The Burning Side(20)

My heart sank when I woke up in an empty bed, as it always does. But I assumed Leo would be here, where he can busy himself, and I was right.

When I shut the car door, he straightens and raises a hand to his forehead.

At the same time, he asks, “Where are the kids?” and I say, “You took off.”

Again at the same time: “With Mom.” And, “I didn’t take off.”

Silence stretches between us, and cicadas whine from the treetops in their summer symphony. I’m already sticky from humidity. Leo is drenched in a dirty white T-shirt and work gloves. “What are you doing here?”

“Here at my own house?”

He squints at me under the sun.

I say, “I came to work, same as you.”

That’s not why I’m here, of course. I’m here because of last night in my bed and then he didn’t respond to my text and then I found out my dad has Alzheimer’s, and I couldn’t just sit in an Adirondack and play pat-a-cake.

He assesses my small frame. “It’s a lot of manual labor and throwing stuff away. No big decisions yet. I said I’d let you know if I need you.”

It’s a backward reminder that he doesn’t.

I move a hair tie from my wrist to a ponytail, and I pull it tight. “I drove all the way here. The insurance adjuster is coming later anyway.”

He sighs and tosses me a bandana for the foul smell.

I tie it on and stomp haphazardly over some debris.

He throws a warped shutter into the dumpster, mumbling, “Don’t cause more problems.” Whether it was navy or black before, the shutter is now definitely black and burned to a crisp. But Leo doesn’t seem to think for a second about shades of paint or our past. And I—the problem-causer—tramp away, going inside to the no big decisions. I don’t care if it’s a pen that was already out of ink or a basket that’s clearly ruined, I want to put my hands on all of it. Material possessions are gateways for memory: I want to touch everything and let it flood me.

But with each trip to and from the dumpster, I get angrier.

Eventually, I walk over to Leo and grab an old Americana CD out of his hand.

He blinks. “?Qué verga?”

“Not everyone gets to have a functioning memory, and you’re just wasting yours!”

“Why would I want to remember this?”

I yank off my bandana. “Is there nothing worth remembering about our life together here? God, you’re acting like I’m a monster.”

He stares at me for a long minute. “You’re not a monster,” he says flatly. “You’re just not who I thought you were.” He takes the warped disc back out of my hand, and he hurls it into the dumpster.

You’re just not who I thought you were. It would have hurt less had he slapped me. Because it’s exactly what I always feared. When he married me, he saw me in an insanely charitable light, and I knew he was wrong. He saw a sacrificial teacher; he saw the confidence of youth; he saw my parents’ perfect marriage. But I’m not who I thought I was either. I haven’t had teaching in years, and I’ve never had my parents’ perfection. What I’ve had is depression. Weakness. And the warm touch of another man.

A Ford Bronco turns onto our driveway, rolling toward us. The insurance adjuster.



* * *



It feels like an undressing as this man with disposable shoe covers and a curling mustache inspects our home to determine the value of its scars. After the sorry for your loss formality, we do a walk-through, the adjuster saying little. He takes photos and points out a few hazards. His stylus flies across his device, a slight whistle coming from his nose with each concentrated breath. He wears no mask as he mutters acronyms and jargon. Instead of sympathy, his tone is more, Don’t expect too much; people always expect too much. To him, our home is the eventuality of clients trying to get x dollars instead of y dollars. To him, we’re not the Torres family; we’re a claim number.

He can’t give us a dollar amount yet. The company has a couple of weeks to process the claim and give us the requisite paperwork. But as he steps outside and pops his shoe covers off, he says the kitchen rebuild should be covered at the very least, along with temporary living expenses. We should keep our receipts. He’ll be in touch.

After manually cranking his window, he drives off to the next catastrophe.

A squirrel scampers across the grass.

Leo says brusquely, “Back to it.”

We’ve been hauling junk to the dumpster for hours. The accumulation that once felt treasured now feels like madness, and I wonder how something can become its own opposite so abruptly.

I step back into the dark house feeling like we haven’t made a dent. The keep mounds are as overwhelming as the trash, and everything reeks of smoke. We will move stuff into portable storage, but then what? And so many things have vanished entirely. Food. Books. Things we’ll think of in a week, a month, a year, realizing again how much the fire took.

This day is trying to hold way too much. I can still hear Dad mistaking Sadie for Josie. Leo saying I’m not who he thought I was. I huff—it’s so like him anyway, to start tackling this alone and make me feel like that’s normal. What’s actually normal is to wait for a crew. And I’m out of both energy and water.

Straightening, I take one final armful to the dumpster. Whether it’s a tablecloth or a sheet or my wedding dress, I can’t be sure. Tossing it in, I break the brittle silence. “We need to hire people.”