Such Good People

by Martha Whitmore Hickman

  “What’s going on—lost your key or something?”

  They turned. Through the open front door, they saw Ray, his head out the front porch window.

  “Your house is on fire, damn it. Open the door,” Bart shouted.

  “What the hell?” Ray disappeared. In a minute, the door opened. Ray stood there in his pajamas, the smoke billowing from behind him. He seemed in a daze. “We better get outta here. Susan!” he hollered.

  But Susan had streaked past him, running toward the back of the house. “Jimmy!” she cried out. She disappeared into the smoke. Bart couldn’t see her. But he heard her ratcheting cough. “I can’t see!” she cried out. “Jimmy! Jimmy!”

  Taking a huge gulp of air, Bart lunged past Ray and into the smoke. It was dense now. He wasn’t familiar with the layout of the hallway and rooms back here. The dim figure of Susan was outlined against a doorway. Which doorway? He saw her stumble, grab for a doorjamb, fold over, clutching at her chest.

  He heard another cough—from a back room. “Ma-ma!” a voice called out, then a cough and silence. Jimmy. Behind that door.

  He groped for a door handle, burst through the door. “Jimmy! Where are you?”

  No answer. A crib. Where was the crib? Bart swung his hands at waist level, touched a wooden bar—the crib. His eyes stung; his throat was burning. It was almost impossible to see. He reached into the crib, fingers spread wide, touched a lump of what must be Jimmy, and, with a single motion, scooped up the child and in a lurching run plunged down the hallway and into the living room, where fire was eating now against the wall, sucking at the couch, where Susan and Ray, coughing, disoriented, were trying to push the smoke back with their hands, trying to reach the room where their son lay sleeping. “I’ve got him,” Bart yelled. “Get out!” and he burst through the front doorway as the wail of the siren turned the corner and a fire truck slammed on its brakes at the end of the walk.

  A man in fireman’s gear and carrying a hose rushed up onto the porch, taking in the sight of Bart clutching the child to his chest even as he turned his head aside to cough, and the man and woman supporting each other as they tried to clear their lungs of smoke. “Anybody else in there?” the fireman shouted.

  “No!” Ray called out and then, coughing still, he turned to Bart, who was bending over Jimmy—now screaming in fright but his pajamas untouched by fire, his lungs apparently unharmed. “Is he okay?” Ray shouted.

  Susan reached her arms to take the child, and Bart, tears streaming down his face, handed the baby over and stood there while Jimmy’s screams turned to quiet sobbing, and then, freed of the baby, he sat down on the ground near the porch and coughed a few more wrenching coughs and put his head down on his knees and sobbed.

  He was there when Paula found him, a few minutes later. She had been trying to comfort Susan, who sat in a rocking chair on the other side of the porch, rocking Jimmy in her lap and crying hysterically. “We might have lost him,” she cried. “I told Ray to get smoke alarms!” she said. “If it hadn’t been for you folks,” and then she cried again and buried her face against the baby.

  The firemen ran their hoses into the house, played them over the flames. The fire was quickly extinguished. “Most of the damage is from smoke,” the fireman told Ray. “It was the heater started it. That wall heater. Looks like there was papers close by.”

  “I guess so.” Ray shook his head, bewildered. “I guess so. We didn’t know a thing about the fire till our tenant upstairs pounded on the door.”

  The fireman shot a look at Bart. “You’re a good neighbor,” he said. “That smoke was getting pretty bad. The baby could’ve died. You’re a good neighbor,” he said again, unable to understand why Bart, the hero of the evening, couldn’t seem to get a grip on himself. “They should try a fireman’s life,” he muttered. “It’s always crisis time for us.”

  There were more questions to answer, forms to fill out. Firemen administered oxygen to each of them—“just a little extra, just in case”—holding the nose cone to each in turn. They hitched up pressure ventilation fans to blow the smoke out of the house. The senior fireman on the truck did a close inspection to be sure nothing was left smoldering, urged Ray and Susan to get smoke alarms—“especially with that baby not right close to you”—and to “get some of that trash out of the cellar.” He assured them it was safe to stay in the house, that there’d been no serious structural damage. They’d have to get a house-cleaning company to get rid of the smoke smell, and maybe they’d have to replace a few baseboards and do some painting, but all and all, they’d been pretty lucky. “Could have been much worse,” the fireman said as he remounted the hook and ladder and the fire truck moved off into the darkness.

  Ray and Susan, still carrying Jimmy, and Bart and Paula went back inside and into the kitchen, which appeared to be untouched. “Would you like some coffee?” Susan asked. “I don’t think this baby will go back to sleep right away,” she added, looking fondly at her son, who seemed quite cheered by now, looking around, taking everything in.

  Bart and Paula looked at each other. “Sure,” Paula said.

  So they all had coffee and rehearsed again and again where each of them had been when they realized the house was on fire and what each of them had done in response. Ray and Susan expressed again and again their profuse gratitude to Bart—which Bart acknowledged with quiet deference, said he was glad he’d awakened. That anybody would have done the same thing once he saw what the situation was.

  The eastern horizon was beginning to glow with first light when Bart and Paula went upstairs and climbed back into bed. “Thank goodness it’s Saturday,” Paula said, and hugged Bart with a desperation born of near catastrophe, then went to sleep.

  Bart stayed awake for a long time, while a gratitude too deep for words planted itself in his consciousness and grew and grew—as in time-lapse photography—until it seemed to fill his chest with a sweet buoyancy he’d not experienced since that awful day when he’d been immobilized by God knows what—and maybe he couldn’t have made any difference anyhow. But his ability to act had sure as hell made a difference today. He heard again the words of the fireman—“You’re a good neighbor”—and he got up and sat by the window. This mood would probably slip from him after a while anyway, but he didn’t want to cut it off by sleeping. And he said, to a face he longed for but could not see, “I saved his life, Annie,” and she said, from somewhere up in the fuzzy front pine tree where the morning sun was just beginning to turn black spikes to green, “I know you did, Bart. I watched the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done the same for you,” he said.

  “You think you could have?” she said. “Who was God before you?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

  He could have sworn he heard her laugh.

  When Laura woke in the morning, Carlena was already up, eager to tell her part of the story of Rachel’s crisis. So while Laura drank from the steaming coffee, ate the breakfast Carlena had set out for her, Carlena talked on.

  “She complained of nausea early in the morning. I gave her tea and toast. When she went to sleep, I thought, That’ll do her good. When I couldn’t wake her up for her noon medicine, I called the doctor. He ordered the ambulance.” She stopped for breath but continued to hold Laura’s attention with her eyes. “Once she was settled, I called a taxi and came home so I could call you children. I was frantic that I couldn’t reach you.” She looked up and saw the anguish in Laura’s face and hurried on. “Of course, I knew you’d be home by evening—time enough, whatever happened.” Another pause. “I tell you I was scared. But when I called the hospital at ten-thirty last night, they said she had improved. I asked if I could speak to her and they said no, that she was asleep.” Laura nodded and Carlena said, “Your mother’s a tough cookie. She may come out of this just fine. And she’s had a good life. Remember that.”

  “Oh, I know, Carlena. I saw her last night. She was sleeping then.” In a rush of feeling, she s
aid, “Thank you for taking such good care of her.”

  Carlena’s eyes filled with tears. “She’s a good woman, your mother. A heap site better than some I’ve taken care of.”

  Laura took the last draft of her coffee and set the cup down. “I’ll call the hospital.”

  When she reached the floor nurse, she said, “I’d like to know the condition of Rachel Taylor.”

  “Mrs. Taylor’s condition is much improved. She’s awake and has taken a little nourishment.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Relief tingled in her hands. “That’s very good news. This is her daughter. I’ll be down to see her.” She put the phone back on its cradle, said to Carlena, who stood waiting, arms crossed over the bib of her flowered apron, “She’s much better—she’s even taken some food.”

  Carlena beamed. “What did I tell you—your mother’s some strong lady!” They hugged each other.

  “I’ll call Lillian and Howard.”

  Carlena nodded her approval. “I called them late last night. They’re waiting to hear.”

  After Laura had talked with them, shared the good news and promised to keep them informed, she called Trace.

  He answered the phone. “Trace Randall speaking.”

  “Hi, Trace.”

  “Laura! How’s everything going? I miss you.”

  Unexpectedly, she began to sob. “I miss you, too.”

  “What is it? Is Mother in bad shape?”

  “No. That’s just it. She’s in good shape. But she wasn’t.” Then she told him the story of Rachel’s sudden illness, her trip to the hospital. “I wasn’t here. I’d gone to Cape Cod for the day—with a friend.” She waited. Would he ask more? Did she want him to?

  “That’s nice,” he said. “By the way, did Bart call you?”

  “No.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not now. There was a fire last night downstairs in the house where they live.”

  “A fire! Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. Thanks to Bart. The fire was in the baby’s room. The parents were asleep two rooms away. They might not even have noticed until it was too late. Bart woke them up. There was a lot of smoke—heavy smoke. The mother was almost overcome. Anyway, he ran in and got the baby.”

  “Oh, Trace, he could have been killed. How did he know?”

  “That baby’s room is right under his. The smoke came up through the floor, set off their alarm.”

  She sat down in a nearby chair, her hand trembling. “Was there a lot of damage?”

  “Smoke damage. Some water damage from the fire hoses. Everyone’s okay.”

  Laura felt as though a huge hunk of cotton was stuck in her throat, nearly choking off the air.

  “How did it start?” she asked.

  “Some papers near a wall heater is what the firemen said.”

  “And Bart and Paula are okay?” In her mind, she saw Bart doing a football run into dense smoke and running back out, the baby held against his side.

  “They’re fine. We didn’t talk long. Bart was obviously dead tired. But he wanted me to know. He said, ‘Tell Mom, too, will you?’”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll call him later.” They exchanged a few more words and hung up.

  Laura leaned her head back against the wall. Her heart raced. Another disaster. It was too reminiscent. Bart and Paula were safe. If we had lost him, too… But we didn’t. And the downstairs family—relief for their safety, too. They would remember it always. The parents would tell the child of his narrow escape. It would become part of his personal drama, something to tell about when boys—or men—vied with one another for heroic stories. But Bart… How she used to worry about them—scaling rocks, walking along the knife-edged ridges of mountains. But fire? Fire in your own home. While you’re asleep in your own bed. Well, he was all right, thank God.

  Close behind her pride in her son and relief that everyone was safe came another feeling, unbidden. Why not Annie? Why couldn’t Annie have been saved? As quickly, her mind recoiled in aversion. Would it always be this way? Would she never again feel unmitigated joy at the good fortune of another? It was the old question: Is the cup half-empty or half-full?

  *

  When she got to the hospital a little after nine, Rachel was sitting up, propped against pillows, her hair a matted halo. “Oh, hello dear…” Her voice was hesitant and weak.

  “Mother!” Laura hugged her, her face against the soft cheek. She stood back, smoothing the hair along Rachel’s forehead. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  Rachel’s smile was wan. She was drowsy. “I don’t even remember….” The words were thick on her lips. “When…did…you come?” But before Laura could answer, her eyes closed again.

  “Mother?”

  Rachel didn’t answer. Alarmed, Laura went out into the hall and stopped a nurse.

  “Could you check my mother?”

  The nurse came in, jostled Rachel’s arm, called into her face, “Mrs. Taylor! You all right, dear?”

  Rachel opened her eyes and smiled—trusting, like a child. “I’m all right.” Her eyes closed again.

  The nurse stepped away from the bed, lowered her voice. “She really had us worried for a while. Her housekeeper said she’d had some kind of digestive upset. Too much loss of body fluids. It causes potassium loss and they just go under. As soon as we started her on an IV, she began to rally.” She looked back at Rachel. “She’ll be ready to go home in a day or two.”

  The nurse left the room and Laura sat down in the chair. She should be jubilant that Rachel had passed this crisis, and she was. Certainly she was glad the house fire in Woodbridge had had such a happy ending. But all her elation of yesterday, her sense that her life was moving into new realms, no longer weighted by consuming grief—where had it all gone? She closed her eyes, trying to recapture the feeling and saw, as on a moving screen, a silhouetted couple walking along the beach.

  She sighed. When she got home, how would it be for her and Trace? When she tried to tell him about her journey of self-discovery, would his look grow distant, his attention wander? How much would she tell him about Fred Thayer?

  She was gazing out the window when she heard a rustle at the door. “Laura?”

  She turned. It was Ginny and Fred, with a bouquet of flowers—forsythia and pussy willows, shrouded in green tissue.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she said.

  “I called Carlena,” Ginny said. “She said things are much better. I’m so glad.” She kissed Laura’s cheek. “Fred said you had a good day, even with a stormy drive home. Sorry I couldn’t go.”

  “We did have a good day,” she said. “Fred was a wonderful help to me. It would have been a good day with you there, too.” Her eyes met Fred’s. “But different,” she said. “A different proposition.”

  A look of mild alarm came on Fred’s face.

  Ginny went out into the hall in search of a vase and Fred’s look changed to a conspiratorial smile. “Watch your language,” he said.

  “Just an expression,” Laura said, “and it was a wonderful day.”

  “Now that the crisis has passed”—Fred looked toward the bed, where Rachel was peacefully dozing—“may I take you to dinner tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said, before she had time to think about it. “I’d like that. After visiting hours?”

  Ginny came back in, brandishing a vase. “They have a closet full of these,” she said.

  By the time they got to the restaurant, the dinner crowd had mostly gone. The tables and booths that ringed the large area of hardwood floor left clear for dancing were occupied by young couples having snacks and drinks and occasionally rising to dance to music provided by a trio of musicians flanked by an array of palm, on a raised platform at the far end of the room.

  They ordered drinks, then dinner—light pastas with salads and a bottle of wine, noted the food, the decor, the dancing skills of two couples who bounded to their feet whenever the musicians struck o
ut with some rapid-fire rock music.

  All but finished, Laura sat back against the padded banquette, her wineglass in hand. “This is such a respite for me, Fred. A place to be quiet, collect my thoughts.”

  “Which are?” He looked at her tenderly, reached in his pocket. “A penny for your thoughts,” he said, and offered a coin to her on his extended palm.

  She took the coin, and his hand, as well.

  “For starters, how much I am enjoying being here with you.”

  He smiled. “That’s worth two pennies at least. But I don’t want to let go of you.”

  “Nor I of you,” she said. “I’ll miss you when I go home.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.” He leaned toward her. “I missed you all day today, except for that few minutes at the hospital. Now that your mother’s improving so, I could wish we’d not made that phone call last night.”

  She smiled. “I’ve thought of that. Carlena would have worried. She wasn’t too sure it was proper for me to go off with you yesterday. If I’d stayed away overnight…”

  “You’re a grown-up,” he said. “You don’t have to answer to Carlena. Or—” He broke off, was quiet for a moment.

  “Or anyone else—is that what you were thinking?”

  “Wishful thinking,” he said, and smiled. “How is it going to be for you, going home?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I want to tell Trace about my experience yesterday afternoon—the whole sequence of that revelation about how I was holding on to Annie, overlapping my life and hers—partly as a way of holding on to her. But I don’t know that I can make him see it.”

  “Does he have to?”

  The question startled her. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that experience—especially inner experience—is so much our own. It’s hard to really share that. Maybe the poets have the best crack at it, but they must feel people aren’t getting it a lot of the time.”