How to Set Yourself on Fire

by Julia Dixon Evans

  “Letters are cleaner than squirrels.”

  “Well, okay. But this little project dropped at your feet. And you have to pick it up and nurse it back to health.”

  I consider this.

  “You’re such an idealist,” I say. “For one thing, I’m not nursing anything. This is dead. Nothing can be fixed, nothing stitched up. The only thing this will achieve is something selfish.”

  “Like what?” she says.

  “My own, I don’t know, flair for the dramatic?”

  Torrey chokes on her laugh. “You, lady, do not have any fucking flair for the dramatic,” she says, waving a finger at me, mimicking my tone.

  “Torrey! Your language! Who taught you that?”

  “You, obviously.”

  “Well,” I say finally. “I don’t know what I’m getting out of this. I just need to tie up these loose ends. I’m not saving any goddamn squirrels. I will stop this whole endeavor in its tracks if I get any furry guts on me.”

  And here’s where I absolutely want to adopt Torrey as my own, when she says: “Such a loving and beautiful tribute to your late grandmother.”

  I look at Torrey and she tilts her head, smiling, but she keeps her eyes on the street.

  “Don’t you need to go to school soon?” I ask.

  “Yeah. What are you doing up so early?”

  I lift my shoulders. I don’t tell her I’m still awake.

  “Did you even sleep last night? I’m worried about you,” she says. She laughs. “That sounds dumb.”

  It does sound dumb. It sounds preposterous. A girl, a kid, worrying about a thirty-five-year-old. I feel burdened by this, the fact that I burden her, but I feel powerless to change it. Not that I do not want to change it, but that I have no idea how. I don’t know how not to burden a twelve-year-old girl.

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Torrey. I’m fine.”

  “Are you?” she asks. The school bus pulls up across the street.

  “Yeah,” I say. I don’t even know if I’m lying. “Have a nice day at school, kid.”

  She’s at the gate when I say, “And when you get home, let’s go to Harold’s old house.”

  Her smile could launch ships.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I CURL UP ON my front step. Despite the morning chill, I drift off to sleep until the click of Vinnie’s door startles me awake.

  “Hey, you sleeping out here now?” he asks. He lights a cigarette.

  “I’m tired,” I say.

  The courtyard and my lungs fill with his smoke. I try to surreptitiously take deep, swallowing breaths.

  “Why’d you quit smoking?” he asks.

  I laugh, a bitter noise. “Everyone quits smoking.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Why haven’t you quit smoking, then?” I ask.

  “I can’t,” he says with a grin. He takes a drag and leaves it between his lips a little too long. My mind swirls. I want nicotine and sex.

  “I want nicotine and sex,” I say.

  “You’re dangerous before breakfast,” he says.

  He fucks me outside, in the courtyard, at eight in the morning. I’m cold and nearly naked, but Vinnie keeps all his clothes on. It should feel like he’s being overly controlling but I don’t care. If passersby turn their heads at a precise point on the sidewalk and look between the rusted iron gate and the variety of bushes our landlord carves into giant bush balls twice a year, they’ll see me pressed against the concrete steps, raking tiny scratches down the small of my back and my elbows, with Vinnie on top of me, Vinnie sucking at the skin beneath my collarbone, Vinnie sucking my breasts, Vinnie pulling out just to suck between my legs for a minute before going back in. I wonder if this is how it feels to be wanted and what it means to want, free from obsession. I’m quiet, the quietest I’ve ever been, but it’s the best I’ve ever had.

  Vinnie, coupled with the plan of driving to Harold’s old house, makes me think of Jesse Ramirez. I’m just on the wrong side of finding this problematic, of finding this disturbing. I would love to just enjoy Vinnie, to just walk away from him and bask, but it’s out of my hands. I can’t handle going back to Jesse’s house, so I drive to the church where I used to work. The place we met. The place he spoke to me. If only he’d never spoken to me, if only I’d never needed him to speak to me. Maybe then I’d be able to lie in a sunny spot on my front steps, warm inside and out, a little tired, a little happy.

  St. Peter’s Episcopal Church has changed a lot in the last few years. There’s an entirely new building where the lawn used to be. It’s massive. I think of all the old widows who struggled by on their fixed incomes and gave all their extra money to the church’s capital campaign, to fund a building that hardly does anything. I know this because I’ve seen it all before. It’s sparse and modern, whereas the original church and adjacent office are unassuming and brown, relics of the 1970s. I’ve actually never been to any of their services, even when I worked here. Everyone assumed I went somewhere else. I went nowhere. Since the morning of my confirmation, the morning I lost my father, the morning that something passed between my mother and I, the morning I was supposed to declare faith in a God I didn’t ever know was real, I go nowhere. I don’t know what I believe in, and with alarming clarity in that moment, as a child, I realized I never knew.

  I sit in the parking lot. It’s deserted. No signs of life, no other cars. Jesse used to show up for deliveries midmorning, so I have an hour to kill. I don’t even know if he’s still on this route. I wonder if they spent any of their capital campaign money on the tricked-out lock on the back door of the church. It’s worth a try.

  It’s fussy, but I can tell the staff still uses this point of entry from time to time. It only takes me a minute to get it. Thankfully, none of that new money went toward a security system, either. The church smells like old carpet and older books. It never smelled like frankincense, warm and sharp, like the church of my youth did, and because of this I never saw this place as a real church.

  It’s almost dark inside. There are so few windows and they’re all stained glass, so the light in the sanctuary is muffled and dim. The church is small, but I feel overwhelmed choosing a place to sit. The childish part of me wants to sit in the priest’s chair. The childish part of me wants to try everything, the organ, the communion wine, the host. To sit on top of the altar. To turn on the sound system.

  I laugh. The sound of my laugh does this strange thing in the small, stuffy church. It partly echoes, but mostly just disappears into the walls.

  The real childish part of me is the part that’s still afraid of doing the wrong thing, of making the wrong choice. The real childish part of me would never try out organs or sit atop an altar. That’s me now. Maybe I just want to find the place to sit that makes me look the least guilty.

  I decide on the back pew. I don’t really know what made me want to come in here. I don’t know what I’d hoped to achieve but this is all wrong. I feel the strange sinus headache first, then the bubblelike feeling at the top of my nose. And then the trickle. I suppress the normal human instinct to stop the bleeding. I think of the teacup full of blood on my nightstand. It was never really full—only half an inch max, diluted with mucous and old tea. The trickle touches my upper lip.

  It’s not exactly a decision. It’s not a conscious effort. I’m just suddenly walking up to the altar with a nose full of blood. A drop lands on the old, dark carpet, lost within decades of stains. I know I won’t get much out of this. It’s not like I’m trying to stage an act of carnage. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just doing.

  The altar is covered with a crisp white tablecloth and a silver, gold, and green embroidered chalice burse and veil, the small, stiffened cloth covering the holy vessels. I’m eleven again and Reverend Jenny is amazed I can remember any of the terms for this stuff. I’m thirty-five and amazed I ever knew it at all. As I run my fingers down the ugly satin chalice veil, the next drop of blood lands on the bright white altar cloth. It s
preads slowly, each drop expanding as it hits the altar, the stain growing larger and darker. I can’t seem to move. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. I hear a loud truck, a door, footsteps, a heavy cardboard box hitting the ground, footsteps, truck door, engine roar.

  Jesse.

  Sixty seconds later, the nosebleed stops. I stare at the bloodstain until my vision blurs and the entire altar cloth seems bloodied in my fuzzed peripheral vision, the entire church, everywhere. I breathe through my mouth, my nose clogged, and I close my eyes. I want to feel holy and I want to go home.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Dear Rosamond,

  These letters soothe my soul, whether it be writing them to you or reading yours. I have had a troublesome day. I did not sleep well, for one thing, on account of the shouts coming from your house. I heard your husband slam a door and come into your moonlit backyard, where he stayed for what seemed an hour. I held my breath as I sat in my bedroom, wondering if he could see right through me. I had to remind myself I have not done anything ungentlemanly. I am simply corresponding with my neighbor. My neighbor who is the delight of my life.

  After a restless night, I reported for work quite early. Because I was home early, Artie and some of the fellows came over to have coffee and sandwiches, and I mentioned you. I mentioned you as my neighbor, a new friend. We spoke briefly on the matter, and I suppose I had been discreet about not mentioning that you were a woman, and certainly not a married woman with a small child underfoot. Then I mentioned you again, this time inadvertently by name. Oh, the teasing. At first, it was charming. I basked in the feeling of a gentleman discussing a new romantic interest. But then, as I myself realized the futility of the idea, it saddened me.

  I read all of your letters after they left. I do not care about futility. I do not care about ungentlemanliness. I will take what you can give. I will give what you can take. I will have you just the way you are. Reading your letters makes me feel I can bear anything.

  With exceptional and beautiful futility,

  Your Harold

  “This one is sweet,” Torrey says. “I’m glad this is the one you picked to bring. I always love it when Harold mentions his friends.”

  “It’s also one of the biggest downers,” I said. “I feel like this is show and tell, like I’m in kindergarten again.”

  “Well, it kind of is,” she says. “And you eat like a kindergartener.”

  “Shut up.” I rip a sliver of sliced turkey right out of the resealable deli bag. “Want some? We need to eat it all or it’ll spoil.”

  “We should go in,” Torrey says.

  “Not yet. I need to finish my turkey.”

  I chose this letter because, above all else, it makes me want to spend an afternoon in Harold’s kitchen reading all of Rosamond’s letters. It all comes down to one thing: Rosamond’s letters.

  “So…” Torrey says. “This is where it all happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s smaller than I imagined.”

  “Well, he was a single, childless thirtysomething man in the fifties. I think this is the perfect sized house for someone like him.”

  “That’s because your perspective is your own single, childless, thirtysomething shack.”

  “It’s not a shack.”

  “It’s a shack,” she says.

  “Then your place is almost as shacky.”

  “Our place is much nicer.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I’ve never been inside.”

  “I think you’re stalling,” she says. “I think you don’t even like sliced turkey. Let’s go in, please?”

  “Okay, but I’m doing the talking.”

  “Is that why you’re wearing such a nice dress?” she asks.

  I don’t answer. There’s no answer to that. I wore it today for so many reasons and none of them make any sense, not even to me.

  “This was my grandmother’s dress,” I say, as if that’s a reason. I think of my mother and half expect Torrey to clutch her chest and say Oh, honey. She doesn’t.

  “Let’s go then,” she says. “Let’s not waste such a fancy old lady dress.”

  When a small, round old woman answers the door, I try to summon a pleasant face, at least a smile.

  “Hi,” I say. But I pause too long. The woman starts to rear her body back into the house. “I’m Sheila. My grandmother used to live in the house behind this one.” She relaxes. “Mrs. Baker?” I offer.

  “Yes! Oh, it was Roselyn, or Rose something, wasn’t it?”

  “Rosamond.”

  “Rosamond,” she repeats. “She was a lovely lady.”

  “She just died,” Torrey blurts out. “Oops, sorry.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry to hear that. Is this your daughter?”

  “No, this is my friend. My neighbor’s daughter.”

  “She’s kind of babysitting me,” Torrey adds. I turn to her. She is fighting a smile, dimples blaring.

  “Yes, I suppose I am,” I say.

  “Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” the woman says.

  “It’s okay. That’s not really why I’m here. I suppose it’s related, though. Do you know anything about the previous owner of this house?”

  “Are you on some sort of murder investigation show? Is this CSI?” she asks, and she looks behind us like she’s checking for a camera crew.

  “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. I just have reasons to believe that Rosamond and the previous owner of this house were friends.” I choose my words carefully. “That they might have corresponded?”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know anything about that. I barely knew Rosamond.”

  “Did you ever meet the previous owner? Do you remember where he moved?” I ask.

  “Come to think of it, I do. He moved to just a few houses down from my old house, where I lived with my parents before I was a bride. My husband Jim and I used to joke that we should have just swapped houses,” she says. “So I suppose that’s why it stuck in my mind.”

  “So…” Torrey says. I can tell she is trying so hard to play it cool. “Where?”

  “Oh, not even a mile away. On Juniper.”

  I turn to Torrey. She is grinning a mile wide.

  “You don’t remember which house, do you?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I never knew. Let me think of my old house number. You can go from there. Goodness, it’s been over fifty years since I moved. My husband and I came straight here on our wedding night. He carried me over the threshold, like we all used to do. I was just barely in my twenties.”

  She looks distant. She looks sad. She’s old, but not as old as my grandmother. I want to ask her if her husband is dead.

  “You must have lived in that house with your parents for twenty years, then,” Torrey prods. “Do you remember the number?”

  “Yes, I did. It was just around the corner from the streetcar station. 3012 Juniper. That’s the one.”

  It’s hard to stand on her porch and continue the small talk. I just want to be back in the car. Torrey is practically bouncing and I’m loving this about her, she’s almost infectious, but I’m overwhelmed by it at the same time. I suspect she wants to go straight to Juniper Street. I want to get home. I want to be alone. I want to deal with this another time.

  Maybe I’ve been right all along. This should be Torrey’s job. She’s the caretaker. She’s the one who dives into a problem and fixes it, guts and all.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “STOP TRYING TO GIVE me the silent treatment.”

  “What?” Torrey says, in that way teenagers do. She doesn’t look up.

  “You’re pouting.”

  “I’m not pouting.”

  “I might be more than twice your age, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember being twelve. I know about the pouting.”

  “I’m not,” she says. If I squint when I look at her, she’s five years old and stamping her feet.

  “Sure. Well, I’m going to go inside and watch Antiques Roadshow.”


  I wonder if I have to invite her to join me, or if it’s unspoken. I wonder if this is okay, this official next step. All we’ve done together is read letters and sit in the courtyard. None of it has been social for social’s sake. It’s easy to talk myself out of this. She’s twelve years old. She is not exactly my equal, though she may be intellectually superior to me, socially superior to me, basically superior in most of the ways someone can be. She’s my neighbor’s daughter, a grieving child. I’m fucking her father. She’s not exactly an ideal friend. But it’s been forever since I’ve had a comrade stick around as long as Torrey has, since someone overlooked my inability to be a good friend as well as Torrey has. The girls in high school, did they really stop bothering with me or did I stop looking at them and just never see it, never see that they were trying at all? That became my social coping mechanism: Assume the worst. Nobody wants you. It’s easier that way.

  “You can come over if you want,” I say, finally. I feel triumphant.

  “Yeah, okay,” she says. “Maybe after dinner.”

  There’s quiet. The moon is rising before the sun says goodbye. Another Children’s Moon, and I never asked my mother why she called it that. I love the way it looks, the white of the moon almost see-through against the blue sky.

  “What’s Antiques Roadshow?” she asks.

  I laugh. “Never mind. We can always just read your favorite letters,” I say.

  Except Torrey doesn’t come over. I wait, though. I wait the whole night.

  I sit outside the next morning from seven on. I don’t remember what time the bus comes. I don’t remember what time she comes outside.

  Vinnie comes out at seven fifteen holding some sort of canine jawbone and a jar of fluid.

  “Sheila, hi,” he says.

  “Where’s Torrey?” I ask.

  “Hi.”

  “Sorry, hi,” I say. “But where’s Torrey?”

  “She’s moving a bit slow this morning.”

  “What’s with the skull?”

  “I’m putting on some sealer. A little varnish, if you will.”

  I watch him apply the varnish with a small brush. He is incredibly meticulous. I desperately want him to get a much larger brush and just slosh it all on.