Flash Fire (16 page)

The ways in which he had failed hit Hall like a slug in the jaw.

“It wasn’t your fault, Elisabeth,” said Hall. He couldn’t even use Beau’s name. The name, like Beau, was probably over. “It was my fault. Your father won’t be mad at you.”

“Mr. Severyn,” he called finally, because he was the oldest here. He, for better or for worse, was in charge.

He knew right away that Mr. Severyn did not recognize him. They were that kind of parent. “I’m Halstead Press, I live down the road from you. I have Elisabeth.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Severyn, and he opened the door of the Suburban and closed his eyes with relief and lifted his little girl onto his shoulder. “Oh, honey! You’re black from smoke. Your pant leg is burned off! Are you all right?”

Mr. Severyn did not appear to notice that Elisabeth’s legs had been straddling a sobbing Danna on the car floor. He did not even glance at the other three occupants of the back of the Suburban. What does that mean? thought Hall.

Elisabeth’s father stroked the black streaks on his daughter’s cheeks and arms. “You’ve been crying,” he said, kissing her tear stains. “Everything’s okay now, honey.” He hugged her hard, and hugged her again, and with each squeeze Elisabeth looked safer and better. “You’re okay,” crooned her father. “You got out. Now where’s Beau?”

“I
KNOW YOU!” CRIED
Wendy Severyn, grabbing at Chiffon’s blackened clothing.

I’m caught, thought Chiffon. They’re going to know now that I abandoned the baby. She felt as sick as if Mrs. Severyn had put handcuffs on her. She felt as sick as if she were entering a women’s prison. She tried to think of a way to lie, to extricate herself from this, but nothing came to mind.

Mrs. Severyn was the most beautiful of the beautiful people, even in sweat, even in smoke. But she wasn’t quite sure who Chiffon was. “Aren’t you — I think — don’t you work for somebody in Pinch Canyon? What’s happening? Where are my children?”

She doesn’t know me, thought Chiffon, elated, hopeful. Smoke wafted around them, like a scarf, but you could not take smoke off. Chiffon looked around for an escape route, and saw one. “Over there!” she pointed. “Look! There they are. I lost them in the smoke.”

She grabbed Mrs. Severyn’s shoulders and pointed her toward the Suburban, in whose window, amazingly, Geoffrey stood, and in front of whose doors, amazingly, Mr. Severyn hugged Elisabeth.

“Thank God!” breathed Mrs. Severyn. “You take care of this burned person. He needs an ambulance. I’m sure there’s one somewhere.” Mrs. Severyn transferred a crispy hand into Chiffon’s and rushed over to the Suburban.

The hand clenched Chiffon’s in pain, and she recoiled in horror. The burn had left the hand literally toasted, dry and hard as if you should spread butter on it.

Chiffon yelled for a firefighter, and this time one of them came. She transferred the crispy fingers to his glove, and he took them, and knelt beside the creature, and Chiffon beat it. This was why you paid taxes, to have people around to do the ooky things, and Chiffon herself was done with ooky things.

She had some of Mr. Aszling’s money in her purse, and if she hurried she could get to an ATM to draw out the rest of her own money, and then she was hitting the road. Coming up with a good excuse for leaving Geoffrey was beyond her, and the thing to do was get beyond punishment. Now.

W
ENDY SEVERYN’S FIRST, AND
most terrible thought, was that she did not have to feel guilty after all. The difficult child was okay, and she did not have to lie awake the rest of her life wondering if she should have done something else. Her husband still held Elisabeth, so all Wendy had to do was peck her on the cheek. For form’s sake, she said, “Elisabeth, darling, you’re all right.”

All Elisabeth wanted to know was whether she could have a kitten. It seemed to Wendy Severyn that every conversation with Elisabeth was like this — pointless and nothing to do with anything. The world was on fire and Elisabeth wanted a pet?

“Yes, you may have a kitten,” she said, because what did it matter now? Then she got to the point. “Where’s Beau?”

The car was very quiet.

Even the fire and the vehicles and the volunteers seemed to get quiet for that question.

Elisabeth said nothing.

Danna on the floor said nothing.

Halstead Press said nothing.

Nothing. It was the worst thing in the world, that the only answer about your beloved son was
nothing.

“Where’s Beau?”
screamed Wendy Severyn.

I
T WAS WONDERFUL TO
be standing next to official vehicles. The bright colors, immense letters, crackle of radios, the piles of equipment — so reassuring. Elony loved America that way, the way they had so
much
stuff. The way they hurled themselves at things, always believing they could conquer anything, even nature.

In the huge outside rearview mirror Elony saw herself black with smoke. She stank. Fire smelled bad and so did its victims.

She was grateful to Beau for bringing the Suburban down to the road before he became a fool and went back into the fire. She was grateful to Hall for driving them out. She had a debt. And nobody would get mad at her for telling the truth.

She said in her surprising new English, “Beau went back into the fire. Back into the house. Even though it had fire. We couldn’t wait for him. The house burned. It fell off the canyon.”

B
EAU’S FATHER HAD NEVER
had an employee capable of delivering such a succinct message. It was very well done, that summary of Elony’s. It included everything except the conclusion.

Beau’s death.

Mr. Severyn turned to stare at the hills of sphinxes that were the rims of many canyons. They were dark and kept their secrets. “No,” he whispered numbly. “What would he do that for? He’d gotten out! And gotten Elisabeth out! Why would he go back?”

Nobody answered him.

“No!” screamed Mrs. Severyn. “He has to be all right.” She left running and shrieking, pounding on the shoulders of firefighters, telling them that her son was in danger, they had to go now, and save her son. Nothing else mattered.

How clearly the words rang in the sooty air.

Nothing else mattered.

Elisabeth had known that, but until now, she had had hope.

Her father stood very still and very silent. He had to close his eyes to stay inside his thoughts instead of running screaming after Wendy. There was absolutely nothing in that house that Beau had cared enough about to go back for.

Except…

Could one brother really have died to save the ashes of the other? It was too hideous.

Aden Severyn felt like a character in an ancient Greek tragedy. There was no escape from the dreadful darkness of fate. Fate came.

Just because I was a lousy father to Michael, he said to Beau, doesn’t mean anything. I needed space back then. I wasn’t ready to be a parent. I had to give myself room. And Michael placed unfair demands on me. And when he died…

“If Beau is dead,” said Mr. Severyn dully, “it’s my fault.” He found that he was still holding Elisabeth. He tried to figure out where they were, how they had gotten there, what he should do next.

“No,” said Hall. “It’s Beau’s fault. It isn’t anybody’s fault but Beau’s.”

“O
KAY, SWEETIE,” SAID THE
fireman, smiling down at Danna. All she could think of was painkillers. Would he give her something? She didn’t have to wait to reach the hospital, did she?

They were doing things to her broken leg that Danna didn’t want to watch, and she desperately didn’t want to scream, either. Mrs. Severyn was screaming for a dead son, so how could Danna do exactly the same thing? Steal that cry? Use up a scream on a mere bone?

She had heard of Wailing Walls in Israel, and she heard Mrs. Severyn standing at her own Wailing Wall, the place where you screamed in helplessness for the dead you wanted back.

And they didn’t come back. Beau was not coming back. Danna hoped it had not hurt for Beau. If a broken leg hurt like this, what had burning up hurt like?

The act of not screaming took up the energy she had left, and it felt as if her rescuers were sliding somebody else onto the stretcher; lifting somebody else into the back of the helicopter. Her head felt detached, as if her vertebrae had come undone. She was bobbling around like a Barbie doll whose owner hadn’t stuck the head on all the way.

Danna wanted to call good-bye to her brother, congratulate him, thank him, be proud of him, but rescue was like fire: When it came, it came so fast. You could only hold on; you couldn’t do anything yourself.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” said the fireman again, “we’re just giving you some medication,” but this time he was somebody else; a helicopter pilot, a different uniform.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” they said and the door slammed and the copter lifted up with a sickening swerve and a ferocious noise.

It’s okay for me, thought Danna. It’s okay for Elisabeth and Hall and Geoffrey and Elony. But is it okay for Beau? Are you okay in death?

Oh, Beau! Why did you do that? Did you sort of want that to happen, or did you completely not want it to happen? Did you try to change your mind and couldn’t?

“I
T’S OKAY?” SAID GEOFFREY
nervously, staring way up at Mr. Severyn’s face.

Mr. Severyn tried to imagine any world at all now, let alone one which he could call okay.

The inferno was more distant. It was again traveling with the wind, but the other direction. Fire trucks were shifting their war positions. In only a few minutes, they could probably actually walk back into Pinch Canyon, and see what was left.

What a quick world fire was.

Mr. Severyn picked Geoffrey up, remembering Michael at four, Beau at four, Elisabeth at four. “It’s okay.” His throat was thick with hope. Beau was too good, too smart, too beautiful, too much his son to be dead.

“W
ELL, THAT’S A WRAP
!” said Jill Press with delight. “We’ll be home for dinner after all. What do you think the kids would like? I’m in the mood for some of that wonderful goat cheese ravioli we had the other day.”

“Danna doesn’t like it. We could bring them pizza.”

They walked slowly out to their cars, sorry they had not driven together, because they were in the mood to keep talking. Jill Press got in her car while her husband continued to discuss the dinner issue through the car window. She’d left her radio on. “Fires continue in Greater Los Angeles,” said the news.

“I’m sick of these dumb fires!” She punched the radio button and turned it off. “There!” she said, grinning at her husband. “So much for fire.”

E
LONY WAS PLEASED WITH
how well everybody was behaving. It was good that you couldn’t classify everybody in the same category as Chiffon or Mr. or Mrs. Aszling. That would reduce your faith in people.

“Ice cream truck!” cried Elony, pointing. Only in America. The ice cream trucks, the taco trucks, the hot dog and soda trucks — you never had to wait long. She smiled at Mr. Severyn. “You pay,” she explained.

He nodded. “I pay.” And somehow they were all standing around having toasted almond and orange Creamsicle and chocolate cherry dip.

Elony felt desperately sorry for the man. It was a new experience, to be better off than Californians were. She had already buried her family, and her history too. Someday the father would smile again, and someday the mother would laugh. Someday Elisabeth would forget and someday the sky would be blue and clean again. Without Beau.

Nature never needed anybody. It went on by itself, following its own rules.

Elony was thinking in English. She felt almost reverent, that her mind had pulled it off.

“Daddy, I think we should adopt Geoffrey,” said Elisabeth. “Elony would come, too, and we’d all live happily ever after.” She had bought vanilla ice cream in a cup for the kittens to lick.

“Mr. and Mrs. Aszling love Geoffrey,” said Mr. Severyn, which wasn’t true, and they all knew it wasn’t true, but which he felt compelled to say anyhow. They looked at him and he flushed and occupied himself licking his ice cream.

“But Elony could live with us,” he said. Companionship for his daughter, a safe easy babysitter.

He glanced at Elony and was shocked to see such relief on her face, the relief of a child who is about to be taken care of after all; and he saw now that Elony
was
a child, not just help, and that she, like Elisabeth, needed shelter and love.
We’d all live happily ever after.
What else did anybody ever want?

He had no idea where he had been in his life, nor where he was going, but he knew at least that the fire had given instruction and he’d better pay attention.

He could see part of Pinch Mountain. The barren slope twitched as if it possessed nerve endings. A little branch full of pine sap exploded and gusts of wind made ash devils.

He could see officials approaching, and knew that they were coming to him. He could read in their bodies the dread with which they walked forward.

When they said quietly and carefully that they had found Beau, he knew they did not mean Beau alive.

Happily ever after, he thought. Both my sons! It can’t be, I can’t take it, I cannot go on without them.

He was vaguely aware of his screaming, sobbing wife, vaguely aware that tranquilizers were decided upon for her, and then an ambulance.

After a long time, he saw that he still had a daughter, and he tried to think of something to say. The only thing he could come up with was, “I love you, honey.”