The Burning Side
Sarah Damoff
There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving.
But, who wants easier?
Mary Oliver, “March,” from White Pine
June 10, 2022
THE NIGHT THEIR HOUSE GOES up in flames, April stumbles out the front door with her baby in one arm and a book in the other. Otto points his little finger over her shoulder at the house, yelling unintelligible warnings.
Leo is still inside, grabbing Sadie from her bed.
A fist of dark smoke punches through a window and races out into the sky. At the sound of glass exploding, April glances back. The fire is coming from the kitchen.
Her legs carry her away from their home of almost a decade, her lungs eagerly drawing in air. She blows on Otto’s red face as she runs—the heat came fast. Sixty yards down their driveway, she turns around mumbling, “Why aren’t they out yet?” Coughing, she can’t do anything but watch flames pour from the kitchen window. She doesn’t realize it, but she is repeating Sadie’s name.
The wail of a siren gets closer. Everything is happening too fast and too slow. April’s vision blurs as reds and blues swirl across her skin, strands of hair sticking to her forehead.
Moving lips appear in front of her. “Is anyone still inside?”
Another face beside the first. “She’s in shock.”
A heavy hand on her shoulder. “Ma’am, look at me.”
She does, and the eyes she sees are green like Leo’s. The lips repeat, “Is anyone still inside?”
April nods. “My—”
But the men are already running toward the blaze.
As they sprint to the house, Leo busts through the door with an arm shielding his face and Sadie slung over his shoulder. Behind him, the front corner of the house begins to yaw. Then, a deafening crack.
Pressing Otto to her chest, April sprints back up the driveway toward her daughter as more men emerge from the truck with oxygen masks and hose lines. Their feet are moving faster than April’s thoughts. But through the forest of helmeted men, she sees Sadie start to cry. April’s own eyes prickle in relief, her knees giving out. She sinks to the ground, her book and baby still in her talonlike grasp. Otto pats her face. Flames dance across his wide, dark irises.
The sight before them is mesmerizing, the fire a bright and beautiful terror. April has never had such a hard time believing something that’s happening right in front of her eyes. It’s as bright as the middle of the day, as though the sun has dropped into their very kitchen. But surrounding this inferno, it’s dark. And unlike the kitchen side, the other side of the house stands unbothered. Smug, almost.
Then Leo is standing in front of her, panting. “Sadie’s hyperventilating over with the paramedics. She wants you.”
April looks up the six feet of her husband as he lifts Otto into his own arms. He’s pouring sweat, with smears of soot across his shins. Before Leo became a dad, April knew he would be a good one, and she was right.
“April.”
Dazed, she asks, “Are you okay?” It strikes her as dangerous that his feet are bare.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
She rises, nodding. Sadie needs her. Otto needs her. Leo does not need her.
Her knees quake again as she realizes how the fire must have started: she had boiled pasta for dinner. As she spooned it onto plates for the kids, Leo had told her quietly that he wants a divorce. She had figured this was coming, but had she checked that the burner was off?
With a swell of regret in her chest, she pushes the book into Leo’s hand and then dashes toward Sadie.
Leo is left watching firefighters pop windows from their frames. Hours ago, you could have looked through those windows and seen their two children giggling at cartoons, waiting for buttered noodles. They had left the kitchen a mess. Dinner dishes and sippy cups. Then it was the middle of the night and smoke was creeping through the house. By the time it was dense enough to trigger the alarm, it was bad. There was so much distance to cover: smoke had to travel to the alarm, then the alarm had to break through the barrier of sleep. Of dreams. Leo had jolted awake on the floor in Otto’s room, where he had been sleeping for weeks now. As soon as he did the groggy math of sound plus smell plus heat, he scrambled to his feet and started running. Started shouting, APRIL!
April.
Leo’s pocket vibrates. He tucks the book under his arm and pulls out his phone, which he grabbed when he realized that something was very wrong.
It is 1:19 in the morning, and the text is from Deb. STAY WITH US.
Leo looks toward his wife, who is smoothing their frightened daughter’s hair. April must have gotten out with her phone too, and she must have just called her parents.
Otto’s head gets heavy with sleep on Leo’s shoulder as firefighters line the burning side of the house. Their hoses snake across grass, boots clomping through flower beds. Leo could be wrong, but it seems like the fire is spreading. He thinks about the table and chairs recently inherited from April’s late aunt. The groceries they just purchased yesterday—he had thrown Sadie’s favorite pretzels into the cart last-minute as a surprise. He thinks about this while the fire rages, about the pretzels he had bought for his daughter.
All their clothes are still in the house except the ones on their backs: Otto’s duck onesie, Sadie’s ruffled nightgown, and April’s beige sweats. Leo sleeps in nothing but boxers, so only now does he look down to check what he managed to throw on: an ancient Radiohead T-shirt and a pair of American flag swim trunks, the first things out of his drawer in the dark. Between the second his clothes were in his hand to the second they were on his body, he had started to taste the smoke.