These Sheltering Walls: A Cane River Romance (33 page)

            The
fireman stopped, clearly torn between running inside and returning for the rest
of his gear. After a few seconds he turned and ran toward the truck, shouting
for help.

            “What
is he doing? Can’t he see the whole place is coming down?” Father Tom asked.

            Henry
shook her head. Of course Gideon could see it.

            He
didn’t care.

            He
had nothing to lose.

“Not truth, but faith is that which
keeps the world alive.”

 ―Edna St. Vincent Millay

            Henry
waited.

            It
seemed as if her whole existence had narrowed to the shouts of the firemen, the
choking smoke, the heat of the fire. Father Tom’s voice beside her seemed miles
away and his steady hand on her back felt like it was happening to someone
else.

            “He’ll
come out, Henry.”

            She
shook her head.

            “He
takes risks but he’s not an idiot,” he said. “Most of the time.”

            He
was trying to make her feel better, joking around but she was petrified with
fear. Every moment she’d spent with Gideon seemed to pass before her eyes.

            He
knew all her secrets.

            He
accepted her just the way she was.

            She’d
never told him how she felt.

            “Don’t
cry,” Father Tom said, his voice strained. “Please don’t cry, Henry. He’ll come
back.”

           
Come
back.
And in an instant Henry remembered standing at the screen door,
crying for her Mama as she drove away.
She’ll come back, now stop your
fussing, Lorelei.
Aunt Lisette had been angry, whether at Henry’s crying or
being left with a toddler, she didn’t know now. Her mama had told her there was
something important she had to do, somewhere she had to go. Henry was supposed
to be good and stay with Aunt Lisette until she came back. Henry hadn’t been
good enough because Mama had never come back.

            “You
have to move away from the house,” another fireman said, rushing up to them. He
carried an oxygen tank and a mask. “We’ve got someone trapped inside.”

            Father
Tom moved away but when Henry took a step, her knees started to buckle. He
reached out and caught her before she hit the grass, his hands gripping her,
soothing voice in her ear. “Come on, Henry. Come on over here for a while.”

            Her
eyes were open wide but she felt like all she could see was smoke and flames.
“I never told him,” she whispered. “I never told him the truth.”

            “You
can tell him when he gets out,” Father Tom said. “Whatever it is, you can tell
him then.”

            But
he wasn’t coming back. When you have no one to love, and nothing to lose, you
can do what you want. You can rush into burning buildings after old papers and
pictures. You can die trapped in that basement because you’re not responsible
to anyone. Your life is yours to throw away if you wish.

            Her
legs trembled and she wrapped her arms around her middle. Father Tom held out a
hanky to her and she just stared back at him.

            The
upper stories were fully engulfed now and smoke poured from the basement door.
It swarmed up the steps like a living thing. Three firemen strapped on oxygen
tanks and masks at high speed, ready to go into the basement.

             “There,”
Father Tom shouted and Henry turned, preparing for the worst. The firemen were
barely at the top of the stairs when Gideon emerged from the black smoke
carrying two more boxes. His face was blackened and his shirt was smeared with
soot. He coughed and coughed, eyes squinting out toward the bright sun.

            A
fireman reached down and hauled him up the last few steps onto the grass.
Gideon leaned over, coughing hard. One fireman removed his mask and seemed to
be giving Gideon a piece of his mind, gesturing toward the boxes and the
flaming building behind them. He tugged Gideon toward the grassy area, his face
red and sweaty.

            Henry
didn’t remember walking toward them but the firemen were blocking her way past
and she was shoving at them, unable to explain she wasn’t heading for the
house, but for Gideon. He set down the boxes right there on the pavement and
stepped toward her. She didn’t so much as hug him as run into him, knocking him
back a few steps. His arms wrapped around her tight and he was saying something
into her hair. One of the firemen was still yelling, but his words were all
noise and emotion, and Henry didn’t bother trying to piece it together.

            Gideon
leaned back and put his hands against her face, cupping her cheeks. She looked
up, memorizing the dark blue of his eyes against his smoke-blackened skin. He
was whispering now and she looked at his mouth, part of her wanting to know
what he was saying and part of her refusing to listen. She knew he didn’t love
her. She’d held on to hope, taking his promises as a sign that he did. That
hope was gone as surely as the rest of the Cane River collection.

            He
leaned down and put his forehead to hers. She knew she should step back, but
instead she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. He pressed back, his
lips warm and urgent.  The scruff of his beard scraped against her chin and she
reached up to thread her hands through the back of his hair. After a few
moments, he broke away as if trying to stop kissing her but not quite able to
move back, their breath mingling.

            He
tasted like smoke and truth and the end of everything.

            “Henry,”
he said.

            Hearing
her name seemed to bring her back better than the firemen or Father Tom or the
heat of the blaze.
Henry
. It was the name she’d given herself because
she hated the one her mother had given her. She’d wanted a different life for
herself, one that didn’t revolve around people who didn’t love or need her. Lorelei
was the girl that got left, the girl who didn’t have parents, and the girl who
loved more than she was loved. Not Henry.

            She
let her hands fall away from his neck and she stepped back, brushing tears from
her cheeks with trembling fingers.

            “I’m
glad you’re okay,” she said.

            Then
she turned and walked away.

                                                                        ***

            Gideon
sat in his car for a long time, simply too tired to get out and walk all the
way to his front door. It had been three days since the fire. Three days since
Henry had spoken to him. Tom said she needed time, that it had been traumatic
to see him running out of a fire, but Gideon didn’t believe it. He knew deep
down in the place where he held his darkest secrets that Henry wasn’t meant for
someone like him. He should never have hoped for anything more than friendship.
Pigs get fed and hogs get eaten.
And idiots get their hearts broken.

            Within
hours of the blaze, Barney Sandoz had publically accused him of setting the
fire even though it made no sense for Gideon to have wanted to burn his own
collection. The fire was declared suspicious when the fire chief announced they
had found traces of an accelerant in the basement. Gideon tried to explain
about the gas lamps he’d used while working. The investigator listened quietly
and then asked why he hadn’t brought in an electric light, if there had been an
extension cord. Gideon remembered the way the firelight had cast Henry’s face
into soft shadows and said nothing.

            He
angled out of his car and trudged toward the porch. He hadn’t left the light on
and the sliver of moon barely illuminated the shape of the house. He usually
came home right after work but he’d ended up wandering along the river with
Tom. Neither of them had said much, just walked the trails and fished a little.
It was one of the few places that didn’t remind him of her but it didn’t make
it any better.  In fact, the absence of any trace of her there made his chest
ache even more. In the end, he’d driven the old highway, hoping the curves and
scenic stretched would be some sort of escape.

            Now
it was close to midnight and although he was exhausted, he knew he’d lay awake
in bed for most of the night. He unlocked the door and reached for the little
lamp on the side table but missed it in the darkness. Moving to the left, he
swept his hand back and forth, still not finding the base. He aimed lower, and
a fraction of a second later, realized the table was gone, too.

            Gideon
stumbled backwards out of the doorway, jumped off the porch, and onto the
packed dirt driveway. He stood there, heart pounding, scanning the darkness for
attackers. He backed toward the car and quietly opened the trunk, taking out a
flashlight. He considered the crowbar for a moment, then left it. If he got
into a fight, he didn’t want to kill anyone.
Again.

            The
house was perfectly silent as he crept back up the stairs. He opened his phone
and dialed the emergency number. The operator answered immediately and Gideon
said, “Someone’s broken into my house.” He turned on the flash light and shone
it at the door. “No, I don’t know if they’re still inside.”

            He
walked forward, ignoring the operator’s advice, but gave his address slowly and
clearly. He swung the beam of light back and forth, noting the upturned chair,
the smashed side table. Standing at the threshold, he reached an arm around the
doorframe and hit the main light switch. The room was instantly illuminated but
it took a few minutes until for Gideon to understand what he was seeing.

            His
furniture was destroyed, pictures off the wall and the table on its side. And
there, in the center of the room, Barney Sandoz lay on the carpet. Gideon
recognized him right away, even though his eyes were wide and blankly staring.
His tongue was black and protruded from between his lips, one arm thrown up
over his head as if he were waving at Gideon.

            As
he looked at Barney, Gideon saw another face from long ago. A man just as
contorted, eyes bulging, neck bruised. The image was burned into his memory and
eighteen years could not erase it.

            A
tinny sound recalled him to the present. The operator was speaking but Gideon let
the phone drop from his ear. The last few days passed through his mind. He saw
Sally’s tearful hugs and Vince’s words of forgiveness. He thought of Austin and
the wariness in his eyes. He thought of Tom, who had never given up on him, who
loved him like a brother and wanted more for him than a life of penance.

             He
closed his eyes, taking one more moment before his life changed forever. He
thought of Henry laughing up at him, weeping into his shirt, shyly kissing his
cheek. He remembered how she bit the top of her pen as she worked and the way
the lamplight reflected in her eyes. He could almost smell the rain and the
trees, feel the weight of her against him, the warmth of her lips and the
softness of her skin.

           
And
for a breath of ecstasy, give all you have been, or could be.

            He
opened his eyes and put the phone back to his ear.

            “I
need to report a homicide,” he said.

                                                            ***

            “So,
we’ll see you on the twentieth,” Patsy said. “I’ll bring Jack’s costume and
we’ll do a dry run for Hallowe’en. You can take a hundred pictures of my
beautiful baby and then maybe Denny’s mom can babysit so we can all go out to
dinner. Make sure your hunka hunka historian doesn’t have anything happening
that weekend, okay?”

            Henry
grimaced. “I think it will be just us three, actually.”
She
stared out her apartment window at the river and braced herself for the
questions.

             “Hold
up, now. A few days ago, you were a goner for this guy. What happened, Sherlock?”

            She
ran a hand through her hair. It was too early to have this conversation, Friday
or not. “We just wanted different things.”

            “That
makes no sense. Don’t say that like it makes sense.”

            A
tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it off, impatient with herself for
crying again. She’d already shed too many tears over Gideon. She couldn’t be
with someone who thinks so little of himself, like his life meant nothing. “I
don’t want to be with someone who puts me last, who never remembers that I
exist.”

            There
was a silence on the other end. “Like Kimberly did.”

            “You’re
implying I have mother issues.” Henry aimed to sound sarcastic but ended up with
wounded.

            “We
all have issues. We look for someone who fills whatever hole there is in our hearts.
But when they can’t completely fill that need, we see it as a problem with
them, not with us.”

            “This
isn’t some complicated psychological problem. I don’t love him because I need
a…” The rest of her sentence faded away as she realized what she’d said. Her
heart felt like it was being crushed. She didn’t want to love Gideon. Not when
he wasn’t going to put her before everything else..

            Patsy
sighed. “I don’t want this to come between us but can I tell you something as a
friend? As someone who has known you the longest in this world?”