Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down (17 page)

Zola pushed the coffee across the counter. Please. Just take it.

Beth took the coffee and hastened away from the shop, the small bell of the door ringing behind her. Zola watched out the windows as Beth climbed into her car and sat for a moment in the driver's seat before pulling away. Homecoming Court. Zola knew Beth was nominated this year. The dance next Friday. A future untethered, impossible. Zola watched Beth's car exit the parking lot, brake lights lifting, and then she was gone.

NICK SAT AT
the computer in his bedroom, his family in the living room down the hall watching sitcoms, a laugh track creeping through his closed door. He'd spent the afternoon researching,
looking up every search term he could think to type in. The particulars of arson. Linked patterns. How the human body loses itself to flame. How it was even possible that there would be nothing left.

A knock at his door. His mother peered in. We're all watching a movie soon if you want to join us, she said.

I'll be out in a minute.

What are you working on?

Stuff for the yearbook, I guess. I know it's early. I just need to keep myself busy.

She came in and sat down on the bed. Your father said the funeral wasn't easy.

It was fine. I think people are just starting to get scared.

Nick's mother reached out and touched his hair. Are you doing okay?

I'm fine. Just tired.

Is there anything I can do?

Nick glanced at her. Have you ever defended an arsonist?

In my years at the courthouse, one or two.

Were any of those fires fatal? Cases of arson where someone was killed?

Not that I recall. Mostly just property damage. People acting out in anger, or business owners committing fraud for insurance.

So you haven't seen anything like this before?

His mother hesitated. I don't know if anyone's seen anything like this before.

What do you think it means?

I really don't know. I just want to make sure you're okay. And safe.

I'm fine. Just sad, I guess.

We all are. She reached over and held his hand. Want to come out and watch a movie? It might be good to take a break from all of this.

I'll be out soon, Nick said. In just a minute.

His mother kissed the top of his head. She slipped out of the room and Nick turned back to the computer screen, a Web page replete with information on multiple points of fire. He didn't want to tell his mother the information that hadn't appeared in the news: that no evidence of bodies had been found at the Blacks' house. Nick wondered if Matt was home and picked up the receiver in his room.

Is your dad home? Nick asked when Matt answered on the second ring.

No, he's not home yet. Take a break. Please. Just for the night.

I don't know if I can. There's too much unanswered here.

Let me guess. You're at your computer.

I've been looking all afternoon. It just doesn't make sense.

I know. But what can I tell you? My dad hasn't said anything more.

What do you think it means? That there's nothing left?

Honestly, right now I don't give a shit what it means.

Nick leaned back in his desk chair. He heard the subtle ache in Matt's voice, something beyond frustration. What happened?

Nothing happened. I'm just so fucking tired.

Tyler?

Nick heard Matt sigh.

Look, you don't have to talk about it, Nick said. Not unless you want to.

I really don't. Can we just take a break for today?

Nick paused a moment. I think we should meet soon. All of us. We should keep working on the yearbook.

Can it wait until tomorrow?

Tomorrow would be better anyway. I'm sure Chris and Zol are as exhausted today as we are. But could you call one of them?

I'll call Christina later. I'll see if she's written anything. Paul's Books?

Nick glanced out his window. Paul's Books. A nearby store he
hadn't been to in weeks, the place they sometimes met to discuss the yearbook if not at Christina's house.

Paul's Books, Nick said. We can figure out a time later.

Take it easy tonight, man. Just relax. Stay away from your computer.

I'll try, Nick said. He replaced the receiver to its cradle. He heard the start of a movie down the hall, the overture of opening credits. Photographs of fire swam across the computer screen before him. Photographs of nothing but rubble and ash.

MATT LAY IN
his bedroom until the cicadas beyond his window lost their teeming. He'd heard them whine a cascading symphony toward dusk, a noise rising over the browning grass and fallen leaves. He'd heard his mother come home an hour before from her volunteer shift at the animal shelter, what she'd resumed to stay busy, followed by the slow scent of cooking onions and garlic and paprika. She was making chili, he knew. An aroma that despite the day's events made him hungry. He hadn't called Christina. He'd tried not to think of Tyler. An elbow against his throat. He heard his father come home at last, the drone of the garage door vibrating through the ceiling above him. He emerged from the basement just as his father stepped into the kitchen and pulled off his jacket.

Long day? his mother asked.

He kissed her forehead. Investigation ran overtime today.

Matt sat at the kitchen table. His father opened the refrigerator, pulled out a beer.

How was the shelter? Matt asked his mother.

Slow today. We took in a cat. There's still that pair of guinea pigs in need of a good home.

Matt knew the particulars of his mother's volunteering, that two guinea pigs had been rescued from a farm out in Festus. Nearly a
month ago now, he recalled. Two guinea pigs neglected by their owner, found alongside three skeletal horses and four goats, all of which had gone to a rehabilitation facility in the Missouri hills.

Matt's mother glanced at him. How was the service today?

Fine, he said. A brief pang in his chest that he'd told her not to come.

You didn't go? Matt's father looked at her.

He said not to. I wanted him to be with his friends.

It was fine, Dad. A funeral. There wasn't much either of you could have done.

We could have been there for you.

Lots of people were. Almost the entire school was there.

Matt's mother turned back to the stove. We'll go with you if there are others.

Matt didn't want to think it. Others. Other funerals he didn't have any energy left for. He turned to his father. What happened today?

Matt's father smiled and leaned against the stove. I knew that was coming.

Can you tell us anything?

We don't know much. Not yet, at least. We're still comparing the two fires.

What about Eric Greeley?

I told you, that's not my case. But I know he's still being questioned.

So they're just holding him at the station? Matt's mother asked.

They can't really do that, not without evidence. He's being brought in at shorter intervals for questioning, and beyond that, we're keeping watch on his house.

Matt imagined cop cars winnowing down the street past Eric Greeley's front door.

He said he didn't know anything, Matt said.

We know that. But it's the only thing we've got right now.

What else? Matt asked. Did you find anything at the Trenways' house?

I wasn't there today. I was at the station lab, the entire day.

He doesn't need to know, his mother said. Just for once, can we have a nice dinner without all of this?

Matt saw it in his father's face. Something. Dad, what is it? Tell me.

The autopsy report I showed you. From the Blacks' home.

Jim, his mother said.

What happened? Matt said. What do you know?

The Trenway house. His father glanced at his mother, her fists curled tight against the kitchen counter. I got the report back today. The same thing.

The outlines?

We found nothing. Not a single trace of a body.

Is that even possible?

It's unusual. I've never seen anything like it before. No evidence of foul play. The exact same as the Blacks' house. We're checking outlets and wiring. But they're still holding the Greeley kid for questioning. We're still looking into the possibility of arson.

Why, if you know there's no foul play?

Can we stop this? his mother said.

Because it's the exact same—the same origin. The same stance. The same maddening lack of physical evidence. Nothing left.

Goddamnit, enough! his mother shouted. I said enough.

The chili bubbled on the stove. Matt glanced across the table but his father wouldn't look at him. Matt's mother at a breaking point, a curse she let slip, a day of funerals that would only be followed by more. Matt wanted answers and there was nothing but questions. The funeral for Alisha's parents that afternoon: wooden boxes containing only air. The same as the Blacks. Empty caskets. No indication of cause. No suspicion of foul play. Only
a replication of conditions, the same origin, what his father had said without saying it directly: that the Trenways had burned in their beds, just like the Blacks, that they'd curled into their sheets and let the moonlight flood their windows and closed their eyes to a night that had seen their daughter buried, a night that broke through the panes and consumed every fiber of their bedroom in flames.

THE FIRST TO
burn: human hair, illumined in blue flame as crematorium jets heat.

The head snaps back, the body goes rigid. As temperature heats to 700 degrees bones within the body hiss open and explode. Rapid heat reddens muscle. Skin turns black then slowly divides. Flesh reduces into molecules, carbonizes, splits even smaller still into the atoms of oxygen. The body then exposed to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit for at least ninety minutes, muscle and organ burning away from the bones, a continued hissing, a series of perpetual detonations. The crematorium's temperature lowered, bone smoldering for two hours longer, simmering down to ash.

What is known: that house fires rarely exceed temperatures of 1,200 degrees.

What is known: that even at 2,200 degrees, a crematorium leaves behind recognizable fragments of human bone.

Lewis and Clark High School Class of 2005

September 12, 1986—October 8, 2003

Jacob, a junior at Lewis and Clark, played center forward on the varsity soccer team. Known for his athleticism and his camaraderie on the team, Jacob began playing for Lewis and Clark High School as a freshman. He played junior varsity for only one year before advancing to varsity due to his talent and goodwill.

A scholar-athlete, Jacob also maintained straight A's in all of his classes including honors and AP courses. He was particularly skilled in biology and hoped to declare pre-med in college while also continuing to pursue soccer. At the start of his junior year, he was already entertaining scholarships from universities and colleges across the country. In addition to playing on the soccer team, Jacob was involved with the National Honor Society and with Students for Humanity, a charitable organization. His most recent work of community service was to organize a safe driving event with the local police department for new teenage drivers.

Jacob was known as friendly and fun-loving. He was never without friends in the cafeteria or in the hallways, and he was always one to say hello to those he did not call close friends. His many talents and amiability will be greatly missed at Lewis and Clark.

WE AWOKE THURSDAY
knowing we would meet: not for a funeral or a vigil, but for the simple fact of beginning. We'd lain the night before in the overwhelming dark of our bedrooms, the television whirring down the hall beyond our closed doors. We felt the hollow of our chests fill with pressure the longer we lay there, a lonesome heat. We promised to call after dinner, after television, after our parents had gone to bed. We made promises we couldn't keep when we found ourselves spent, unable to pick up the phone beyond the exhaust of a day spent grieving.

We knew we'd meet in the morning, a daybreak that brought a continued news cycle on television spotlighting St. Louis, though our newspaper turned for a brief day to other things beyond the constant stream of reporters in our streets. In the
Post-Dispatch:
the United Nations Security Council moving for Iraqi sovereignty, a proposal pushed by President Bush and backed by the United Kingdom, Chile, Cameroon. China's first astronaut in space circling the planet in the Shenzhou 5, a twenty-one-hour trip in a shuttle that felt far-off and remote to us. The Marlins heading to the World Series, beating the Chicago Cubs in seven games. Steve Bartman: the name of the man who interfered with the foul ball at Wrigley Field, whom Chicago blamed for killing their first World Series chance since 1945, whom Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich urged to join the witness protection program. We looked at the photo, a
grained image of a man sitting in the stands wearing a Cubs hat. We turned the page, toward other news stories beyond the impossibility that a man's life could be forever changed by a game.

We sat with coffee. Tea. We ate pears and yogurt and cereal. We imagined the Trenways' house, a cluster of wreckage, a ranch home we'd never entered but knew. The end of Zola's street. A corner home she could see from the edge of her yard, its burnt scent still filtering through screen windows, settling upon couches and kitchen tables like dust. We needed to get out. To leave our streets. We agreed to meet at Paul's Books, where we once met to discuss the yearbook as a change of pace from Christina's house, the small shop located in a strip mall less than a mile from each of our homes.

Nick gathered clippings: every news story he'd cut from the paper. Every story and sub-story on Lewis and Clark, on the fires ravaging both homes. A manila file folder he'd begun to organize though he spoke nothing of it to any of us. A folder he kept in the drawer of his computer desk, newsprint and photos, a record of fragments and scissored pieces. He placed the folder in his bag and drove alone. Zola brought Matt's profile, still unread, still folded in the pocket of the same pair of pants she'd worn all week. She biked to the bookstore while a mile away Christina climbed into her car, bringing nothing but her purse and a mix CD that Ryan had made though she drove noiseless through the streets, the radio off, the sky clouded for the second day in a row. Matt left his house quiet behind him, his mother reading and eyeing him carefully, his father already at work. He brought nothing to the bookstore: no reports, no photos stolen from his father's desk. He brought only the profile he'd written the night before for Jacob Jensen, the only person he could think to set down to paper in the night's darkness. He brought the knowledge that nothing remained at the Trenways' house and the silent ache that Tyler hadn't called or pushed his way through Matt's window past dark, an apology.

We gathered early in the back corner of the bookstore's café. Just
past opening. Before anyone we knew would think to walk in. Nick ordered a coffee. Christina a hot chocolate, Matt a blackberry scone. Zola drank water and watched the wind rake leaves across the strip mall parking lot beyond the window. We took in the sound of being outside our own homes: the clink of café dishes. The whirring of foamed milk. The watered dunk of mugs being cleaned. Sounds the same as the Local Beanery. Sounds beyond television, beyond the soft hum of ceiling fans. We sat in a cluster of puffed armchairs and Nick pulled the manila folder from his bag and spread it across the table between us.

No more sitting. Waiting. No more lying in our bedrooms without light. No more staring across our yards, no more reading the same lines in the newspaper. We knew nothing of what to archive. We knew no schematic to make sense of the articles and photographs Nick placed before us. We were tired. Spent. We didn't want to look at the newspaper. We'd seen everything within the folder, every photo, everything on the television that leaked down the hallways into our bedrooms. We had no options left. We had to begin somewhere. We leaned forward and sifted through the clippings.

Christina picked up a photo of the remains of what had once been the Blacks' home. We can't solve this, she said. We can't solve any of this.

We're not looking to solve, Nick said.

Then what are we doing? Zola asked.

We're putting together a book. It's our job. It's what we have to do.

This isn't what we do, Zola said. We take photos of school dances, pep rallies. We research the year's world events for archiving. We write profiles of honors students.

I think we're beyond that now, Nick said. That's not really an option anymore.

Then what is? Christina asked. What the hell are we supposed to do now?

We have to make sense of this for a book, Nick said. That's all we can do.

Zola scanned the images: burned houses, so many skeletons of former homes. Photos she couldn't imagine putting in a yearbook, a record of what was.

There's no way we can print this, she said. This isn't what a yearbook should do.

Then what should it do? Nick asked. Pretend? Make a year that wasn't?

It should remind everyone of what was good, Christina said softly. It should make them happy. It should make them remember.

Zola picked up a photograph of Lewis and Clark High taken just after police response. Students she recognized being guided from the doorways, down the school lawn, and toward a line of ambulances. Their faces ashen, broken in grief.

What will anyone want to remember of this, she said. There's nothing. Nothing at all to set down in this yearbook.

For once Matt wanted to focus on Caroline and the profile he'd written, but Tyler flooded his brain. His elbow to Matt's throat. How he hadn't called. How Matt preferred to think instead of humid-damp summer nights, him and Tyler inside his car. Him and Tyler within the capsule of the cinema's projection booth, just the two of them alone.

We can make it what we want, he said. We can decide what we set down.

We can't change the past, Christina said. She meant the high school's hallways but saw Ryan. Saw a swimming pool, Elise nowhere within it. She swept a hand over the table, the scattered newsprint. We can't change any of this, she said.

But we can make it ours, Matt said. We decide what it is we should remember.

Zola picked up a photograph of Mrs. Diffenbaum, one of the two librarians, a portrait of her face printed last Friday beside thirty-five
other photographs and names. Zola closed her eyes. The shape of Garamond font on a library shelf.
A Graphic History of Oceanic Biology.
The sound of human seepage. The animal scent of her own urine.

We can't control what we remember, she said. How can we?

By writing it down, Matt said, and Zola felt the shape of the profile he'd written still crumpled in her pocket. From pants she'd worn yesterday, pants she'd grabbed again from the floor though she still hadn't read Matt's words, paper now soft and worn at the edges. She pulled it from her pocket and placed it beside the photos on the table. She looked away so Matt would never know she hadn't read it.

What is that? Christina asked.

I wrote a profile, Matt said. Caroline Black. He pulled the other profile he'd written from his bag. I profiled Jacob Jensen last night, too. This is all I can do. I'm not sleeping. I'm not doing anything but thinking about this.

Nick set down his coffee and picked up Caroline Black's profile. He unfolded it, tentatively at first, giving Matt time to stop him though Matt made no move.

This is what you wrote? Nick asked.

It's all I could think of.

We need this. Profiles. Articles about each and every one of them.

Christina picked up the profile of Jacob. Scanned its lines, ashamed she hadn't written a single word. Zola gazed across the newsprint and photographs and knew their objective: not a scattering of headlines but words and photos that would make them what they were, words that would reconstitute and resurrect them. Profiles to pick them up from the carpet, from the floor of the library. A bulletproof archive. A book to beat back nothing any of them could control.

She stood and told Christina she'd be right back and made her way to the lone restroom at back of Paul's Books, where she locked
the door. An overhead fan whirred when she turned on the light, an overwhelming sound. Black dots crowded the edge of her vision. Stale urine. The green vellum of a book cover. She pressed her knuckles to the wall and leaned into them and slid to the floor.
I cannot do this.
Four words splitting the cells of her brain. As if the past could be changed. As if by pen alone a goddamn thing could be changed. All of them unaware that in the forced reimagining of a high school's year they were making her remember scream-choked voices, the stench of loosed bowels, bullet-cracked wood and mothballed books and discarded backpacks splattered in spit and blood. She focused on the tile beneath her hands. Smooth and cool. A surface as placid and still as water. She breathed in. Out. Sucked in air as the fan above her droned. She pulled herself up, her heart a jackhammer, her pulse flooding her ears. She ran the faucet. Pressed water to her cheeks. Matched her gaze in the mirror.
Fucking pull it together
.

At the table, she found Nick writing notes on a legal pad. Matt sat hunched over the news articles. Christina held Matt's profile of Caroline.

This is lovely, Christina told him. It's just what Caroline would have wanted.

Zola felt a spike inside her breastbone: that she hadn't read it. That Matt had given it to her. That she'd been the only one to ignore it, to smash it inside her pocket.

That Christina thought she knew what Caroline Black could have wanted.

The paper said Eric Greeley's still there for questioning, Christina said. He was always such a fucking weirdo. I wouldn't be surprised.

Keep your voice down, Zola snapped.

Christina looked up at her. What do you care?

You don't know what you're talking about.

And you do? Christina said. You know Eric so well? You don't know anything, nothing more than I do. Christina got up and
brought her empty mug to the café counter and Zola felt as if she'd been slapped.

Nick glanced at Zola. Don't take it personally. I think she and Ryan are fighting.

What, you think I don't know that?

Nick said nothing and Zola regretted the tone of her own voice and Christina returned to the table and looked at both of them. What don't you know?

Zola shrugged. You and Ryan.

What, you're all talking about me now? I get up for one minute?

No one's talking about you. Matt sighed. Jesus Christ. Can we stay on task?

No, tell me. Christina looked at Zola and felt a heat bubbling up the center of her chest. Two years of a relationship Zola had judged in silence. As if she thought Christina wouldn't notice. What do you want to say? Christina challenged her.

I don't want to say anything.

I'm the one who brought it up, Nick said. Not Zola. All I mentioned was that you and Ryan might be fighting.

And you and Sarah aren't? We haven't seen her in eight fucking days.

We're not fighting. She just hasn't wanted to leave the house.

How are you so calm about all of this? Christina said. How are you not angry?

Hey, back off, Matt said. And lower your voice. Not all of us have to feel the same way you do about everything.

I'm not saying you do. But while we're on it, I saw you yesterday. With Tyler. At the funeral. Matt, he fucking left you in the hallway. If anyone should be angry, it's you.

At least Tyler was there, Zola said.

Christina turned to her. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Zola met her eyes. It means your boyfriend wasn't. It means he's an asshole.

Zola expected Christina to erupt. Expected to wish she could take back the words. But it felt like a freedom to at last say what she should have told Christina their freshman year. Zola braced herself but Christina only sat down in the armchair next to Nick, the features of her face falling.

He's got a bullet in his leg, she said softly. He can't leave the house.

Look, I'm sorry, Zola conceded. Chris, I didn't mean what I said.

Of course you did. I know you've felt that way for a long time.

Zola sighed. What do you want me to say? Sometimes he's not a nice guy.

Zola expected her to fight. But she only sat there and Zola all at once felt terrible.

You know what? Christina said. You're right. Sometimes he's not.

She leaned back into the cushions, far softer than anything Ryan had said or done across the past days. He hadn't called. He hadn't asked where she was inside the school, how she felt about Elise, how she was doing given gunfire and burning all around them. He'd let her smash a frame and walk away.
Get in the car, you fucking bitch
.

I'm so stupid, Christina said. Jesus Christ. Do you all feel this way? Have all of you wanted to tell me for two years that I'm dating an asshole?

Matt wanted to tell her she wasn't alone but Nick stepped in instead.

I'm sure Ryan's just hurting, Nick said. Same as Sarah. Same as Tyler. Same as everyone in the entire goddamn school.

Zola sat back in her armchair. She felt exhausted. She didn't want to talk about yearbook, about photographs, about the pettiness of relationships. The only one of the four of them who didn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend and listening to them, she wanted to keep it that way. She gritted her teeth not to scream that compared to what was happening in their high school and community and everything beating around in her brain like a brood of bats this was all child's play, nothing but small-minded bullshit.