Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
I sigh. “Fine.” At least if she’s cursing at the TV, she’s not crying over what her duplicitous ex-boyfriend might be doing.
My phone rings from its spot on the counter.
Justine checks the screen. And grimaces. “Do you want to answer that? It’s him,” she snarls through a mouthful of popcorn.
My stomach flutters. “Him, who? Shane?”
She nods.
I’ve found myself still keeping track of Shane’s schedule, so I know he’s working tonight. What does he want?
“Yes or no?” She dangles my phone in the air in front of me. “My vote is no, by the way. Death to all dicks.”
I snatch it from her grasp. Justine’s in extreme man-hating mode, which makes her more irrational than usual. Besides, not answering will drive me nuts all night. “Hello?”
“Scar! You there?” he hollers. Sirens and shouts blare in the background.
“Yeah.” I frown. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Do you know where Dottie is?”
“Probably at the bar. Why?”
“’Cause Brillcourt’s burning to the ground!”
“So, I’m not even allowed to go in there to get a few things?”
I don’t miss the hint of desperation in my mother’s voice as she huddles in her spot, watching her home for the past thirty-odd years burn as if it were made of matchsticks and soaked in gasoline.
“Mom, it’s still on fire.” Black smoke billows into the night sky and my nostrils curl with the acrid smell of twelve apartments disintegrating. They’ve hauled every available fire engine and firefighter in the county here, and it’s still not enough.
“I know, but …” She clutches the top of the silk floral robe she threw on in her haste to escape. I assume she’s trying to ward off the cold. Lord knows it’s not for modesty.
That my mother was home on a Friday night and sober enough to react to the smoke alarms was a shock. Almost as big as the shock of the panic that engulfed me when Justine and I arrived and saw the entire building in flames, not knowing where she was.
I was terrified for her.
And when I spotted her standing on the sidewalk half a block away with this gray-haired man—none other than Chief Cassidy, I learned by way of introduction—my relief was genuine and overwhelming.
“This is not going to be a quick cleanup, Dottie,” he says gently, regarding the mess before him. “And from the looks of it, there isn’t going to be much to salvage. If anything.”
I wait for her quick retort, her playful banter laced with sexual innuendo, but she merely nods and strokes her hair off her face, a discreet attempt to fix herself. I can’t recall the last time I saw her without a full face of makeup and dressed to impress. In this moment, she looks like any other ordinary mom, frightened and cold and in shock.
A burst of flames flares on the south side of the building, and a round of shouts call out as firefighters rush to deal with it.
I worry my lip, searching the hulking bodies in yellow gear for a specific firefighter, but it’s impossible to identify any of them. “There’s no one still stuck inside, is there?”
“Last report was that everyone’s out,” Chief Cassidy confirms.
“So, your guys … none of them are going in there, right?”
He offers me a kind smile, as if he suspects there’s one in particular that I’m asking about. “We’ll get it under control from outside. None of them are risking their lives for this old place.”
I nod my thanks to him as another overwhelming wave of relief washes over me. Shane’s chosen career path seems exponentially more dangerous now than it did when I pictured him rescuing animals and helping the elderly. If anything happened to him tonight …
My stomach turns with just the thought.
Beside me, Justine’s teeth chatter.
“It’s going to be a long night. There’s no point in you girls standing outside. Go on home.” He pats my mother’s shoulder. It’s a friendly gesture, but not one a man who had a sordid tryst with the town harlot would give. Maybe Shane’s right and nothing beyond dinner happened that night. “You have somewhere warm to go, don’t you?”
“You know me, Griff. I’ll always find somewhere warm to sleep.” She offers him a weak smile. It’s nowhere near the usual Cheshire Cat grin she uses when she delivers a line like that.
And the truth is, it’s all an act. I’m not sure she has anywhere to go.
I sigh with resignation. “She’s coming home with me.”
The big blue pickup sits idly in the driveway as I walk past after school. Long gone are the days of catching Shane outside, tinkering with his ’67 Impala or pushing the mower. The car hasn’t left the protection of his garage since late October, and the lawn is now coated in an inch of fresh snow.
Still, my chest aches every time I pass my neighbor’s house.