Until I walked into her room.
“Oh my God!” I gasped, pulling Margaux toward me and peering out her window.
Flames were curling out of the upstairs windows of Holly’s house, lapping the roof, sending funnels of smoke up into the sky.
“Andy!” I shouted as I hoisted Margaux onto my hip and backed away from the window toward the door.
Andy thundered up the stairs. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed from the threshold of her room.
“I’m calling 911,” I said, clutching Margaux to my breast as I ran for the phone.
I put Margaux down and dialed with shaking hands.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Margaux sobbed into my leg as I spat out our address. “The roof of the house across the street is on fire,” I stammered. “It’s burning out of control!”
The operator was eerily calm as she asked, “Are the occupants of the house at home?”
I dropped the phone. “Andy!”
Andy burst out of Tatum’s room, clutching our four-year-old. “Get in the car, take the girls. I want you out of here!”
“What if they’re in there?” I demanded. It was eight o’clock at night. He didn’t answer, so I asked again. “What if Holly and Savannah are trapped inside?”
“What’s happening?” Tatum asked, rubbing her eyes. Andy handed her to me. Margaux was clutching my leg.
“Go with Mommy,” he coaxed. Margaux grabbed on to his shirt and held it tight.
“What are you going to do?” our seven-year-old asked, and I wanted to know, too.
“I’m going to go make sure Savannah and her mommy are OK,” he said. I shook my head.
“You’re not going in there!” I commanded. “No way!”
“I’ll meet you at the bottom of the hill,” he said, running into our bedroom, pulling on his shoes on the way out.
“Andy, please,” I begged. My husband was capable, but he was not a firefighter. I didn’t want him anywhere near there.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” he promised.
He kissed Margaux, Tatum, then me. “Now go!” he commanded.
Then he ran down the stairs and out the door.
JACK
Three months ago
It was time to wash the car.
I could have taken it to a drive-through place, but, for obvious reasons, I opted to do it myself.
It was a bright-blue, sunny day, but my mood was so overcast I barely noticed. Scrubbing the bumpers with the stiff yellow sponge, I had a bit of a Lady Macbeth moment （Out, damn spot! Out!） as I attacked not just any physical remnants of our dastardly deed, but my guilt and shame along with them. As I swirled the soapy liquid across the hood, I tried not to think of how things ended for the troubled lady, or how my fall from grace might be equally inevitable.
Newton’s third law of motion （What goes up must come down） certainly had ominous implications. You see it all too many times in the movie business. Young actors coming into sudden fame, then a few short years later overdosing, slitting their wrists, sucking on a tailpipe.
We blame the media, for prying into their lives. We blame their families, for failing to support and love them. We blame their so-called friends, for glomming on to their newfound fame, asking too much, making them feel used.
But maybe it’s simpler than that.
Maybe these poor souls implode because they are thrust into a realm that’s not meant for them. Maybe they were meant to live modest lives. Maybe they were meant to spend their lives striving but not arriving. Maybe fame and fortune was not their true destiny, they just don’t belong, like land animals thrust into the sea.
Do people have a destiny? And what happens if their intended path is interrupted? Upset by an unintended gift? Or the loss of a gift meant for them?
As I flipped the wipers up to squeegee the windshield, I wondered if I was making a terrible mistake, thrusting Holly Kendrick into a realm not known to her. Does she belong there? Is her soul meant to be suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into lavishness?
I thought about what I was doing to her, forcing my brand of comfort and riches upon her. Am I upsetting the natural order of things? And how will it end?
And what am I doing to my son by abruptly severing his trajectory, and putting him on a vastly different path than he was destined to follow?
I thought I would never know the answers to these questions. I thought they were machinations of my guilt and doubt.
But I was wrong.
The answers were coming.
And they were exactly as bad as I feared.
CHAPTER 36