How to Start a Fire

by Lisa Lutz

  If Bruno were still alive, he would have been on a plane while Kyle was still packing his bags. George wanted to call Anna, but she was still punishing her for her most recent betrayal. She considered asking Kate to visit, but sympathy wasn’t something that Kate did very well. So George dialed her mother. She spoke in teary hiccups, told her mother that a divorce was inevitable, asked for help with the boys. Vivien responded in soothing tones and promised to book the next flight.

  When she arrived, the nurturing mother became the relentless commentator, like the kind you find on cable news. No thought in Vivien’s head went unspoken.

  Have you seen the dirt under Carter’s nails?

  They’re having cereal for dinner?

  Why is Miller wearing that ridiculous scarf?

  When was the last time you cleaned the trash bin?

  Don’t you have eye cream?

  Boys shouldn’t wear nail polish, I don’t think.

  Have you gained weight?

  You might consider choosing less attractive men. Studies have proven that relationships do better when the woman is considered more attractive.

  What happened to the ceramic vase I sent you last Christmas?

  Miller, blow your nose.

  Carter, do you have any long pants?

  When’s the last time you ran a comb through your hair?

  George had to think about that last one, and while it might have been a reasonable question, George decided she couldn’t stand to hear one more word from her mother. She went online, booked Vivien’s plane ticket, packed her suitcase, and told her mother it was time to go home.

  “I’m here for you, darling. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

  “I think I should be on my own. If this is how it’s going to be, I better get used to it.”

  With her mother gone, George was lonely again, although she didn’t miss the soundtrack. George phoned Kate, who on occasion could provide a helpful perspective.

  “I have two kids, another on the way, and I’m about to be divorced for the third time. Can it get any worse?” George asked.

  “It can always get worse,” Kate said.

  It did. Mitch, out of the blue, decided to fly to Boise to visit Carter. He had a new girlfriend who’d expressed interest in meeting his son. As George said when she phoned Kate, he was trying to impress her with a show of his humanity.

  George hadn’t seen Mitch in two years. The idea of coming face to face with her flawless-looking ex-husband in her current state was mortifying. Bloated from pregnancy, her skin blotchy from hormones, she looked worse than she had in years. She was still attractive to people who passed her in the grocery store, but Mitch would note every single flaw.

  She took two hours to get ready on the day he arrived, so preoccupied by her own appearance that she almost forgot to dress Carter. With ten minutes to spare, she put her son in a pair of size 6 corduroy pants and a rugby shirt, an outfit Mitch had sent for Carter’s birthday two years ago, when his son was four. It finally fit.

  George peered out the window when she heard a quiet engine idling in front of her house. Mitch got out of the rental car and strolled up the walkway. He had the decency to make his girlfriend wait in the car.

  When Carter put on his jacket, George said, “Do you have your gifts for Daddy?”

  Carter gently patted his pocket.

  “Good,” said George. “I think he’ll really like them.”

  The doorbell rang. George’s heart raced like a caged jackrabbit.

  “Mitch,” she said, as she saw Mitch in the foyer. He had a few more gray hairs, but nothing else about him had changed. George was ashamed to admit that the sight of him made her flush. Hate was the first emotion to surface, but a suffocating attraction came next.

  “George,” he said. “You look … well.”

  He sized her up, like he always did. She could sense that her attempts at camouflage had failed.

  “Carter, say hello to your father.”

  “Hi … Dad.”

  Mitch mussed up Carter’s hair. The gesture appeared laughably unnatural.

  “Ready to go?” said Mitch.

  “He’s ready,” George said, a slight grin edging onto her face.

  Mitch turned back to Carter.

  “Carter, empty your pockets,” he said.

  Carter turned to his mother for instruction.

  Mitch repeated his directive. “Carter, please empty your pockets.”

  “It’s okay,” said George. “You can give Daddy his gifts now.”

  Carter reached into his jacket pockets and withdrew four snails, two in each hand.

  Mitch grunted, closed his eyes, and stepped outside. He took a deep breath, and she saw him try to choke back the nausea bubbling in his esophagus. His sick expression made him decidedly less attractive, which pleased George.

  “Carter, give the snails to your mother,” Mitch said from outside.

  Carter dropped the snails into George’s open palms.

  Mitch stepped back into the foyer and said to Carter, “Wash your hands and then we’ll go.”

  When Carter was out of earshot, Mitch glared at George and said, “That was really mature. What, no grasshoppers available this time of year?”

  “I can always find a grasshopper,” George said. “But their legs would break in his pockets. Doesn’t seem right. Snails are sturdier. They could even survive a plane flight if Carter was careful.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” said Mitch.

  “Your son wants to share his interests with you, that’s all.”

  “No, you just want to torture me.”

  “If I wanted to torture you, there would have been snakes in his pockets.”

  2012

  San Francisco, California

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Anna asked as Matthew cradled his recently beaten wrist in his uninjured hand.

  There was a glow about Anna that Matthew found startling. She felt a rush of excitement so heady it made her feel almost sick, a reminder of the past, her need to push the limits. There was that monster she’d banished again and again, returning.

  “Are you a sadist?” Matthew asked.

  “Not in the traditional sense. But I like all forms of experimentation, which sometimes requires that you be ruthless with your subjects.”

  Matthew held up his wrist and studied the location where the tumescent form had been. It looked like a molehill had been tamped down with a shovel. Anna noted his look of surprise and approached, taking hold of his arm.

  “It worked,” she said, trying to stem the enthusiasm in her voice. “I’d love to see this written up in a medical journal. Can you imagine soliciting subjects for the study?”

  “No,” Matthew said, pulling his arm away. His wrist still ached from the impact.

  “You all right?” Anna asked.

  Matthew picked up a gift bottle of bourbon wrapped in a bow and uncorked it. He poured himself a drink.

  “Do you want one?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ve never seen you drink.”

  “That’s an accurate statement.”

  “Do you drink?”

  “Is that your first question?”

  “No,” Matthew flatly said. He took the bottle and his cordial glass over to the leather sofa and sat down.

  “Three questions only,” Anna reminded him.

  Kate had always believed that secrets would one day become an endangered species. Loyalty and silence were the two things Kate and Anna had most in common. Matthew was outmatched in this game, and yet he proceeded.

  Q. Why aren’t you a doctor anymore?

  A. I lost my medical license.

  Q. Why did you lose your medical license?

  A. I was a substance abuser and I got caught doing things that doctors aren’t supposed to do.

  Q. How long have you been clean?

  A. Three years, four months, two days.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “
You already asked your third question.”

  “I let you smash a book on my wrist,” Matthew said. He felt like he knew less about her now than he had when the questioning began.

  If this were discovery, Matthew would have had thirty-five questions to get to the bottom of Anna. And the answers would have had to be the truth because the testifier would be under oath. It would have gone something like this:

  Q. What is your legal name?

  A. Anna Lee Fury.

  Q. Do you have any siblings?

  A. I have a brother. Colin Fury.

  Q. Are your parents still alive?

  A. Barely.

  Q. Did you have a happy childhood?

  A. I found ways to be happy.

  Q. Have you ever had a romantic relationship with Mr. Blackman?

  A. Of course not.

  Q. How do you know him?

  A. He’s a family friend.

  Q. Have you ever been married?

  A. No.

  Q. Engaged?

  A. No.

  Q. What do you do when you’re not here?

  A. I read a lot.

  Q. What kind of books do you read?

  A. Crime.

  Q. Why?

  A. Because in the books, people do things far worse than I have ever done.

  Q. What is your favorite book?

  A. Whatever is currently distracting me.

  Q. Do you mind working for someone seven years younger than you?

  A. Sometimes.

  Q. What do you think of me?

  A. I think you ask too many questions.

  Q. What have you got against questions?

  A. Sometimes answers don’t help us.

  Q. Why don’t you drink?

  A. Because I’m a drunk.

  Q. Is that why you lost your medical license?

  A. No.

  Q. Why did you lose your medical license?

  A. It happened in parts.

  Q. What was the first part?

  A. I prescribed drugs for patients and took them for my own use. I was caught. Sent to rehab and put on probation.

  Q. What was the next part?

  A. I prescribed drugs for patients I didn’t know, who were most likely addicts, and gave the scripts to a local drug dealer in exchange for other drugs. I was caught again; I begged for mercy, was sent to rehab, and put on probation one last time.

  Q. What happened next?

  A. Six months later, I bought heroin from an undercover cop.

  Q. What were you thinking?

  A. I was thinking how smart I was buying street drugs under the radar.

  Q. Did you go to prison?

  A. I went to rehab and was sentenced to thirty days in the county jail. Served two weeks. One year community service. Medical license permanently revoked.

  Q. When did that happen?

  A. Six years ago.

  Q. What did you do for those five years before you came to work here?

  A. I repented.

  Q. What is your biggest regret?

  A. I have many.

  Q. Pick one.

  A. Leaving a door open.

  Q. What was your most cowardly act?

  A. Lying.

  Q. What did you lie about?

  A. That maybe I did more than leave a door open.

  Q. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

  A. I killed a man.

  Q. Was it in self-defense?

  A. No.

  Q. How did you kill him?

  A. I made him be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Q. Do you believe in God?

  A. No. But I talk about Him a lot.

  Q. Have you ever been in love?

  A. I have.

  Q. Who were you in love with?

  A. A ghost.

  But Matthew had just three questions, and he’d gotten three tightfisted answers. Over the next few weeks, he pressed for more, only to have Anna tighten the screws on her box of secrets. If she had been smart, she would have parceled out bits of information, feeding Matthew’s starving-dog curiosity. Since she didn’t, he scavenged on his own.

  With his vast collection of associates, investigators, and databases, Matthew quickly amassed a healthy dossier on Anna. Her arrest and conviction were in the system. He was able to confirm with the medical board the circumstances under which her medical license had been revoked. He tracked her addresses since then and realized that she had been living in Mr. and Mrs. Blackman’s vacation property for almost four years. She had her own family. Still alive. And yet she lived in the Blackmans’ vacation home. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was what her connection to Max was. And Matthew wasn’t about to come out and ask.

  Matthew lost and found case files the way senile old ladies lost and found their glasses. They’d scurry about like mice in a maze only to discover them hanging around their necks, and Matthew’s missing files were often similarly close at hand. But case files vanished on Matthew on a daily basis and he seemed at times willfully incapable of finding them himself. He also habitually accused other people of misplacing them.

  The ritual repeated like a skip on an old record.

  “Anna, do you have the Smith file?”

  “No. Is it on your desk?”

  “It’s not in my office. Will you please look on your desk?”

  Anna would then fake-search her workplace for the file that she knew was not in her possession.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not here. Let me check to see if it’s been misfiled.”

  She would hide out in the file room drinking coffee for five minutes and then return to her desk and report that it wasn’t there. She’d wait for Matthew to leave his office, and then she’d search for it herself. Invariably the file was hidden under another file on his desk or misfiled in his right-hand drawer when it should have been in the left, or vice versa. She’d leave it on his chair, and he would never ask where she’d found it.

  It was during the final phase of their ritual one day that she found the Anna Fury file and got to briefly relive some of her grimmest biographical details. Matthew came upon her as she was reviewing the plea agreement she’d made after her arrest. The file was a different color than the others so that he wouldn’t accidentally misfile it.

  Matthew shut the door and closed the blinds.

  “What is this?” Anna asked.

  “Let me explain.”

  “What is this?”

  “You never answer any questions.”

  “I do my job.”

  Matthew approached her carefully, as he would a large dog baring its teeth. He gently pulled the file from her hands and put it in the shredder.

  “That’s an empty gesture. You’ve already read the file.”

  “I just wanted to understand you,” Matthew said.

  “You don’t need to understand me. I just work for you.”

  “It’s more than that and you know it.”

  “I think we should swap back.”

  “I already made that request to Mr. Blackman. He refused.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I had feelings for you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I should tell you.”

  “If that’s all, I’m going to go home now,” Anna said.

  Matthew slid his arm around her waist and kissed her. It was the kind of kiss you saw coming so if you really wanted to evade it, you could. She didn’t.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Anna said, focusing her gaze on the worn industrial carpet.

  “I think you liked it,” Matthew said.

  “Most things I like aren’t good for me.”

  2005

  Boston, Massachusetts

  “Anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

  This was the kind of restaurant where you were expected to drink something expensive, so Bruno ordered the most expensive water.

  “A bottle of sparkling water, please.”


  “Anything else?”

  “No, thank you,” Bruno said.

  The waiter didn’t bother hiding his disappointment as he watched 50 percent of his tip vanish with just three polite words.

  Anna turned to Bruno. “You can drink in front of me. I can handle it.”

  “I can handle not drinking, and the waiter can handle one dry table tonight.”

  “I don’t think he would agree.”

  “I’m sure you’re tired of the question, but I’ll ask anyway. How have you been?”

  “I’m great.”

  “You look healthy.”

  “One of the side effects of not poisoning my liver every day.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Not too bad,” Anna said.

  There were sputters to Anna’s sobriety. The official line was two years, but in truth, the longest stretch had been six months, and the most recent stretch, after her second stint in rehab, was only three months.

  Bruno thought she was lying when she told him rehab had been easy, but she wasn’t. For Anna, rehab had been a breeze. Six weeks of no stress, plenty of rest, and not a single brutal hangover to mar her next day. She went for walks in the woods and smelled fresh air, and because she was doing what she was supposed to be doing, she could sleep at night. Her conscience took a vacation. She had been back to work only a few weeks now, but the palliative effects of her forced internment raised the bar on her coping skills. She was cured. The problem was in her past, like a childhood humiliation that dissipated behind the thick fog of time.

  But she was taking shortcuts now and again. She wouldn’t always sit through every AA or NA meeting. Other people’s troubles could be so dull. She bounced around locations, never being loyal to one group, looking for stories that intrigued her rather than resonated with her. Sometimes all she did was prowl for the meetings with the best coffee and cookies.

  Anna and Bruno talked about George with a guarded familiarity. In the restaurant, Anna was carefully attuned to the mild attentions of strangers. Did they think Bruno was her father or her date? A geneticist would have known in a flash. She wondered if Bruno cared what people thought of them. Not that anyone knew the truth. In fact, the worst truth these strangers could imagine was that he was an older man on a date with a much younger woman. It was the other detail that snagged on Anna’s conscience.