by Rene Steinke
She wept into her hand. “Yes.” Fire moved as soon as you looked, multiplied, and split off in pieces, the desire dissolved just as secretly as it had once come and burned through. Her head dipped heavily as she took another wavering step. “Since your father died, I’ve been afraid you’d do something———” Her mouth bunched in a frown.
The fire had to hurt her, or it would have never brought her out. I wanted her to forgive me, but not if it meant denying what I’d done.
She sniffed and fought back more tears. “You changed your hair. I clung to the back of the chair, felt a sting in my knuckles.
“I always thought your long hair was so pretty.” She wiped her eyes. I needed her to keep looking at me.
“My scars aren’t so pitiful, Mother.”
She lifted her wet face and fiercely lowered her voice. “I never said anthing about that.” I’d blamed her for this, though, for guarding the scene. Wishing so fervently that the memory fragments would vanish, she’d grown them large and distroted instead.
THE FIRES / 243
“You can’t use my scars as an excuse. You have to face this, Mother” I said.
“Face what?”
“The fires.”
She went over to the couch, leaned against its arm, and bowed her head. “You tripped on a rake,” she said. “I just looked away for a second that day, and you were gone.”
I took a few steps closer to her. “I always knew it was an accident.” The words felt foreign and carved by my lips and tongue and teeth. How could they have taken so many years to be forged into syllables, the simplest sounds for what had happened to us?
She looked at me and nodded. Something unclasped painfully in my chest. A breeze thrummed in the loose windowpanes, and the curtain pull beat against the wall. When I hugged her, it was surprising to feel the mass of her body, the brush of her hair against my cheek, and just then that room seemed more distant and strange than any place I’d ever thought of traveling to. I noticed a fuchsia silk scarf on the back of a chair and the orange curled gourds she’d arranged thoughtfully on the coffee table.
The last train was coming soon, but there would be another one in the morning. I was tired and hungry, and it occurred to me that the yellow couch might make a good enough bed, that maybe we could go out somewhere for dinner. It was almost five o’clock, but it still startled me how quickly it got dark, and the bright pieces of furniture floated up in that watery dim like rough maps of lost countries.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my editor, Betty Kelly, and my agent, Simon Green.
For their help and encouragement at various stages of the writing of this book, I’d also like to thank Peter and Kelly Steinke, Ellen Hunnicutt, Thomas Bontly, Joanne Tangorra, Richard Maxwell, Stephanie Paulsell, Rita Signorelli-Pappas, Stacy Malin, Tina Epstein, Darcey Steinke, Kim France, Charles Aaron, Ann Powers, Maria Antifonario, and Dan Green.
244
About the Author
RENÉ STEINKE was born in Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in friendswood, Texas. She holds an M.F.A from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, she teaches literature and creative writing at Queenborough Community College and lives with her husband in New York City.
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE FIRES. Copyright © 1999 by René Steinke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-166975-0
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Document Outline
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication Page
Epigraph Page
Contents Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Notice
About the Publisher
Table of Contents
Epigraph
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Title Page
Dedication Page
Contents