Wildfires.
I wrote the first draft of this short story for a writing workshop last semester, and I wasn’t very happy with it. There was a very specific feeling I was trying to convey with it that I didn’t get across on the first go. Usually, when I write, I like to give my reader as little information as possible. Writing fiction to me is like a puzzle; I give the reader pieces of the story and let them put it together. I want to leave room for interpretation, and a bit of mystery. I am also I firm believer that short stories aren’t really about plot, they’re about craft. It’s not about the story and the characters, but how the story is written and presented to the reader to evoke a certain feeling or represent a certain situation. All this to say, I tried to write about a very personal, very vivid feeling, in a very nonchalant way, and it didn’t work. In revisions, I decided to do the opposite of my norm, I’d write everything. Every thought I felt the protagonist would have, every interjection in the narrative, every musing, every dimension of this story would be explored as far as I could take it. The result is something far from anything I’ve ever written. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Sometimes I read over it, and I love it, and sometimes I think it’s too wordy. On my last pass, I realized the majority of the dialogue happens in the second half of the story, which I think is annoying. But the conversations are (for lack of a better word) in conversation with each other, so maybe it works. I don’t know. I still don’t think it’s finished, but I like the shape it’s taken so far, and I want to share it with you as it is. The feeling I’m trying to portray in this protagonist is similar to the form this story takes: a work of progress near the end, with an imperfect, raw beauty. I hope its messiness lends to its reality. If you have any strong feedback, feel free to send it to ariessunx@gmail.com. Enjoy :)
When I awoke the morning after Jackson’s house burned down, I already knew something bad had happened. It was one of those mornings where everything is just a little off; my AC arbitrarily shut off in the night and I came too in the early morning sun, coated in a thin film of sweat. The top sheet had snaked itself around my legs, a result of my tossing and turning in the damp heat. When I sat up to untangle myself, I saw my silk scarf lying on the floor a foot from my bed. It’d run off my head in the night, allowing my hair to twist into a knot of bundled curls clumped at the back of my neck. I tried to take a deep breath to calm my annoyance, but a wheeze the result of a lingering summer cold assaulted my throat. Instead of an exhale, I coughed up clumps of yellow and brown phlegm into a bundle of tissues at my bedside. I sat there for a moment, sticky and worn, defeated before the day had begun, trying to rally the courage to get up. Strangely, I thought of the lake by Wilson Woods. Remnants of a dream flashed—miasmic water coated in a thin white film, I sat next to it for a moment, and then I dove in. I shivered at the thought; it’s safer to swim in toxic waste than Pelham Lake. But as I sat there on my damp sheets in my little apartment, winded from my night’s sleep, I wanted it to wash me clean.
Unnerved by my restless night, I got up later than usual, around 7:30. It was a Monday, which meant 9 am editorial meetings in Manhattan that were supposed to end at 10, but always stretched until 11. I was cutting it close, but my routine had become significantly shorter that summer since I’d stopped smoking. A summer cold is what I told my mother it was, but it was really smoking-induced bronchitis. I’ve always hidden the habit from her. As a teenager, I kept all my weed at Jackson’s house—on the condition that I couldn’t smoke without him. It was a silly rule, but I didn’t mind because it was an excuse to see him regularly. Unfortunately, it led to me smoking more often than I should, building up an insatiable tolerance, and fucking my respiratory system. I used my sickness as an opportunity to try sobriety, no edibles, no alcohol, nothing for three weeks. It was easy at first, but by the 5th day, I was restless at night with nothing to do and no one to call—just because I stopped using doesn’t mean my friends did. It got to the point that I started calling my mom regularly, and asking questions like “What are you making for dinner?” or “How’s bingo club?” She was suspicious, naturally, even more so when she heard my wheezing cough between sentences.
That’s when it became a summer cold. Not just to her, but to me as well. It felt easier to sit alone in my four walls, watching TV and eating cereal at night if I was sick, not isolated. It made me feel like a victim of fate, rather than facing the consequences of my actions. I was so entrenched in the lie that even as I’m talking to you now, trying to tell you about this day exactly as it happened, the falsity came out before I could even think to tell the truth. I’ve heard before that your mind can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction. So, when you say things like self-deprecating jokes and small white lies that aren’t true, logically, your mind knows this, but emotionally, it doesn’t. It makes sense if you consider art. Movies, books, television—stories—these things pull emotion out of us because at first glance, we think they’re real. When Jack leaves Rose on the rotting door frame at the end of the Titanic, we cry because in our mind and heart, we believe these two real lovers, with flesh and bone, have been separated by cruel fate. It’s when we start interpreting things, start picking apart their construction and craft that we see the lie. Watching the behind-the-scenes and seeing the boom mic poking into the shot of Rose shivering on the door, we know we’ve been deceived. I think the tell of good art is when the artisanship is as beautiful as the lie. When we see the foundation, the bones, and it is not only still impactful, but even more so, that is true beauty. An appreciation for the construction is where we find the meaning—we tell ourselves stories in order to live.
I stood at the bathroom sink thinking of everything, from the meaning of art to my schedule for the day, trying to ignore my desire to get high. I bounced my heel as I brushed, morning anxiety burning with the bile in my stomach. To quell fidgeting fingers itching to roll up, I picked up my phone to scroll mindlessly with my toothbrush in my mouth. That’s when I saw the article.
Fifth House Fire of The Summer Rocks New York City Suburb
MT. VERNON, NY – WABC – The scary pattern of summer infernos in Mt. Vernon claimed its latest house on Sunday afternoon. A fire on East Devonia Avenue lit a residence ablaze, causing it to completely cave in.
Thankfully, the three residents of the household, including a 9-year-old child, were not home when the fire began.
Firefighters arrived on the scene around 6:32 pm and fought the blaze well into the night. Extreme heat from this summer’s heatwave has contributed to more fires across the area and increased difficulty fighting them.
“It’s been a difficult summer,” said Fire Chief Randolph. This is the fifth fire this summer and the second in August. When asked about the cause, he said it was unclear. “Until we clear the rubble, there’s no way to know. It’s tough, because these people need answers, but we don’t want to jump the gun.”
The house was completely gutted by the blaze. Everything inside has been lost and destroyed. A resident of the home, Jackson Wallcott, is sad to lose his things but happy to be safe and alive. “Things can be replaced, but family can’t,” he said.
This story is still unfolding. More details will be provided about the cause of the fire when made available.
I looked at my phone with horror. Jackson’s house burned down? It felt like the floor suddenly opened beneath me, and I was falling into darkness with no end in sight. Why did no one tell me? I spat my toothpaste in the sink and called my mother. She picked up after one ring.
“Zora, I was just about to call. Have you heard?”
“Yes Mom, what happened to Jackson’s house? Is he ok, are Carter and Amanda ok?”
“Yes, everyone is safe. The house is destroyed, though. Everything is gone.”
I couldn’t speak. My silence left a vacuum for my mother to keep going.
“It’s really a tragedy. And what a coincidence, only his house, at the end of the block, when nobody was home.”
“Mom, please. Not now. What’s going on? Where are Jackson and his family staying?”
“The Red Cross put them up in that shoddy motel across from the bank on West 4th, but I told them they could come stay with me if they wanted. At first, Jackson said he was ok, but he just called me back a few minutes ago telling me that it’s horrible in there, so he might change his mind.”
I exhaled an unsure breath, trying to balance my gratefulness for their safety and my pain at their loss. “How long did you know about this, Mom? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Everything was happening so fast, it slipped my mind to call you. I had been meaning to, but I thought you’d be busy.”
“Are you implying that I wouldn’t care about my best friend’s house burning down because I’m too busy?”
“Jesus, Zora, you take everything so personal.”
“That’s a personal thing to say.”
“Why would I bother telling you if you’re not going to do anything? This is happening on a need-to-know basis. You didn’t need to know.”
“Of course I needed to know, he’s my best friend.”
“He was your best friend. And how do you plan on being there for him, supporting him?”
“I’m coming. Today,” I said without hesitation. “I’m coming to see him.”
My mother paused for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you working?”
I had forgotten about that. I used a few sick days to deal with my bronchitis, but I figured I could spare another. “Not anymore. I’m coming on the next train. I should be there around 10.”
The Metro-North New Haven line was a journey all too familiar. I used to take it to and fro as a young girl; first for summer camp in Harlem, getting off at 125th, then for city days with friends, getting off at Grand Central and taking the 6 train to Soho, then for visits with Dad, transferring to the LIRR to go to Queens. Now, at 28, living alone in Brooklyn, I ride the Metro-North much less. The more I go home, the harder it is to leave. Not necessarily because I want to stay, but because I feel I should. I limit my visits to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my mother’s birthday. Honestly, I’d prefer not to go for her birthday, but my mother doesn’t have anyone else to spend it with. She’s at the age where all her friends are either dying in nursing homes or already dead. I try to convince her to come downtown, luring her with promises of fancy dinners and shopping on my dime. It doesn’t work. “I like it in the suburbs where you know everyone, and it gets quiet at night. Don’t you?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’d like to try something new one day.” I was fourteen, and it was a Sunday night; she was braiding my hair in her bedroom.
“That’s what your father said. He wanted to try something new, got himself a job in the city, and ended up trying a new woman.”
“I’m not my father, though.”
“Be careful, you might turn into him.”
I was silent. The only things I could think to say were disrespectful, which would result in her taking the comb she raked through my hair and popping me in the head. There was already a sweet stinging pain pulsating under my scalp; she was pulling too hard. She always pulled too hard.
“It’s not quiet at night,” I said abruptly.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not quiet at night here. There are always loud cars and music and shouting.”
“How would you know, you’re sleeping.”
When the train stopped at Harlem 125th, I saw the street as it always was. We hovered above the crowded intersection, cars howling and fighting their way past a bus that didn’t pull over properly. On each side stood an array of stores, awning lights glittering like gems; Dunkin Donuts, Popeyes, Domino’s Pizza, sun rays bouncing off orange, pink, blue, and red sheen. On the block over, someone had opened a fire hydrant. It bled a cylindrical stream of water into the street that mixed with the trash littered on the ground, making a grayish liquid sprinkled with chip bags and cigarette butts. Young kids jumped in it to beat the heat, splashing each other as they ran through the blast. The stray water trickled down the block, around the corner, and onto the main road, creating a stream that pooled at the mouth of a clogged drain. Next to it, a group of tired men stood in the little shade provided by the corner store awnings, holding small cylinders of glass, sweating, leaning, falling, and catching themselves before they hit the ground just to fall again.
The doors closed, the train moved, and the scene sped away. Neighborhoods of brick buildings and black streets flew past me—glimpses of rainbow murals and green street signs. When people ask me where I’m from, I always tell them New York City. Not a lie, not exactly the truth. I have formative memories here, summer camp on St. Nicholas, visiting my dad on weekends, undergrad in the West Village. But I was raised in Mt Vernon. The difference between the two is less than twenty miles, so I tell myself it doesn’t matter. The truth is privileged information. Not just anyone gets to know me. When I meet new people, I tell them mostly lies. I’m from New York City, I’m a writer, I’d love to see a picture of your dog, we should definitely grab coffee one day. The more work people put into trying to see me, the more of the truth they get. You haven’t seen me in a few days, and you reach out to ask what’s wrong? I’ll tell you I was home, in Mt Vernon, helping out my mom. You send me songs you think I’d like, and I actually like them? I’ll tell you I’m an unpublished writer working in publishing PR, watching the time go by.
What does it mean to be from somewhere? To simply have lived there in your earlier years, or to have found yourself there. In my mind, being from Mt Vernon comes with a certain level of pride that I don’t have. I don’t hate it, I love it in many ways, but it isn’t where I belong. Yes, I was a product of that time and place; I was a product of that city. But I wasn’t made from it, I was made by it, made to leave, to go out into the world and become whole. For Carter’s 6th birthday, I took him to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. It took weeks of convincing from both of us to get Jackson and Amanda’s permission. When they finally caved, they made us promise we would go straight to Grand Central and not make any other stops. Of course, we didn’t do that. We got off at 125th first, and I took him to my favorite pizza spot before getting on the subway to go into the city. He feared the train at first; he didn’t like that it was dark outside the windows, and he couldn’t see where he was going. But when we emerged at the Bryant Park Station and walked to the tree, he was mesmerized. He told me, “Let’s do it again, let’s teleport somewhere else.” I wanted him to know there was more to life than Mount Vernon, outside of New York. I wanted him to see all the people from across the world gathered in the city, even if it was for something as dumb as the Rockefeller Tree, and see that he, too, could leave the nest and fly. I wish someone had done that for me.
When I exited the station, my mother was waiting outside to pick me up. She seemed disappointed to see me, like she was looking forward to picking up her phone to call my bluff when I didn’t step out of the station like I said I would. Despite her upset, she rambled about everything I’d missed since I’d last been back as we drove. The deli I used to stop at every morning before school was closed, and Grace Baptist church was moving from West 3rd into a bigger building on Lincoln Ave. All things moving and changing, which seemed to be the theme of our conversations lately. A new apartment building, but the fabric store is closed. A new set of condos, but another grocery store, closed. A strange thought grew in my mind, then dissipated; the place I once knew like the back of my hand might not exist for much longer.
I gazed out the passenger window as we drove, my head almost leaning out of it. My mother refused to turn on the AC, no matter how hot. She claimed she didn’t need it. “I need it though,” I’d always say to her, “Get used to it, that’s life,” she’d reply. Gramatan Ave didn’t look all that different from 125th. The bodegas had a similar gleam, with red and blue OPEN signs in their windows flashing rapidly. Above the doorways, box AC units dripped puddles of water onto the sidewalk. Kids who roamed the streets looking for something to do were met with either police officers or homeless people asking them for change. They popped into stores, harassed employees, and pocketed crap they didn’t need before they left. I knew because that used to be Jackson and me, crawling the streets, looking for something, anything to do in the cruel heat of summer. It was always just me and him, though he had other friends. I didn’t mesh with them; all they seemed to care about was sex and sneakers. Jackson pretended to care about that stuff, but he really didn’t; he just wanted to be inside the popular social crowd. I understood why. It was much easier than occupying the outskirts as I did. But deep down, he knew he didn’t belong with them, he’d ditch them after a few hours to come roam the streets with me. My mom hated him at first, thought he was a bad influence destined to make me flunk out of high school and end up pregnant at 17. But over the years, she saw his heart and grew to love him like I do. Now I think she loves him more than me.
As we turned off Gramatan and into the residential area, we passed buildings in all shades of brown. They looked like they’d been standing much longer than intended when built. Missing bricks and broken windows littered nearly all of them. At some point, every block started blending into the next, so much so that I didn’t realize when we turned right instead of left on Maquestin Parkway. Then made the right into Fleetwood, towards the north side of town.
“Mom, where are we going?”
“I want to show it to you.”
“Please. Let’s just go home, we don’t have to do this.”
“You have to see it. You have to see what they’ve done.”
Each turn gave way to cleaner streets, bigger schools, and nicer cars. We passed rows of pristine houses, with clipped lawns and washed windows. Outside, people took their dogs, adorned with booties to protect their paws from the heat, on midday walks. Kids ran through sprinklers in bathing suits on their front lawn, laughing as they filled balloons with water to throw. Jackson’s block was on a dead-end road in the corner of the North side, close to where Mount Vernon became Bronxville. Even before it burned down, his house stuck out from the rest. He didn’t plant peonies in the front yard; he had a basketball hoop for Carter in the middle of the lawn. He never mowed the grass because he thought it was stupid, and he didn’t decorate for any holidays because he thought that even stupider. “This is my house, and I’ll do with it what I please. These white people can’t tell me shit,” he said to me.
What was left of it hung in the air like a petrified tree, the bones of the house charred deep black, so dark you almost couldn’t see them. The ground smoldered and popped with whispers of the night’s blaze. Piles of black and gray detritus littered the yard; the once overgrown grass was now singed brown and giving way to dirt. Remnants of his life and family poked out from the ruin—a video game controller, a metal razor, a charred drape of fabric from the curtains. The property was surrounded by yellow caution tape, and police cars and a fire truck were still parked on the block in front of what was left of his home.
“They smoked him out,” my mother said in a low, rumbling tone. We didn’t get out of the car, just sat staring from the window.
“What do you mean?”
“They wanted him gone, so they burned this place down and stuck him in a motel across town to rot.”
I sighed. My mother had a pervasive belief that everything was never as it seemed. Bad things didn’t just happen; it was always a plot or a scheme. “What motive do they have to burn his house down though?”
“So they can put something else here. An Airbnb, or a bigger house, for someone willing to pay more for it. They’ve been doing it all summer.”
“All those fires were on the other side of town.”
“These real estate developers come in and sniff out the land they want, and the city handles it. All those houses that burned down on the southside are a five-minute drive from the Metro North station. Better yet, they’re in the right zoning to be made into apartments.”
I sat silent for a moment, the weight of her sentence hitting me.
“I don’t know, Mom.”
“Houses don’t just burn up, Zora. Not in this city.”
If I’m being honest, it was sheer ignorance keeping me from believing her. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to fathom it; Mt Vernon City officials have been caught with their hands in corruption before. The last summer I lived at home, the comptroller stole so much money that the city couldn’t pay the garbage men. He fled with the cash not long after being found out, leaving his constituents with the stench in his wake. It smelled like the earth was rotting from its core, and the stink was rising through the dirt. A miasma of old food and garbage water mingled with the humidity in the air, creating unbearable conditions outside. For almost a month, piles and piles of black bags, cardboard boxes, and plastic bottles sat on the curb while the mayor tried to track down the comptroller and the money. Eventually, she had to use funds meant for renovations at the community center to cover the cost. But even after years of witnessing schemes, payola, and fraud from the city, I couldn’t—or better yet, I wouldn’t— wrap my mind around such evil as purposefully setting someone’s house a blaze. It had been bad; there had been violence, fear, sorrow, and hot garbage on the streets. But it had never been pure, unmasked malevolence. If I let myself believe that, it felt like I would lose what last shred of love I had for my home.
In the car on the way home, I finally picked up the phone to call Jackson. Earlier in the day, my fear of reality held me back. But now that I had seen it, there was nothing left to run from. He picked up the phone with an unfamiliar rasp in his voice, one that signaled he hadn’t had any sleep, “Hey Z,” he said.
“Hi. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, how are you doing?”
“No worries. I’m ok, doing what I can.”
“How’s Carter? I can’t imagine how he’s feeling.”
“He’s at the motel with his mom. He seems to be handling it well, but I don’t know. We haven’t talked much about it.”
“God, I’m so sorry. Where are you right now?”
“I’m at work—I know, crazy. But I thought I might as well. It beats sitting in that gross motel waiting for insurance to call back.”
“I get it, don’t explain yourself. I’m in town for the day if you need anything. I could grab you guys some clothes or something from the store.”
“Really, you’re here?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to be around in case you needed anything.”
“Damn, thank you, Z. We don’t need any clothes, the Red Cross gave us a bunch of stuff that’ll do for now.”
“Ok, that’s good, I guess. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do? I’m here for you.”
He was silent for a moment before responding, “Would you mind hanging out with Carter for a bit? I think it might cheer him up to see you.”
“Of course, no problem at all. I can drop him back off later too.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
I wasn’t home for long before I left to go get Carter. My mom let me borrow her car, something she’s hesitant to do even now that I’m older. She’s terrified that because I don’t drive regularly, I’ll forget and end up running into a tree or spinning out in traffic. It’s more about the car than it is about me. She won’t admit it, but it has sentimental value. It was one of the last things my father bought her before he up and left, making it over twenty years old. Clearly, it’s lived longer than intended, it’s constantly breaking down, and it makes a strange noise when you go over 50 miles per hour. Each year, she goes to get it inspected, and the mechanic begs her to just get a new one. “The amount of money you’ll spend fixing it could buy you a truck.” She stands firm in her stubbornness, feet glued to the ground, and shakes her head no.
One of the first places she let me drive alone was to the hospital when Carter was born. I was nineteen, and Jackson was eighteen at the time. He’d been seeing Amanda for less than a year before she got pregnant. They met at co-ed practice; she was on the girls’ varsity basketball team, and he was on the boys. I assumed after graduation they’d fizzle out, as Senior year flings do, but they spent that whole summer together after graduation. I was busy, back and forth between my internship in Manhattan and home, and I guess he needed someone to fill my void. He told me she was pregnant that August, a week before I went back to college, and a few days before he was meant to start. I asked if it was an accident, the pregnancy, and he said it was “not not an accident.” They weren’t trying, but they weren’t protecting themselves either. I thought that was insane, considering he’d just committed to Iona College to play basketball. A small part of me felt guilty, like if I were around, this would’ve never happened. When Amanda told him, he unenrolled from college so he could get a job and support them. He’s been working at the warehouse ever since. It was admirable, and a part of me was proud of him. But the whole situation was irresponsible. He should’ve never been seeing her, and he should’ve been using protection. He knew that, and I knew that. And I knew he knew that. A part of me believes that he baby-trapped himself so he’d never have to leave.
Despite what I felt about how everything unfolded, meeting Carter for the first time was the best moment of my life. Similarly to the day I’m describing to you now, it’s one of those memories that isn’t just a flash of images in my head, but a bundle of feelings that come back to me each time I recall it. When I look back, I feel the tinge of anxiety in my chest that I felt as I waited for Jackson in the waiting room. I feel the warmth of his body enveloping me when he ran and gave me a hug when he saw me. I feel my heart beating in my temples as he held my hand and led me up to the room. I feel the warm glow in my chest that I felt when I looked at him, his radiant smile shining even brighter, his kind eyes bubbling with tears. I feel a strange shyness as I walk into the hospital room, where Amanda was half asleep with Carter, swaddled in white fabric in her arms. I feel a kind of sadness as I tell her congratulations, but it’s quickly washed away by joy when she sits up and places him in my arms. I feel a bundle of tears swell in my eyes as I look down on him. He was so soft, and he smelled sweet like milk. I rocked him gently, and he blinked at me, his big eyes wet with the sheen of new life.
When I arrived at the hotel, Carter and Amanda were waiting outside for me. They sat next to each other, both wearing uncharacteristic outfits. Amanda wore a long, floral nightdress that was one size too big, and Carter wore an orange T-shirt with a T. rex on it with camo shorts. The outfit made him look like he’d regressed in age. Once he turned 9, he exclusively wore Nike T-shirts and sweatpants. His face told the story; it had a hardness to it that wasn’t there the last time I saw him, a result of experiencing loss on the largest scale. They approached the car together as I pulled up. I made short, tense conversation with Amanda as Carter climbed into the back seat and buckled in. I tried to ignore her bloodshot eyes and the red, irritated skin around her nose. I offered her apologies, and she just thanked me for picking him up.
“How’s your ice cream?”
“It’s fine.”
“Just fine? I thought this place was your favorite?”
He shrugged.
We sat next to the window in the ice cream shop. Carter poked at his vanilla soft serve with his spoon, mushing the mountain of sprinkles around so they swirled rainbow streaks in the white cloud. I licked my cone of cookies and cream deliberately, careful to catch any melted drippings or stray cookie chunks. The cold cream soothed the dull ache of my throat, raw from weeks of endless coughing. The sickly sweetness settled at the bottom of my nearly empty stomach like a rock tossed in a pond. Central air blasted above our heads, making a noise that sounded like a car engine. The aquamarine wallpaper in the shop peeled at the edges, and the pictures of ice cream sundaes and milkshakes that hung from it had yellowed from years of sun exposure. A small TV sat behind the counter playing a Mexican soap opera, and I watched Carter’s eyes drift to the screen. He watched diligently as a woman in a red dress with sparkly golden eyeshadow confessed her love for a man much older than her.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I want to make sure you’re ok. Do you feel sad about the fire? Or scared?”
“I do want to talk about it,” he said, with a maturity I hadn’t heard from him before. “Everyone keeps assuming that I don’t. But I do.”
“Ok,” I replied, “I think everyone’s just trying to be gentle with you right now, but we can talk about it. How did you find out?”
“I was the first one there. Me and my friends were riding our bikes, and we got thirsty. We weren’t far from my house, so I said we could go there, grab some water, and then go back out. When we turned on my block, I saw a bunch of fire trucks and police, and stuff. They told me I couldn’t ride down the block because it was too dangerous, but I wasn’t even trying to ride down there, I wanted to know which house it was. I kept asking, ‘Which house is it, which house is it,’ and they just kept telling me to go away, and then eventually one of them was like, ‘What does it matter to you?’ And I said, “Because I live at the end of the block,” and once I said that, his eyes widened.”
I sighed as I struggled to find the words to console him. “I’m sorry. That’s horrible.”
“It’s ok. Afterwards, they sat me down and told me what happened. And then I gave them my dad’s number, and they called him, and he brought my mom. And my friends were there. So, it was ok. It was sad, but it was ok.”
“I’m always here for you, you know that? You can always call or text me if you need anything.”
“You say that, but it doesn’t feel like it. You’re not here, you’re in the city.”
“The city isn’t that far, I’m only a train ride away.”
He shoved a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth so he didn’t have to respond.
“It’s going to be ok. I don’t know when, but it will.”
He didn’t answer again. I felt like each word I said was the wrong thing, but I couldn’t think of any better ones. I watched him eat, looking for the little boy I remembered.
“You said you would come visit me more,” he said, his voice shaking.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy at work, and I lost track of time. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“You promised last time.”
“I know, but I’m here now. I came here today to see you.”
He looked up at me with sad, wet eyes. He wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let himself.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said, then shifted his body away from me and towards the TV behind the counter.
I drove him back to the motel. In the review mirror, I watched him force his eyes out the window to avoid talking to me. I told him I’d be back next month, and we could go to the movies. He just shrugged and said ok. When we arrived, Jackson was sitting on the stairs outside, staring blankly into the street. I parked the car right in front of him, obstructing his view. Carter climbed out of the backseat before I could even undo my seatbelt. I got out and locked it before walking over to meet them, overhearing Carter asking Jackson how work was, and his father telling him not to worry. He hugged his dad before running into the motel lobby to find his mom. Then Jackson and I were alone, for the first time in a long time. He looked up at me with tired eyes. “You wanna take a walk?”
“Of course,” I replied.
We strolled down the street, the heat of the pavement rising into the soles of my shoes. The sun beat down on us even though it wasn’t long before dusk. In an empty field behind the bank, a group of kids played soccer using the fence as a net, tackling each other into the wiry grass, dripping in sweat. After a few paces, Jackson pulled a joint from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it.
“I shouldn’t be doing this, you know,” I said.
“Why not? You’re never one to turn down a smoke sesh.”
“I have, or had, bronchitis. Which I got from smoking too much.”
“Shit. Does it hurt?”
I rolled my eyes, “Not anymore, it’s getting better now. But I’m on a forced smoking break by my doctor.”
“So you’re not gonna hit this?” he asked, holding the joint out to me. I paused for a moment and pretended to think before I took it out of his hands and put it in my mouth. I took a deep breath in, the sweet smoke filling my lungs with a crackle and pop.
“Damn. You don’t give a fuck, do you?”
I laughed, which became a loud, painful cough, “Stop,” I said, choking, “You can’t make me laugh right now, I’ll die.”
“My bad,” he said, fighting the urge to giggle.
I took a wheezy deep breath and looked at him. His brown skin was a shade or two darker from the summer sun. The scar from his old piercing twitched under his right eyebrow as he looked at me, waiting for me to speak or pass the joint back.
“I saw your quote in the news. That’s how I found out.”
“Shit, really? That’s fucked, I thought your mom told you.”
“No, she ‘forgot to call.’ Said I wasn’t a priority,” I replied. “At least I was able to get all the details from a straightforward, unbiased source.”
He laughed, “I wouldn’t call the news ‘unbiased.’ That dumbass quote they used was like 1/10th of what I said to them.”
“What else did you say?”
“I said insurance better run me my fucking money.” We laughed in harmony until I started coughing up phlegm. I spit it onto the sidewalk before speaking again.
“You know, my mom believes that the city did it. She told me they set your house on fire so that they could build a fancier one on the property.”
“Really? That’s crazy. You don’t believe that shit, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said. He kept silent, looking at cars roll by on the road as I took another hit. The smoke violently infiltrated my chest. Minutes after exhaling, my lungs still felt hot and sharp like scorched earth.
“I mean. She could be on to something, now that I think about it,” said Jackson, as I passed the joint back.
“Who, my mom?”
“Yeah…I’ve already gotten calls from people at the city, asking how much I’d take to give up the land.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Yup. They've been calling my phone all day.”
The shock was short-lived. It was a kind of primal, natural jolt that comes after hearing things like that shouldn’t happen to anyone, ever, before I remembered what city we were talking about.
“Are you going to take it?” I asked.
“Not sure. I loved living there. That was my family's house, and I wanted to raise my son there too.”
“I mean, it might be a good thing to get out of Mt Vernon after this.” I looked up at the sky, too beautiful for the situation at hand. The blue was too deep and too rich for the pain we were dancing around.
“Where else is there to go?”
“Anywhere. New Rochelle, Yonkers, maybe even the city like me. Or a different state. Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.”
“Mt Vernon is all I know. I’m not like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t think bigger. Or I don’t want to.”
“But don’t you think you deserve more? Doesn’t your kid deserve more?”
He glared at me with a look indicating I had gone too far. I nodded and looked away from him towards the soccer game in the distance. One sweaty boy slide tackled another, and he toppled into the grass like a building coming down.
“Nothing’s better than home, man. I know the city doesn’t want me here. But my people need me. I still have family and shit here, I’m raising my son here, I can’t just up and leave.”
That was the end of that conversation.
At that moment, I realized that the people I love most in this world are married to a place that doesn’t love them back. I can’t wrap my head around it. It was so easy for me to leave, too easy, it was barely a thought. I should’ve gone further to London or Japan, or Australia. Living so close makes it too easy to come back. Home has always been more of a construct than a place. Somewhere I feel safe, somewhere I feel loved, somewhere I feel peace. I don’t feel that way here, and neither does my mother or Jackson. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, an innate connection to the soil you trotted as a child that makes you hold reverence for it. Maybe if I stayed longer after high school, got to know it outside of the lens of my youthful dissatisfaction, it would change. Maybe I should settle, give up, resign to the dull ache in my chest when I’m here, and stay. Safe, loved, and at peace, I don’t feel that here, or anywhere for that matter. The closest I’ve ever felt to that is with him, on walks in the summer and hour-long phone calls. There’s no physical place that makes me feel like he does.
“I’m proud of you, though. You’re out there telling stories and shit,” Jackson broke the silence.
“Oh, please,” I scoffed, “I don’t really tell stories. I just send the emails that allow other people to tell the stories.”
“That’s huge,” he said. “Someone has to do the dirty work to make sure people are heard. Right now, it’s you, but one day, you’ll be running all that shit. You’ll be president and CEO of that place, and every book is gonna have to go through you.”
I laughed cautiously, trying not to disturb my delicate lungs. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
“I believe it,” he said. “Hey, when you’re running that place, make sure you tell stories that matter. Ones about people like me, from places like us.”
“Of course,” I replied without hesitating, “That’s the goal.”
He stuck his hand out to me, and I slapped it, sliding his palm against mine into a handshake. I looked up at his face and he was smiling, despite it all. I was in awe of him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly, without even knowing I was going to.
“For what?” he replied. I looked at him, trying to figure out what myself.
“For not being here.”
“Don’t apologize Z, you couldn’t have stopped it.”
“That’s not what I mean. Just in general. I’m sorry for not staying.”
He glanced down at me as he spoke, his eyes wide and dark, “Don’t be. Live your life.”
The high was woozy and spliced, like the artsy movies my white friends drag me down to Soho to see. One moment I was on the sidewalk with Jackson, and the next I was in the car driving home, bouncing over speed bumps and smiling because it reminded me of a rollercoaster. Three weeks without smoking had effectively reset my tolerance; if there was a time I’d execute my mother’s worst nightmare, it would’ve been then. Thankfully, I blinked, and I was home safely. I walked into the house, and she was parked on the couch watching TV. Her feet kicked up on the ottoman, her box fan propped up on a stool, blowing directly on her. Blue and yellow light from the TV reflected on her face as Steve Harvey shouted, “What is the best place in the house for a couple to secretly ‘get it on’ during Thanksgiving?”
“Hello,” I said, making my presence known.
“Hey, How’s Jackson and Carter?”
“They’re doing the best they can. I got Carter ice cream, and he told me about what happened yesterday. He said he was the first person to get there, and the police had to call Jackson and tell him.”
“Christ,” my mother said, “That’s awful. That’s gonna traumatize him for life, you know.”
“I don’t know. He seems to be handling it well, maybe he’ll be able to move on from it.”
“The image of his childhood home burning down will never leave his mind. I can tell you that.” A sharp DING rung out from the TV, announcing one of the answers to the Family Feud question: the basement. “Oh, please, that’s so obvious,” my mother shouted at the TV.
I took my place beside her on the couch as I spoke. “That’s why it’s only the 5th answer.”
“It should be number 100, it sucks,” she replied. I let out a small laugh, afraid it’d turn into a coughing fit.
Some of my fondest memories with my mother unfolded like this. A hazy summer evening, returning home high as a kite, her settled into the couch for the night, and I joining her. We’d sit for hours laughing at stupid Family Feud answers and changing the channel when the White family beat the Black one. After a while, she’d ask me to pour her a glass of wine, and I would go into the kitchen and pour a little for myself into a plastic cup. We’d sit and laugh and sit and laugh until she decided she’d had enough, picking up the remote abruptly, shutting off the TV, and fleeing to her room. Afterwards, I’d sit alone in the dark with the kind of headache you only get from getting crossed before the sun goes down, trying to hold on to the feeling, basking in the air of her rare kindness.
“God, Mom, it’s hot in here.”
“No, it’s not. You just came from outside. That’s why you hot.”
“Why won’t you let me buy you an AC?”
“I don’t need you to buy me anything.”
“Fine,” I said, letting my words linger before I spoke again. “My train leaves at 8.”
I sank into the corner of the couch, my head resting on a throw pillow I bought her for Mother’s Day a decade ago. It’s pink, with the words I Love Mom stitched into it. The TV is surrounded by shelves and shelves of pictures, mostly of my mother and me, but a few of her sisters and their mother. The frames were perfectly dusted and straight. As a kid, it used to feel like the people in the photos were watching us watch TV.
“Do you really think the city burned Jackson’s house down?”
She looked at me with somber eyes and spoke quietly, “I know it. And I’m not the only one. Why do you think they haven’t released the police reports and investigations from the other fires? They know exactly who did it.”
“But it’s so cruel.”
“I know, baby. That’s just the world we live in, cruel.”
“Why do you stay here then, if you know you’re not safe, not wanted?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
I sat there next to her, my eyes glossing over the television, gripped by a cruel anxiety, the result of smoking and then speaking to my mother. I knew from a young age that I’d never understand her, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Oh, Zora, you got some mail the other day. I left on your bed.”
I stood up wordlessly and went into my room, the door only a few paces from the couch. Before he left, my father used to sit in the living room at night and talk to his mistress on the phone. I’d crawl out of bed and press my ear up against the wall, listening to him whisper sweet nothings over the phone into the early morning. I knew their marriage was over before my mother did. Sometimes I wish I had told her; maybe she would’ve been more prepared for the heartbreak. Maybe she wouldn’t be stuck here, waiting for him to come back even though she knows he never will. But there was a kind of mischef about knowing her love had fallen apart before she did. It was a quiet act of rebellion within myself, I relished the feeling of having information over her, being more ready than she was when he eventually did leave, coming out of it better off than she.
My room smelled like mothballs, masked by cheap air freshener. The scent was sweet and tangy, the artificial smell lingering into the base notes of alcohol and sugar. I picked up the pile of mail from my bed: an alumni letter from my alma mater asking for donations, a bill from my last dentist appointment, and a letter from Mrs. Rivera. For a moment, I didn’t recognize the name. I racked my brain thinking of who and what this was. It came to me like a vision: Mrs. Rivera, my senior year English teacher. At the end of that year, we wrote letters to our future selves. She said that she’d hold on to them, and ten years in the future, she’d try and mail them to us. Cold rushed over me, and I opened the envelope feverishly.
Dear Future Zora,
Hello from the past. I hope you’re happy, healthy, and educated. That’s the goal, right? I have a poem for you, but before that, I have some questions. Are you a famous writer? If not, what the heck! Get to work, please. Are you and Jackson still friends? Does he finally see you like you see him? *wink* I hope so. Do you live in New York City? Or London? Or Paris? Do you make a steady income? Is Mom finally letting you be her little friend? Or are you still just her daughter? Even if you say no to all these questions, I still think you’re cool. As long as you got the heck out of Mt Vernon. As promised, here’s your poem.
Roads are like solid streams
Black tar solidified to carry you away
To chase the life of your dreams
The life you’re planning now, today.
Home is a place where you feed the strays
Where you know the door jams
On cold, blizzard days
Where love is the sacrificial lamb
Stay or go, do as you please
Regardless, time will fall like leaves.
It’s shitty, I know. I wrote it in a crunch. Mrs. Rivera only gave us 30 minutes to write these letters. I hope you like it anyways. Goodbye now future me, see you soon :)
I stood motionless. There aren’t words to describe what I felt. It was a rude awakening, a slap in the face, a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. It was a reckoning. I blinked, hoping to teleport somewhere new but I opened my eyes and I was still there, in my bedroom standing over my twin bed with cherry sheets and a puppy stuffed animal, across from the window which hadn’t been open in years, which hadn’t let the breeze blow through my purple curtains and breath new life into a space that made me feel so trapped and dead as a girl. The child who wrote that letter was stuck in that room, and she was counting on me to be free.
I made it to the station just moments before the train left, the vessel speeding along the tracks as I stepped on the platform. I boarded and found a seat near the window. It chugged away with a big huff and moved along the tracks with screeches and squeals. I sat facing front, properly leaving behind the world I’d been transported to. The sky swirled with pinks and purples like a watercolor painting as the sun hid beneath the horizon. The last rays of the day leapt through the window, showering the car in orange light. Golden hour. In high school, this was the time of day when Jackson and I would go for our evening smoke walk through his neighborhood, trying to guess how much each house cost. We had no basis for our answers, just adolescent ideas of the economy and how much things cost.
On nice days like this, we’d ride our bikes to Wilson Woods just to sit by Pelham Lake in the evening. It was full of mosquitoes and littered with trash, but all that mattered was the glossy pool in front of us. We talked and laughed about any and everything. My favorite topic was our futures. He was going to be a basketball player in the NBA, and win at least two championships, and I, a famous author, winning the Nobel Prize for literature. We sat in that wretched wood until the sun set or we got bitten too many times, and then we rode home. Me to my mother’s house on the south side, and him to his mother’s house on the north. We were just somebody’s child, sometimes it feels like that’s still all we are, and the distance between those children and who we are now is non-existent. But some days, like today, as I’m telling you this now, it feels like light-years. It feels like time split down the middle the day I packed my bags and left home, in search of a new place to belong. Tears fell from my eyes as the train sped away from Mt Vernon. I knew then I wouldn’t be back.
