to my parents.”
I press harder on the gas, roaring up the street, with every yard becoming more afraid of something my brain does not want to consider. It couldn’t be our house burning. It couldn’t be.
Fifty yards from the corner, I see that it is.
I drive the Fiat right into the yard, where my mother stands with Annie and a dozen neighbors, all pointing helplessly at the burning house, all in various stages of shock. I jump out of the car, run to my mother, and take Annie from her arms.
“Daddy, the house is on fire!” she cries, more amazed than frightened.
“The fire engine’s right behind me,” I tell Mom. “Is everybody okay?”
She grabs my arms, her eyes wide with terror. “Ruby’s in there! We heard a boom and then smelled smoke … when we saw the flames we ran but Ruby fell. Penn, I think she broke her hip. I couldn’t drag her out. I brought Annie out, and by then it was too bad to get back in. But that off-duty policeman—Officer Ervin—he went in anyway. He went after Ruby, but he never came out!”
“How long ago was this?”
My mother is close to hyperventilating. I put my hands on her shoulders and squeeze hard enough for her to feel pain.
“Five minutes … maybe more. I don’t know.”
As I stare at the house, a runner of flame races up the roof shingles. That’s no kitchen fire. The whole house is burning. The house I grew up in.
“Where was Ruby when she fell?”
“By the back bathroom.”
There’s no exterior door anywhere near that bathroom. And going through the front door would be suicide. I wouldn’t even make it to the bedrooms before being overcome by smoke. I hug Annie and pass her to Mom, then kiss them both.
“When the firemen get here, tell them to look for Ervin.”
My mother blanches. “Penn, you can’t go in there.”
“I’m not leaving Ruby in there to die.”
Livy grabs my arm from behind. “Penn, it’s too late. Wait for the fire truck.”
I yank my arm free and sprint toward the garage before either of them can say more. In the garage I grab a shovel, then race around to the back of the house. As I near it, I begin smashing windows, trying to give the trapped smoke as many outlets as possible. I may be feeding oxygen to the blaze, but if I don’t get some smoke out of there, I’ll never reach Ruby alive.
The back bathroom has no window, but the adjacent bedroom does. A high, horizontal one about five feet wide and eighteen inches tall. I smash the glass with the shovel and stand back as thick gray smoke explodes through the opening. After thirty seconds, the plume thins a little, and I put my hand through the window. The heat is intense, but when I stand on tiptoe and put my face to the opening, I see no flames.
Taking off my shirt, I soak it in water at the outdoor faucet, then tie it around my face. I am scraping the window sill clean of glass shards when the scream comes. The sound is an alloy of animal terror and human agony, a child’s wail from the throat of an eighty-year-old woman. An eighty-year-old woman who showed me more love and kindness than anyone but my mother. I feel like someone stuck my fingers into a 220-volt socket.
“Ruby! Ruby, it’s Penn! I’m coming to get you!”
Hooking both hands over the sill, I swing my right leg up into the window and pull myself into the frame. The smoke that looked thin from outside instantly scorches my eyes, throat, and lungs. Breathing is pointless until I get my face down to the floor. I roll off the window frame and drop to the carpet.
There’s air here, but the smoke is still too thick to see through. Before I lose my nerve, I shut my eyes and crawl around the bed toward the door that leads to the hallway. If I hadn’t lived in this house for fourteen years—and stayed here for the past few nights—I wouldn’t have a chance of finding Ruby. That’s why Officer Ervin didn’t get out. He’s probably lying unconscious in the hall, if he even made it past the den furniture.
At the doorway I pause and shout again.
“Ruby! Rubee!”
All I hear is a living roar, the sound of fire devouring wood and carpet, curtains and glass, photos and china, silver and books—Books. My father’s library is burning. If Ruby was not somewhere in this house, I would probably risk my life to save those books.
The bathroom, I remember. Ruby fell by the bathroom.
Thankfully, the heat is more intense to my right, toward the central hall. I put my nose to the carpet, take a breath and crawl to my left, toward the bathroom. It’s two rooms, really, a narrow dressing room and linen closet with the commode and bathtub in a smaller cubicle beyond. I go through the door on my belly, groping forward like a soldier clearing a minefield.
The dressing room is empty. As I crawl toward the commode, my nostrils start to whistle with each breath. Panic ambushes me, like a wild thing tearing around in my chest. Maybe Ruby isn’t here at all. Maybe Ervin got her out. Maybe the scream I heard was the sound she made as he dragged her out. I can’t search the whole house. That’s how firemen get killed, trying to save people who aren’t there. I grope around the commode and inside the bathtub, then scramble back to the bathroom door.
The roar is closer.
“Ruby! It’s Penn! Are you here?”
At first there is only the roar. Then a whimper floats out of the noise like a leaf from a bonfire. It came from the central hall. My lungs feel near to bursting, but I alligator along the carpet toward the corner, my eyes shut tight. The heat is nearly unendurable. Forcing my stinging eyes open, I look down the hall.
Dancing tongues of red and orange caper out of the black smoke like laughing demons. Primal terror seizes my muscles, paralyzing me long enough to fully comprehend the danger. Then my reptile brain shrieks: Death! Run!
But I don’t run. I can’t. When I was six years old, a German shepherd got out of a neighbor’s backyard and trapped me in a corner of our carport. That dog weighed ninety pounds, and when it bared its teeth and lunged at my face, all I could do was throw up my arms. When its teeth ripped into my flesh, I was too panic-stricken even to yell for help. After a seeming eternity of gnashing teeth and blood, I heard a sound like a hatchet hitting a watermelon, and saw a black woman as tall as our house swinging a shovel like a broad-sword, bludgeoning that monstrous animal within an inch of its life. Ruby Flowers was terrified of dogs, but when she saw “her baby” in danger, she pressed down her fear and charged out of our house like the wrath of God.
Fixing that image in my mind, I shut my eyes and crawl toward the flames. The frantic reptile voice whispers that the orange demons are flanking me, racing across the roof to close off my escape. But I hold Ruby’s face in my mind, keep inching forward.
My hand touches flesh.
Bone.
