by Lynne Hugo
“…In case Jill needs help” was code for “in case I pass out, begin vomiting uncontrollably, hemorrhage or experience any of the other horrors that might precede my decline into death.” Becca was vehement about not wanting Jill to witness a “medical emergency,” which was the furthest she’d specify the range of contingencies about which she’d been warned. Rather, she talked around it all, skirting the gaping black hole of what could happen, and using phrases like “empower my body to heal through the power of the Lord” to rehearse her plans. Cora didn’t see that Becca’s body was empowered to do much except suffer, nor that Lexie had been helped one bit by being safely in school during her mother’s “medical emergency,” but there’d be no good in pointing out even the latter to Becca. Not that doing good seemed to make the smallest difference; whatever good she’d tried to do for her children, well, what, really, had ever come of it? She hadn’t even kept the majority of them alive, surely a minimum standard.
Still, there was an upbeat today, which was that Cora and Becca both felt comfortable with Cora leaving—as long as she went back to Becca’s to sleep. On the way home, Cora stopped at the Thriftway and picked up groceries, not too much produce, though, because who knew how long she’d be home? On the other hand, school would let out for the summer on Thursday, and Cora was to have extra visitation with Lexie during vacations, so maybe she’d have to stay home more since Lexie had such an aversion to being at Becca’s. The same old dilemma: choose!
As she drove home, a sulky sky lurked over the trees, and the late spring land—already opened and reclosed in neat furrows and in lush ornamental bloom—managed to look dreary and doomed. She’d hoped to call the Miller’s teenage son Mark to catch up on the yard work—he was saving for a car—but the rain was going to beat her home. She sighed, but wouldn’t let herself cry because it would use up too much energy and make her nose runny the rest of the day.
When her wheels first crunched onto the gravel of her own driveway, she didn’t notice, and then when she did, it was only the sense of something different. Then she began to pick out details. The rest of the marigolds and dahlias and impatiens were planted where Bob had spaded and hoed their beds, rescued from where Cora had abandoned the flats, partway under the porch for shade. Really, she’d let the job go too long already. Why on earth had she clung to having the gardens?
Now, though, the plants—leggy and pale—were drooping onto the ground as new transplants will do, edging the walk from porch to driveway and under Christine’s bird feeders. The lawn was shorn and the woodpile restacked like Lincoln Logs, the winter’s sprawl of chips and detritus raked up and gone. The weeds that had grown up alongside the house had been neatly whacked. Bob, Cora thought immediately, but then realized, no, it couldn’t have been Bob, he and Jolene had left yesterday to visit his sister in Detroit.
So who, then? And why?
thirty-six
IT WAS REALLY HIS OWN fault when you get right down to it. Alexander the Goddamn Great went too far this time. This morning he told me to take the bus to school, that I couldn’t go with Ramon anymore. Like he’s some big dude or something, he announces who I can’t be friends with. I just stared at him like he was an escaped lunatic, which I think he is anyway, and then I say—well, since you don’t approve, maybe I’ll just marry Ramon. So he gets in my face. Right in his puny fake kitchen, he points his finger at me and says—You stay away from him and from that trailer. That’s final.
—That’s final? I yelled at him.—So you say. Maybe I’ll just have Ramon’s baby before I marry him. It made me really mad because I started crying then, and I was mad that I was crying.—Or, maybe I’ll just have twins and you can kill them both. Get it right this time!
Then he swung his hand back like he was going to slap me.—Go ahead, hit me. I dare you to hit me. I was really screaming and I grabbed the frypan off the stove to hit him back with if he did. I forgot he’d cooked bacon in it, which I knew because the whole tin-box house reeked from it, and the grease flew all over. It wasn’t that hot, but it got on him and me both, plus on the floor and the walls and stuff. I don’t know what he was going to do, he started coming at me, but he slipped on the grease and crashed on his butt. It sounds funny and when it happened, I wanted to laugh in his face, but I was too mad, and then when I saw his face I was too scared. His eyes were like black ink and he had red spots on his face. He looked worse than Mom in her coffin with those spots of rouge on her face.
Then he got up—well, he slipped again, but he grabbed the refrigerator handle and got up. He grabbed his keys and banged open the door so hard it broke the doorstop and bounced back on him before he got to the screen. I heard him peel out, the idiot, he went to work like that with little bacon bits and grease all over his T shirt, nasty as Grandma’s spinach salad.
I went to the coat closet where he keeps his clothes. I just had to do something after he left. I was so furious I had to do something, so I got all his clothes and dumped them in a heap on the kitchen floor in the grease. I don’t know what made me get the clothes, it was just the first thing I thought of. Then that wasn’t enough, it didn’t look bad enough, so I picked up the frypan and dripped the grease that was still in it—there wasn’t much as I recall—over the top. And it really did make me feel better.
Then I got my backpack and went over to Ramon’s.
When I knocked, Rosa came to the door. She was nice and all, but she didn’t open it the way she always does, and Ramon didn’t come right on out through the kitchen.—Detta, did your father tell you he said you can’t ride with Ramon anymore?
I didn’t know he’d gone over there. It made me mad all over again, and embarrassed too.—I don’t care, I said.
—But we can’t go against him. He could get the law after Ramon. I’m sorry, Detta.
I saw Ramon, just like a moving shadow, really, his face a little light spot on the dark inside. She was standing there in a white terrycloth bathrobe that made her skin look really dark and pretty, telling me they’re not my friends anymore, all because of Alexander the Goddamn Great. Then Rosa said—Detta, honey, you’re a good girl. I’ll try to talk to your father after he’s calm. He thinks Ramon bothered his truck. You and Ramon stay apart for now.
I wanted to scream at her like I screamed at Alex. “Ramon didn’t bother his truck, I did, I did, I did. And I’m glad. I’ll bother it again. Please! Ramon is my only friend. Don’t take him away from me.”
But it was Ramon showed me how to bother the truck, and I thought Rosa might figure that out or make Ramon tell her the truth, so I left it alone. He’d showed me on his own car, he never went near Alex’s damn truck, but I didn’t want him to get in trouble so I just backed down off their steps with nothing left for Alex to take away from me.
When I went back to the trailer, what I did wasn’t exactly what I meant to do. I don’t know exactly what I meant to do. Well, I did mean for him to lose, too, I admit that. But not everything. Just his clothes.
When I picked up the book of matches—always lying by the stove because the pilot light doesn’t work right—when the match scraped like a fingernail file and lit on the first try like yes! and I dropped it on the pile, I only meant for him to lose his clothes. That’s the thing, though—I never know quite what will lead to what, leaping from my fingers to spread out of control.
thirty-seven
NOBODY EVEN CALLED Alex until after ten in the morning, and then, for God’s sake, what the twangy female voice on the phone said was that Alexis O’Gara was unhurt and he needed to pick her up at the police station. Alex thought he’d misunderstood over the machinery din in the shop. He and Big Al had been checking off invoice items for one of the trucks when the supervisor gestured to him to pick up the phone.
“The police station?” he said, confused.
“Do you know where it is?”
“What’d she do?”
“Oh, my. I’m sorry, sir. I must have wires crossed. I thought you’d been called, I must ha
ve misunderstood your daughter. There’s been a fire, but don’t worry, she’s unhurt. Paramedics examined her at the scene. She refused to go to the hospital.”
“A fire?” Alex’s head felt clogged, cotton-tongued. Big Al heard Alex say it and stopped what he was doing, waiting for the next slice of information.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t know the details, I’m just the dispatcher. Officer Eshbaugh asked me to follow up on the girl.”
“Where? A fire at school?”
“No, sir. I believe, uh, where you live. I don’t know how you weren’t notified to come, but…” She trailed off, waiting for him to jump in and say, “I’m on my way,” but he was stunned into paralysis and couldn’t string that many words into a strand. Big Al pushed his cap back on his forehead as if it might help him eavesdrop more efficiently. But the look on his face was concern. “You need to come get her,” the woman continued, “and I’m sure you’ll want to start insurance claims for your property. Really, I’m very sorry to tell you like this.”
“Yeah, uh, okay.”
After he’d hung up, Alex stood in place, bewildered. The bacon grease on his shirt was oily and moist, and some had gone on his jeans and work boots, too. The smell of it was ripe and strong. Dink and Big Al had had a field day with it, and Alex’s obvious agitation had only fueled them more.
“Fire. At my trailer,” Alex got out to Big Al, who immediately adjusted his hat higher on his forehead, tilting the brim up.
“Jesus,” he murmured and pulled his cap back down. Blue Devils, it said, in gold on bright blue. He claimed it referred to his in-laws. “Lose much?”
“Don’t know.”
“How’d it start?”
“Don’t know. Detta’s at the police station.”
“Jesus. Hurt?”
“They said no.”
“She was there?”
“I guess.”
“Hey, man, you better get going. Don’t clock out. I’ll take care of Hicks.” Hicks was their shift foreman, a redheaded giant in plaid who’d already made vaguely threatening comments about the number of times Alex had clocked in late, out early or missed work altogether.
Alex stood in place, staring at the wall phone he’d just hung up as if it were going to tell him more.
“Man, go!” Big Al said, and nudged Alex’s elbow. “Wait. I got a clean shirt in my locker. You can switch.”
It infuriated Alex that Al had had a shirt all morning and hadn’t offered it.
“No,” he muttered, shaking his head.
DETTA WAS SORT OF huddled in a chair, but when she caught sight of him she switched to a defiant posture.
“You okay?” Alex said.
No answer, just the smallest look that said, “Obviously I’m okay, stupid, I’m sitting right in front of you.”
“What happened?” Alex demanded.
“How should I know?” Her voice was almost gone, just a raspy shell around a whisper.
“They said you were there. You okay?”
She didn’t soften a bit. “I was cooking breakfast. It caught fire, not that you have a fire extinguisher. Isn’t that a law or something?”
She’d never cooked anything before, he knew that much.
“What’s wrong with your voice?”
A shrug.
“You been checked over?” His own voice was picking up volume and intensity.
She reacted to it and conceded a nod. “Just from the smoke ’n stuff…heat.”
“Doctor say that?”
Her eye roll this time. “Paramedic.”
“You gotta do something for it?”
A head shake.
“How bad is it?”
“Breakfast?”
“Goddammit. How much damage to the trailer?”
She swallowed and started to rub her throat, but took her hand away. “Whole thing.”
“The whole thing?” Right about then, Alex noticed that the stink of smoke was overcoming the bacon smell on him. Detta’s hair was disheveled, and there were some streaks on her face. “Did you try to put it out?”
“Yes, I tried to put it out.” Mincing, being crappy to him for no reason, even with her voice like that.
“What were you cooking, for God’s sake?”
A barely perceptible hesitation. “Bacon.”
She was lying. He’d used up the last of the bacon that morning. He made no comment.
“The cops want to talk to you,” she said, her voice failing by the time a uniform rounded a corner and approached them, a clipboard under his arm.
“You Alexander O’Gara?”
“Yeah.”
“Alexis here has identified the original source as a cooking fire.” The officer would have been a handsome man were it not for his teeth. They were crooked and stained and spoiled his face entirely. “I’m real sorry, sir. We gotta do a police report for your insurance.”
Was it a law that you had to have insurance or was that just cars? Alex had let it lapse, the year after his mother died. He thought it best not to mention that. “Yeah, okay,” he said.
The policeman pointed out some light blue squares Alex was to sign. “This oughta be fire-department stuff,” he sighed, “but it came to us because at first they thought it might be arson.” He shrugged. “Anyway, at least we can close it out so the claim won’t drag. You’ll want to contact your insurance company right away.”
“Yeah, okay.” Alex ran his hand over the top of his head. This stuff wasn’t registering. He wished he’d taken Big Al’s shirt.
“Looks like when Alexis here tried to get the pan out of the kitchen because of the flames, what with the heat ’n smoke ’n fire comin’ up into her face, she tripped. Spilled it, fire and all, onto a pile of clothes you left on the floor.” He shook his head. “Nuthin’ hotter or faster than a grease fire.”
He hadn’t left clothes on the kitchen floor. Used to, in the bedroom when it had been his, but not anymore, and for sure not in the kitchen. Something else to set his head spinning. Detta was studying her hands in her lap, rolled up like two balls of yarn.
“There’s still a couple men on the scene, prob’bly. Making sure the embers are dead. It’ll be real hot next day or two. You won’t be able to pick through stuff yet. ’Fraid there’s not much left. Red Cross’ll help. Want the number?”
“Yeah, okay,” Alex said, which seemed to be the only words his mouth would form.
“Lookit, I’m sorry nobody called sooner. Guess somebody misunderstood you, miss, about how he’d been called.” The last was aimed in Detta’s direction, but she didn’t look up.
“Okay. Yeah. Thanks,” Alex got out, adding a word to the repertoire as he accepted the carbon copy of the police report.
LATER, HE WASN’T SURE when he’d gotten it, that Detta had started the fire on purpose. The first lie, about the bacon, had only confused him. The business about clothes being on the kitchen floor had thrown him off because maybe the police meant the living-room floor. Not that he remembered what he’d left where. It seemed to him that it just came to him whole cloth when he glanced at her after they left the police station, and he saw the defiant set of her head, the mask of her face.
“You did it.” When he said it, they were in his truck. He kept both hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road, and it wasn’t a question.
“You’re crazy,” she rasped. There was a ring of fear around her then, like one of the rings around whatever planet it was that had rings. “Where are you going?”
In fact, Alex had no idea. He was just driving. “To the trailer,” he said, his voice wooden, as the obvious thought of where to go finally emerged.
“Well, let me out.” Detta didn’t want to be anywhere around him when he saw the wreckage.
“What?”
“Just let me out. I don’t wanna go there.”
“Too bad,” he said, and kept driving.
HE HADN’T KNOWN what to expect. The shell of the trailer was still standing, though the roof had colla
psed into it. Waves of melted aluminum scalloped down from the top of the walls. A fireman, his gear shucked into the neighbor’s parking area, was hosing embers through a broken window over whatever remained of the brown couch, while another was sitting up in the truck chugging from a bottle of water. An incongruous sun, cheery and peaceful, sparkled on the stream from the nozzle.
A huge dark circle was apparent under each arm of the working fireman’s denim shirt. He was wiping his forehead when Alex and Detta drove up, ducking his head like a bird to rub it against the upper part of his sleeve. The tree next to the kitchen side of the trailer was charred, the leaves looking like late fall instead of late spring, scarce, curledup brown scraps. The trunk was white, like some foreign species. The trailers on both sides of his had smoky stains on them. What grass had been between was dead as concrete.
“You the owner?” he said, when Alex got out of the truck. Detta stayed put.
“Yeah.”
“Pretty well gone,” the fireman said. He looked around fifty to Alex, once he got close enough to see, but he was built like a young man, a weight lifter at that. Next to him, Alex was scrawny and he hated that. A loser all the way around. “Did what we could, but it’s not a big place and it went up fast,” the fireman said. “These places always do. You can’t go in yet,” he added, apologetic.
“Yeah.” Did he know any other words anymore?
“That your daughter?” he said, pointing to the truck with a jerk of his head because his hands were busy with the hose.
Alex hesitated, weighing the idea. He could always say he’d misunderstood the question if it came up later, if it had some importance. He was dead broke now. Let them go after child support. Who cared? “Nah. I’m just keeping her for her grandmother.”