The Trouble on Highway One

by Anne McClane

  Lacey looked past him. She could only see four doors in this section of the building, and three of them were open. Everyone seemed to have gotten out of this side already. Except the woman Eli was looking for.

  He stopped at the closed door. He tried the doorknob, and found it unlocked. But it would only open after he gave it a forceful shove. Lacey followed him inside.

  Through a window with a skewed curtain rod, Lacey saw a thin tower of angry orange flame, billowing smoke flaring off the top. It was not too far in the distance, maybe fifty yards in the opposite direction of the way they came in.

  “Ignitable,” Lacey said under her breath.

  “We’ll need to make this quick,” Eli said.

  “I’ll say.” Before we all burst into flames or tumble into the earth.

  The apartment was in shambles. Besides the maze of toppled furniture and upturned items, there were stacks of paper and food containers strewn about. Like a hoarder lived there.

  The air got very close. An acrid smell, a mixture of smoke and alkaline, filled Lacey’s nostrils.

  Eli said in a very low voice, “Rose? Rosie?”

  So she is Rosie, Lacey thought. I’d be intrigued if I wasn’t so horrified.

  Lacey chimed in. “Rosie?” She meant it as an assist to Eli, but it came out as more of “Who is Rosie?”

  “Rosie!” he said, louder.

  A muffled voice answered, “Here.” Lacey couldn’t tell where it came from. Eli stopped.

  Again, a little louder, “Here!”

  “This way,” Eli said.

  Their path became nearly impassable. And impossibly dark. Eli pulled out a penlight and clipped it to his shirt pocket. Lacey made the mistake of looking at it straight on and wound up with a floater dead center in her vision.

  “I’m over here!” the voice said, growing in clarity but becoming hoarse.

  A human form finally appeared to match the voice. Lacey blinked and saw a woman half-standing, her back up against a bookcase, and half-sitting, one leg stretched forward in front atop a toppled chair. There was a doggie bed behind her.

  “Rosie!” Eli said. “Did you get what you came here for?”

  That’s an odd question, Lacey thought. But this is Eli, after all.

  Rosie shook her head, a tear escaping her eye. Lacey noticed an inked tear below the other eye.

  “I can go find him while Lacey helps you,” Eli said.

  “No,” Rosie said. “I found him. He didn’t make it.”

  Eli nodded solemnly.

  Lacey’s heart dropped, and her face must have mirrored her panic.

  “My mother’s dog,” Rosie said to Lacey.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lacey said. She was, indeed, sorry, but also relieved that the “he” wasn’t human.

  Lacey looked down at Rosie’s outstretched leg, and suddenly understood why she wasn’t moving. Her calf was turned in a way it shouldn’t be.

  Without thinking, Lacey asked, “Are you in pain?”

  Rosie answered only with a look.

  Nice job, stupid question, Lacey thought. Why don’t you just quit talking?

  After saying to Rosie, “Here, I think I can help,” Lacey followed her own advice. She stopped talking, and reached her hands forward toward Rosie’s leg. All words and all thoughts of self-consciousness slipped away. She wasn’t sure where Eli was. Her only thought was a faint image of a tree, with one sagging branch.

  Rosie raised her eyes to Eli, who had stepped beside her. Eli nodded reassuringly. Rosie closed her eyes.

  Lacey felt an instinctive urge to remove her clothing. She felt like she was on fire. Disrobing, and the tree branch, were the only thoughts she had. In that instance, those two thoughts were her universe.

  Something like a breeze came over her, she felt cooler, and the urge dissipated. No longer fixated on her clothing, she focused on the sagging branch.

  A sound penetrated her thoughts. A plaintive note, a chord that resonated on a rising pitch until it became a wail. Lacey thought the breeze was howling through the tree. The sagging branch seemed to right itself. The howl faded.

  The smell of smoke—separate and closer than the pervasive scent of the destroyed building—roused Lacey from her reverie. That, and several hard slaps on her back from Eli’s hand.

  “What, what, ow!” Lacey said.

  There was a thin line of smoke coming from her t-shirt, just below her ribs. She grabbed her side and patted, a gentler touch than Eli’s.

  Rosie was panting, her face broken out in perspiration.

  Lacey pieced together the events of the last few moments. Not sure what to say, she looked to Eli.

  “We’re getting there,” he said.

  What does that mean?

  “Rosie,” Eli said, turning away from Lacey, “are you ready?”

  Rosie blew out a breath, and looked down at her leg. “I must have been in shock before. That doesn’t look as bad as I thought it was.”

  Lacey gave Eli a sideways glance. He didn’t react.

  “Yeah, we better get going,” Rosie continued. “This place is ready to come down around us.”

  “Should we grab the body?” Eli asked.

  Lacey grimaced at Eli’s bluntness.

  “We can’t. He’s crushed, beneath the bed frame. There’s no moving him,” Rosie said, serious but not affected by Eli’s manner.

  Lacey wondered if Rosie might be Eli’s cousin or something.

  Eli nodded, and the precariousness of their situation crashed in on Lacey. The tree was a distant memory. Another BOOM. Her hearing still muffled from the first explosion, Lacey realized she had no idea how near or far this new one was.

  “We’ll help you,” Lacey said, hurrying to Rosie’s side.

  There was no way they could fit three aside, so Lacey maneuvered in front of Rosie to provide some feeble support. Eli and Lacey hopped, shimmied, and scurried their way back into the living room, supporting the mostly dead weight of Rosie between them.

  “Is your mom out of town?” Lacey asked.

  “What?” Rosie struggled to answer.

  Lacey realized the question seemed to come out of the blue, but it seemed a legitimate query, and she was struggling herself to keep her mind off their current danger.

  “Your mom. She lives here, right, with her d . . . ” Lacey stopped herself from saying dog.

  “Oh. She . . . ” It was an obvious labor for Rosie to answer.

  Real good. There you go again, Lacey thought. Heal someone, then practically kill them over again with stupid questions.

  “She’s down in Los Angeles, isn’t she, Rosie?” Eli responded.

  “Yes. She’s in L.A . . . for work,” Rosie said. “I’ve been after her . . . to move out of this god-awful place. Now . . .

  “Just my luck . . . I happen to be here to check on her dog when the place comes crashing down!” Rosie released a high-pitched laugh, struck through with pain.

  Finally, they escaped the fatal maze of the ruined building. Lacey and Eli, flanking Rosie, brought her to a triage area.

  Eli spoke to the paramedic. He brought his finger to his temple, and her tone changed from hostile to cooperative in a matter of seconds.

  Eli must be working his mind tricks on overtime, Lacey thought. Getting us in there, and smoothing things over now.

  They stood by while the paramedic checked Rosie over. Lacey tried to take mental notes on everything she was doing.

  “You did the right thing,” Eli said.

  “What?”

  “That was the right thing to do,” he said. “Asking Rosie about her mom, trying to bring us all out of the situation.”

  “She could barely walk, much less answer me, Eli. I felt pretty stupid for asking.”

  “You’ll do better when you get out of t
hat frame of thinking,” he said. “Your constant self-critique. It limits you more than you realize.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re like some supernatural Zen master.”

  “No,” Eli said. “It’s not easy.”

  The paramedic approached them. A few inches shorter than herself, Lacey noticed the way her uniform suited her. It seemed tailored to the woman’s petite frame. Lacey wondered how she would look in uniform herself, then chastised herself for her vanity. And then criticized herself for being self-critical.

  Thanks, Eli.

  “We’re going to bring Rosie to Bayside Hospital. But we’ll need to wait a bit for a bus. An ambulance,” the paramedic said, correcting herself. Her badge read “Nicholson.” She had an East Coast clip to her speech that sounded very foreign on the Central Coast of California.

  “Fortunately, the building had a lot of vacancies. I was told this side was cleared, but we’ll need to do another walk through now.”

  She picked up her radio and spoke quickly to the person on the other end. Eli walked over to Rosie, who reclined on a makeshift cot.

  Lacey stood, watching Nicholson the paramedic, and started to worry about other people nearby, people who might need her assistance. She thought of straying to find another triage area, but the police presence had tripled since they first entered the building.

  Which strengthened her intention of getting properly trained.

  Eli approached her. “Rosie’s asleep.”

  “Oh. Did they give her something?”

  “No. Her pain is manageable. Sleep is what she needed most.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Eli took a deep breath. “I helped her fall asleep, Lacey.”

  “Oh.”

  He can do that?

  She wanted to ask more about it, and how he knew Rosie, but her concern for the other injured people still on site won out.

  “You know, Eli, since we’re here . . . ”

  “You want to see if there’s anyone else you can help.”

  “Yes. Can you help me do that?”

  Eli didn’t answer for several moments. She couldn’t anticipate how he’d answer.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “Let’s go.”

  20

  Galliano, Louisiana

  One spring in the mid-twentieth century

  It didn’t feel like four years had passed since the tornados hit. Everyone who had been outside that day realized how fortunate they had been. No, not fortunate, blessed. Two houses, just on the other side of the bayou from the Becnels, took direct hits from the tornado. One was never rebuilt, and the other family had only just returned to their rebuilt home in the past year.

  Camille was now getting ready to graduate high school. Birdie felt a pang of sadness when she heard Camille talk about college.

  Both Camille and Brother treated Birdie, and each other, differently since that day four years ago. While they weren’t disrespectful prior to that time, they each had a capacity to be dismissive in that unique, adolescent way. That way had been tempered with compassion, and a bit more reverence.

  And there was another baby in the house. A toddler, now. For nine months, two years ago, Mrs. Becnel became a different person. Active, engaging. And pleasant. Collaborative in her dealings with Birdie. More present with her seven children. But after Esme was born, she withdrew even more than before that time. Birdie knew not to check on her unless it was specifically requested.

  Even more than before, it was better that way. After countless episodes of hay fever, flu fever, and even one averted case of scarlet fever, Birdie knew these children better than she knew herself. They operated like a fine-tuned machine. The older children would return home from school, and knew better than to shirk their chores.

  It was during Easter break, again, when Birdie found herself with a house full of children out of school and in need of occupation.

  She had devised a game for Foxy. It was sort of an everyday-object Easter egg hunt. Sometimes it was a red bean, sometimes it was a rubber ball, sometimes it was a doll, once loved but now sitting on a shelf, abandoned for more big-kid pursuits.

  On this April day, it was a baseball. Birdie had hidden it somewhere sure to get a rise out of Foxy.

  Brother was in Mr. Becnel’s study, messing with the radio. He knew to play it low, at a level not to disturb his mother. And he knew just how to leave it so that his father would never know he was there. Those were the conditions he and Birdie had worked out.

  Camille was sneaking around, playing Candid Camera.

  Evangeline was in the girls’ room, reading. She had just reached that age where she learned that a good story was one of the best escapes from the relentless tug of teenage concerns.

  Birdie took a deep breath. Sometimes things get close to perfect, she thought. Morris had been well enough to take on a few jobs for the past several weeks; the Becnel children were all happy, occupied, and harmonious; and the strawberries at the market had been the best she’d seen in four seasons. The Becnels who gathered when she entered the galley door with them howled with delight. “Birdie’s gonna make strawberry shortcake!”

  “Who says, children?” Birdie teased. “Maybe these are all for me.”

  Foxy looked at her as if he’d been betrayed. Birdie knew the thought of not having her strawberry shortcake was a fate he didn’t want to contemplate.

  She winked at him and said, “The game is set. It’s something round. Now go!”

  Foxy forgot about the strawberry shortcake. “What is it, Birdie?”

  “Now, Foxy! You know the rules. Only hints can be given.”

  “Oh, man!” He knew the rules, but Birdie knew that didn’t mean he couldn’t push them. Wasn’t that part of the game, anyway?

  Last year, Birdie had found a magnifying glass, unused and practically discarded in a kitchen drawer. She had cleaned it up and offered it to Foxy as an aid in his searches. It was the only assistance that was permitted. And with Foxy’s young eyes, it really served mostly as a prop, anyway. Birdie had always wanted to find a deerstalker cap, like Sherlock Holmes wore, to offer Foxy to complete the picture.

  Birdie checked the pantry for sugar and flour to make the shortcake and got to work.

  Hours later, a little commotion ensued when Evangeline finally emerged from the girls’ room and ran right up against the wrath of Amelie. She was nursing a broken heart. Jacque Songy, big man on campus (and quarterback) at O.L.P.S. High School, had just spurned her, after an intense three-week courtship, for Marie Lebreton. Amelie had no time for anyone or anything but her burnt feelings.

  “Maybe if you spent a little more time finding out about the world around you, rather than chasing after Jacque No-Brains Songy and feeling sorry for yourself, you’d be a little more pleasant!” Evangeline chided her older sister.

  “Maybe if you spent more time showing some compassion, you’d be a lot more pleasant,” Amelie replied.

  “What would you know about compassion?” Evangeline mumbled under her breath.

  Birdie appeared on the landing in the middle of the upstairs hallway. She raised an eyebrow at Evangeline.

  Amelie smirked, until Birdie turned that eyebrow to her.

  Both girls stared at their feet, and muttered a nearly inaudible “Sorry” in unison.

  “Supper will be ready in a half hour, children,” Birdie called behind her as she descended the staircase and headed back into the kitchen.

  Thirty minutes later, seven of the eight children had gathered in the kitchen. When Mr. Becnel was around for dinner, Mrs. Becnel would come out of her room, and the ten Becnels would eat in the fine dining room. But this evening, Mr. Becnel was in Houma, having dinner with business associates, he said. On evenings like this, which happened more often than not, Birdie and the eight children would dine together in the kitch
en. Birdie rarely sat, she was always bustling around, so none of the children picked up on the difference—or the breech of service etiquette that Birdie knew she was committing.

  Birdie did a head count of the gathered children.

  “I think we’re missing someone. You children think we’re missing someone?” she said with a wink.

  Brother piped up. “No, I don’t think so. No one important, that is.”

  He then flinched and swatted his arm downward for no apparent reason.

  The twins giggled and looked down at their feet.

  Camille still had her camera around her neck; she usually laid it on the countertop before sitting down to eat. Recently, she’d started helping Birdie serve dinner. At least when they all ate in the kitchen.

  Birdie turned her back to the table, knowing what was coming next and willing to play along with the game. The twins’ giggles morphed into fits and squeals of laughter. Then, there was a tug on her skirt.

  She whirled around, hands on her hips, careful to put a look of surprise on her face. “Foxy! How did you magically appear? And I see you used your deductive powers to find the prize.” She nodded at the baseball in Foxy’s hand.

  In that instant, Brother groaned over the attention his younger brother received, the twins started clapping hands in unison, Amelie tried to shush them, Evangeline and Esme each watched, amused (Esme from her high chair), and Camille snapped a photo.

  “All right, children, settle down. If I don’t get you fed, the good Lord Himself will strike me down,” Birdie said.

  Camille put her camera down and went to Birdie’s side to help dish up.

  “Do you show your parents the pictures you take?” Birdie asked Camille in a low voice.

  “Gosh, no. Mamere would just criticize,” Camille answered. “And Papa’s too busy.”

  Birdie nodded. “Make sure you keep it that way, you hear?”

  Camille’s eyes widened, then she nodded solemnly.

  Birdie set dishes down in front of the twins, and she and Camille eventually got the whole table served. Birdie took her place next to Esme.

  “Brother, it’s your turn to say the blessing,” she said.