The Fireman's Wife

by Jack Riggs

  The Fireman's Wife is a work of fiction. Names,

  characters, places, and incidents are the products

  of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Jack Riggs

  Reading group guide copyright © 2008 by Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  RANDOM HOUSE READER'S CIRCLE and colophon

  are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Riggs, Jack.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51323-6

  1. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 2. South

  Carolina—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.I395F57 2009

  813'.6—dc22 2008043275

  www.randomhousereaderscircle.com

  246897531

  v3.0_r2

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part 1

  Chapter 1 - Cassie

  Chapter 2 - Peck

  Part 2

  Chapter 3 - Cassie

  Chapter 4 - Peck

  Chapter 5 - Cassie

  Chapter 6 - Peck

  Chapter 7 - Cassie

  Part 3

  Chapter 8 - Peck

  Part 4

  Chapter 9 - Cassie

  Chapter 10 - Peck

  Chapter 11 - Cassie

  Chapter 12 - Peck

  Part 5

  Chapter 13 - Cassie

  Chapter 14 - Peck

  Chapter 15 - Cassie

  Chapter 16 - Peck

  Chapter 17 - Cassie

  Part 6

  Part 7

  Chapter 18 - Cassie

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  The water is wide, I can't cross over,

  And neither have I wings to fly,

  Build me a boat that will carry two

  And both shall row, my love and I.

  —Traditional folk song

  JUNE 1970

  Cassie

  I AM A PASSENGER in my own car, eyes closed, head lying against hot vinyl as Clay Taylor drives south through Murrells Inlet toward Litchfield. Even with all the windows down and Clay easily doing sixty miles an hour along the straight stretches, the heat feels oppressive. Sweat pours off my neck. It trickles down the small of my back, sticks my legs to the plastic seats. I try to imagine sitting here naked, the top of the car ripped away so that the breeze would become a tornado and blast away the heat. But I don't think even that would bring relief.

  It's June in the low country of South Carolina. The heat should be just starting to build in for the season, but instead it feels like it never left from last year. It's been hot and dry for so long, nothing wants to move, animals are laying down dead, the salt creeks drying up to nothing. Peck talks about the drought all the time, seven months and counting. He's a fireman and feels the heat in ways I could never understand. He's nervous about the dry land, worried that a fire will take off and he and his crew won't have enough bodies and equipment to put it out.

  The music on the radio is something Kelly insists we listen to, rock and roll, a scratchy man's voice screaming out who'll stop the rain? The song is annoying, makes me wonder when the rain might actually come. Everybody who lives on the marsh year-round prays for as much water as possible to fall from the sky. Some are even joking a hurricane would be welcome relief.

  The storm season started a couple of weeks ago, the Gulf Stream warming up, pulling bad weather from the far side of the world toward us. It's the serious season mixed into the tourist one, but people down here aren't thinking straight when they talk about hurricanes like that. Peck tells them to be careful what they ask for.

  The drought's put a sharp edge on everyone except Clay. He's not talking about rain. He's driving with his elbow hanging out the window, both hands on the steering wheel, a cigarette pinched between his lips. He's going on about us all taking a trip to the North Georgia mountains where a tightwire walker will, in a month's time, cross Tallulah Gorge using only his feet and a pole to hold him there.

  He's been talking nonstop ever since we left Garden City Beach because Georgetown Steel is fabricating the cables to be used in the crossing. “That walk across the gorge is going to make history,” Clay says, the tip of his cigarette bobbing in the air. “And we're a big part of making it happen, Georgetown Steel. You got to go, won't see anything like it ever again, not in your lifetime.” I say nothing, letting the smoke from his cigarette swirl in the breeze around me. “Besides, it would be easy” he says. “I'll come up from Walhalla, pick you and Kelly up in the morning, and drive on over. It's not that far from the Highlands.”

  I raise my head then, nervous that he's looking right at me, not watching the road, and Kelly right there in the backseat hearing everything. “It's not the Highlands,” I say. “It's just Highlands. You're being lazy with that, you know.”

  The car's tires hum along the packed shell and gravel road. I shade my eyes to read the sign just past Pawleys Island telling us Georgetown is still fifteen miles away. I smile, reach over to touch him so he won't be offended by the mild scolding. “Let's just wait and see,” I say.

  I don't tell him that I've seen acrobats before on The Ed Sullivan Show, a man walking a wire, bouncing for a moment before turning a somersault and landing again on his feet. This is different, though. There is always a net on TV, the distance only ceiling to floor in some television studio. Clay says the gorge is a thousand feet deep in places, and one small mistake, one slip or miscalculation …

  I lift myself up in the seat, find sunglasses on the dashboard, and then turn to face Kelly. She is stretched out, eyes closed, though I know she's not asleep. She has heard every word about Tallulah Gorge and how Clay plans to visit me in Whiteside Cove when I take her up to visit Momma this summer. When I tell her to sit up and rejoin the living, Kelly just lays there, eyes closed, her softball glove propped on her stomach like it's the very thing holding her down.

  The land outside the back window runs away from me simmering in mid- afternoon sun. The whiteness of the road, the sand edging along its shoulder, stands in stark contrast to the brown beyond. Here, away from the ocean and salt creeks, trees seem to wilt, shrubbery, salt myrtle, straggling cordgrass, all dry and brittle.

  Once Kelly's song is through, I run the dial, find a crackling AM station trying its best to keep Marvin Gaye tuned in. Clay lights another cigarette, the blunt end of the lighter flaming when it touches the tip. I smile and sing along. “Ain't no moun- tain high, ain't no val- ley low …”

  Our hands touch palm to palm as he passes the filterless cigarette to me. It's then I hear Kelly turn over in the backseat, the words good God tumbling out of her mouth in what I know is disrespect. The harsh smoke burns my throat. I hate the habit, the nastiness of the taste, but the nicotine has its effect, and I lean again on the seat letting the song and cigarette be enough until we are across the Intracoastal Waterway and into Georgetown, where my baby girl will be an All- Star pitcher this afternoon.

  We find the field squeezed in between steel and paper mills, smokestacks belching black and gray soot into a sky already filled with an uncomfortable haze. Kelly won't talk to me when we park the c
ar, just gets up from the seat and runs out to the field where her coach gives her a ball, lets her know she'll pitch the first three innings. The Bel Air sits beneath a small stand of trees where Clay spreads a blanket, unfolds lounge chairs for us to sit in while Kelly's team takes the field.

  I watch her on the infield dirt, so much like Peck, her arms and shoulders strong and balanced, skin the color of honey. I'm as white as sun- bleached shell, skin too pale to do anything but burn if I'm outside too long. Worshipping the sun was never part of growing up in the mountains. Whiteside Cove was breezy, cool enough even in midsummer to wear long sleeves by late afternoon, a sweater at night. Here along the salt creeks and beaches, the sun demands that you disrobe to nothing, sink knee- deep into black mud, dig out oysters, or empty crab pots. Seining nets are like bridal veils thrown into creeks capturing shrimp and minnows, their transparent bodies nearly invisible in the turbid muck. It is all part of the land's requirement that you become a living part of the rivers and creeks. But it has never been very livable to me. It is unbearable at best.

  I watch Kelly warm up, so poised and unafraid at fifteen, so much like Peck. I wonder if she even needs me. I remember after she was born, how Peck could calm her when she cried, the way he would carry her outside onto the dock by the marsh or drive along the beach until she fell asleep. When Kelly was old enough to walk, he took her to play in the ocean and later taught her to surf and fish, catch crabs or dig for clams at low tide. They were inseparable. When I began our trips back to the mountains to get away from the heat and the marsh, her time away from Peck was tolerated. And even though I know Kelly loved being with her grandmother, the mountains were just too far away. She would climb up Sunset Rock or to the top of Whiteside Mountain, look as far east as she could, take a deep breath only to announce that there was no smell of the ocean in the air, and that would seem to negate the legitimacy of our stay. Low country is in her blood, but not a drop pulses through me. It used to disturb me to think Kelly was more Pecks than mine. It used to tie me up in knots for days, but now it seems to matter less.

  I have read in magazines that everyone has the right to go and find themselves, do your own thing, they say. I tried talking to Clay about this when we stopped for lunch today, but Kelly was mad at the world because Peck wasn't the one bringing her to the game. She was just ugly—not a good way to start out my new life, but I didn't care. I ignored her, ate my Hardee's hamburger, and told Clay that today was the first day of the rest of my life. I said, “I feel like Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

  Kelly looked up from her meal then, said, “Momma, seagulls are dumb birds. All they eat is other people's trash.”

  Jonathan Livingston Seagull was an assigned book from Kelly's high school English class, so I know she read it. I know she doesn't think that about Jonathan because she's the one who told me to read it. Right then she was just so angry at me. I told her to shut up, said, “You know what I mean.” Clay sat there with the dumbest look on his face. A fireman like Peck, I don't think he's read a thing since college, unless it had something to do with smoke and flames. “I feel free,” I said, looking at both of them. “I just feel free, that's all I was trying to say.”

  I watch seagulls differently now, the way they float out on a breeze, cut loose, free. No limits, Jonathan, that's what the book said. I don't want limits either, no matter how mad Kelly gets at me.

  She's on the mound when a gust of hot wind gets itself tangled up on the infield, the sand and shell surface whipping up into a small tornado. The girls cover their faces with gloves, arms over eyes until it passes, leaving the air dusty and parched.

  “They could have done this in the evening,” I tell Clay. “The heat could hurt these girls.” He is standing up watching Kelly throw strikes, smiles at me when I say this.

  “You never liked it here, Cassie,” he says. “I don't think anything could make you happy.” He looks into the sky, scans the edge of the field. The whole neighborhood surrounding us seems to be a victim of the steel mill drowning in grime and soot. “Besides,” he says. “No lights.”

  “What?” I ask, shading my eyes when I look at him.

  “No lights for a nighttime game,” he says, then yells encouragement when Kelly's team closes out the first inning.

  In the second, Kelly gets a hit and is then thrown out at second. When she pitches in the top of the third, a girl from Aynor hits her good and scores a couple of runs. Clay shouts encouragement, but Kelly ignores us both. By the time she is finished pitching, she leaves the mound to applause, pats on her back from the coach.

  Some people tell me that my daughter is a phenom, that at fifteen she is better than some seniors who are winning college scholarships. Her coach says there could be something for her down the road once college coaches get a whiff of her. I don't like the way he put that, the idea of someone sniffing at my daughter like she's some kind of dog in heat, but I understand what he means. When I see her play the way she's different on the mound or in the batter's box waiting on a pitch, I know she's not the same girl I see at home when I ask her to clean her room or help with the dishes. I've been taking her to two- a- days, that's all the responsibility for her talent that I can claim. The rest is of her making.

  During the next three innings, Kelly is in the outfield. Clay walks over behind the backstop and talks to some man who's been watching the game with a clipboard and pencil, scribbling notes while Kelly pitched. They talk like they're friends from way back. Clay stands with his arms crossed, spitting onto the ground, rocking on his heels, pointing out at Kelly and then over to me. I act like I don't see this because I really don't like it. Sometimes Clay will just take over. He doesn't ask or tell me what he's going to do. He just leaves me unannounced to go somewhere and then comes back with something new to tell me.

  My affair with Clay Taylor has been going on for as long as there has been a drought in the low country. He keeps joking that if he quit seeing me maybe it would start raining again. But he won't do that. Whenever Peck's working at the station, Clay makes sure he's off duty so he and I can be together. It doesn't work all the time, so lately he's even started calling in sick.

  Clay and Peck used to be equals, friends. But he thought he'd be chief instead of Peck when Garden City opened, thought they passed over the better man. Now he's leaving the low country altogether to become the new chief in Walhalla, South Carolina. Earlier this afternoon, before we left for Georgetown, Clay came to me and asked if I would move up there with him.

  I heard his boat come through the salt creeks navigating the high tide. He called for me by tooting his horn, the reverse of his engine boiling the water as he glided up to the floating pier. He waited there, shirtless, the sun sparkling against his heat-drenched skin, a dark perpetual tan that seems dyed into all men who live their entire lives along the marsh. We dangled our feet in the creek, letting the dark water push at our ankles while he told me about Walhalla.

  Clay made it sound like a new life though he would still be a fireman. It was closer to the mountains, he said, a new world that he didn't know, so it would be like starting all over. That's when he asked me to go. “You can be my guide,” he said, “show me the ropes up in them thar hills.” He smiled, and then lit a cigarette.

  “But you know the mountains,” I told him. “You went to school in Cullowhee.”

  “You should have been there too,” he reminded me. “I expected to see you on campus that fall, but when I heard what happened, I couldn't believe it. Peck stepped up and did the right thing. But it should have been different, Cassie. I won't let another chance get past me.”

  I didn't know what to say. The fact is, he was right, everything would have been different if I would have stayed at college and not come here married and pregnant, just out of high school. That summer, Clay and I talked about going to school every day. Peck was always quiet, maybe a little jealous, though he never would admit it. Clay and Peck were good friends while they were lifeguards, and after Peck starte
d taking me out at night, Clay kept his distance. Near the end of summer, though, he would drop by the cabins when Peck wasn't around, and we'd talked about looking for each other on campus. It seemed innocent enough at the time, flirtatious maybe, but I never told Peck about it. I didn't want it to bring up any trouble between them.

  On the pier this afternoon Clay's eyes were dark, serious, holding me there until I promised that I would go with him. When I did, he smiled, breathed heavy like he wasn't sure I was going to say yes. He flicked the spent cigarette into the marsh, leaned over and kissed me hard on the mouth for God or anyone else who might have wanted to see it.

  We sat on the edge of the dock, the black creek water lapping against the side of Clay's boat. I felt there wasn't a place in the world that I couldn't go now. I had met Clay when I was seventeen years old and from that moment on we were living our lives separately, waiting to arrive at this moment together. I needed Clay and he needed me. Walhalla would be a new start.

  When I heard Kelly coming home from the beach, I tried to get up, but Clay held my wrist. “Let her see,” he said. “If you pretend nothing's going on, then nothing's going on.” He raised an eyebrow as if he was flaunting some sort of hard- earned wisdom.

  Ellen Thomas's Volkswagen stuttered down the stretch of dirt road and coughed to a stop in the backyard. Both girls were laughing, slamming car doors, running into the house when Kelly caught us sitting like high school lovers, our feet wet, bodies touching. “Where's Daddy?” she asked. She averted her eyes, searched the yard as an obvious and uncomfortable excuse.

  “He's at work, where else?” I told her.

  “Is he coming with us?” Ellen had walked back down the steps. The two girls stood frozen, arm in arm so naturally, so unassumingly that it angered me how easy it was for them to protect each other.

  “No,” I snapped, “but we need to leave soon, so go get your things.” I watched Ellen whisper something into Kelly's ear. Then she waved and hurried off to her car.

  Kelly stayed put, alone now, shifting on her feet, one arm reaching behind her back to catch the other at the elbow. She squinted in the sun, this time looking straight at me, defiant. “I thought he was coming.”