The Burning Side(12)
A loud quiet fills the backyard. Leo waits to be sure Sadie will stay asleep, then he paces past us into the house. April watches him but does not follow.
We sink into patio chairs, where Billy whispers repeated apologies.
April shrugs in tired defeat. “We have to be able to cook.”
“But I should have thought about that big flame.”
I put my hand to his forearm. “Don’t beat yourself up. None of us thought about it.”
This is when Cameron’s voice interrupts from behind. “Uh, everyone?”
It’s only now that I remember what I told my son this morning: sure, he could still bring his girlfriend over for dinner as planned. House fires don’t erase the need to eat! I had said this cheerily, full of morning-time optimism. Or denial—sometimes they feel similar.
How could I forget he was planning to introduce us to Rachel? He doesn’t bring girls home often. I’m struck with a sudden fear for my own memory, for things falling out of it into some synaptic gorge. I shake my head as if to check, and I decide my memory is fine. I simply didn’t know babysitting would wear me out so much, or that Sadie would scream her trauma into the clear blue sky, all of us helpless to extinguish it. I didn’t know the tension between April and Leo would be palpable, or that this would be what Cameron would bring his girlfriend into.
I square my shoulders and turn around with my most welcoming smile. Cameron is standing with his arm looped around a young woman with wavy red hair and a Mason jar full of sunflowers. I’ve been a mother for a long time, so my awareness can tentacle out in many directions at once. In an instant, I see that my son is in love. I see that Leo is in the house behind a windowpane, scowling. I see that Josie is preventing Otto from putting a pebble in his mouth. I see that Sadie is rising groggily from the ground, a blade of grass sticking to her cheek. And I see that April is somewhere else entirely, eyes trained on the house and fingers twisting her wedding ring. Twisting and twisting and twisting.
“Rachel!” I rise, extending my arms. “So good to meet you.”
LEO
The Day After the Fire
MY VEINS ARE RIVERS OF ice, and my breath evaporates. I too wanted to scream at the sky and pass out on the lawn like Sadie. But I simply walked into the house.
I’ve been getting chills since the fire, icicles pricking me from the inside as though I’m still under threat of flame. In this way, fear is the opposite of shame. Shame floods you with heat, but fear is the cold awareness of forces over which we have no control.
“You okay?”
I startle, turning to face my wife.
Her question avalanches down on me. She asked me the same thing right after I escaped our burning house, and I didn’t know how to say, Of course I’m not.
A crack in the ice now, my confession escapes. “I really thought we might die last night.”
April moves to my side, and we gaze out the window, here on the other side of our close call. Below us, the backyard’s palette of color is painfully vibrant. Sadie is awake now, chattering as Josie braids her hair. Billy and Deb are in their Adirondacks, fingers intertwined. And Cameron is listening to Rachel talk, enraptured. Once upon a time, April and I would have reveled in this opportunity for private commentary. I would have narrated what everyone was saying until I won her laugh.
But as much as I might want to keep the only real family I’ve ever had, I cannot. Coming within arm’s reach of death doesn’t change anything that happened before, it only makes me that much more eager to figure out what’s next. And suddenly, although last night I could have clung to April, impatience fills me as I stare down at the Russo family in the backyard.
“This isn’t going to work,” I say.
April shifts her weight. “What isn’t?”
“My staying here like everything’s normal. Like we aren’t moving toward divorce. We’re basically lying to everyone. And unlike you, I’m not okay with that.”
She stiffens. “Are we certain enough to tell everyone, then? The kids?”
Outside, Sadie is building a house of twigs, and Otto is playing with his toes.
I run a hand down my face and sigh. “No.”
“Well.”
We fall back into silence, standing at the window as if trapped inside an old film, no color and no sound.
* * *
Dinner is lively, all of us managing to squeeze around one table the way Deb and Billy prefer. As plates empty, Deb palms her forehead. “Shoot, I forgot to put the pie in the oven.”
Sadie whines that Bear Bear needs pie, which reminds us to go get him out of the dryer.
Billy says Bear Bear can have ice cream instead, bada-bing, bada-boom.
Rachel takes a bite of scalloped potatoes, watching with wide eyes. Unlike most Dallas women, she’s hardly wearing any makeup. She smiles brightly and asks Sadie what Bear Bear’s favorite ice cream flavor is.
I vividly remember my first visits to the Russo home, the fun and loudness and love. Seeing Deb and Billy made me wonder if I had ever seen real love before. I decided I had not—not like this, not up close. And it didn’t feel like violins or evergreens or fireworks. It felt like something better: it felt like safety. Even when Deb snapped at Billy or he put his foot in his mouth, at the end of the day they would dry dishes together and then click off the lights—one of them asking, Is the door locked? and the other saying, I’ll get it—before they would go into their bedroom, his hand brushing her shoulder. Maybe it was boring, but it was everything I wanted.