothes all over the place,” Carrie said.

  “Mack’s,” said Doug. He rubbed his burning eyes. “It’s his duffel, too.”

  “Are you sure?” Abby asked.

  “Sure, he bought one, he said he was going on lots of trips, and it looked like that one.”

  “They all look alike,” Carrie said. Like Doug, she was rubbing her eyes.

  “Don’t do that,” said Abby. “It makes them worse.”

  “It’s his clothes, too,” Doug said, still rubbing.

  “But we didn’t see him leave,” Carrie said again.

  “We were asleep,” Abby said. “I fell asleep after I talked to—” And suddenly she remembered Sara.

  Sara would be calling and she wouldn’t get any answer. She’d be so worried…I have to call her, Abby thought, but her cell phone was in the house. “Stay here,” she said to Carrie and Doug. “I have to get the phone, to call Sara.”

  But firemen stopped her. “Nobody in the house, get back, sweetheart, you the one who called?” She nodded. “Good job, but just keep away now.”

  “But my phone…it’s in the kitchen…my sister…I have to—”

  “Keep out! Out of the way!”

  She backed up. Firemen on the ladders were smashing whatever windows were not already broken, and climbing through, while two firemen stood on the ground, aiming gushing hoses at the windows, and two other firemen ran through the front door dragging hoses behind them. Heads back, Abby and Carrie and Doug stared through stinging eyes at the smoke pouring out, and with each passing moment they became more terrified as they imagined disasters that might have happened: the three of them trapped on the third floor, cut off from the stairs by fire and smoke, flames dancing all over them the way they had danced over Mack’s bed, three charred corpses found by the firemen when they got up there. I didn’t take good care of things, Abby thought; Sara won’t ever trust me again.

  Sara. I have to call…

  “Abby!” Mrs. Pierce, who lived next door, was plowing through the crowd of neighbors, and the neighbors came forward with her, gathering around as Mrs. Pierce embraced Abby and Carrie and Doug. “You poor lambs,” she cried. “Where is Sara? Is anybody still inside?”

  “Mack,” said Doug. “Mack’s dead.”

  Mrs. Pierce squeezed them against the folds of her ample form. “Thank God you’re all right, but, oh, dreadful about Mack, a terrible thing. But where is Sara?”

  “Driving back from New York,” said Abby, her words muffled against Mrs. Pierce. “They’ll be here pretty soon.”

  “They?”

  “Sara and her …fiancé.” She was convulsed by coughing, and Mrs. Pierce cried out to a neighbor to bring bottles of water. “They’re getting married,” Abby gasped out.

  “Well, that’s lovely, but they’re not here now and you need help. We’re going straight to our house, get you cleaned up, you’re awfully grimy, all that smoke, and… oh, my goodness, Doug, your hair’s burned! Carrie, you, too! Come on, we’ll get you gallons of water, and put you to bed, you all look exhausted. Come on, come on, since Sara’s gone off, you need someone to take care of you.”

  Abby heard the criticism at the same time as she felt her authority being snatched away. She pulled out of Mrs. Pierce’s embrace. “No,” she said. “I mean, thank you, it’s nice of you, but”—she stopped to cough—“we’re fine; we can take care of ourselves.”

  “Now look, young lady, obviously you can’t, and with Sara off gallivanting—”

  “She’s not! She went to New York just for one night, and she calls all the time and worries about us, and it wasn’t her fault the airports got closed! And we can take care of ourselves! We didn’t start the fire, it started in Mack’s room, he was smoking and he was probably in bed and everybody knows you’re not supposed to smoke in bed, and Sara will be here in a little …any minute, and we’re fine!”

  “Wel
l, my goodness, you don’t have to shout, Abby, I was only trying to help. Your house is burning down, and here you all are, shivering and coughing and crying…would you rather I just ignored you?”

  “I’m sorry.” Abby shook her head helplessly; whatever she did seemed wrong. “I’m really sorry, but, you know, we’re okay and we want to be here—”

  “The fire’s out!” Doug exclaimed, and they all looked at the house. The firemen were still pouring water through the windows, but the two who had run into the house were coming out, pulling the hoses with them. Acrid smoke still billowed, and the smell of wet ashes and burning wood and fabric filled the air.

  “It stinks,” Carrie said.

  Abby was blinking, trying to see through the stinging in her eyes. “The downstairs looks okay. We could wait for Sara there.” She backed away from Mrs. Pierce. “We have to be here when Sara gets home. If she came back and saw this, and we weren’t here, she’d be really worried…”

  “You can leave her a note.”

  “No! We don’t want to go anywhere!”

  The firemen had descended the ladders and were outside the house. “All out, kids,” said one of them. “Good thing you called when you did. You’re all heroes.”

  Carrie threw a triumphant look at Abby.

  “You the lady of the house?” the fireman asked Mrs. Pierce.

  “She’s our neighbor,” Abby said quickly, horrified that anyone would think Mrs. Pierce was their mother. “Our older sister takes care of us and she’ll be here in a few minutes.” They were frowning at her and, uncertainly, she said, “Thank you for coming.” It sounded as if she were thanking them for coming to a party, and she berated herself again. Why can’t I do things right?

  “I can tell you anything you need to know—” Mrs. Pierce began.

  “Where’s Mack?” Doug demanded.

  “Mack?” asked the fireman.

  “He was on the top floor, his bedroom. His bed was on fire, and we saw him in it, so we knew he was dead. Where’d you take—”

  “Nobody’s dead. Nobody’s up there. There was a sheet and a couple blankets piled up, that’s probably what you saw. I’ll bet he smoked, huh? That’s how the fire started?”

  “He’s not there?” Carrie asked. “Really?”

  “Piled up?” Abby echoed. “Why?”

  “Probably pushed ’em there getting out of bed when the fire started. Dumb-ass thing to do, smoking in bed. Did he smoke?” They nodded. “Stupid ass. You don’t know where he is, huh? Cut out without warning you? Sounds like a bad deal to me. Friend of yours?”

  They looked at him without answering.

  “Well, that’s good news!” cried Mrs. Pierce. “Not dead!”

  Two policemen had joined the firemen. One of them held a clipboard, and while the other one asked questions he wrote everything down. Abby felt uncomfortably guilty; it was exactly like the time the police were questioning her after she crashed her car. I didn’t do anything, she thought; Mack did it. I got us out of the house. I did what I could.

  The police asked Mrs. Pierce what she saw, and when she admitted that she had come outside when the fire already was burning, they dismissed her and turned to Abby.

  “Well, if you don’t need me—” Mrs. Pierce said. “Abby, you just come on in, all of you, when you’re ready; the door is unlocked. You shouldn’t go into your house, stay out of it.”

  “She’s right about that,” the policeman muttered. “Okay,” he said to Abby, “your name?”

  “Abby Hayden.”

  “Age?”

  “Almost…I’m sixteen.”

  He turned to Doug and Carrie. “Doug Hayden, I’m ten, almost eleven.” “Carrie Hayden, I’m thirteen.”

  “And you all live here?” the policeman asked.

  They nodded.

  “Your sister’s taking care of you?” he asked Abby. “What’s her name?”

  “Sara Elliott, she’s twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight.”

  “I thought your name’s Hayden.”

  “It is. Sara’s our…our half sister.”

  “Taking care of you.”

  “She is! She’s wonderful.”

  “So if she’s so wonderful, where is she?”

  “She’s coming home. Driving. I mean, the airports in New York were closed…she was in New York, just overnight, just for one night, and then the airports shut down. She’ll be here any minute. She called and said she’d be here right away.”

  “Driving from New York,” the other policeman said, writing on his clipboard. He looked up. “Where’s your parents?”

  “They’re—” Abby started to cry; it was so complicated to explain, and it sounded awful—our father ran away and we’ve never seen him again and our mother is in a nursing home, she can’t walk or talk—how could she say that? “We’re fine, Sara takes care of us, she’s as good as our mother, she’s as good as any mother!”

  “Doesn’t sound as if she’s taking care of you. Could be child abandonment, that’s a felony.”

  “Sara isn’t a criminal! What are you talking about? She’s wonderful, she’s our real mother! And she calls all the time, and she’s always thinking of us! Anyway, I’m old enough, I earn money babysitting, if I can do that why can’t I take care of my brother and sister? It’s not our fault Mack set fire to the bed! Leave Sara alone; why can’t you leave all of us alone?”

  “Hey, take it easy,” said the policeman with the clipboard. He looked contemptuously at his partner. “Got a little excited there.”

  The other policeman shrugged. “Weird setup.”

  The policeman with the clipboard took over. “So, okay,” he said, “she’s coming back. Where is she now?”

  “In Chicago! She called and told us she’ll be here any minute! Almost right away!”

  “Hope so,” the policeman said ambiguously. He thought for a minute. “Okay, then.” He turned to Abby. “You smelled the smoke and you went upstairs…and then what?”

  Abby told them what had happened, cutting off Doug and Carrie when they tried to interrupt with their own versions. “It seemed like a little fire,” she said, “but it spread a lot faster than we thought it would.”

  “Usually does.” The policeman took a long look at the third-floor windows. “If he was smoking, he’s responsible. Could’ve killed you all. You sure you don’t know where he is?” They shook their heads. “You’re not protecting him?” Again they shook their heads. “This all goes in our report, you understand that. We have to say that Mack… Mack what?”

  “Hayden,” Doug muttered.

  “Hayden. A relative.”

  “Our brother,” Doug said, scuffing the ground with his shoe.

  “Brother? Older brother?” They nodded. “How old?”

  “Twenty,” Abby said.

  “Twenty. And didn’t warn you? Didn’t tell you when he started the fire? Or when the fire started?”

  Doug and Carrie were silent. “No,” Abby said.

  “Missing, probably started the fire, left you in the house. Mack Hayden’s got a hell of a lot to answer for. You got a picture of him we can have?”

  “No,” Abby said.

  “You mean they all burned up.”

  “He hated having pictures taken. He didn’t have any in his room, of anybody.”

  “Weird setup,” said the first policeman again.

  “Huh.” The other policeman shook his head. “We can put out an all-points, but without a picture…He have a car?” They nodded. “You know the license?” They shook their heads. He muttered to himself. “Well, you hear from him, let us know. Okay? Right away, okay?”

  They nodded.

  “Anybody else in the house we don’t know about?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!”

  After a moment, the policeman shrugged. “Need to talk to the sister,” he said to his partner, so Abby knew they would be back. But that was okay; by then Sara would be home. Right now she just
wanted everybody to go away and leave them alone.

  The firemen had coiled their hoses and returned the ladders to the trucks. Doug watched them put everything tightly in place. He would have liked a ride on one of the fire engines, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t the right time. He didn’t even think he should ask them if he could have a ride another time. Everything was too mixed up and he felt bad about Abby. She took good care of them; why were the police giving her a hard time?

  And they still hadn’t gone away; what were they waiting for? “Well, okay,” the policeman said to Abby, “you tell your sister to call us soon as she gets back. We need some information so we can find Mack.” He looked at the three of them, standing tightly together. “Call us with any news. Anything, right?”

  “Can we go in our house?” Abby asked.

  “I doubt it.” The policemen called out the question to the firemen.

  “Absolutely not,” said one, walking toward them. “Not structurally safe. Kitchen’s the best, if you need something, but don’t stay long. Everything’s a mess anyway, you don’t want to be there, water, you know, smoke, everything’s pretty much ruined.” He looked around. “Where’s your parents?”

  “We can go next door,” Abby said quickly. She couldn’t stand the questions anymore. Where was Sara? Why didn’t she come and rescue them?

  “Oughta do that,” said one of the policemen. He gestured to the neighbors who were still hovering a little distance away. “Any of ’em probably be able to help. Don’t forget,” he said to Abby, “tell your sister to call us. The minute she gets back.”

  And at last they were gone, the men, the fire engines, the police cars. All that was left were sheets of rippling water on the street and sidewalk, a thick layer of broken glass, pieces of charred wood and paper obliterating the front garden, and smoke still coming from the upper windows of their house, an ugly, blackened hulk sitting atop the stones of the first floor, darkened by smoke and water, with gaping holes of broken windows.

  “Our poor house,” Carrie mourned.

  The neighbors came up and offered food, clothing, whatever they needed, and asked about Sara. When Abby said she would be home any minute, and refused their offers to come home with them, practically screaming that they were okay and if they needed anything they’d ask, they drifted away. The sky had turned bright blue with puffy clouds; the sun was glaring. Exhausted, Abby thought of bed. But I don’t have one anymore. Anyway, she had to call Sara and get Doug and Carrie somewhere. In our house, she thought; the fireman said we could go in the kitchen, at least for a while, we could wait for Sara there, even sleep in the armchairs until she gets home.