Anyway, the guys and girls in the van were so high and drunk that they never noticed how much I was suffering. They kept holding a joint up to my lips and I think, even though I was never one to do drugs, that I was so much in agony and I thought that a hit of pot might help me deal with the pain and so I smoked it.
It didn’t help. It just made me feel lightheaded and confused.
We got to Collins Avenue, a couple miles from the hotel, and I remember there were two girls and two guys in the SUV and they were so smashed, wiped out and totally high that they got the munchies and pulled into a drugstore to get some snacks. I couldn’t believe it. I was frantic by this time to get to the hotel and I stepped from the SUV, my back feeling like I was wearing a shirt full of razors slathered in rubbing alcohol, and I ran for the beach. My instincts always lead me to the ocean and once on the beach I began to run south toward the hotel. I could still see a small amount of smoke drifting up into the sky from the remnants of the fire and in my heart and mind I knew that Kinsey, or Kinley, as my concussed and confused mind thought her name to be at that time, would be there. That she’d been sent to the hospital screaming my name made me feel that she’d come back to the hotel like I was trying to do.”
Jessica interrupted, “We did go back. I don’t know how we missed you.”
Tanner nodded, “It’s my fault. Believe me though, it wasn’t for lack of effort on my part. I managed to get thrown in jail. Did you guys ever think to check the Miami jails for me?”
Jess shook her head and Tanner continued, “I didn’t think so. Why would you? That’s the only time I’ve ever been to jail. I’m not the type to do things that are illegal. But here’s what happened:
The fire was out and as I got close to the hotel I could see that the police were trying to get the crowd that had formed around the hotel to disperse and go home. I was sure I’d find Kinsey, you, and Dale, any moment and I ran into the crowd. I heard two people talking about what had happened and how much of a hero the guy was who’d jumped from the window with the two children was and so I asked someone how the children were doing.
“They’re great,” a man said to me, then his wife, I guess it was his wife, said, “Both are in the hospital but they are going to be fine. We just listened to a reporter for the TV news give an on air report and he said they are with their parents at the local hospital and they are going to make a full recovery.”
Then the husband asked, “Why are you dressed like that?”
I knew then that I would be noticed in the medical clothes I was wearing but what could I do? I said I was a doctor and I had just gotten off from work and saw the fire on my way home. I don’t think they believed me. I was half stoned and my eyes were almost shut and red. My back was on fire, literally, and I kept turning my shoulders trying to pull the cloth of the shirt back from sticking to the burned skin. Today, I look back to when it all happened and I know that I looked unbalanced, odd, and even alarming. Most of all I know that I didn’t look like a doctor.
I left them and with a deep thankfulness in my heart that the children were okay I went looking for Kinsey.
Jess found herself interrupting again, “You have to tell me about saving the children. After a few days of not finding you, Dale and Mr. Barksley were certain that you’d turn up on the news. You were a hero and they figured the media would track you down. So they searched the papers and the local TV news looking for stories about you. They never found one.”
Tanner stood and crossed the room to Jess and sat next to her, “That’s the one thing, saving those two children, that has kept me sane these last four years. You know Kinsey and I were getting ready to make love, we were seconds from really knowing one another, when that fire broke out. I don’t think God wanted us to be together like that. In fact, I know he didn’t.
Here is how it happened – my first thought was to save Kinsey. I instinctively knew that if I was smelling smoke before the fire alarm even went off that we were very close to the fire. When I went to that hotel door and opened it and smoke came pouring in our room I was afraid we were dead. Fortunately, the fire was down the other way from the exit stairs and as long as we were able to get through the smoke I knew we’d be okay. My only thought was to get Kinsey, this new blessing of a woman in my life, to safety. As we got to the door to the exit stairs we met another couple and I thought we were home free. Then I heard those children’s screams and I knew that if I went down those stairs without finding them I’d never be able to live with myself and I would never be able to face Kinsey. Being a coward wasn’t an option. I pushed Kinsey forward into the stairwell and made her think I was right behind her because I also knew she’d try to save them and there was no sense in us both dying.”
Tanner paused, he reached out and grabbed Jessica’s hand, “I don’t know if you’re married or have a man that you love …”
“I’m marrying Dale next week.”
Jess saw Tanner’s eyes go wide then he broke out into a smile. “Are you kidding? You’re getting married? Now? That is so great.”
Jess found herself wrapped in a hug and then Tanner let her go and stared at her. “That is the best thing I have ever heard. I remember the two of you met the same night Kinsey and I did. Tell me about it.”
Jess didn’t mean to change the subject when she interrupted Tanner with her news, but then, excited, she found herself telling Tanner all about her fiancée and their upcoming wedding, “It’s been a wonderful four years for us. We’ve slowly fallen in love more and more with each passing day. I feel like our love is an incredible bottle of red wine, like the finest Bordeaux, and it’s been cellared and aged so that when finally opened, like on our upcoming wedding day, it will be perfect and taste and smell of so many flavors. I am deeply in love with Dale. He’s a good man and he’s perfect for me.”
Jess looked at Tanner, smiled and continued, “I have to say, now don’t tell anyone this, that when I first met him I liked him a lot but I thought he was just eye candy. He was a model after all and I was an artist. I was so high on myself, like I was above him in a way, but he showed me up in the best of ways.”
Tanner tilted his head and smiled, like he couldn’t wait to hear how Dale had showed her up so Jess kept with her story, “He let me be above him as I thought that I was and he never let on to what he wanted to do with his life. He was a male model because he got to travel and make some money doing it. He’d already received his master’s in engineering from Georgia Tech a year before I met him but he didn’t want to work in an office just yet so he took two years to travel and get, as he finally told me, being young, dumb and wild out of his system.
I wasn’t aware of how much I was falling in love with him. I’d spent six months with him talking about all my dreams of being an artist and just enjoying being with an incredibly good looking man, but I never took him seriously. Then one day I made a flippant comment about my boy-toy boyfriend to one of my art friends who said that when I was done with him she wanted to go out with him. I found myself jealous at the thought of him being with another girl and I realized I liked him much more than I thought. Then I showed my true colors by being embarrassed at the thought of marrying a male model.
When I broached the subject of our future together to Dale I asked him what he wanted to do besides being a male model. I thought he’d say something like he wanted to open a clothing store or some such nonsense.”
“Can I say something?” Tanner was almost laughing at Jessica.
Jessica was surprised, “Sure,” she said.
“I knew Dale was an engineer by the time you and Kinsey came back from the bathroom that night at the sushi bar. You never asked him in all that time? That’s amazing. I thought he was incredibly smart within two minutes of talking to him.”
Jessica was astounded. “You knew that? I was so selfish back then, and so narcissistic. I’m so glad Dale was patient with me. I hope I’ve grown. I don’t think I’m like that any longer.”
Jessica
suddenly realized they had strayed far from Tanner’s story, “Stop it! You’ve changed the subject on me,” Jessica said laughing. She was elated to be talking and laughing with Tanner and she couldn’t wait to get him in front of Kinsey, but she wanted to do it right and she wanted to hear what had happened to Tanner. “So what happened with the children in the fire? Keep going. Enough about me. No more of my narcissism.”
Tanner laughed at Jessica’s joke about herself and then his eyes went serious and he picked up where he had left off.
“I made sure Kinsey was going to be okay going down the stairs with the couple we met at the door to the stairs and then I slipped back into the hallway and headed for the sound of the children’s screams. The smoke was thick, foul and black. I kept the towel to my face as I made my way down the hall and as I got closer to the children it began to get very hot. I could see flames through the smoke and I found myself jumping through them and into a hotel room. There was a little kitchenette to the side and it was on fire. I read in the newspaper later that the children had shoved aluminum foil in the toaster and shorted the wiring in it. All they had to do was unplug it but they tried to push the foil down and it shocked the older boy when he did so and the toaster fell off the counter and against the curtains of a window and ignited them. They had a babysitter who ran to get help. She was their cousin and she was thirteen. Old enough to watch them but not mature enough to think to bring the children out with her. She was just scared and she ran for her parents who were downstairs eating with the other two children’s parents. But let me tell you, that fire exploded all over that room and came out quickly into the hall.
I found the children in the bathroom sitting down in the tub. They were screaming and hugging each other and calling for their mom and dad. I grabbed them and made for the door that I’d come in just moments before but it was now blocked with flames and I couldn’t just dive through it with the children in my arms. We were trapped but I heard the fire trucks coming and I figured we’d wait on the balcony where we could get some fresh air to breathe until they could get a ladder up to us and get us down.
Those two children latched on to me. That moment was the most fulfilling of my life. They buried their heads in my chest as I walked them to the sliding glass door of the balcony. I had to let the older boy down so I could open the door and as we stepped outside I felt like we’d be okay. I could hear the fire trucks pulling up and we just had to wait for them. It’s amazing how heightened your senses become and I heard the screams from below as people spotted us. Time slowed down for me and I knew every detail of all that was going on around me. I saw Kinsey in the crowd down below and my heart soared that she was okay. Then there was an explosion behind us and flames and the hottest heat blew through the glass of the door behind us shattering it. I shielded the children and my back felt like it had been laid open by a glass blowing flame thrower. I almost collapsed but then I felt myself picked up and I heard a whisper telling me to trust my instincts and look for water. My first thought was of the ocean and the beach beyond but that made no sense and then I saw the pool and I knew we had to jump. Otherwise we’d burn to death waiting for the firemen to get a ladder to us.”
Tanner paused and looked at Jessica. “I was so at one with the moment. Looking back I know that it had to be God directing my thoughts. I even aimed for the deep end of the pool that’s how aware and in the moment I was and I made sure to keep the children from hitting the bottom of the pool as we impacted. I put myself between them and the bottom and that’s how I hit my jaw. That’s the last thing I remember, at least clearly, for a long while. That concussion jarred my memory in a bad way which didn’t help me in my search for Kinsey. It took me three days to remember her name was Kinsey and not Kinley.”
Tanner stopped speaking and Jessica realized she’d been listening with an open mouth and shaking her head at his story. She knew Tanner was a hero, but now, being able to listen to him tell how it happened, made her realize that she had to help Tanner see Kinsey again. He had no malice in his heart and he hadn’t run from Kinsey either. Somehow they had missed finding each other all these years.
The next question from Jessica’s lips surprised her, “So how did you end up in this house? Kinsey and I stayed here seven years ago. There’s no way you just happened to be in this house without there being a connection.”
Tanner tilted his beer back and drank the last swallow from it and then asked Jessica, “I need one more of these. Two beers is a big night for me and you ringing my front doorbell has made this evening the biggest of nights. Would you like another beer also?”
Jessica had drunk her beer without even being aware of it as she had listened to Tanner tell his story. She nodded and Tanner said for her to follow him to the kitchen. She did and when he handed her a beer from the refrigerator he said, “Let’s go upstairs. I want to show you something. It’s how I came to be here.”
Jessica followed him up the long staircase to the third floor where he took her into the room that Jess remembered to be the room Kinsey had stayed in when they lived with Ms. Lester over the summer months those many years before.
She stepped in behind Tanner and stopped cold. She saw it, something that she thought had been burned in the hotel fire those years before. “Oh, oh, oh,” she repeated out loud, “That’s Kinsey’s picture. That’s her picture she said she wanted to give to you. That’s her Naked Sunset, her favorite painting. The firemen said all of our things were ruined in the fire. They never let us even look in our hotel room.” She looked at Tanner with wide eyes.
“I went to jail saving that picture that night and it’s also how I ended up here in this house.”
Jessica looked at the painting. It looked the same as she remembered it back when Kinsey worked so hard on it all those years ago. Kinsey had been devastated to lose it and it only made her search that much harder for Tanner. She wanted to paint it for him again with both of them in it this time. It became her obsession but it was an obsession that never saw sunlight or received any water to nurture it and regrow it anew. Without Tanner in her life Kinsey had been unable to generate the enthusiasm to paint it again.
“What happened?” Jessica asked as she stepped closer to it.
“That night, after the fire was out and I had made it from the hospital back to the hotel, I was getting desperate. I was searching for her, for you, for Dale, for anyone to help me find Kinsey and I went to the firemen as they pulled and brought things down from where the hotel fire had been. I tried to describe Kinsey to them but none of them recalled seeing her and they were looking at me with suspicion what with the odd way I was dressed and what I imagine were my maniacal eyes. Then as I was stepping away from them two firemen brought down the painting along with some other items. I must have gone nuts with excitement screaming to let me have the painting and that it was mine. They refused to give it to me and looking back on it I can’t blame them. I must have looked like a bearer of the coming apocalypse what with my ranting and raving. I tried to take it and they pushed me away and I ended up punching one of them. I didn’t hurt him, I wasn’t even the fighting type, but you can’t punch a fireman. It’s against the law I learned that night.
The police were called over and I found myself running with the painting from them. I was crazy by this time and it’s all a bit of a blur but I ran down the beach and into the dunes. I hid the painting in the bottom of a large thicket of beach foliage and kept going. They caught me near the marina and threw me into a police van. My next memory is waking up in the infirmary of the county jail, on my stomach, handcuffed to the bed. Then I was taken to a hospital as they had discovered the burns on my back. Apparently they were quite bad and I don’t remember much of the next two days as they had me sedated while they tried to cut away burned skin from my back. Now you have to remember that they still didn’t know who I was. I hadn’t been able to speak through the drugs they were giving me but I think they knew I was the man who had saved the two children from the fi
re so I was treated very well. I think they realized that the burns had made me go out of my head. That isn’t the truth though, not finding Kinsey had made me go out of my head, but when I finally came out of the fog of the pain killers it was night and they told me they were going to have to interview me in the morning about what happened and that I would have to give them the painting back. They knew I’d hidden it and they had to get it back before they would drop the charges against me. I said that was fine but I knew that as soon as they left me to go to sleep that I was getting out of that hospital and getting the picture back for myself. Whatever happened to me, I was going to have that picture in my life. Kinsey had told me she wanted me to have it and I wasn’t giving it up.”
“I know.” Jessica said, “She’s always said she painted it just for you even though she didn’t know you when she was painting it. She would cry that she lost both her greatest painting and the man she’d fallen in love with at the same time. She was inconsolable.”
“She said the man she’d fallen in love with?” Tanner asked, stepping toward Jess.
Jess nodded, “She did. Every day that I’ve fallen more in love with Dale I’ve hurt inside my heart knowing that Kinsey was spending another day away from you.”
“You have to take me to her, Jess. I will explode if I can’t see her and touch her and know that she is still real.”
Jess answered, “I will but you have to trust me. I have an idea and it will truly make Kinsey happy. Be patient and trust me,” Jess got Tanner’s eye and made him agree. “Now tell me the rest of your story.”
“I wasn’t being guarded any longer and I wasn’t cuffed to the hospital bed and that night I slipped from my room and went down the hall and into another patient’s room as he slept. I went into his things and I took his clothes and put them on. He was doped up and never had a clue I was in there with him. They were old man clothes and I looked odd but not crazy as I did a few days earlier when I took the doctor’s surgical garments before I’d returned back to the hotel. I used his room phone to call a cab and I met the cab outside the emergency room. No one recognized me or said a word about my baggy clothes and big shoes. I just stepped out from the hospital, into the cab and the night beyond – I was gone. When the cab pulled up to let me out by the hotel where the fire had occurred I opened the door and ran for I had no money. I mailed the cab company the money I owed them plus a big tip for the driver a few months later. I can’t go through life knowing I took something or I owe for something. I don’t steal.
Lights on the Far Horizon Trilogy Page 9