Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  "I don't know, but I don't think there's been any real improvement." The two were silent for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts. Or at least Karen was. Laurie was likely just being respectful.

  "I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her, Kari. You know lam."

  "I know." Laurie reached out with a callused hand and gave Karen's hand a quick squeeze. Overcome with thoughts about her mother's condition, Karen reached out and took comfort from her friend's wiry arms. For such a skinny little thing, Laurie always seemed to be the stronger of the two. Karen tried to stop the waterworks from getting the better of her, but she failed. For the next few minutes she clung desperately to Laurie, silently sobbing while her friend made comforting noises and rocked her gently.

  2

  Karen had just returned to the high school when her father came back out of the building. He looked far worse than when he'd entered. Beside him was Laurie's father, Doctor Alan Johnson. Doc Johnson was doing his best to console Karen's father, but it obviously wasn't working very well.

  Karen waited at a distance while her father composed himself and passed out messages to the few people who had come back. There were very few messages to be had. A moment later, Doc Johnson was joined by John Morrisey, the only other town doctor permitted into the building. Between the two of them, they answered as many questions as they could about the condition of individual patients. Very few were recovering. Most seemed to be suffering from that universal danger that all hospital patients dread: complications. Edward Armbruster, no relation to Dutch, was added to the growing list of patients who had died while under the care of the military's "specialists." As with all the recent dead in Collier, his body was claimed by the soldiers.

  Karen had been feeling better after her long-overdue crying jag. Now the freedom she felt as a result of the catharsis was fading in the afternoon sun, just as surely as if her feelings were nothing but dry ice left to evaporate. She waited patiently as the doctors finished their brief summary of the numerous injureds' conditions, and then she waited some more as her father answered a few more questions and the small crowd dispersed.

  Not long after the questioners went away, the doctors too fled the scene. Only she and her father were left behind. She joined him and took his heavy hand into her own, far smaller hand. They walked slowly, and Karen felt the silence as if it were a physical barrier.

  When she could take it no longer, she broke the uncomfortable quiet. "How's Mom doing?"

  Her father looked towards her with haunted eyes. In a barely audible voice he answered. "She's dying, Karen. It's only a matter of time before the Lord takes her away."

  They walked in silence again, as Karen tried to think of what to say and her father fell deeper into his private torment. The heat of the day was hideous, and Karen did not doubt they'd reach or break the hundred-degree mark. Despite the summer inferno, her father's hand felt like a block of ice. His stride was wooden, and he kept his gaze locked on the ground.

  "I wish I could make her better, Dad. I really do."

  "I know, sweetie. I know."

  "Why won't you tell me what else is bothering you? I can see it in your eyes. You've never been like this before." She hated prying into his business. Her father was a very private man in many ways. Still, someone had to make him talk, before the strain inside his soul started doing permanent damage to his earthly shell. She could, perhaps, survive the loss of one parent, but losing both would devastate her.

  William O'Rourke sighed heavily. His eyes never left the concrete before him, but he slowly tugged at Karen's arm, and they steered towards the football field behind the school. The sun was moving towards the west, and the two of them were able to find a small pool of shade where they could at least escape the extra heat caused by the sunlight.

  Karen wanted to ask her question again, as the silence grew longer and deeper. But she knew her father well enough to understand that he would speak when he had finished composing his thoughts.

  Fully another ten minutes crawled past before he decided to answer her. "All of my life I've believed that God is in Heaven and that Jesus Christ died for our sins. I've known that, whatever happened in this lifetime, no matter who I lost, I could find them again someday, in a world far better than this one." He looked towards her, and Karen felt her heart break for the agony written on his face. "I've known that I would likely outlive your mother. Her health has been going for a few years now, and she's not been as energetic or as quick to catch her breath as she was only a few months ago.

  "I hate to see your mother in pain, Karen, but in my soul I've known that we would be together in perfect health, for all eternity. I've never loved anyone but your mother. Not in any real sense of the word. I've loved you, and I've loved God, but the biggest part of my heart has always been set aside for Emily."

  Her father reached out to touch Karen's hand, and clutched her fingers in his own with all the desperate strength of a drowning man. "I could accept her being in pain, because I knew that the Lord would provide for her in the next world. In Heaven or whatever you might want to call it. I knew that someday she'd be better. I've answered other people's questions of faith without any trouble, because I always knew in my heart that God was real and He would provide for us all. I have always had my faith, no matter what happened or how bad it was for anyone I knew, I've always had my faith."

  William O'Rourke sucked in a breath and held it for a second before speaking again. His voice trembled as he talked, and the tears began to run across his lower eyelids, threatening to spill from him as surely as hers had earlier.

  "But I don't know anymore, Karen. I truly don't know." The words came from his mouth in an increasing torrent, a tide of emotions that would not be denied any longer.

  "There's a thing sitting in the lake that defies everything I've ever believed, and I can't seem to see around that anymore. No matter what happened in the past, I always had my faith in God Almighty. But I can't seem to find that faith now that I need it the most. How could God exist and allow a thing like that to smash into the lake and kill so many people? How could He make my poor Emily to suffer so much torment and not have the decency to end her pain? Your mother is the one saving grace I've always known, and now I am denied even the comfort of her voice." The tears came then, and for the first time in her life, Karen saw the strongest man she'd ever known crumble into despair. "How can I believe in God when He'd do a thing like this? Where is His mercy?" He continued to speak, but his voice broke apart and the words were lost in a fading cry of anguish.

  As Laurie had done for her earlier, Karen now did for her father. She held him in her arms, rocking him softly and letting him cry his sorrows to the world. After a time the tears stopped, and he was able to compose himself.

  Karen stared at her father for several moments before she responded to what he'd said. "Daddy. When I was a little girl I used to ask you a hundred different questions about the Bible. We'd talk about the miracles of the past, and I'd ask you why there were no miracles anymore." She paused to make certain he was listening. He was. "At first you always said that miracles do still happen, like when a man in a coma for a dozen years wakes up alert and hungry, happy to be with his family. You also used to say that every life is a miracle, and that should be enough. But later, you always had the same answer for me, no matter what the question I had might be. If I found a discrepancy in the writings of the Bible, you didn't chalk it up to human error, or even the fact that the Bible has been translated a hundred different ways. You just sighed and said, 'Karen, you have to have faith.' Sometimes you'd add in that the Lord tends to work in mysterious ways."

  Karen made her father look her in the eyes, and smiled as best she could under the circumstances. "Dad. Sometimes it is not our place to know what goes through God's mind, or even to understand the machinations of His will. Sometimes, you just have to have faith."

  They sat a short while longer, and then they rose and walked to their cars. Karen had some chores she
needed to handle, like shopping for a house suddenly filled with too many people-they bought food and it disappeared at a speed that astonished Karen. She'd never known so much food could go away so quickly. Though they never spoke of the matter again, her father walked a little taller when they left the field. Karen believed that she had done him some good, and that made her feel better than she might have expected.

  3

  Karen entered the Piggly Wiggly with a smile as the air conditioning blasted away the sweat trying to cover her entire body. The smile did not last long. In addition to the fact that over half the store's shelves were empty, Peter O'Rourke was inside the store. Worse still, he'd seen her.

  With a big, easygoing grin on his face, he nodded in Karen's direction. He was still a handsome man, but somewhere along the way he'd stopped being an object of desire for her. Perhaps it was around the same time he started using his fists to settle all of his arguments. She chose not to nod back. Instead, Karen grabbed a cart and very deliberately moved to keep a solid distance between the two of them. She'd already had a talk with Frank Osborn, and he'd promised to haul Peter into jail at the first sign of trouble. Any trouble at all. She felt good knowing that a single call could get the bastard put away indefinitely.

  Karen kept her eyes straight forward and her right hand in the depths of her purse. It only took a moment to find the pepper spray, and about the same amount of time to disengage the safety. If he tried anything…

  "Hey, Karen! How are you today?" It took a concentrated effort not to just pull the spray out and fire. She recognized that the voice was not Pete's-sometime after her heart skipped a few beats-but she was tempted just the same. Beth Thornton's was close to the last voice she wanted to hear. After the last dozen or so Parent-Teacher Meetings, the large woman was properly on Karen's private shit list.

  Karen eased the pressure on the pepper spray and forced herself to smile. She turned to face Beth Thornton. "Hi, Beth. I'm as well as can be expected. How are you?"

  "Oh, I'm just fine," the woman chirped. "Joe's stuck at home all the time, what with him having that accounting job in Stockton these days, and I'm afraid he's gonna drive me crazy with all the gardening he's doing. But we're making out okay."

  Beth Thornton was never fine. Every sentence from her mouth that involved her family was a statement on how difficult life was when you were raising three kids and a husband, all of whom were, if she could be believed, lost when she was not present. To hear the woman talk about her family, they were all as helpless as newborn babies and completely dependent on her for even the simplest functions. Karen had stopped herself from asking Beth if she had to wipe their asses too, on more than one occasion. "Well, at least he's trying to keep busy."

  "Thank God for that." Beth waved one hand frantically and pressed the other to her ample bosom. "If he was inside all the time, I'd have to tie him to a chair."

  "Well, look, Beth, I have really got to get my shopping done. There's almost nothing left in the house…"

  "Oh, I don't mean to keep you, Karen." The saccharine in the woman's voice could be interpreted as an argument against that statement, but Karen knew better. The woman always sounded that sickeningly sweet. "I'm just passing around some flyers. I thought I should get one into your hands, since you see so many people at the school every day."

  Before Karen could respond, Beth had shoved a bright pink piece of paper into her hand and waddled away. It was only as she saw the woman leaving, that she realized Tom Thornton was with his mother. The boy held his hands out in supplication, mouthing the words "Save me" as he walked away. Karen smiled. Tom Thornton was one of the class cut-ups, and normally a thorn in her side. But at twelve years of age, Tom likely hated his mother almost as much as Karen did. At least he didn't get nasty about having to go to the store with his mom. At least he didn't throw fits in public, if he did hate it. Not at all like Karen was at his age.

  The flyer held simple, typed information with two badly reproduced faces of children. It read:

  Dear Everyone,

  As you may have heard, Marty Wander and Mike Summers have disappeared. It looks like they might have gone off on their own, as their hikes are missing. But they weren't home this morning and they haven't shown themselves by noon today. Under the circumstances, that makes us worried. If you have seen these two boys, please pick up the phone and ask the operater to let you contact us. He should put you right through as we have special permission from the Colonel in charge.

  Thank You,

  Andrew Wander

  Below the poorly written request were the two black-and-white pictures-black and pink, actually, thanks to Beth's choice of colors. The quality was such that, if one stared very hard at the images, one could almost imagine that they were actually more than woodcuts. Karen resisted the urge to pull out a red pen for correcting the text, and tried to remember if she'd seen the two anywhere during the day. Despite her best efforts, she could not recall seeing either of them. That in itself was unusual. Almost as unusual as Marty Wander not being home on time. Andrew could be a bit of a stickler for harsh punishment when it came to disobeying his orders. Many people saw that as a flaw, but Karen wished there were a few more parents who would follow his lead. The Lord knew that most twelve-year-olds were unmanageable.

  The biggest problem wasn't the guards surrounding the city; it was the small army of tourists in town. At least that's how Karen had it figured. The guards would follow orders. The tourists might not. Two twelve-year-old boys missing from town were not a good sign. She folded the pink paper into eighths and then slipped it into her back pocket. Later, after she'd finished shopping, she'd have to jot down a list of places to look for them. Jolene Wander was probably beside herself with worry.

  As she moved down the canned vegetables aisle-a very depleted area, but not nearly as bad as the canned pastas-Karen reached for an industrial-size can of early peas and found that someone else already had a hand on the object of her attention. She knew the hand immediately, knew, all too well, the swastika tattooed above that hand. Karen released the peas as if she'd been stung, and sucked in a shocked breath.

  "Sorry 'bout that, Karen. Didn't mean to scare you. But a man's got to eat." Pete held the can of early peas in his hand, held it out to Karen, as if to apologize.

  "You can keep the damned peas! And while you're at it, you can keep away from me!" Her ex-husband was almost as surprised by the venom in her voice as she was. "You get one warning, Pete, and this is it. If you get near me again, I'll have your sorry butt thrown into the jail until this whole mess is settled."

  Despite her harsh words, Karen could hear the old tremble in her voice. She wasn't certain if the shake in her speech was from fear or just from seeing him again. Either way, she truly hated it.

  Pete put down the peas and held up his hands in mock surrender. She loathed the smile on his face, so filled with humor and maybe even a little contempt. She despised him even more. Hell, when it came to Pete Donovan, she hated just about everything. The old saying about there being a fine line between love and hate was true, and Karen had long since crossed over that line where her ex-husband was concerned. Any hint of love that had ever been in her heart for him had been destroyed when he attacked her that last time.

  "You've got an attitude problem, Kari. That's what you've got. Best be careful, or someone's gonna come along and adjust it for you." Pete said the words with an innocent smile centered on his smarmy face. It was the same sort of smile she used to find so attractive, back in the days before he came back from his stint in the Marines.

  "Don't you dare threaten me, Peter Alexander Donovan. I swear I'll go to the police straight away if you threaten me again." There was a lie. She was calling Frank the second she was certain Pete wasn't going to be there to stop her from calling him. But she had no intention of advertising that fact. Her hand dug around in her purse and Karen cursed herself for never getting around to cleaning the excess contents from the bag.

  "Who'
s threatening who here, Kari? I'm not threatening to call the cops every time you breathe, now am I? No, little missy, that'd be you makin' the threats. Not me." Peter's voice had shifted down into a low purr, a certain sign that he was now paying her attention. From past experience, Karen knew that was not a good sign.

  "What are you doing in town, anyway? You're not supposed to get anywhere near me. Not after what you did to me before."

  "A little argument gets out of hand and you have a restraining order put on me. Big surprise that our marriage failed with you acting that way."

  Karen wanted to scream; every word from his mouth was another in a long list of reasons for her to hate him. Every word was a twisting of the truth or an out-and-out lie. The problem was that most people tended to think of Pete as an upstanding citizen. Most never saw the photographs taken after the serious beatings. Pete was good. He never left a single mark on Karen that couldn't be hidden beneath clothes. Everyone in town knew he'd beat on her-that wasn't the sort of thing you could keep quiet in a town the size of Collier-but only a few knew how badly he'd hurt her.

  "I don't call three broken ribs and internal bleeding a 'little argument,' you sonuvabitch. I call them assault. Lucky me, the police agreed."

  Peter started moving towards her when she finished her statement. He moved on the balls of his feet, and fairly flowed across the ground. One second he was a good twenty feet away, the next he was looming over her. Flashing memories of how he'd hit her and kicked her again and again during then-six years of marriage blasted through Karen's head. Her hands turned to ice, even as she finally managed to locate the pepper spray in her purse. Pete's eyes pinned her in place, much like a cobra paralyzes a bird. A deep, sinking feeling spun through Karen's stomach, even as her knees threatened to buckle. Her throat constricted and, despite her desire to do so, Karen could not find the breath to scream.