The line went dead. He held the receiver, the dial tone buzzing in his ear. Stiff-armed, he replaced the receiver and took a few slow steps toward his mom.
Jennifer had appeared and was crouching on the top step. She’d pulled her nightgown over her bent knees and clasped her arms around her shins. She rocked back and forth as she pressed her lips into her kneecaps, her fingers twirling a strand of hair. Mom still lay on the carpet with her arms folded over her head as if warding off a blow. Her moans gave way to a repetitive chant.
“Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. It’s – all – gone –”
Soon, she didn’t even cry anymore. She lay motionless, her eyes staring. Jennifer still rocked back and forth, back and forth. Danny perched on the edge of the couch. The border collie ran to each of them in turn, thrusting his muzzle into hands, licking faces, trying to rescue them all.
A sharp rap at the door. Danny looked at his watch. Four thirty-five a.m. Twelve minutes since the phone call. He opened the door.
“David, where’s your mother?” asked a short, stocky man wearing a windbreaker over a T-shirt and sweat pants.
Danny moved aside, clearing Scott’s view. Catherine lay on her side with her eyes closed.
Buddy growled as Scott moved toward her. “David, can you call the dog?”
“Come, Bud,” Danny called in a thin monotone.
Buddy didn’t move, his warning growl unchanged.
“David, I need your help – your mom needs your help. Please.”
Danny finally moved and grasped the dog’s collar. “C’mere, Buddy,” he repeated. “It’s okay, boy. He won’t hurt her.”
The dog sat, but his head remained lowered and his eyes never left the stranger.
Scott crouched and touched Catherine on the shoulder.
“Susan. Susan. It’s Scott. It’s okay, Susan. You need to sit up.”
For a long minute, no one moved. Then Catherine jerked up to a sitting position.
Danny looked at his mother’s face, then at Scott. It was like looking from one stranger to another.
“Susan,” Scott said, “let’s get you to bed. I’ll tell the kids.” He helped support her up the stairs and into her room. “Just rest now. We’ll talk later.” Jennifer squished her body against the wall to let them pass. After settling Catherine, Scott returned to the girl. He squeezed her shoulder.
“You must be Julia,” he said in a soothing voice. “Come downstairs with me, and we’ll talk about what happened.”
Scott guided her to the couch beside her brother. Danny still had a firm grip on the vigilant dog.
“It’s – it’s your house in Edmonton,” Scott started. “There’s been…an accident.” He paused. Both children stared at him. “There’s been a fire. An explosion and a fire.”
Danny tilted his head and blinked. “A fire?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
Scott looked from one face to another. “Bad. It’s burned to the ground.” Scott paused. “I’m sorry.”
Blood pounded in Danny’s ears, each throb repeating his mother’s words.
It’s – all – gone – Saturday, August 17th, 2002. His parents’ sixteenth wedding anniversary.
They didn’t open the curtains that day. No one answered the door when the realtor rang. Danny and Jennifer drifted about the condo, picking up snacks when they felt hungry and even when they didn’t.
Catherine remained shut in her room. Danny heard a few bouts of sobbing but mostly it was quiet. Jennifer tiptoed past her mother’s door and shut herself in her room.
Danny didn’t cry that day because he didn’t know what to cry for. Or maybe it was that he’d already cried for his past and if he started again he’d be caught in a revolving door, going around and around and around, never able to exit. He zoned out in front of the TV. It was too much trouble to get up and switch from the French channel. Buddy patrolled the house, sometimes lying at Danny’s feet, other times sitting in front of the closed bedroom doors.
Finally, Danny heard doors opening and closing and water running. Mom must have let the water run completely cold before leaving the shower. About an hour later, she plodded downstairs. She looked wrung-out, her face strained, shoulders slumped, a shadow in a housecoat. He was sitting at the kitchen table thumbing through Sports Illustrated.
“Did you get something to eat?” she asked flatly, shuffling to the stove to fill the kettle. When he didn’t reply, she said, “I’m not hungry either.” She spooned some instant coffee into a chipped mug and stood vacantly beside the stove, waiting for the water to boil. Without turning around, her voice a monotone, she said, “I think we all need a quiet day today. That would be best.” She didn’t say anything else as she poured the water and trudged upstairs to dress.
Danny’s evening drifted by on the couch, the living room chair, and eventually, his bed. He didn’t fit anywhere, and his plans had unraveled again.
He woke the next morning to the sound of his mother on the telephone. This time he waited until she hung up before going downstairs. Mom sat at the table, yesterday’s mug refilled with instant coffee, a bottle of aspirin at its side. She’d dressed and combed her hair, but her pale skin seemed to hang from her face and her eyes were hollow.
“We don’t have many groceries left,” she said. “Would you come to the store with me and help carry bags?”
How could groceries be important now?
“Okay,” he replied uncertainly. “I’ll dress and get Jennifer.”
“No, we won’t have much to carry, don’t wake Jennifer.”
He hesitated and then said, “Okay, Mom.” When he returned a couple of minutes later, she had opened the drapes and stood blinking into the warm yellow sun.
“I’ve left Jen a note,” she said as she put on sunglasses. “Let’s go.” He tugged on his baseball cap and softly shut the door behind him.
The neighborhood kids were already hard at play. He kept his eyes down to deflect any curiosity or conversation.
They didn’t talk on the way to the mall. Catherine rifled through a rack of newspapers and picked out the Edmonton Journal. She sent Danny to the cooler for two cans of pop. They took their purchases to an empty table in the far corner of the concourse. Catherine removed and folded her sunglasses with exaggerated care. She kneaded her eyes with her fingertips before looking at her son.
“I spoke with Scott this morning. He told me there’s an article about it in today’s paper.”
Danny glanced at the folded paper. He’d never paid much attention to newspapers. The news had always been about somebody else – up to now. “Grandma and Grandpa will fill out the insurance claim for us. It’ll probably take a while. It’s going to be complicated. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t have a chance to get any of our things out. The only thing left is the land. So, we’ll have to be more careful with our money.” She reached under the table and put her hand on her son’s jiggling knee. Awkwardly, Danny reached for his drink and took a long swallow.
“So, now we just…keep on…keep going. We follow our plan. Almost the same as before. We’ve come too far to let him win now. Soon, he’ll never be able to hurt us again.”
She slipped on her sunglasses. “I need to go into the bathroom for a minute,” she said, rising and leaving Danny alone.
He pulled the newspaper toward him and started flipping the pages.
It was like looking for your own obituary.
Not dead on this page.
Flip. Not dead on this page.
Flip.
Spectacular Blaze Destroys One House,
Damages Two Others
Sunday, August 18, 2002. Edmonton—An explosion and fire ripped through a west-end home in the early hours of Saturday morning, completely destroying one home and damaging two others. Six fire trucks responded to the three-alarm blaze, but it was already raging out of control when firefighters arrived. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Captain Rogers. “It was like a bomb went off inside. I
t’s a miracle no one was hurt.” Both neighboring houses caught fire when burning debris exploded onto their roofs. Everyone was safely evacuated, but the fire did extensive damage to three houses before firefighters could contain the blaze.
The blast shook neighborhood houses and onlookers wearing pyjamas and housecoats poured into the fire-lit streets. Many were holding each other and crying. “The noise was deafening,” said one elderly gentleman. “I thought someone had started a war.”
Captain Rogers told reporters the explosion may have been caused by a natural gas leak in the basement. “But it’s rare to see an explosion of this magnitude caused by just a gas leak,” he said.
Firefighters say the house was unoccupied at the time of the blast. “I think the woman and her two children are on vacation,” said a neighbor. Officials estimate the blaze caused $500,000 to $600,000 in damage to the three houses.
The cause remains under investigation.
Chapter 7
Danny avoided his sister when they got home. He grabbed Buddy’s leash and vanished out the door. Buddy led the way to the school grounds. Danny hurled the Frisbee and the dog raced after it, sometimes leaping up and catching it mid-air. After fifteen minutes Danny’s arm ached and the dog flagged.
Danny walked to the crest of a gentle slope, far away from everyone. He sat on the grass, removed his cap, and closed his eyes. Buddy lay close beside him, and he ran his fingers along the dog’s head.
“Well, Buddy, did he do it?” he said aloud. “Was it really Dad?” He hadn’t let himself think much about his father since the phone call. He was worried about his mom, his sister, his grandparents, and himself. He couldn’t let himself worry about his dad too. Like Mom, he’d made his plan – contact Dad in a few months – so he’d leave his thoughts about Dad in the future rather than think about him now.
He plucked a blade of grass and began shredding it with his fingernails. So, did he do it? Since yesterday, the question had slowly seeped into his brain like slow rain. Mom said he’d burned her. Jen said he’d kicked Buddy. Mom said he’d threatened to hurt Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa…
Where was the stone? Had he lost it? His breath caught. The last time he’d had it was in the shorts he’d been wearing when they left Edmonton, the same ones he was still wearing when they got to Winnipeg. He’d shoved his clothes under the bed and later had dumped them all in the basement.
He jumped up. “Come on, Buddy, we’ve gotta go.”
Jennifer sat with her legs tucked under the coffee table, her new pencil crayons arranged in a rainbow. One hand was up at her face twirling her hair around and around, while she colored a picture with the other, the pencil gliding back and forth across the page in a rhythmical arc, always carefully staying in the lines.
“Where’s Mom?” Danny demanded.
“She took the laundry to the laundry room.”
“What laundry room?”
“Out back across the common area – at the end, where the door is different than the others.”
His heart drummed. Mom always checked pockets. Had she found the stone?
The air in the laundry room was muggy and warm, a tangled mix of smells: detergent, fabric softeners, and unwashed clothes. His mom leaned across a dryer, fumbling with change. She looked up.
“Hi. I thought we’d all feel better if we had some clean clothes.”
His voice was urgent. “Did you find a stone in one of my pockets?”
“No,” she answered, her eyebrows raised.
“Well, did you check all my pockets? Did you?”
She paused. “I always check the pockets.”
Under the bed, he thought. I had the clothes under the bed.
Danny spun about and rushed to his room. Buddy followed closely and crouched beside him as he dropped to his knees and peered under the bed. He thrust his arm underneath and swept his hand back and forth.
Nothing. Danny’s heart pounded. Where was it? Did I lose it? How could I have lost it? He continued swinging his arm back and forth like a windshield wiper but felt nothing but dust balls. He turned and sat heavily on the floor. He stared straight ahead at the open closet. There were his blue shorts, draped across his catcher’s mitt and tennis racket. He scrambled over and pulled them out, and shook them frantically upside down.
Nothing. He flung the glove and racket behind him. Then he saw it. There it was, white on the brown carpet. He picked it up, locked it in his fist, and closed his eyes.
“Found it, Buddy. I found it.”
Buddy wagged his tail.
Catherine spent the rest of the day cleaning house. She dragged the old kettle-shaped vacuum across the scratchy carpet. She aired out the place, changed the beds, and cleaned the bathroom. She washed the kitchen floor and swept the front steps. She didn’t ask Jennifer or Danny for help, not even to take out the garbage. By supper, the laundry was neatly folded and back in the drawers.
“I’ve been wondering about the flower bed in the front,” she said matter-of-factly. “We could borrow some garden tools and clean it up. It’s late in the season, but there are probably still some flowers on sale. What do you think?”
He didn’t know what to say. He was grateful his mom seemed to have returned to normal. She was taking care of things. She was taking care of him.
He didn’t know why he watched the news that night, but he did.
There it was. Black smoke boiled out of the hole where the roof used to be. Crimson flames licked up the outside walls and pushed the foul smoke higher and higher, warping the night sky. The windows blew out in a volcanic blast of glass and debris. A man stood silhouetted against the flames, a microphone at his lips, shouting words that couldn’t be heard above the roaring fire. Firefighters in sooty yellow gear hauled hoses from fire trucks pulsing with red and blue lights. Then, the camera panned across a group of people huddled on the streets. Danny recognized Mr. and Mrs. Butler, their faces showing fear and horror in the firelight, and the Hoopers’ children, their arms around their mother’s legs and their faces buried in her housecoat. The neighbors watched the shingles on their own houses blister and curl. Danny saw the remaining walls of his house collapse in on themselves as the fire plowed through the backyard trees to the fence and garage.
He knew the greasy black smoke smelled of burning rubber and hot tar. And it didn’t stop until it was all gone.
Chapter 8
“I’ve called the realtor again,” Catherine announced Monday at breakfast. “She’s coming later. We’ll go look at some houses.”
When the door bell rang, Catherine made the introductions and they headed for the agent’s car. Alice Wu drove a sleek, black Mercedes. Danny slid into the cool leather seats and breathed in the new car smell.
Catherine and Alice chatted back and forth about location, price, and features. Catherine said it had to be by Westlawn School because she’d already registered the children there.
“What was your house in Saskatoon like?”
“Oh…smallish, older.”
“Are you looking for the same type of thing?”
“No…a little newer, a little bigger.”
They drove up and down the streets to get a feel for the area. “A nice choice of neighborhoods,” Alice remarked, “and a good high school, too.”
The car swung to the curb and Alice consulted her papers. She checked addresses and showed them some houses. The first ones were roomy, but too expensive, and Alice asked if they’d consider a condo.
“We need a big yard for our dog,” Danny answered non-nego-tiably from the back seat.
“Yes, we do,” agreed Catherine.
“All right, let’s go this way,” Alice said, swinging the car south.
The new district was called Forest Lawn. The houses had more variety, some smaller ones tucked in amongst larger neighbors. “Let’s start looking inside, shall we?” Alice asked brightly.
Danny shuffled through the tour. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone poking through
his bedroom at home, looking at his things, opening his closet doors.
After a few hours, everyone was tired. They hadn’t seen anything suitable. Alice suggested they get together again together on Friday. “That’s when the new listings come out,” she said.
One day trailed into the next. Everyone pretended life was normal and no more complicated than usual. They lugged groceries, and Jen played with the other kids. Catherine made small talk with some of the neighbors. Danny took Buddy for long walks, kept his distance, and watched a lot of TV.
Alice called on Friday. “Looks like we might have a match. The area you wanted, the right size, in your price range – possession October first.”
Catherine’s smile spread from her lips to her eyes.
The house was more humble than the others on the block, but the grass was a fresh green and a red honeysuckle bloomed around the window.
The inside was clean and orderly and the kitchen had been renovated.
“There’s a washer and dryer in the basement,” Alice said, “and there’s a one-car garage.”
“I want to see the back yard,” said Danny.
“Right this way,” Alice replied.
Six bird feeders hung from the box elder tree. Those’ll have to go, thought Danny, picturing Buddy frantically trying to bark the birds off their perches. But a chin-high fence completely enclosed the yard. Patio bricks circled a cinder-block fire pit and a stack of split birch rested against the garage wall. It looked okay to Danny. He and Jennifer continued to poke around as Alice and Catherine talked price.
“I’ll be paying cash,” said Catherine. “I won’t need a mortgage.”
“That’s great, because it means we can move on it quickly, and this house isn’t going to last on the market for long.”
Alice directed them to her car. Catherine’s eyes swept across the yard. “Yes,” she said, “we could be comfortable here for a long time. I’ll call my lawyer as soon as I get home, to find out how soon I’ll get my inheritance.”
Alice smiled. “It sounds promising, Susan.”
The Second Trial Page 14