Fiona's Flame

by Rachael Herron

  Working together can be hard, but if everyone knits a square, the blanket will be big enough to warm everyone. – E. C.

  When Fiona woke up for the first time, she wondered why her father was smiling so hard it looked like he was crying. She tried to say something but couldn’t even make a whisper. Tinker wiped his eyes and told her to go back to sleep and, pulled under again by medication and pain, she did.

  The second time she woke, it was dark in the room. Monitors beeped officially behind her head, and from the hallway she heard a woman’s brisk voice giving orders, ‘Get the mop behind the file cabinet. It rolls.’

  Abe – her darling Abe – sat three feet away from her. His chin rested against his chest, and his eyes were closed. In the dim light, she could see the shadow of stubble on his exhausted-looking face.

  What the hell had she done?

  Her chest ached almost unbearably. Then she fell asleep again.

  Over the course of the next three days, before her father was allowed to take her home, Fiona learned that she’d received several, small, second-degree burns on the backs of both legs. The burn could have been tremendously worse, and she’d been lucky to escape with her life. She’d collapsed of heated-gas smoke inhalation, which worried the doctors until she presented no signs of lung infection. IV fluids, antibiotics, and pain medication had assured she would be fine.

  But Fiona knew she’d never be fine. Not now.

  She hadn’t seen Abe since the night of the fire when she’d seen him at her bedside. She’d had no visitors but her father and Daisy, who’d brought her a new dark red geranium, ‘To plant in your garden later,’ but she hadn’t brought Tabby, she didn’t stay long, and she hadn’t been able to meet Fiona’s eyes. Fiona had been too scared to ask the questions that burned worse than the blistered, weeping skin on her legs.

  She was lucky, she knew. Doctor Fontaine and the nurses kept telling her that. She could have been hurt so much more badly. She kept her eyes on Tamale. Her father had brought her fish to her, insisting that no one else should feed him but her. ‘He misses you,’ he said.

  Tinker took her home on the fourth day, loading her into her own car, since, as he said, ‘Gloria’s got the home fires burning in the pencil truck at your place. I mean, not burning. I mean … ah, crap, you know what I mean.’

  Fiona didn’t care what he meant. It was just good to be in her little Alfa, the smell of the leather familiar and warm, neither antiseptic nor medicinal. Her father drove slowly, as if he might hurt her by going more than fifteen miles per hour, but Fiona’s lungs and legs felt better. It was her heart that hurt the most, and there was nothing they could do about fixing it at the hospital. She held Tamale’s bowl tightly so that no water spilled.

  At home, Gloria climbed down slowly out of the pencil truck and gave her a careful, soft kiss. ‘I’ve got your bed all made up, fresh sheets. Tomato soup on the stove. Hold on to my arm.’ She was clothed, as she usually was, in long, flowing fabrics, a scarf over a caftan over a long tunic. Her long unbound hair was obviously freshly done, and shone deep purple in the weak sunlight.

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Fiona. And she was. Physically. The pain had gotten to the point at which it was manageable with Ibuprofen.

  Stephen launched himself through the garden as they walked through from the back door of the shop. He reported quickly, ‘All’s well, boss. I got three details today, but I’ll have time to finish them before four o’clock. You haven’t missed anything.’

  Fiona smiled and felt her mood lift for a brief second. ‘I’m so lucky I didn’t have to worry about this place, not for a single minute. Thank you so much.’

  She could actually see his chest inflate with pride. Good. He deserved to feel that way.

  Inside the house, Gloria insisted that she go lie down in bed. ‘I’ll make tea. And then I’ll get you a crossword puzzle and a pencil or two. We have so many crossword puzzles now, you just wouldn’t believe. We’re total addicts now.’

  Fiona conceded to the tea and to working out half a puzzle with Gloria. Gloria, though, left the room in a muddle after asking, ‘What’s six letters for an extinguished match, ends with F? That can’t be right. Oh, dear. Oh, no. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Tell her it’s fine,’ Fiona said to her father with a sigh when he came in to tell her that Gloria had flustered her way across the garden to see if Stephen needed anything. ‘Everyone thinks I did it on purpose, don’t they?’ she finally asked. She kept her eyes carefully on the view outside her window. The only thing in bloom was a pink geranium that Daisy had given her two years before – it loved where Fiona had planted it and was now more than waist-high.

  ‘No, honey, don’t you worry about that.’ Her father, his heavy white eyebrows working as he stared at the crossword, spoke in a gruff, reassuring voice. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t, couldn’t, believe him.

  ‘Why haven’t the cops been in to talk to me?’

  Her father humphed.

  ‘You wouldn’t let them,’ she guessed.

  ‘No need. You didn’t do anything wrong. But yeah.’ He erased a letter carefully. ‘They say they need to ask you some routine questions. I said maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’ It was the first time she’d said the words that had been echoing in her head. ‘I was burning some sketches of Mom’s.’

  At this, her father looked startled. ‘You did start the fire?’

  ‘It was my fault.’ Fiona felt tears collect in her aching chest and pushed them back down. ‘It was totally my fault. The paper caught the grass, and then … then it was just gone. Too fast. So fast. I called 911, and they came … it was too late. But I didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘I know you didn’t, sweetheart.’

  ‘They don’t know, though, do they? Everyone else.’

  His white mustache wobbled.

  ‘No one but Daisy has sent flowers. No texts or emails on my phone that aren’t business-related.’ Nothing from Abe. ‘None of the nurses let me have the local paper. And I didn’t see my own copy on the table with my mail, which means you’ve probably hidden it.’

  Tinker examined the pencil’s eraser as if his next words might be printed there. ‘Why were you inside the house, Fee?’

  Fiona pressed a hand against her chest where her breath went tight.

  Her father leaned forward. ‘Never mind. Don’t answer. You don’t have to tell me. The cops are going to ask, but we can –’

  She held up a hand. She wanted to tell him. ‘I had a stupid idea of ripping down the snowflake. She painted it on top of the old wallpaper, you remember, so I hoped I could get it. I couldn’t lose it. I thought even if I couldn’t get it out in one piece, I could take a quick photo of it.’ Her voice trembled, giving her away. ‘I didn’t get a single photo. I went down so fast, I didn’t know smoke could take a person out that quick …’

  Fiona paused. Tinker seemed to be struggling to say something, but in the end he only managed, ‘Daughter …’

  It was now or never. The words clung to her lips and then fell. Fiona said what she’d wanted to ask him since her mother had left, so long ago. ‘Where is she, Daddy? I want to ask her something.’

  ‘Fee –’

  ‘I want to know why she never came back. I’ve waited all this time. It wasn’t until the lighthouse was burning that I realized I needed to know.’

  ‘Honey, she’s dead.’

  Everything stilled.

  Her father’s words had been quiet, but they were muffled booms in her head, like faraway fireworks.

  Dead.

  ‘When?’

  Her father leaned forward, tugging off his cowboy hat – the match to hers – and dropped it on the floor. He plunged his fingers into his hair, raking it back. ‘Since four months after she left.’

  ‘Daddy.’ It wasn’t a question – it was a plea, ripped from her.

  ‘I screwed up. I screwed up so badly. I’ve never messed anything up bigger
in my whole life.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me?’ Fiona choked. ‘How? How did she die?’

  ‘Overdose.’

  ‘On what?’ She didn’t have to spare her father, not at this moment.

  ‘Pills and alcohol.’

  ‘Did she mean to?’

  Tinker desperately smoothed his mustache. ‘They didn’t know. There was no note. I think she did, but we’ll never know.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a hotel room.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘An hour north of here.’

  An hour. Just an hour. Four months gone, and she’d only managed to run less than a hundred miles? ‘Was she with anyone?’

  ‘A man found her. A friend.’

  ‘Daddy.’ She couldn’t reach out to him. Not yet. Instead, she dug her fingers into the blanket Gloria had pulled up around her earlier.

  ‘I have nothing to blame it on, but I think that fact was maybe why I got it so wrong. I’d been so mad at her, for leaving us, for leaving you like that, but when I found out about him, I … I can’t explain what I went through. And then, a month or two after that, I couldn’t explain my silence. I knew, even then, that it might be unforgivable – as unforgivable as her leaving was, maybe. I worried that you were so hurt it would only damage you more if I told you she was dead. That maybe, since I was in so much pain, it would save you some if you just moved on. Learned to live without her, maybe stopped hoping she’d come back.’

  ‘But that was the problem,’ said Fiona, her voice thin. ‘I waited for her to come home. I wouldn’t have waited if I’d known the truth.’

  He put his hand out. ‘I’m sorry. Daughter, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  Fiona had a choice. She could roll over. Ignore his hand. Face the wall and sob, the way she wanted to.

  Or she could reach out to him.

  His eyes, the same color as hers, looked as full of pain as her heart did. They were both scarred from love, from loss.

  She took his hand. Of course.

  Breath by breath.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  You are so clever. Just look at you, what you’re doing there. I think you’re amazing. And you knit, too? Perfection. – E. C.

  Was he imagining it, or did a hush fall over the Tillie’s crowd when Abe walked in? It was almost palpable. No one actually stopped talking, but their voices lowered. Their words slowed as they stared and then regrouped, the conversations rising again, but thinner.

  A minor hesitation was a major sign in a place like this. Abe held his chin high. He wasn’t the topic of conversation, after all. She was.

  He nodded to Old Bill who was seated on his stool, fingers resting on the cash register. ‘Morning.’

  ‘It is,’ said Old Bill. ‘Sit anywhere.’

  As if Abe didn’t know how Tillie’s worked.

  Shirley poured his coffee and took his order. Her smile was curious but she didn’t ask anything.

  That kind of circumspection wouldn’t last another minute in here, he bet.

  And he was right. Toots Harrison, wearing a fuzzy, black sweater with an embroidered orange lion roaring on the front, sat right across from him without asking.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Good morning, Toots.’

  Toots’s rapidly moving hands, never dropping a stitch of her sock, brushed aside his words. ‘She up and about yet?’

  ‘I ordered the bacon. You like the bacon here?’ He leaned back in the booth. A spring jabbed him in the ass, but he didn’t move.

  ‘I saw in the paper that the cops ruled it accidental after talking to her. Come on, Abe.’ She poked him – literally poked the back of his hand – with a knitting needle. ‘Tell me. What really happened?’

  ‘How’s Lucy doing these days?’

  Toots broke into a smile. ‘Happy as a clam. She and Owen just adopted a baby girl, did you know that? I always said she missed the boat with you, but then Owen came along.’

  ‘Good man.’ Abe and Lucy had gone on one uncomfortable date in their early twenties after their mothers set them up. What relationship could survive that kind of start? ‘Better catch than I am.’

  From over his shoulder, he heard a lilt he knew. ‘That’s not fair. You’re still the biggest catch in town.’

  Toots’s eyes widened, obviously already picturing the gossip-miles she’d get from this. ‘Rayna, sit! Sit with us!’

  Rayna gave a wide smile, that sweet grin she’d always had. She could make anything easy. ‘Oh, Toots, would you mind lending him to me? Just for a minute.’

  Toots’s face fell, but she tucked her knitting into her purse. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll be at the counter if you need me.’

  Like a hole in the head, Abe thought but waved as graciously as he could as she slid out of the booth with some effort.

  Rayna, as she slid in, was the polar opposite of Toots. Perfectly put together, as always. Not a hair out of place. She wore all that shiny eye shadow – always had – and it looked great, widening and deepening her already startlingly pretty eyes. She smelled amazing – sweet and happy. Abe just wished she’d believed him even once when he’d told her she didn’t need any of the trappings, that she never had.

  ‘Hey, Tiger.’

  There it was, that ease. It felt good to be near her. ‘Hey, you.’

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m worried about you, honey.’

  And her face looked like she meant it. No ulterior motive. Nothing but a friend checking in with a friend. And hell, she knew him better than most ever had in this town.

  He felt sudden relief. ‘I’m a wreck, actually.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Not since the first night in the hospital.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Rayna shook her head politely as Shirley pointed the coffee pot at her. ‘Why not?’

  Abe tilted his head. ‘Not sure if you heard that whole debacle at city council?’

  ‘I was there. She spoke out of turn.’

  ‘You think? And the second the council voted to save the lighthouse, she burned it down.’

  ‘You were also a jerk up there, about her mom.’

  ‘I know.’ He felt terrible about what he’d said, but what she’d said was so much worse.

  ‘Did she mean to burn the place down?’

  That was the bitch about this whole thing. Abe poked at the eggs Shirley had just dropped off.

  He just didn’t know.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Knit through everything. – E. C.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ gasped Fiona, her hand on the open front door of the station, unable to move forward.

  Behind her, at the register, Stephen said, ‘You can. Go.’

  Daisy, in front of her, rolled away impatiently. ‘You’re coming.’

  ‘I can’t. Everyone will be there.’ Tillie’s was, for Fiona, like going to church. It was her community.

  The community that might run her out of town on a rail.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Daisy tossed over her shoulder.

  It was true, thought Fiona, as she caught up to Daisy, that in the week she’d been back at the shop, it had been better. The officer in the arson division (of course her case was assigned to John Moss, because he’d recently been put in charge of all property crime) had questioned her. He had accepted her explanation that it was accidental and the fire investigator’s findings had lined up with it. There was a question whether the feds might come after her for negligence, and she’d lost a full night of sleep worrying how she’d save the gas station if that happened, but then Moss got back to her saying that the Coast Guard didn’t seem too upset that they’d lost a building they’d already written off. He thought she was probably off the hook.

  Funny, that she felt so far from it.

  Trixie Fletcher, of The Independent, who had run (another) front page story about the lighthouse disaster, had interviewed both
Fiona and Officer Moss after Fiona made her statement. Trixie, though they weren’t close, had always been cordial to her, and Fiona could tell she was relieved to be able to report that it was an accident. Fiona even thought Trixie might actually believe her. She wondered what percentage of Cypress Hollow did. There couldn’t be anything more suspicious than the woman who lobbies for a building’s destruction, who, after being both foiled and publicly humiliating herself, burning down the same building ‘accidentally’.

  But one by one, her customers stopped paying at the pumps outside. One by one, they came in. One by one, they smiled too broadly at her, looking everywhere but at her eyes. She felt as if her face had been scarred by the fire and they were trying to be polite by not letting their gaze rest too long on her.

  And then, one by one, they started really looking at her. Joking with her again. The first time Cora Sylvan came in to drop off her jam for sale, she’d had almost a brittle sound to her voice, as if she didn’t trust herself to say the right thing. But the second time she’d come in, for a car wash, her voice had returned to normal, and she had given Fiona a real hug.

  Fiona knew she’d scared them all. They’d been terrified that one of their own would let them down so hard. Which was, in fact, the reason it was impossible to forgive herself.

  ‘Come on, silly,’ Daisy said. ‘Don’t be peur, as Tabby would say.’

  ‘You both speak more French than I do, and I took four years in high school and college,’ said Fiona. The feeling of walking down the sidewalk on Main Street, the ocean to her right, dark green and white-capped to the horizon, the sun still low in the sky over Tad’s Ice Cream, the hills rising green behind the street, her best friend at her side, speaking gently, teasingly, with her, was almost more than she could bear.

  Where was Abe right now? On a boat trip? In the marina’s office, pushing a pencil with his rope-callused hands?

  ‘A few more steps and then you get bacon,’ encouraged Daisy. ‘You brought your knitting, right? If you’re nervous, there’s nothing better.’

  ‘Than knitting? Doing something in public I suck at in front of people I’m not sure don’t want to string me up? I’ll do a lot for bacon, but I might draw the line there.’