T
he day that Franny died, wildfires were raging through Southern California. In San Diego, the fires had leapt across the freeways. Runaway flames, blazing and destroying everything in their path, eluded helicopters and firefighters, raged across the mountains in the east and through developments in the west. Million-dollar homes and double-wide trailers were going up in smoke. Indiscriminate destruction. Horses and cattle and lost dogs were dying. Everyone was fleeing.
When Sam woke up that morning, it looked like twilight. The entire sky was filled with an orange haze. Like sunset at 6:00
A.M
. When he walked out onto their back deck, and into what looked like snow, it was as though he’d stepped through a looking glass into an upside-down world.Where day was night and sand was snow. He’d never seen anything like it before. It was as though he were dreaming. It was like an apocalypse. Like the end of the world.
He remembers the silence. Outside, the thick marine layer hung suspended in limbo between sand and sky.The ash-covered beach was deserted. Finn was the only one out on the water, a black speck in a sea of white. Living directly under the flight path for almost twenty years, the sounds of the planes had become a part of the orchestra of their lives. But it was early, and the sky was empty save for the helicopters with their whispery hum. He should have known then that it wasn’t just their world that was collapsing. It’s the quiet he remembers.
It was so early. Even Mena, who usually woke up before dawn, was still asleep. In the kitchen, the old percolator Mena loved wasn’t bubbling, and the radio they kept on the counter was silent. Sam was about to start the coffee himself, turn on the radio and find out exactly what was going on, when he saw her.
She was lying on the floor between the kitchen and the living room, curled up in her pajamas as though she were just taking a nap. And everything went numb. Cold.
Shit, shit, shit.
Sam ran to her and picked her up. As he lifted her, he recollected the way she used to feel in his arms when she was a little girl. Light. Small. She felt like a tiny little bundle of bones as he carried her to the living room and gently laid her on the couch. He watched his hands grab her sharp shoulders, shaking her. Felt his mouth moving, even heard the words coming out. And then he was pressing his ear against her chest, the way he had a hundred times, to listen for her heart.
God, her heart
. It’s the quiet he remembers.
Sam pulled Franny’s body close to him, clutching her in an unanswered embrace. Mena stood in the doorway, bleary eyed and confused.
“Mena, stay with her. I’ll call 9-1-1,” Sam said.
Finn came into the room then, a wet black seal, dripping salt water onto the floor. “Jesus, goddamn Christ,” Finn said. “What’s going on?”
And then soundlessly, Mena dropped to her knees, her whole body trembling. She crawled across the floor, like an animal, and climbed onto the couch, curling around Franny’s body, making a cocoon of arms and legs and falling hair. Sam opened his mouth to say something, to cry out, but the words, the sounds, would not come.
He went to the kitchen and called 9-1-1, but because of the fires, the woman misunderstood. She kept asking him if Franny was suffering from smoke inhalation. She kept telling him how important it was that they evacuate. Finally, he made her understand that there was no fire. That his daughter, his child’s heart had just stopped beating.
When he returned to the living room, Mena was still curled around Franny. Finn sat on the floor next to the couch, holding the unyielding bones of her hand. Afterward, Finn stood up and sat down in the chair facing them. His whole body shuddered, and he put his head in his hands. Sam wanted to go to him, to hold him, but he couldn’t move.
It wasn’t until later, after the ambulance came, after they went to the hospital, after they left Franny there and returned to the house without her (as if they had simply dropped her off at a friend’s, at the mall, or at ballet practice), after somebody finally turned on the radio, that they heard the news that the county was on fire.
There was so much confusion. On TV, it seemed that the entire world was grieving. It was maddening. All of a sudden their devastation was made small, not even a fragment of this much larger catastrophe. But what did those people, covered in ash and embers, have to do with Franny? What did any of this have to do with the infant Sam once carried on his back all the way down into the Grand Canyon, the little girl he taught how to play Chinese checkers and how to swim? What did this have to do with the milky smell of her skin, the small constellation of freckles across her nose, the baby teeth Mena still kept in a jar? These televised images of anguish, this pixilated misery, had nothing to do with their dead child.
Finally, Finn yanked the cord out of the wall and picked up the TV, struggling as he made his way out the French doors to the patio. Mena and Sam stood together, not touching, but both watching as he trudged through the smoky haze and ashy sand down the wooden stairs to the water’s edge. Mena leaned into Sam, still trembling, and they watched together as Finn hurled the TV into the waves.
Sam knows it’s just a terrible coincidence. But still, Franny was always like that. Modest. Unassuming. She’d be happy to think that their sadness might be obliterated by this history. That they might one day confuse their sorrow with the sorrow of that day. And in a way, she would be right. In the immediate aftermath, Sam started to think that if he could figure out that tragedy he might be able to solve the mystery of their own. If he could figure out how the fire started, how it spread, like an illness, like a virus, then maybe he could understand what had happened to Franny.
I
t is almost dawn, and the lingering smell of burnt weed hovers in the air like a dream. His mom and dad have gone into town to the police station to give their statements. His mother is pissed about the weed, but she’s got bigger shit to deal with. For now anyway.
Alice’s mom is on her way to come get her. Her dad is back in jail, and she and her mom suddenly don’t have to go anywhere anymore. He and Alice sit on the grassy lawn by the cabin, facing the lake.
“You okay?” Finn asks.
Alice is pale; her eyes look tired. She nods. She turns to him. “You?”
Finn nods and smiles. “That was fucking crazy,” he says. And then the absurdity of it strikes him, the insanity of all of this. He laughs. It’s one of those laughs you can’t control. A laugh so deep inside your gut, it’s like it’s a living, breathing thing.
Alice snorts, and this makes Finn laugh louder.
Soon, they are both laughing and the loons on the lake are cackling back. Finn’s side hurts from the effort, and he grabs at it. She snorts again.
“Stop,” he says. “God, you gotta stop.”
When they catch their breath, Alice leans into Finn, burying her head in his chest. It makes his knees go soft. His head swimmy. He looks down at her, and she looks up at him. He kisses her, softly on the forehead, on the nose, and on each eyelid. Then he kisses her mouth. Presses his whole body into hers. He kisses her and kisses her and kisses her. He kisses her until the mist over the water has lifted, until the sun is hot and warm on their tangled legs. He kisses her until her mother pulls into the driveway, and then they both scramble up the grassy slope, breathless and holding hands and happy.
“I’ll call you later,” she says.
“Promise?” he says.
She smiles and jumps up to kiss him on the nose. “Yep.”
He watches the car disappear down the road and then he goes into the cabin and crawls into his bed. Within moments he is fast asleep.
T
hey don’t press charges against the girl. She’s clearly very ill. Deluded. She has no history of violence. Sam felt sorry for her. A tenderness even. It’s crazy, he knows. But there was something about her that pulled at his heart. That desperation, that wanting. For something so ridiculously simple. She just wanted to meet him, she said. She just wanted to be able to talk to him about his work. He saved her life, she said. His
words
saved her.
The police called her mother, who explained her history and who would arrange for her to be flown home. There’s a restraining order protecting them, but they hardly need it. She’s in the hospital, in the psych ward, and besides, her ankle is smashed to smithereens.
As they drive back from the police station at dawn, Mena leans into Sam’s shoulder. He kisses the top of her head. The scent of her hair makes his shoulders relax. He can feel her breath growing shallow, her body letting go. How many trips have they taken in this car? How many times have they sat this way: her head resting on his shoulder, the road unwinding in front of them? The kids in the backseat. The windows rolled down. How many miles have they gone?
He is almost looking forward to the drive back to California. Maybe they can take a different route this time: go through Memphis. Maybe they could go even as far south as the Gulf Coast, let Finn use that damn surfboard he dragged all the way out here. Hell, if they have time, they could see the whole damn country.
There’s a weird smell in the car. He can’t quite place it. He wonders if one of the windows was left down during the storm. He takes a deep breath. It’s a strong, wet smell.
Mena lifts her head up and squints at the sun, which is bright through the windshield.
“What’s that smell?” Sam asks.
“Hmm?” Mena asks, her voice like a hum.
“It smells bad,” he says. “Almost like a wet dog.”
Mena jerks awake. “Oh,
shit
,” she says.
“What’s the matter?” Sam asks.
“It
is
dog. There’s a dead dog in the back of the car.”
“What?”
Sam says, peering into the rearview mirror. He can’t see anything except the muddy window behind him.
“That stupid dog. The one that chases cars? The one that belongs to the cop?”
“It’s in the back of our car?” Sam asks, incredulous.
Mena covers her mouth with her hand and starts to laugh. “Oh, God, it’s not funny.” But she is laughing.
And he is laughing too.
“It really stinks,” Mena says, trying hard not to erupt into a fit of giggles.
Sam pulls his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth and rolls down the window. Mena rolls hers down too.
They both lean their heads toward the fresh air outside. And their laughter carries on the wind, winding through the trees, rising up into the blue, blue sky of this new morning.
M
ena peers out at the audience after the performance, locates Sam and Finn in the middle row. As she and Jake and Oscar all bow, the entire room erupts into applause. Jake squeezes her hand, and she smiles at him. Her chest swells with an old feeling.
Pride
. They did a terrific job. Lisa is in the wings, clapping her hands wildly.
After the lights are on, and she’s changed out of May’s red dress in the makeshift dressing room, she goes out to find her family in the crowd of people lingering on. Sam is holding a bunch of black-eyed Susans. Her favorite.
He hands them to her and leans into her, whispering, “You were amazing.”
“Good job, Mom,” Finn says. He’s been extra good, extra nice, ever since she found out about the weed, but she senses he means it.
Alice smiles at her and says, “That was awesome.”
Effie and Devin are there too, but they have to get back to the sitter.
“We’ll call you tomorrow,” Effie says, hugging her.
Monty has come up from New York for opening night too, leaving his wife behind this time. He’s got a room at the motel in town. He kisses her cheek and says, “Wow, Mena. I had no idea you were so good. Maybe you and Sammy should move to New York so you can get back into acting.”
“No thank you,” Mena says. “I’m ready to go home.”
And she is. So ready. She is actually thinking she might try to do some more acting when she gets there. She’s got some friends who run a small theater downtown. Maybe she’ll audition for one of their shows. Maybe just a small part.
They turned down the offer on their house. Told Hilary they had no intention of getting rid of the bungalow. Sam said he must have been crazy to even consider it. Already Mena is fantasizing about what she’ll be able to cook once she has her own stove back, her own copper pots and pans. Fresh produce from the Farmers’ Market on Newport Avenue on Wednesdays. The Greek market. An oven that actually heats up to the correct temperature.
“Are you coming to the cast party?” Oscar asks. His wife is with him, and she is clinging to his arm. Her hair is like a puff of pale yellow cotton candy.
“No,” Mena says. “I’m exhausted. Maybe on closing night. But tonight I just want to get home. Have a glass of champagne for me.”
“Is it still okay if I go hang out at Alice’s for a bit tonight?” Finn asks as they make their way out of the Town Hall.
“Fine,” Sam says. “Be back by midnight though, okay?”
“One?”
“Okay, one.”
Finn nods and holds his fingers up. “Scout’s honor.”
“That doesn’t mean anything if you were never a Boy Scout,” Sam says.
“What time is it now?” Finn asks.
Mena glances at her watch. “It’s only nine-hirty. You’ve got some time.”
They drop off Finn at Alice’s house. Mena is glad her mother is home tonight. “One o’clock,” she warns. “That means you’re home by one, not leaving at one.”
Sam had sat her down and explained the whole horticultural experiment of Finn’s. She was livid at first, but she also thought about the mistakes she’d made. Or almost made. She was tired of pointing fingers. She was just tired of being angry. She also had a feeling she didn’t need to worry about him so much anymore.
She
is
worried, however, about what will happen when they have to leave Alice behind next week. This is the first time in so long that she’s seen Finn happy. He’s head over heels for this girl. He’s already asked if they can come back to the lake next summer. He’s trying to figure out how Alice can come see him at Christmas.
When they pull up to their cabin, Sam lets the engine idle and turns to her. “I’m proud of you,” he says. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to watch you on the stage.”
Mena brushes the air in front of her face. “Shush.”
“You’re so beautiful,” he says.
She’s about to swat this compliment away too, but he grabs her hand before she can. And he kisses her. She stops breathing as their lips touch. This moment is like a million other moments, but completely different. Familiar and entirely strange at the same time.
And then he is helping her out of the car, unlocking the cabin door and guiding her inside.
Inside, he takes the bouquet of flowers from her hands and sets them on the counter. And he pulls her close to him, pressing his whole body into hers, his arms wrapped around her, clinging to her. And then he is kissing her neck, moving his hands along her body’s lines, unbuttoning her blouse, his fingers remembering these buttons, nimble and quick. Intent. Her whole body shivers.
He slips the blouse over her head, dropping it to the floor, and presses his head against her chest, listens to her heart, to its frenetic flip-flop. And then he releases the clasp on her bra and she feels the air on her skin, feels his breath on her skin.
“Sammy,” she says, and it comes out like a breathy moan.
He shakes his head.
They are alone. And he wants her, wants her.
She pulls his sweater over his head, tears at his buttons, can’t get to his skin fast enough. Their clothes fall to the floor. They walk, move, naked together toward the table.
“Wait,” she said. “This probably isn’t smart.”
“What?” he says, breathless.
“This table,” she says. “It won’t hold us.”
He laughs and he lifts her up, cradling her bottom with both hands, her legs wrapped around him as he carries her to the living room. They don’t make it to the bedroom. He backs her up to the blue piano, and when her butt comes down on the keys, the noise makes her laugh. He lifts her back up, pulls her toward him with one hand and lowers the lid with his free hand, and then her back is against the piano.
She reaches around him, grabs the strong muscles of his rear end and pulls him toward her. The hard certainty of him startles her.
She opens her eyes and looks into his as if to ask, “You sure?”
It’s been so long, it actually hurts. Her eyes sting and she holds on to him, digs into his back as if he were a ball of clay instead of a man.
He whispers into her neck, all those old words. All the best words.
I love you, I loveyou, iloveyou
until it is only one word. Until it is the same as breathing.