Shivering under a heavy blanket someone had draped over her, Dara stared at it in wonder. How small it looked, how diminished. Like looking at a fuzzy Polaroid from childhood, like stepping into your kindergarten classroom again, its furniture like matchsticks under your feet.
“You’re so calm,” a neighbor was saying to her.
“She’s in shock,” whispered another.
She turned and looked at them, a white-haired couple in matching robes. Holding hands, their bony knuckles knocking against each other.
“I’m okay,” she said. Because she was, though she couldn’t say how, or why.
But she was looking past them at Marie in the distance.
Marie, except her blond hair was black, black streaks running up one arm.
Sitting in the back of the fire truck, an oxygen mask over her face, mottled legs dangling, she was waving at Dara, waving her over. Come here. Hurry. It’s time!
Dara waved back and began walking toward her, the blanket falling from her shoulders.
Breathe. Breathe.
* * *
*
The firemen were talking about the gas furnace, the flue. Years of junk caught in there. Old leaves, a bird’s nest, dead mice.
Flame rollout, they were calling it. Flue gets jammed up, flames escape and roll out like a great wave.
It’s a shame how much junk people keep in their basement, right by that combustion chamber and I always tell my dad, the flame should be clean and blue.
Dara was listening, sort of, but she was mostly listening for Marie’s breathing, her mask fogging up. It was so soothing, like a metronome, like a promise.
A firefighter appeared suddenly, his face glistening with soot, holding something on a stick.
“I was worried it was a pet at first, or something,” he said. “A dog or cat.”
“No,” Dara said, looking at Marie. “It’s just an old blanket.”
“Rabbit fur,” Marie said, the oxygen mask off now, cradled in her blackened hand. “Vienna Blue.”
“Found it halfway up the basement stairs,” the firefighter said. “The force of the flue must’ve sent it flying. You’d be surprised how often it happens. Crowded basement, old house. Bad luck.”
“Yes,” Dara said looking at it, the sooty and wet pelt in the man’s hands. “Bad luck.”
She looked at Marie, who looked at her, a sneaking smile there.
* * *
*
They made Dara sit in the truck and take the oxygen, the smell even stronger now, the strongest she’d ever known. Burning plaster, carpet glue, dry wood, mildewed crates.
Breathe, breathe, she told herself until she could again.
Until she heard Marie again.
“Dara,” Marie was calling out, running toward her on the blue-black street. “Look! Look!”
Her voice was high and light like a bell.
Looking up at the streetlamp above, Dara saw how there were suddenly snowflakes everywhere, swirling everywhere, dappling the asphalt, their hair.
Marie stepped backward, the fireman’s blanket falling to the ground, her nightgown drenched, and her body turning, twirling, her bare feet on the pavement, her long neck, her arms like white birds, and the snow falling and falling.
“Save a few,” Dara found herself saying, her eyes filling, her face hurting from her smile. She was smiling. “Save them.”
Marie smiled, lifting her arms into the air, Dara lifting hers too.
And as they landed in her outstretched palm she saw they weren’t snowflakes at all but ashes, pale and bright, falling silently over everything that had been theirs.
It didn’t matter if it was snow or shredded paper or ash in her hands, because she could breathe and Marie was dancing under the streetlamp and it was over, over at last.
FOUR
EDEN LOST
One Year Later
You’ve never seen true longing until you’ve seen a theater of young girls gaze upon the opening moments of The Nutcracker. All in their holiday best, their red velveteen dresses, their glitter-threaded tartan jumpers, pearl headbands, flocked hair ribbons, their mouths open, agape, their eyes hard dots of wonder.
But it wasn’t only the little girls. It was their mothers in their beaded sweaters and sweeping skirts, their heads heavy from to-do lists, from cleaning the snow off the car. It was their fathers in their navy blazers, maybe a tartan necktie, their faces red from the cold or the quick scotch before heading out the door.
In moments, they’ll all be transformed, Dara thought, standing in the wings, watching the Ballenger Center fill with wool and glitter and Christmas plaid.
In a few minutes, the music would start. Audiences always forgot how well they knew it until it began. From those first strains of the overture, their bodies would begin to shift and lift, their eyes opening wider, a glimmer there, something stirring inside, a holiday long ago, an aching memory of a broken toy, the smack of a chocolate orange on the tabletop, a parent after too much eggnog crashing into the Christmas tree, the forever-feeling of standing at a church pew, the candle melting off its paper collar into your hand. Watching the audience, you can see them tunneling back, the ache of it all. Their hearts opening. And then Clara appears, in her party dress.