The Midnights

by Sarah Nicole Smetana

  At first, I panicked, unsure of what had happened, if I’d thrown up on my mother’s dress. But with the exception of the hem, where I must have kneeled on it, the fabric was unsoiled. After struggling into a T-shirt and pajama shorts, I made my way toward the kitchen.

  A wedge of sunlight plunged through the open windows, drenching the place where my father sat at the table, reading the paper. I squinted in the glare.

  “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” my father said. “Looks like you had a rough night. Is that makeup?”

  I noticed immediately that his eyes were red too, but they had a misty sheen to them, a contented edge that had been absent from the gaze staring back at me in the mirror minutes before. “Is Mom working?” I asked, ignoring his question.

  “Beats me,” he said.

  I dropped a piece of bread in the toaster and stared as the orange light grew brighter inside the machine. With each tick of the timer, fragments from the previous night bombarded me: the affection in Cara’s smile, the roar of the crowd and the flash of cell phones. Nick’s lips like a butterfly against my skin. Blood rushed to my head while the snippets materialized and grew coherent. I hadn’t done anything wrong, I told myself. You couldn’t betray what you didn’t know.

  The toaster continued clicking. When the bread finally popped up, it was burnt.

  “Where’d you get to last night?” my father asked, and for a moment, my mind twisted away from the party. Maybe, I thought, my father had come home for me after all. Maybe he’d been waiting for me. There was still time to show him my cover of “Love Honey.” To work on the lost rhythm of “Don’t Look Back.”

  But then he continued: “Lance and Travis came in to jam for a bit. I was going to invite you out there with us, but . . .” He shrugged. “You weren’t around.”

  The words filled my head like a poisonous gas and the dizziness rushed back, expanding in my stomach. It was one thing to take Lance and Travis out to Joe Thompson’s bar, but it was entirely different to bring them here, into our studio—the one place that was ours.

  Anger coursed through my body. I locked my jaw to keep the lump in my throat from rising as my father’s eyes fell back to the paper. His thoughts were already traveling from our conversation, and this time, I didn’t bother trying to reclaim them. Tossing the toast in the trash, I turned from the kitchen.

  As I passed behind him, he reached out and grabbed my hand. “If you could start something over,” he murmured, his gaze tearing into me, “start fresh with what you know now, would you do it?”

  A cold fear crept up my spine. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Something’s changing, Susie. I can feel it.” His lips twisted into a smile, and his grip tightened. My skin pinched beneath his fingers. “I’m so close to understanding, to figuring out what I need to do to get it back. It’s all going to be different this time.”

  I wanted so badly to believe that his words came from a place of hope, but I knew better. He was untying his tether, loosening his weight, floating away. Soon he would be up above the palm trees, the hills, getting smaller and smaller until he became one with the sky and the smog. Until I couldn’t see him anymore.

  “Why does everything have to be different?” I snapped. I felt furious and sick, could taste the acid burning again in my mouth. “Why can’t you just be content with what you have?”

  For another moment, his eyes burrowed into mine, begging me to listen. Then he let go of my hand and looked away. Like that last night we had spent in the studio, I knew he saw something else, something beyond me. He wanted me to see it, too, but I was caught in my own disappointment and didn’t care when his expression shadowed, or when he began shaking those little white pills into his palm. I left him there, back rounded beneath the harsh rays of sun, consumed by a burden I didn’t try to understand.

  Four

  ON MONDAY I returned to the hallways of my high school feeling dazed and out of place. Cara already knew everything. “Don’t,” she said, turning her back when I approached in the morning. “I saw you.” She ignored me as I tried to explain, to remind her that I didn’t know she’d had any feelings for Nick because she hadn’t told me—but of course, this was also my fault. I’d been too preoccupied to call her, to see her. To be a good friend.

  When the first bell rang, I was almost thankful that a crowd of students parted us, and I had no choice but to walk away.

  The rest of the week, I felt like I’d been submerged in water; I was holding my breath, drifting between classes. Leaving the cafeteria at lunch on Thursday, I spotted Nick across the quad. He must have felt the tug of my gaze because he looked up, and our eyes locked, and for a moment neither of us moved. Then Nick raised his hand in a wave, an uncertain smile rising on his lips. My body turned hot. All I had to do was walk over and say hello the same way I had hundreds, maybe thousands, of times before—but that exchange seemed suddenly huge and terrifying. I hurried in the opposite direction.

  After that, I spent my breaks in the library.

  Home wasn’t much of a reprieve, either. During the torrid afternoons, I retreated to the studio, trying to reappropriate my anger and loneliness in a song, but any potential I felt immediately eroded beneath the rough gleam of the studio’s single working lightbulb. Without my father, the room seemed foreign and hostile. And even if I had forgiven him, if I wanted to pretend that nothing had changed, I couldn’t. He spent his nights down at the bar.

  I didn’t see him again until Friday.

  That evening, while the Channel 4 news murmured about a fire and my mother sautéed ground beef in the kitchen, I lay on the sofa, annotating The Remains of the Day for advanced English. Secretly, I actually liked English class; I enjoyed unraveling the stories, identifying metaphors—and anyway, as long as my songwriter’s block persisted, I had nothing better to do. I might have even blown through the whole novel that night if my father hadn’t decided to finally come home.

  He cruised through the front door and into the kitchen, all the while whistling some soft, easy tune I didn’t recognize. Something new. I lowered my book, peering over the top of the pages. I wanted to hear the fresh wave of sound forming inside him, to tell him about “Love Honey.” But I refused to be the one to speak first.

  My mother finally broke the silence.

  “Dr. Brown called this afternoon,” she began. The beef hissed, sizzling in the frying pan. She jabbed at it with a spatula. “He said you missed another appointment.”

  “That was today?” my father asked, opening the pantry.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “That was today.”

  This seemed like a strange way to begin a conversation between two people who had barely seen each other in days, but as my mother stabbed the beef and my father poured a drink, I had the feeling that I’d once again missed something essential.

  My father stooped to slurp from the nearly overflowing glass. “Huh. Guess I forgot.”

  “I rescheduled it for Tuesday at eight,” she said. “You can stop there on your way to work.”

  My father sipped.

  “Did you hear me, James?” my mother asked. She turned to look at him as she flipped the meat and a spray of grease jumped out of the pan, stinging her forearm. “Shit,” she said, rushing over to the sink. She held her arm beneath cold water. Unattended, the hiss of cooking beef grew louder. My father took a jar of peanuts out of the pantry and began eating them by the handful.

  “Please,” my mother said, barely loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of sounds. “All you have to do is see Dr. Brown and get this whole thing straightened out. Michael will take care of the rest.”

  My father didn’t respond. He just kept eating peanuts.

  She said, “He’s offering you this job because he believes you can succeed there.”

  I looked back and forth between them. “What job?”

  “Your father’s work has offered him a new position.”

  “Offered to ship me off,” my father gr
umbled.

  “What?” I asked. “Where? When?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s not happening.”

  My mother watched the water stream from the faucet. “You know, the pay increase alone is worth—”

  My father smacked the jar against the table. “It always comes back to money with you, doesn’t it?” he snapped. But it wasn’t really a question; before my mother could say anything else, he jerked up from the table, forcing his chair back with a screech, and said, “I’m going out.” When he left, the front door slammed with such fury that the molding around the frame began to crack.

  For a moment, neither my mother nor I moved. Only after the sound of his truck faded down the street did she turn off the faucet, the stove. Water dripped from her fingers. She closed her eyes for several long seconds and I focused on her hands, hung limp over the sink, the slight shudder of her shoulders. Frustration clogged my throat. It wasn’t fair that my parents could choose when to listen, and when to let my voice slip unnoticed through the half-opened window like the smoke twirling up from the frying pan. It wasn’t fair that they could decide my future without ever giving me a choice.

  “I’m not really hungry anymore,” my mother said. Then she grabbed an open bottle of red wine and shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom, grazing a palm against the wall to steady herself. Outside, coyotes yapped in the black-clouded dusk. I couldn’t see it, but I heard them talking about it on the news: not far from us, fire swallowed a hillside.

  For what seemed like a long time, I just stood there, watching through the window as the moon moved in and out of view, the faint outline of Orion fighting to break through the smoke-wrapped sky. Here and then gone. Here and then gone.

  Later that night, I watched the fire coverage on TV. A fast-moving brushfire in the Sepulveda Pass had been contained after burning through more than ninety acres, but that morning’s wind had knocked loose two new electrical wires in Calabasas Hills and Scholl Canyon—the latter of which was just a few miles north of our house, not far from where my father and I had hiked. According to the reporter, local firefighters struggled for control, the flames gaining fuel with each gulp of straw-like vegetation. She said something about evacuations: still voluntary in most places, but please stay tuned. Then the screen switched to an aerial view.

  Never before had a fire that large come so close to where we lived, and I went outside to gauge its proximity. I couldn’t see any actual flames but the night was lit up in oranges, canopied in smoke, looking more like a volcanic eruption than a wildfire. Wind groaned through the canyon and gusts crashed through the palms. When a police cruiser rolled up the street, I ran toward it.

  “Officer,” I yelled, flagging down the car.

  Inside sat two men, both with crisp navy shirts buttoned up to the neck. They regarded me suspiciously, looked past me at the dark house.

  “Officer, do we need to leave?” I asked.

  “Evacuation is still voluntary at this time,” the man in the passenger seat recited. “But we’re advising all residents to gather any important belongings and clear the area as a precaution. If you have somewhere you can go, any friends or family you can stay with, we suggest you do so as soon as possible.”

  But what if we don’t have any family, I wanted to say. What if we’re alone? My heart heaved as a caravan of cars and trucks coasted down the opposite side of the street. One of them honked as they passed and the officer behind the wheel waved. Elsewhere in the valley, a chorus of sirens whined.

  The officer must have seen something cross my face then because he sighed and added, “Just pay attention to the news reports, okay?” They started to drive away.

  “Wait!” I yelled. The car stopped. “How likely is it that the fire will jump the freeway?”

  At the north end of Eagle Rock, just beyond where Cara lived, the 134 Freeway cut through the hillside, ten paved lanes separating our neighborhood from the small expanse of wilderness beyond. If the fire made it over, Cara’s house would be one of the first to go. Then Nick’s. Ours would surely follow.

  The officer shrugged. “It’s unlikely. I’ve never seen it happen. But if the winds keep up . . .” He shook his head. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  A number of my curious neighbors had also emerged from their homes and were now approaching the cop car, hoping to learn more about the degree of danger. I took a few steps backward and noticed the Murphys, the family that lived across the street, piling suitcases into the back of their SUV. Both parents and the children moved briskly in and out of their algae-green house, stuffing every available crevice of the car until there was barely enough space left for them all to sit. The only one not moving was Beth, the smallest child. She was wearing pink pajamas and clutched a stuffed rabbit to her chest, staring, mesmerized, at the smoke oozing into the sky until her father scooped her up and strapped her into a car seat.

  Once the family was situated in the SUV, Mr. Murphy ran back inside. A few seconds later, a piece of white paper with EVACUATED written in bold red letters appeared in the front window.

  Where was my own father? Why wasn’t he here, packing us into his truck? The fires must have been on every news and radio station in the county. If he were driving, he would have been able to see the orange outline of the hills, the surging black smoke. He would have heard the sirens. He had to know that without him, we were stranded.

  Across the street, Mr. Murphy locked the front door and drove his family away.

  Inside, my mother clutched the phone to her chest and looked out the window.

  “Susie,” she said, her words slow and deliberate. “Honey, what’s happening?”

  The TV was on, as it had been all evening. I looked from my mother to the screen as the reporter discussed the violent, erratic winds, the flying embers.

  “There’s a fire,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Are we being evacuated?”

  “Not yet.”

  She nodded. Her whole body swayed with her head as her eyes drifted to the window, dull and heavy. She looked half asleep, or like she’d forgotten why we stood stiff in the living room, the phone in her hand, the white light of the TV bathing her skin.

  “Some people are already leaving,” I told her.

  “I’ll go pack some things, then, in case. You’ll keep an eye on it?” she asked, as if we were talking about a cake in the oven and not a brushfire burning just beyond the 134. Yes, fires were normal in Southern California, and my mother had lived with the risk of a singed world her whole life. Still, I was surprised that she hardly even considered the matter. Maybe she knew something I didn’t, or maybe she was losing her mind. I wanted to ask her about my father’s job. I wondered if she drank the whole bottle of wine.

  She put the phone on the table and walked back down the dark hallway.

  After her door clicked shut, I grabbed the phone and called Joe Thompson’s. The line was busy. I called Cara’s house too, then Nick’s, and felt a glittering relief when both answering machines picked up.

  Then, not entirely sure of the precautions for a fire, I did the few things that felt natural: I closed all the windows to keep the smoke out and set the fans on high so we wouldn’t suffocate; I found the flashlights and spare batteries in the junk drawer and set them on the table, next to a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, and half a loaf of bread; I filled cups and bottles with water; and, finally, I pulled out a few of my father’s records that I would want to take if we had to go, stacking them by his Martin near the front door. When all that was done, I turned back to the news.

  The anchor droned on about the acreage already burned and I was lulled into a state of calm, eyelids fluttering in and out of sleep until the sound of tires rolling up the driveway jostled me. A door slammed shut.

  It was nearly three in the morning when my father crashed into the house, bringing with him the smell of smoke. He did not look like himself; his skin was soiled, and flyaway pieces o
f his graying hair stood erect with static. Behind his eyes, something reckless flared.

  “Where have you been?” I asked. “I tried to call Joe Thompson’s, but the phone was busy.”

  He breathed heavily and put his hands on his hips. “Goddamn devil’s wind tonight.”

  “I think we should leave. Some of the neighbors have evacuated already.”

  “No,” he said, his face darkening.

  “But the officers said—”

  “It won’t cross.”

  I waited for an explanation. “How do you know?” I finally asked.

  I’d spent the week wishing for everything to be back as it was before our fight and Cara’s party, before Lance and Travis, the tape, the winds. I wanted my father to look at me the way he used to, eyes brimming with potential and mystery. I wanted him to need me again.

  But that night, when he finally raised his eyes in my direction, I felt only the urge to look away.

  “I know,” he said, voice thick through gritted teeth, “because I listen.” He turned and went into the kitchen.

  Even from where I sat, I could smell him as he passed—like oak, like the Redwoods, the burning flavors of spices and rye. I felt the inebriating effects of his scent as if I, too, had been drinking, and though that already made me dizzy, it was not enough for my father. He took a new glass from the cabinet and dropped in three ice cubes that cracked beneath the warm rush of whiskey.

  “Now, it’s people,” he called over his shoulder, fishing the orange pill bottle from his pocket. “People that I can’t figure out. Just when you get everything back on track, people want to derail you. They’re more dangerous than anything Mother Nature can create. If the world burns, it will be our own damn fault.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about anymore, wasn’t even sure he was talking to me. Afraid of trying to understand, I stayed quiet.

  As he walked down the hall, the liquid sloshed over the rim of his glass and dripped into a constellation on the floor. He entered the bedroom where I thought my mother was sleeping. A thin haze of light fanned out beneath the door.