“Dad! What on earth are you doing?”
I rush across the room and stomp out the flames on the paper, grinding ash into my mother’s carpet. The stink of hot chemicals and singed hair fills my nostrils.
She’s going to kill me, I think, before I remember that she may never know or care what happened. That is the thought that sends a spike through my chest, skewering my heart.
Dad turns his head, so terribly slowly, and looks at me. His eyes are blank, his face so expressionless I’m afraid that he doesn’t even know who I am.
But it’s even worse than him not knowing. He is not happy to see me.
“Maisey,” he says. “I figured you’d turn up.” His tone is one of final resignation, not joy or gratitude or relief. And then he turns his back on me, picks up the poker, and starts turning over the unburned papers in the fire.
I hear the town siren begin to wail, a lonely, terrifying sound that has always made me want to dive under the furniture and hide.
I drop to my knees beside him, careless of the soot and ash, and take the poker out of his hands.
“It’s plenty warm in here, don’t you think? Maybe we should let this go out.”
Something fierce passes through his eyes, and I actually think, Oh my God, I’m about to be smacked with the poker, before his hands let go and he melts, as if he’s made of wax and the fire has softened him. His shoulders round. His back curves. His chin sinks down onto his chest.
“There’s more,” he says. “I know there’s more. I’ve forgotten something.”
He’s not talking to me.
My whole body feels stiff and strange and without sensation. Plastic. I don’t know how I am supposed to behave if my father has forgotten that he loves me, if my mother isn’t here to tell us both what to do.
So the two of us stay where we are, kneeling in front of the fireplace, like supplicants before an altar. Outside a siren wails, coming closer and closer until it’s nearly deafening.
“Must be a fire somewhere.” Dad turns his head toward the sound.
“You think?”
I look at the soot spread around us, the dusting of ash in his hair, on his shoulders, like dandruff.
It’s too late to call off the fire brigade, and they come stomping in through the front door. Two firemen in full gear, extinguishers at the ready.
So much antifire power to leverage at one small fireplace. Fatigue has made me giddy. I put my hand over my mouth to push back rising laughter, but it leaks through my fingers and into an unwelcoming silence.
“Fire is not a joke, ma’am,” one of the suited figures says. He sounds like my elementary school principal that time I put earthworms in Catrina Larsen’s desk, and she had hysterics worthy of black widow spiders or rattlesnakes or something.
Mr. Myers used the same tonal inflection, stood in the same stiff, disapproving way. And I’d had an identical attack of the giggles that got me suspended from school for a day and earned me a spanking from my mother.
“The consequences for a prank call to 911 include jail time,” the fireman says, in the same sanctimonious tone. I realize all at once that I’m the one holding the poker. I’m going to jail or hell—one or the other or both—and still, I can’t for the life of me stop laughing.
“I called,” Elle says. “There was smoke. And burning papers flying around the room. Am I going to jail?”
“I don’t think this was a prank,” the other fireman says. I like his voice better. It has a warm, comforting sound to it, like chocolate or a good red wine. He sets down his extinguisher and takes a step into the room. “Mr. Addington? Are you all right?”
Dad is not all right. He’s tilting sideways, a human Tower of Pisa, only his tilt is accelerating at a visible pace. His mouth is open, his breathing loud and harsh.
My laughter congeals to something gelatinous and cold in my throat, and I’m unable to breathe or move. Is Dad going to have a stroke now, too, both of my parents checking out of life together?
“Can’t. Get. Up,” Dad gasps. “Need a hand.”
The fireman moves to act as a reinforcement so Dad doesn’t topple off his knees. “Are you hurt? Should we call an ambulance?”
“No. Just . . . I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” Dad says. A wheeze escapes him; I’m not sure if it’s a laugh or some sort of predeath breathing pattern.
The fireman pulls off his gloves and reaches down, respectfully allowing Dad to use him like a ladder to climb to his feet instead of picking him up like a child.
“Old men and floors,” Dad says. “Not compatible.”
I stare up at the two of them, the idea of getting onto my own feet suddenly daunting.
My fireman extends a rescuing hand down to me, still steadying my father with the other. It’s a large hand. Square fingers, evenly cut nails. Warm when I take it, both strong and gentle. A pair of very blue eyes look down at me. His mouth has smile lines around it.
The hand is attached to a muscular arm that lifts me effortlessly up onto wobbly feet.
“Maisey, right?”
“How do you know my name?”
“High school.”
I scan his face, trying to remember, but draw a blank. “I’m sorry. I don’t—”
“Tony,” he says. “No worries. You wouldn’t remember.”
My gaze drifts from the fireman to my father, who sways like a drunk. There is, as Officer Mendez told me, dried blood on his shirt. He hasn’t changed his clothes. He hasn’t shaved.
I realize I’m still clinging to the fireman’s hand and let go to steady my father’s arm.
“You need to sit down, Dad?” He doesn’t seem to hear me.
The other fireman, the self-righteous one who is probably happy there’s an actual crisis in motion, finally takes a step in our direction.
He’s too slow.
Dad collapses from the bottom up, like a demolition charge has gone off. Knees first, then hips, then spine, all the bones and joints turned to jelly.
My fireman is behind him, though, holding him, sinking down to the floor with him so he doesn’t fall. The other guy radios for an ambulance.
As for me, I can’t seem to summon up the requisite amount of panic. I used to make little jokes about how my parents were so joined at the hip they’d probably go out together.
I didn’t mean it, I pray, silently, just in case God or the fates or the universe or whatever it is that drives the boat is listening.
My fireman, kneeling across from me with Dad between us, is busy checking for a pulse. “He’s breathing easily; his pulse is a little fast, but strong. I’m also a paramedic,” he explains. He pats Dad’s cheek, shakes his shoulder. “Mr. Addington. Walter. Can you hear me?”
Dad’s eyes roll under closed lids, then flicker open. He stares up at the fireman, obviously dazed.
“There you are,” my paramedic fireman says. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better,” Dad says. His voice sounds weak. His lips are dry and flaking, the bottom one split and bleeding slightly. He’s old, but he shouldn’t look this old, with fragile skin stretched tight over his cheekbones, his eyes faded and sunken. “Who are you?”
“My name is Tony. We met earlier, and here we are again.”
Dad just blinks at him, clearly not remembering.
“Can you move your legs for me?” Tony asks. “First the right, then the left. Good. Now, your hands. Can you touch your nose with your right hand? Your left?”
Dad goes through the motions obediently, and Tony raises his eyes to mine. “I don’t think it’s a stroke or a heart attack. My guess is he’s dehydrated and probably hungry. Maybe he’s not been eating since your mom got sick. That ambulance coming, Marco?”
“On its way. About ten minutes out.”
“Don’t need an ambulance,” Dad says. “Help me up.”
“You need to lie here and wait,” I tell him. “Do what the fireman tells you.”
“He’s not a doctor. Let me up.”