The Ocean in the Fire

by Renee N. Meland

  His face went white, along with Tonya’s, who had been grabbed on one side by Kate and the other Harper. The women dragged her outside and held her next to her husband. “He’s lying! I swear! He’s just trying to save the girl! He’s lying! I swiped those from the pharmacy yes, but it’s my pharmacy! I was trying to protect my family. Please! You need me.” He flailed in Gabriel’s grasp. “She’s not an EMT! He is lying about all of it!”

  Tonya sobbed, staring at her husband. “She can’t contribute anything! He’s lying! My husband hasn’t ever touched drugs in his whole life.”

  Connor stared into Drew’s eyes. Drew knew if he let on at all, Blake and Jackson would both die, out in the forest alone. “You telling the truth?”

  He kept his face steady. “Yes.”

  Tonya glared at Drew, eyes filled with rage. “You’re killing us, you bastard!” Kate and Harper continued to hold her as she struggled. “No! You can’t do this!”

  Connor nodded at his son, who seemed to know exactly what that meant. Drew had won. Gabriel grabbed George and Tonya’s stuff and threw it toward them. His face was sullen, and there wasn’t an ounce of hope within it. “I’m so sorry, but you have to leave. Go now while you still can. Please…he will shoot you.”

  During the commotion, Drew grabbed Blake while Vera quickly picked up Jackson and carried him inside. He felt Poe behind him, and he couldn’t figure out why she seemed to be helping them make it in the house before Connor changed his mind, ushering them in quickly and quietly. He heard her whisper to Blake: “Keep your head down, and he won’t regret this.”

  George’s voice rang in Drew’s ears as he and his wife were escorted away from the house, back towards the poisonous world that they were trying so hard to get away from. He hoped they would meet up with the rest of the people who didn’t make it, and somehow they would find a way to survive. But after what he’d seen at the hospital, he knew the idea was one made of delusion and waking dreams. The shrill, panicked tone was something that would haunt his darkest thoughts for the rest of his life. He put his arm around Blake and whispered, “Don’t say a word.”

  “But they—”

  “Think of Jackson. Do this for him. I’ll teach you the rest.”

  With tears in her eyes, she nodded, and Drew pushed down the hate for himself that he felt, knowing that he had just made his best friend’s daughter a murderer right alongside him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  POE (before)

  Harper told Poe years later that she could almost feel the pale, freckle-faced little boy’s cheek swell up before she hit him. The contact seemed to happen prematurely, like when someone lets a precious set of words slip out that they immediately regret. Poe knew it was impossible, but she couldn’t help imagining the feeling of flesh parting from itself, stretching out into the air like a balloon being filled with water, sinking under the weight of it.

  Their father had always told them to stick up for themselves, and they would deal with the consequences. He would say, “As long as you can sleep at night, you did the right thing.” Harper had always slept more soundly than any of them, her fearlessness echoing in the thud of her fist and the snap of her voice.

  Their mother rushed into the principal’s office with a slick sheen of sweat on her forehead. Poe remember how her face glistened, like only her cheeks had just been caught in a rainstorm, while the rest of her remained dry and pristine. “What happened?” her mother asked. She was used to Kate dispensing with pleasantries, but not that day. There was no time for “please” and “thank you” when your daughter’s schooling is called into question. If Harper’s education was put in jeopardy, her mother would certainly have something to say about it.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this Mrs. Holloway, but Harper punched one of her classmates. His parents are very upset. They demanded to talk to you themselves, but I told them I would handle it.” Like an F.B.I. interrogator, he tried to make it seem as though he was their friend, and not the person who was about to inflict punishment. Maybe that made him think his audience would dislike him less, when in actuality, it made them loathe him even more. To Poe, sugary words never made up for a cool, stiff heart, though it seemed to her in their time people liked to think so. She guessed she got that from her father. Sometimes she wished she could accept people as they were just a little bit more: just a sprinkle of it would go a long way to cure the darker stuff that pricked its way into her brain every now and again. But in that particular situation, she was glad that he had taught her to see through clouds of false friendship and fancy comments.

  “What happened?” her mother asked again.

  The principle seemed confused by the question. Perhaps most parents took their children’s punishment as something that was not up for discussion: authority had spoken and it was their job to smile and nod. “As I said, Harper punched a boy on the playground. His eye swelled shut. It’s all black and blue and looks just awful. Awful. We are going to have to suspend her.” He glanced over at a picture of a woman and a young boy that was sitting in a black wooden frame on his shelf. She looked like the kind of woman who would marry a man before she figured out she had other options. She had a smile on her face, but it looked as if it was plastered there…the kind of smile you give when you are supposed to look happy but really there’s a hollowness deep in your gut. The child had a completely different sort of grin. He had the kind that was blissfully unaware of the fights between his mother and father at night, the kind that, if a house didn’t have thick, sound-deadening walls, would send a child to his fair share of therapists as he aged.

  Poe would never forget the look on her mother’s face, or what she said next. Her response made her love her even more than she already had. Even if there were a tornado coming toward them, Kate would stand tall in front and block its monstrous view. “Why?”

  The principle crinkled his nose. “The why doesn’t matter. There’s never a justification to punch someone, especially at their age. As the adults, we need to instill in them early on that kind of behavior will not be tolerated, and violence is never a way to solve a problem.” He leaned back slightly in his chair, as if he thought that would be the end of the conversation. He had obviously never met my mother, Poe thought.

  Mom looked him right in the face. “The why always matters, Principle Finch. My daughter has never done anything violent in her life, not even while playing at home with her siblings. I am sure it says in her file that she’s never even gotten a warning from any of her teachers. If she went so far as to punch a boy, there had to be a pretty substantial reason.”

  Finch paused, apparently weighing his next words, probably wondering what he could say that would get them out of his office as quickly as possible. “Apparently there was some sort of argument about your husband, your whole family in fact. The boy was just teasing her. Boys will be boys after all. Things were said and Harper reacted with her fist. You understand we can’t have that here. Our students need to feel safe.” Poe couldn’t remember the last time she felt safe. To her, everyone in her school were just obstacles, dark, unpleasant little things that she would have to overcome until she could leave for whatever came next.

  Kate’s face hardened. “Boys will be boys? We’re still hiding harassment behind that supposed excuse? I don’t really think it’s appropriate to allow children to insult each other either, wouldn’t you agree?” Principle Fitch held up his index finger in protest, but her mother continued. “And I’d also assume that when you say the students need to feel safe, that includes my children as well? I’ll assume you agree that there is a fine line between teasing and bullying, and making fun of someone’s family certainly qualifies as the latter. I’m not sure how allowing that to occur under your watch helps you reach the goal of a safe environment.” She looked at Harper. “I doubt my daughter felt very safe when that was happening to her.” Finch looked as if he were inhaling to speak then closed his lips abruptly. Sometimes it’s best to know when to talk, and also, when not
to. From the words that Principle Finch used, Poe guessed silence usually served him better than sound.

  Poe looked at Harper and reached for her hand. She squeezed it tight. “Harper was standing up for me. Joey called me a bi… the “b” word that we aren’t supposed to say. He said our family was a bunch of psychos and when I said he was wrong he told me we probably worshipped the devil and killed hikers that passed by and that’s why we lived in the woods all alone.” She was always confused as to why, with so much sorrow in the world, someone would assume that there had to be a dark, deadly reason to withdraw from day to day existence. Judging from her experience, the world itself seemed to be a perfectly good reason all on its own.

  Kate looked at Principle Finch with widened eyes. “And are you going to punish that kid for talking to my daughter like that?” She had been sitting in the chair at Finch’s desk but at that, she stood up and started to pace back and forth with her hands on her hips. She was able to still keep calm, but her smooth veneer was cracking.

  “Mrs. Holloway, sit down please.” Kate hesitated, but obeyed, keeping her legs crossed and her arms folded. She looked like the poster of perfection: perfectly pressed skirt, and a blouse that looked like it belonged on an old Hollywood star. Poe always felt that she took her features from her father, where Harper took them from her mother. Though she’d never been jealous (she adored her father after all), she always knew that Harper would have an easier go at it—life in general that is. She often wondered if her mother had several suitors before her dad, then realized the answer was obvious. Her bright blue eyes and wavy blonde hair, with doll-like skin answered the question loud and clear. “Look, no offense, but the way your family lives, you can’t expect people not to ask questions…to think certain things. If your family isn’t willing to be a part of the community, people are going to talk.” His tone dripped with condescension, seeping off his tongue like saliva from a dog in heat.

  A laugh burst through her mother’s lips. “Let me see if I understand you correctly. The community has decided that our family is, how did that kid put it, weird, because we aren’t as involved as people think we should be…and people saying terrible things is supposed to make us feel more like part of the group? We’re supposed to feel less like keeping to ourselves? Do you see the hypocrisy here?”

  Harper and Poe looked at each other. She didn’t think they realized at the time how critical the conversation that took place in that thick, yellow-armpit-stained man’s tiny office would be in shaping the rest of their lives. Hypocrisy had a way of finding them, and ever since Poe had told people what they were at their birthday party, it’s time-worn face seemed to appear wherever they went. And as her mother pointed out, there was nothing like hypocrisy to make you feel less and less like participating in the town’s yearly ice cream social, barn dance, or whatever: insert trivial, small town event here.

  Finch didn’t say anything, just pursed his lips together as he folded his sweaty, pudgy hands on top of his desk which looked like it had been there since the two-hundred-year-old school opened. Poe imagined several men like him sitting there before him, all-too-willing to drop bombs on children and their futures.

  Finally, after what seemed like a good few minutes, he spoke. “Three-day suspension. That’s the policy.” How completely unsurprising it was for him to hide behind “policy.” Wars had been fought, unjust laws had been followed…innocent people ended up dead from all the way back to the Bible years all in the name of policy.

  Her mother came over and grabbed Harper and Poe each by the hand, then said in the most graceful tone, “Sure. Suspend her for three days. Do what you have to do. But you know what we are going to do when we get home? We are going to have some ice cream. Whatever kind Harper wants. By our psycho selves. And we aren’t going to kill any hikers on the way there either.” She added a pleasant smile for good measure as they walked out of his office, with smiles on their faces and the pride in their hearts that her father had always told them should be there.

  Harper and Poe unclasped their mother’s hands and raced toward the car, and for a moment, the Earth was spinning on its proper axis once again. They buckled themselves in, and argued about which CD they should listen to on the way home: Seal for Poe, KidzBop for Harper. Their mother pretended to be cross with them and chose her own selection, but Poe guessed she just used it as a reason to listen to Celine Dion.

  On the ride home, Poe had imagined Principle Finch still sitting at his desk, stung to the core from the verbal lashing that her mother gave him. She always admired that about her mother: that she could keep calm while still telling a person what’s what, and making sure they knew just how wrong they were. Even when Poe was on the receiving end of such a tone, which she had been only a few times, she still appreciated the hardened certainty of her mother’s voice. There was no guessing with her, no wondering if what you did had some gray area with which you hadn’t behaved as badly as you may have thought. You knew you had broken a rule, and you were to be punished. And that day, Finch knew just how badly he had behaved, and like a scolded child, he sat in the corner as they marched out of his office, and they were as sure as ever that, despite what others thought, their family was wholly ordinary in the most extraordinary of ways.

  When they came home, Poe had expected to run straight to the refrigerator to get some ice cream. She’d been fantasizing about the creamy freshness of mint chocolate chip for the entire drive. Instead, they arrived to see her father sitting on the porch steps with his face in his hands. “Where’s Gabriel?” Her mother asked.

  “Upstairs.” Poe noticed a silent exchange between her mother and her father, the kind where parents communicate the need for privacy in a way they think only adults can understand. As Poe observed, Harper had walked right past them straight over to the fridge and started shuffling through their frozen goods.

  “Girls, go upstairs to your rooms. We’ll have ice cream in a little while, okay? And Poe, shut the door on your way.”

  “But, Mom…” Harper protested from inside the house, having heard her mother through the open door.

  “Harper…go.”

  Her sister sighed, but headed toward the stairs, with Poe following behind. Once she got to the base of the stairs where they were supposed to head to their rooms, Poe hesitated, Harper already four steps ahead of her. “You coming?”

  “You go. I’ll be up in a minute. I wanna see what they’re talking about.”

  “It’s probably something dumb. Come on.” Poe stood fast. “Suit yourself.” Harper continued upstairs, and Poe waited until she heard her mother sit down before heading back from the direction she came.

  At that time, there was a screen door as well as the regular door. When Poe had shut it, she purposely only shut the screen door all the way, leaving the other door gently resting against it. It was just enough to allow her to listen to her parents continue talking. She had never done anything like that before, always one to obey the rules, but something in her father’s face was different. So instead of doing as she was told, she crouched down so that the wall and the door would block her parents’ view of her, and she listened. Something had darkened, and she couldn’t bare another moment not knowing who was responsible.

  “Those sonsofbitches. They showed up at the house.”

  “Who?”

  “Child Protective Services. Somebody called and made a complaint against us.” He chuckled darkly. “Actually, according to the woman who showed up, it was more than one. Apparently a group of them banded together and made all their complaints at the same time in some messed up attempt to have more impact. It must have worked because I just had to endure that woman poking around in our home for three hours looking for evidence that we are abusing our children.”

  It was several moments before her mother spoke. “Did they find anything?”

  “Of course not. Why would you even say that?”

  “You know what I mean. Of course we don’t hurt our kids but who kno
ws what they could use to manufacture a problem that isn’t there.” For the first time in her life, Poe heard her mother cry. “I’m scared, Connor.”

  The sound of arms being wrapped around a terrified woman. “It’ll be okay, Kate. You know I’d kill every last one of them before I let them take our children away from us.” Even as a young child, Poe knew her father meant every word. Though she shook, and forced herself to hold back frightened tears that threatened to come, she knew that no matter what anyone said, the gigantic, spindly, horrifying thing she feared would never come to pass. Her father wouldn’t let it.

  She never told her brother and sister what she had overheard. When Harper asked, she had replied that she had been right after all. “Just something stupid. Exactly like you said.” Though a few weeks later, her parents got a phone call saying that the case had been closed and no further action would be taken, for Poe, and for her parents, the damage was already done. They’d had the audacity to make a woman as kind and loving as her mother worry that she would experience the worst pain imaginable: having her children ripped away from her.

  She knew her father well enough to know that there were certain unbendable truths in his world, rules that everyone needed to live by: you are supposed to respect those around you, you should never involve yourself in the lives of others unless invited, and you should never, under any circumstances, hurt the woman he loves. They had broken all three, and her father would never forget it.