by Jack Riggs
What comes next begins as small waves, warm touches across my body like I am being held and comforted. I close my eyes and remember the morning of Peck's funeral, the desperate need to feel him again, his comforting words from my dream. You will, now go on. The heat doesn't last long, but the touch remains, my body relaxed, quiet for the first time since I found out Peck was dead.
By the time the sky clears, I am restless to do just what he said, to go on. I start the Bel Air, roll down my window, the air fresh and sweet, the smell of rain filling the inside of the car. It is enough for now, I tell myself, to be on my way, to simply leave the parking lot on this mid- July afternoon, to see behind me shadows on the ground covering the distance I have already crossed, the way out in front clear as the Bel Air holds me balanced and steady toward the state of South Carolina, moving on, taking me back to where all of this began. Home.
Awassa
In memory of LB.
You left us too soon, Bro.
For Debra, Madison, and Chris.
You let me go on this journey,
but you wouldn't let me go it alone.
You are all so strong and lovely.
Acknowledgments
It seems a fitting place to be here in Garden City Beach, South Carolina, looking out on the Murrells Inlet Marsh in early August, writing acknowledgments for a book that found its inspiration in this place only two short years ago. I have just finished reading the galleys for The Fireman's Wife, the last chance I will have to touch the lives of Cassie and Peck. It will be up to them now to go out into the world to tell their story. My job is finished.
Looking back on this journey, I have traveled far and wide to gather in Pecks and Cassie's lives. From the low country of South Carolina to the high peak of Whiteside Mountain outside Highlands, North Carolina, I have traversed the geography of their lives, meeting folks who were able to add authenticity to their story through a strong sense of place. Without the help of these lovely people, Peck and Cassie's story would not have been possible. I am indebted to them all.
In Garden City Beach, there are the usual suspects, the ladies at Seawatch Inn at the Landing, the place where I wrote most of Pecks life. Renata Beebe, Kim Saunders, Kim Herriot, and Virginia Blake have always provided a quiet, lovely space for my story telling to come alive, not to mention the homemade cookies to nibble on. In addition, Paula and Wade Nichols, longtime residents of Garden City Beach, treated me to a lovely dinner in Mur-rell's Inlet, where they were able to confirm my suspicions about the marsh and surrounding geography during the 1970s. It was a warm and enjoyable evening with new good friends.
Carolyn and Bob Riordan are very special. They opened their lovely mountain home to me on numerous occasions, so I could learn about Cassie's life, the land she traversed as a child, the college where she would dream of going one day until that fateful summer of 1954 when she visited the low country of South Carolina. This book would not exist without Awassa.
To backtrack in 2007 to a time that is completely gone from the mountains required some conversations with those who have lived in the coves and towns all their lives, or long enough at least to know where all the bodies are buried. I was lucky enough to find several people in and around Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina, who opened their homes, allowing a total stranger the chance to “pick their brains” about a lost time and place. My thanks go out first to Suzannne Roweton, whom I met along Whiteside Cove Road. She offered to introduce me to the “caretaker” of the land that I wanted to hike, land that would help me understand Cassie better. That caretaker was Suzanne's father! Kenneth and Linda Smoak allowed me (and my dog!) into their home so I could learn about the country in and around Whiteside Cove. Kenneth invited me to hike on private land where Cassie's father would have walked during his visits to Whiteside Mountain. The next day I made the six-hour trek that would reveal much about Cassie's life and help me to create authenticity in her existence. The hospitality shown by Kenneth and Linda Smoak and Suzanne and Kenneth Roweton helped me feel that this place I have always visited is now part of my home.
Debra Rogers of Ashburn Real Estate was gracious enough to sit with me for an afternoon, offering her impressions of Highlands, North Carolina, back in the 1970s, and when I needed to go back further, I was blessed to meet Sue Potts from the Highlands Historical Society. She stayed with me until early evening one cold February day after I had been out traipsing around the mountains alone and uncertain about what I was looking for. A lifetime resident of Highlands, Sue sat and told me wonderful stories, some of which found their way into this book, albeit altered or fictionalized to make them part of Cassie's life before she met Peck.
I would be remiss not to mention my good friend Bit Holton, who helped me navigate through the legal issues of real estate law in the 1970s. He helped me devise the devious plot John Boyd Carter brings to bear on Meemaw and Cassie. Bit is one of my closest childhood friends who, along with his wife, Kim, have remained dear to me even as the years have grown between us.
There are those in Atlanta who have stuck with me over the years. George and Jayne Cavagnaro, Andy and Shelley Rogers, John (Goose) and Kelly Hetzel have always been loving and kind in their support of my writing. Debra Marlow and Barbara Antley are two women who have read my early drafts and always supported me with kindness and love toward my work.
At Georgia Perimeter College, I want to thank our president, Dr. Anthony Tricoli, for the vision and direction he has set for our college and his understanding of my place in it. Rob Jenkins, the director of the Writers Institute, who has been my most ardent supporter during the writing of this book—thank you, Rob. And Pamela Parker, who has been there from the start and continues to this day to support my writing, you have always been ready to read and critique my work. Thank you.
Without Stella Connell's love for my work, this book would never have been published. And without Jane von Mehren's belief in Cassie and Peck, I wouldn't have been blessed with Robin Rolewicz, who saw the story even before I did! I am thankful to Millicent Bennett, who, as my editor, worked unendingly to make this book shine for Ballantine. And last but certainly not least, my agent, Amy Hughes, who saw the story when it was raw and fresh and still knew what it could be. You took a chance, and for that I am indebted to you.
Finally, to my parents, who stand deep in age and wisdom. You have been steadfast in your love and belief in me. God bless you.
I don't know what will happen to The Fireman's Wife, but I know that the journey is over. The lives of these characters and the real people I have met along the way have been woven into a rich tapestry that is now a part of my life for always. I can let Cassie and Peck move out into the world knowing that they are ready to go, that their lives are complete, their story finished. It is up to others now to decide what will become of Cassie and Peck, good people with a story they would like to tell you.
August 2008
Garden City Beach, South Carolina
Also by Jack Riggs
When the Finch Rises
Connie May Fowler and Jack Riggs
Discuss The Fireman's Wife
Connie May Fowler: What was your inspiration for the novel?
Jack Riggs: You know, sometimes the stories that we end up telling aren't the stories that we intended to tell. That certainly happened when I sat down to write my second novel. I spent about two years working on a book that Ballantine decided not to publish. It was a hard time for me. When the Finch Rises had been such a wonderful experience and suddenly I really wondered if I ever would publish a second novel. The next summer, while I was trying to figure out my future, I was down at the beach south of Myrtle where I concentrate on my writing—a noisy, crowded, boisterous family beach just like in The Fireman's Wife—and my agent got a hold of me and said Ballantine was still interested in something new.
I was thrilled, but what would I write about? For some reason, I had been thinking a lot about Larry Brown lately. I had read him very early on and became fri
ends with him even before I was published. I would talk to him from time to time, and he was always so gracious with his words. When he died, it was just devastating to me, as it was to many others. I had recently reread his memoir On Fire, and was thinking about how Larry had been a fireman years ago, when I noticed a fire truck from the station next door to my condo was heading out on a call, and for whatever reason all those thoughts and impressions coalesced into one at that moment and I thought, What the hell, at least Ballantine is still asking. So I told my agent that I was working on a story about a fireman. I asked her to give me a week and I'd send her something when I got home. And that's when I started writing The Fireman's Wife. It came out of a great confluence of emotion and need, of failure and desire to begin again. That was the seed, but of course there was much more.
CMF: Do you feel like you chose this story and these characters, or did they choose you?
JR: I always feel like the characters choose me. Peck was the first to come on board. He found me down there at Garden City Beach, beat up and needing rescue. Cassie came a bit later. She was the hardest to understand. Maybe it's because she's a woman and I'm a man and it was harder to communicate, I don't know. I started with Peck's story, and as I went along and Cassie began to trust me more, the story really became hers. Peck's story is about other folks’ disasters and how he tries to help the victims survive, but it's Cassie, on the other hand, who's in trouble, she's the character in transition. She needs rescuing. I just didn't know it early on. She pretty much demanded that her troubles be front and center, so that this becomes a story about how she is trying to right a wrong life. Her choices are certainly suspect, but the attempt is true and real. Peck is there to support her as well as he can and to give her room to breathe. He finds his own peace while Cassie attempts to find hers.
CMF: What prompted you to write this novel from both Cassie's and Peck's perspective?
JR: That's a good question. When I started looking at Peck's and Cassie's lives, I wanted to make sure I did both of them justice. What we forget is that there are always two sides to any problem and usually both sides have a degree of validation to them. Peck is a strong man who understands, to a certain degree, what his wife is doing. But Cassie is sympathetic too, even as you can see that she's a bit out of control. I wanted to explore the idea of a relationship caught in the tides of change. It is 1970 and women's lib is pretty intense, so I wanted there to be an undercurrent of that running through the book, and I wanted to explore the confusion on both sides of the relationship in that context. Look, Cassie got pregnant at eighteen, lost her chance to go to school, was kicked out by her father, and has lived the last fifteen years of her life in an area of the country that she doesn't really understand, the low country of South Carolina. We have to be in her head to understand why she becomes so restless, and we have to be in Peck's head to see the impact of her choices on the rest of her world and the people she loves. It was just apparent early on that I would have to look at this story from both characters’ points of view. It made the book tough to write because I always had to be thinking from both perspectives. It took longer to process information and character motivation, but in the end, I think it worked well.
CMF: Was it difficult for you to slip inside the voice and viewpoint of a woman?
JR: It was more difficult to slip from one point of view to another and keep the story moving forward, but if I have to answer that question, yeah, it was harder. I'm not a woman, never have been one, never will be, so I had to consider my own sensibilities and filter them with extreme care to make sure I found the right voice. In some ways, such as human nature and emotions, men and women are the same. But our actions and thoughts are often in stark contrast. In this particular case, Peck moves quickly, decides and takes action. Cassie spends lots of time deciding on things, is careful with her words, moves quietly to begin her journey to self-discovery. To juggle those two patterns of thought and behavior was difficult, but I enjoyed Cassie the more I got to know her. She became a strong character for me, especially after I spent some time near Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina. Once I understood her terrain, the geography of where Cassie grew up, then she became much more real to me. I was able to write her then.
CMF: Did you do anything specific and intentional in order to shape- shift into a woman's point of view?
JR: It's funny, but early on, I wrote Cassie's story without the use of contractions. I wanted her thoughts and her dialogue to seem more proper in a way. It gave me a starting point for a voice. I found pictures of women who could have been Cassie, thought about the type of clothes she would have worn, her skin type and such. I listened to and observed my own wife. She helped me a lot with mannerisms and dialogue; how to write it so it sounded and felt real. I thought about her language patterns and behaviors, watched my daughter and noted her body language and behavior around the house. Madison is younger than Kelly, but she's entering the stage of her life that I think is timeless, that teenage period where she's too cool. It was fun to watch her and it was fun to think about my wife in Cassie's position. She'll be surprised to hear this, but it's true.
CMF: You do something very brave in this book; you detail an issue that is present in the lives of many women but is hardly ever spoken about: Cassie resents her daughter. What is the source of the resentment? Do you believe her resentment is justified, or do you see Cassie as a flawed and perhaps even bitter woman?
JR: I think Cassie is a woman in transition, and people in transition sometimes do things that appear crazy and inappropriate to others. We go crazy for a while and then the ship rights itself and we go on with our lives like nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Cassie has been coming to this moment for a long time and now will not let anything stand in her way. She does love her daughter, even though we see her use the girl in some ways. From a distance we might see her as a bad mother, but I don't think that's true. In Cassie's mind, Kelly and Peck stand in the way of her freedom to live her real life, that life she left behind when she got pregnant and had to get married. She wants to get back to what she believes is her true life's road, and to do that she will have to let some things go: like Peck and Kelly, if necessary. Does Cassie resent Kelly? Probably on a real silly, immature level, but deep down, she's a mother and a good one at that. I think Cassie is bitter, yes, and flawed. Her life, in her estimation, has been one of captivity. Like she says, when she returns from a visit to the mountains, she feels like she is a cornered animal. All human beings need to feel like there is an opportunity for growth in their lives. If we lose that, I think we lose the will to live. So Cassie is fighting back, albeit in a way that is less productive than she hopes.
CMF: Cassie is resentful of Clay, saying that “Sometimes Clay will just take over,” yet she leaves her husband for him. What does Cassie truly want?
JR: I think Cassie just wants to be herself and, as long as she feels trapped, she is struggling to find who she is. I also think Cassie wants to have one final chance to understand why her father did what he did those many years ago. Clay is a means to getting out, and as the book begins, we get the strong impression that Cassie knows that going with Clay is just “trading a fireman for a fireman,” but she has no other way to do it, and so she sticks with it. But interestingly enough, as she begins to free herself, she drifts further from Clay, too. I think as Cassie gets further away from Peck, the more she begins to understand him and what her life with him really means. Of course things happen and it's not easy to just say “my bad” and go back to normal. Cassie's actions bring about consequences that have devastating results. She learns a very hard lesson before the book is through. And though she was looking for this rearranged life, in the end, the completeness of that change is incredibly powerful, is beyond anything she ever imagined.
CMF: When you were a little boy did you want to be a fireman when you grew up?
JR: I think all boys pretend to be things like firemen and soldiers. I don't think I particularly tho
ught I would ever be one, but I certainly romanticize that type of character. When I was growing up, I remember visiting fire stations, and listening for the fire siren that always announced where a fire was burning. There was a page in the back of our telephone book that had all these fire codes, and when the fire horn would blow, it sent out a series of blasts that would correspond to one of these number codes. You could look that code up on a map of Lexington and find where the fire was burning. I remember once, we heard the fire horn and checked the map and realized it was Dixie Furniture, the local furniture factory where many in Lexington worked. It was a huge and expensive fire, one we all drove downtown to watch.
Like I said, the early ideas of this book came from being at the beach and hearing a fire engine go out. And then there's Larry Brown and my impressions and thoughts about him. Of course there is 9/11 and all the firemen lost in that event. But one moment that affected me most came in the summer of 2007 when nine firemen lost their lives in a blaze in Charleston, South Carolina. Ironically, I was back in Garden City Beach with my family on vacation, taking a break from writing, when the news of this huge fire came on the television. As we watched, the number of firemen grew until the news began to report that nine had died when the roof collapsed. It was the worst fire disaster since 9/11. I found it terribly poignant that I was writing a book about firemen in South Carolina, and here in Charleston nine lives were lost on a summer evening while we were all enjoying the beach. It left its impressions on me and colored the thoughts Peck had about summer vacationers at the beach and the type of calls his crew eventually went out on.