Chương 2
June kicked once more.
I went inside.
My phone was on the kitchen counter beneath a dish towel. I called 911 and reached a recorded message telling me call volume was unusually high. I hung up, tried again, and walked from window to window searching for a signal as though reception might be hiding in one corner of the house.
On the third attempt, a woman answered.
“911. What is the address of your emergency?”
“Eighty-seven Pine Ridge Road. The Keene cabin. I’m still here.”
Her voice changed immediately—not panicked, but sharper. “You are inside the evacuation zone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a vehicle?”
“My husband took it.”
“Is there another person with you?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“How far along?”
“Six months.”
“What is your name?”
“Natalie Keene.”
A burst of static swallowed her response. I moved toward the front window.
“My husband took the only car,” I repeated. “Brett Keene. His mother is with him. Tessa Vale is with him.”
“Ma’am, listen carefully. Is there active fire at your residence?”
“I can’t see flames. There’s smoke. The sky is orange.”
“Do you have a safe room with limited windows?”
“No. It’s a cabin.”
“Is there a secondary exit?”
“The back door.”
“Do not go outside unless the structure catches fire or you are instructed to move. Wet towels and place them beneath doors. Cover your nose and mouth. Units are operating in the area, but access may be delayed.”
“Please tell them I don’t have a car.”
“I have that in the notes.”
The line cracked.
“Please,” I said. “He knew I was here.”
“I hear you, Natalie. Stay with me.”
The call dropped.
I stared at the screen. No service.
For most of my life, I had believed panic would feel like motion—running, screaming, knocking things over. Mine felt like being sealed in glass. I could see what needed doing. I simply could not make my hands begin.
Then the smoke detector in the hallway chirped.
I filled the sink, soaked two dish towels, and pushed one beneath the front door with the handle of a wooden spoon. I carried the other to the back. My hands shook so badly that I spilled half a pot of water across the floor.
The power failed.
The refrigerator stopped humming. The silence lasted perhaps two seconds before wind hit the cabin and branches scraped across the roof.
I called 911 again. The phone showed one bar, then none.
I texted everyone whose number I could find quickly: HELP. TRAPPED AT CABIN. NO CAR. PREGNANT. FIRE EVACUATION.
Most messages remained undelivered.
I tried our nearest neighbors, Sam and Louise Mercer. Their home sat almost a mile down the road, hidden by two curves and a stand of ponderosa pine. Sam’s voicemail answered. I left a message, then realized they had probably evacuated before the alert became mandatory. They were older and took every warning seriously. Sam kept a laminated checklist on his refrigerator and updated it each spring.
Brett had mocked him for that.
I opened the cabinet where we kept flashlights. Empty.
They were in the emergency kit in the SUV.
The next contraction came twenty minutes later.
At first I told myself it was not a contraction. It was pressure. Stress. A muscle tightening because I had been running barefoot through gravel. I placed both hands below my stomach and breathed through it while the smoke detector began its full alarm.
The cabin smelled of wet towels and burned wood.
I crawled to the living room because the air was clearer near the floor. My phone vibrated once.
A message from Brett.
Help is being coordinated. Stay calm.
I called him. Straight to voicemail.
I called again.
Voicemail.
I typed: TURN AROUND.
The message did not send.
I typed: YOU LEFT YOUR PREGNANT WIFE.
No service.
Another pain tightened across my abdomen. I pressed my forehead to the floorboards and listened to the alarm.
There had been a Christmas two years earlier when Brett gave me the cabin keys in a small velvet box. I had laughed because for half a second I thought it was jewelry. He laughed too, kissed my temple, and told his mother we finally had a place of our own.
The deed was in Eleanor’s trust.
I had not known that until after we married.
Smoke collected near the ceiling and descended in a gray layer. My eyes burned. I soaked the last clean towel, covered my mouth, and moved toward the kitchen, where the back door offered the shortest path to the gravel clearing. Through the glass I could see sparks riding the wind.
The phone rang.
I answered without looking.
“Natalie?” a man shouted.
“Sam?”
“We’re at the roadblock. Louise got your text when the signal came back. Are you inside?”
“Yes.”
“Fire crew is checking structures. I gave them your address.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“Stay low. Do you hear me? Get as low as you can.”
“There’s no car.”
“I know. Louise told them. Natalie, listen, they’re coming.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty frightened me more than a lie would have.
A crash sounded from the side of the house. The window above the dining table fractured in a white spiderweb.
“Something hit the house.”
“Move away from the windows.”
“I’m trying.”
“What room are you in?”
“Kitchen.”
“Back door?”
“Ten feet.”
“Can you get outside?”
The deck beyond the door had begun to glow with embers.
“I don’t know.”
The call broke apart. Sam’s voice stretched into noise, then vanished.
I reached the back door anyway. The metal knob burned my palm through the towel. I pulled once, but wind pressure held it shut. When I pulled harder, smoke pushed through the frame in black threads.
May you like
The room tilted.
I remember the yellow linoleum beneath my knees. I remember thinking that Eleanor had always hated that floor and had spent three years saying she would replace it. I remember a glass jar of wooden spoons on its side and a rolling pin beneath the table. I remember apologizing to the baby, though I could no longer hear my own voice.
