Chapter 4
LEO
The Day After the Fire
I SHIFT THE CAR INTO park and kill the engine.
We don’t speak as we take in the sight of our home.
The roof is blackened, concave above the kitchen.
A shutter is in the flowerbed. With the electricity cut and everyone cleared out, it seems like the house has been abandoned for years, not inhabited only yesterday when I tightened a knob on a dresser drawer, letting Sadie “help” with the screwdriver.
Slowly, I get out.
April is still in the car, hand over her mouth.
“Kitchen fire” doesn’t do justice to the sight in front of us.
I walk toward the ruins, glass dust under my feet.
Much of the house still stands strong, and the remnant strikes me as cruel.
Through a splintered window, I can see furniture the fire didn’t touch.
Which will mean decisions. Memories. I’ll have to salvage.
I’ll have to work. And I’ll have to do all of this with the woman who used to be mine.
My throat suddenly burns and I double over, retching behind the boxwoods we planted our first spring.
April dashes from the car.
I straighten and pinch the bridge of my nose as the acidic taste subsides. “I’m fine.” I forge ahead, stepping carefully into the flood zone of our house. The smell alone is destructive: smoke and mildew, hell and high water.
The door of the half bath is off its hinge, wet sheetrock draped over the toilet like a jellyfish.
The black-and-white hexagon tile is still in good condition beneath it.
Cameron helped me install it a couple of years ago.
April and I had different favorites, so we let Cameron cast the deciding vote.
He chose my tile, and I love it even now, as a caterpillar inches across the grout.
Fortunately, I find our keys so we can retrieve our car.
Then I arrive in the kitchen, ground zero. Everything is black.
April joins me, lifting the back of her hand to cover her nose.
Water is pooled around the refrigerator, and ash tree branches sway overhead.
We stand unmoving as though maybe the clock will tick backward.
Maybe shingles will resurrect, bowls will fly into cabinets, and flames will slink down off the roof, leaving everything cold to the touch.
Cold enough for no fire to catch. Cold enough for divorce.
A page of a bloated cookbook rustles in the breeze, with a broken plate beside it. I imagine a wedding guest choosing those plates from our registry, watching a retailer wrap each one in tissue paper.
On the far side of the fridge, there is an undamaged piece of paper with its corners curling around magnets. I step into the puddle and put my fingertips to it—a picture Sadie drew of us, one crayon line of black for my hair. At the top, the word FAMLEE.
This is the same room where April and I faced off last night, and it’s as unrecognizable as we are. She was boiling pasta. I told her I got a lawyer’s number, and she forgot to turn off the burner. A simple mistake, like so many of life’s devastations.
As though we’re inside the same memory, she asks quietly, “Are we getting divorced? Is that really what you want?” Her eyes get pink, and I feel trapped.
After everything she’s done wrong, I’ll be the man divorcing his wife after a house fire.
And she has the nerve to use the word want as though we’re discussing birthday gifts.
“What kind of question is that?”
She looks down. “An urgent one, since we’re homeless now.”
I flinch. She has no right to that word, not like some of us.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. Kim again. She texted earlier this morning to check on us. News travels fast, and tragic news even faster. She’s my closest co-worker, but the only response I could muster was to tell her that we’re okay and are staying with April’s parents.
I look down at the screen.
PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ARE TAKING DONATIONS. DID YOU SEE THIS?
I tap on an article from the Denton Record-Chronicle. A photo of our dilapidated house appears. The caption reads: Argyle High School history teacher Leo Torres, his wife, April, and their two children narrowly survive house fire.
The words blur. His wife, April…their two children…
My phone vibrates in my hand. I’M HERE IF YOU NEED ANYTHING.
I shove it back into my pocket as April hands me something, and I blink.
Bear Bear. I turn the stuffed animal over in my hands, examining it.
Sadie has had Bear Bear since she was born, and she already asked about him this morning.
We assumed he was gone. I almost reach for April in the profound relief of holding this little smoke-heavy bear.
My wife. Our two children. Narrowly survive…
A sliver of Sadie’s room is visible down the hall, her sooty quilt on the floor. I remember the fear of last night like I remember the fear I felt when we first brought her home to that room. An ash seed helicopters down into what’s left of our kitchen, and I remember it all.