48 Liam, The night of the fire
Mike is saying something I don’t quite hear. Smoke is everywhere. The flames are growing so fast, I can’t think. Screaming comes from the basement, and another person asks for help on the top floor. I am trying to get there, but my feet are not moving.
I look back to the living room. My father's body on the floor is now burning; the smell of burning flesh haunts my nostrils. I try to shut down the knowledge that we did this. Mike killed him, and I helped him start the fire. Everyone will die here tonight. It is all our fault.
I think I am screaming or crying, then I realize it is not my voice. Someone is yelling at me. They shake my body. They pull me through the flames. I don’t think I am moving, but they keep pulling and yelling at me, and I am not sure what to do.
I realize that it is Mike who is pulling my body by force.
He grabs a chair and throws it at the window—the only window that is not wrapped in flames yet—and the glass shatters.
Hundreds of small glass pieces scatter across the floor, and for a moment I brace for my father’s voice to come.
I am waiting for the belt to land against my flesh.
I am waiting for the punishment to follow. But my father is dead.
Mike tells me we need to move, we need to leave.
I don’t think I can. I can’t leave them.
This is all my fault. “I can’t leave them, Mike.
We can’t leave them! You need to help them!
Please help them!” I am screaming with all my strength, but nothing comes out of my lips.
Not a single sound. I am silent, yet I am screaming with every ounce of self I have left.
He ignores me, and I am confused. He surely can’t leave them to burn to death.
That’s exactly what he is going to do, though.
He is choosing to save us. He chooses to leave them behind.
How can he make that choice? How can someone choose who deserves to be saved?
How can he choose that they deserve to die, but we don’t?
Aren’t we, after all, the ones responsible?
Shouldn’t we be the ones who burn alive for the crime we just committed?
Isn’t that a fair price for the life we took?
I wonder how it is possible for Mike not to think of this.
He doesn’t seem to understand that what we just did is a sin of its own.
It’s everything the family told us to avoid.
They taught us to be good. They taught us to follow the rules.
But this isn’t following the rules at all.
He pushes me through the window and I climb out, not because I want to, but because there’s nothing else to do.
He is right behind me, pushing and pulling at my body, forcing me to move through the yard until we reach the road.
I think I am crying, but I don’t feel tears leaving my eyes.
I am screaming in my head, asking him to help them.
I don’t think he is listening to any of my pleas.
No one is listening to me. No one cares.
I fall to my knees as we watch the house burn to the ground.
I hear sirens, and police cars fill our street.
Voices are coming from everywhere. The screaming has stopped, but people are talking loudly.
They will help them, I am sure of it. I am waiting for them to burst into the house.
I am waiting to see my sisters and my mother carried outside.
No one is going inside, though. They all stare as the house burns to the ground.
They stare as my family is burned alive.
And I wish, just for a moment, that I had stayed there with them.
I wish I could have stayed by their side and hugged them as the flames took them.
I wish I had the chance to whisper to my mother one last time how much I loved her.
To thank her for everything she did to protect me, even if in the end it wasn’t enough.
I see them try to put out the fire, but still no one is entering the house.
“No, you need to help them; you don’t understand—they are burning alive.
You need to help them. They are innocent; please, help them!
” I am pleading with them to help, but no one is listening to me, because no sound is leaving my mouth.
Even if my lips are moving, I am not really talking.
They are questioning us; Mike is answering most of the questions.
They are telling me that no one else made it out.
They are explaining that my family is gone.
They are asking more questions—how and why this happened.
I am not sure if I am talking or not. I know Mike is, but I am not listening to what he has to say. He let them burn.
I don’t know what to do, so I stay silent.
I try to listen for whether they are still crying or asking for help, but now everything is silent.
The fire is coming down. The chatter from the firemen is calming down.
Everything seems to be coming to an end.
They are gone. My mother is gone. My sisters are gone. This is all my fault.