Authors: Christopher Coake
We're in Trouble (16 page)
And then Bryan wriggled out. He was smoking; his arms were smoking. He ducked as the fire licked over his head, into the front wheel well. Then he knelt again and reached into the car and pulled out the woman. Slowly, slowly.
The woman was burning. She wore a ski jacket, and it was on fire. Her arms beat at the window frame, at Bryan. Bryan heaved and she came free, legs trailing uselessly. She was
shrieking like an animal. Bryan kept dragging her. His face twisted away from the burning woman, his cheekbones glowing a ghastly yellow.
Bryan's own jacket caught flame. He gave the woman one last heave, then wrapped her in his arms and rolled both of them into the deep snow.
Dana! he called, his voice torn, a screech.
And
that
moved her. Her limbs came unlocked. Bryan was alive.
Dana floundered across the slope to him, threw handfuls of snow on his back and arms. He was trying to take off his jacket, which was smoking, flaming. Dana grabbed hold of one of the sleeves and pulled. A new smell was coming out of the carâlike meat cooking. Someone was still inside, was burning, was dying. The smell was coming off of Bryan, too, off of the woman. Parts of Bryan's jacket had melted and clung in strands to his arm and shoulder. His hair was smoking. Dana felt a horrible searing pain on her own forearm, where his jacket was twisted around her arm. She jammed it deep into the snow until she felt the cold seep into the pain.
The woman wasn't screaming anymore. Dana looked at her, even though she would have given anything not to. The woman had blond hair, now streaked with blood, burned away down to the skull on one side. Her face was a mess: rust-red where it wasn't blackened. She was awake, Dana saw, her mouth opening and closing, panting almost. The woman's eyesâthe whites were shockingly bright against her swollen cheeksâkept rolling from side to side.
Come on, Bryan said.
He couldn't use his right arm. Dana's own arm hurt, but she put her hands under one of the woman's arms, and Bryan
put his good hand under the other, and they pulled her up the slope, away from the burning car, the blazing stinking white fire of the burning tires, the smell of the man burning insideâher husband. They found this out later. Her husband. They were locals. He'd been drinking and going way too fast.
He'd died before the fire, Bryan told her that night, in the hospital. He spoke during a brief period of wakefulness, before they medicated him into oblivion. He lay very still, his arm bandaged up to the shoulder.
Bryan whispered, His neck was broken. I checked.
As though she was worried he might not have rescued enough people, as though she was angry at him for having failed. Dana was glad the man had been dead. If he'd been alive, Bryan would have gone back in for him, and both of them would be dead now. She knew that.
Is she all right? Bryan asked. His lips were swollen, cracked.
She's in intensive care. They don't know if she'll live.
But the woman had lived. Her back was broken, and she was horribly scarred, but she was still alive, living now with a sister in Colorado Springs. She and Bryan exchanged Christmas cards.
Bryan had nodded, then closed his eyes.
Looking back, Dana wasn't sure when it happenedâwhen the moment that changed everything truly fell. Before the crash she had been ready to leave Bryan. But sitting next to his hospital bed, she felt she'd rather die than lose sight of him again. She felt . . . peaceful: the same sort of peace that had always settled around her after making love to him, as she curled against his long, thin body. But she couldn't say what had happened to make it so. Bryan had done a wonderful, courageous thingâhad done it without thinking. And when
he had gone into the car, Dana had lost herselfâa part of her had come unmoored, and waited for Bryan to come out alive before drifting back to her.
Dana leaned forward. Her insides seemed to pull her down to him. She whispered to Bryan, I love you.
And saying it to him felt good, true.
Bryan smiled up at her, even though she knew it must hurt his mouth. His good hand brushed hers. Then the painkillers caught him, and he drifted away.
N
OW, IN THE CAR
, Dana dozed, too. She dreamed, as she often did, about the accident. Sometimes she had nightmaresâshe was the woman trapped in the car, screaming to Bryan, who paced outside in the snow, deciding. But sometimes they didn't frighten her at all. Tonight she dreamed that she never got out of the Cherokee, that she watched the whole thing on a television, inside, knowing how it was going to turn out.
Honey, Bryan said, shaking her. We're home.
She was all the way into the house before remembering she'd kissed Jimmy.
Bryan walked with her into their bedroom, his hand on her waist, as though she might fall over. He pulled back the bedcovers and she lay down on the cool sheets, stretching herself. She started to bend her knees, to reach down for a heel, but he stilled her with a hand. She closed her eyes: Bryan was going to undress her. Her blood surged. If he made love to her now she would forget Jimmy. She'd feel the familiar rub of her husband's stomach, his hip bonesâhow could she have forgotten that?
Bryan slipped off one of her heels, then the other. He
reached up under her dress to grab the waistband of her hose. She let him lift her hips. His fingers curled under the fabric, next to her skin. The fingers on his left hand were soft, the ones on his right a little rough and bumpy, from the scars. She liked the feel of her hose sliding down her thighs, and off.
Are you awake? he whispered, leaning over her. Mm-hmm.
Turn on your side. I'll unzip you.
No, she said. She opened her eyes and curled her bare heel around the back of his thigh. His loosened tie fell into a jumble on her collarbone. She used it to pull him in closer, between her legs.
Bryan said, Huhâbut he let himself be pulled. I thought you were sick, he said.
She kissed him, tightening her calves around his rear end.
Sick of the party, she murmured. That's all. She lifted her hips and dropped them and lifted them again.
Honey, he said.
They hadn't made love for a long time after the accident. The first time was in the summer. Bryan had taken a semester off, staying at his parents' house in Columbus. His family flew Dana out from school to see him on weekends. Once the bandages were off, Bryan had been nervous about letting her see his scars. But one night, while his parents were out, Dana undressed him, insisting.
It's awful
, he told her, not meeting her eyes.
I won't blame you ifâ
Nothing about you could ever be awful
, she said.
His arm and his chest looked badâworse than she'd imagined, the tissue there the color of baked hamâbut she didn't let it show on her face. Instead she leaned down to kiss
him on his ribs, found the scars dry and hard under her lips. The sensation wasn't badâshe was reminded of touching a friend's pet boa, finding the scales dry and smooth.
Can you feel that?
she asked.
No
, he whispered.
It's all right
, she told him. She had seen terrible things, and Bryan's arm was not one of them. His hips were fine and his thighs were fine. His lips were still soft and gentle, the touch of his good hand light. His hair had grown back out. His penis was fine, silky and untouched. Rocking, she watched his eyes, which were lovely and brown and kind.
He cried when they were done, holding her against the soft left side of his body.
I love you
, he said, hoarse.
I love you, too
, she said.
I will always love you.
That he loved her, that he had looked at the fire and chosen to suffer it, both seemed to come from the same place in him. He had seen, each time, what she hadn't been brave enough to see. She sighed next to him, traced his nipple with her fingers, touched his scars. She would not let herself be repulsed by him.
But ever since, he preferred to keep his shirt on all the same.
Now Dana loosened his tie, pushed it over his head.
Honey, he said, as she started to unbutton his shirt. Honey.
Yes?
What are you doing?
I think you know.
You lied to me, he said, smiling.
A little. Come on.
I have to get back, he said. You know that.
Not yet.
Later, he said. I'll be back in two hours.
Bryan . . .
He rolled on his side, away from her. Just two hours. Sleep until I get back. He saw her face. Look, he said, people need to get
home.
I promised I'd drive some of them. You don't want them out on the roads, do you?
He could be condescending when she'd been drinking.
I won't be awake in two hours.
He sighed. I appreciate the gesture, I do, but . . . I can't just abandon my post. I'm a boss, I'm working tonight.
Jesus, Bryan. Dana sat up and let out breath.
He kissed her hair. It's my
job.
She knew what she was doing to him. He couldn't stand her being upset. He'd be frantic until he could get back to her.
Go, she said.
No. Look, I can stay. Let me callâ
Bryan, go, she said. The moment's passed, all right?
Two hours, he said. Not even that.
She thought he looked relieved.
When he was gone, she undressed and slid under the covers. She looked at her own arm on the bedspread: pale, spotted here and there with moles. Her one scar twisted up and around her wrist. They'd had to pull some of Bryan's melted jacket off her skin, like a piece of taffy stuck to its wrapper.
She was a terrible person. Why was she dissatisfied with anything? She wasn't as scarred as Bryan; Bryan wasn't as scarred as the woman he'd pulled from the car, who was hideous. And the woman was aliveâher husband was not.
Poor, drunk April had been half right: Dana was lucky.
But she thought of Jimmy anyway, the card he'd slipped her. She remembered the way he had kissed her, the feel of his
hand on her rear. She thoughtâshe couldn't help herselfâof his smooth, muscular stomach. Of bare, unscarred skin under her hands. He'd be quick, inconsiderate. He would not tell her he loved her. But he'd be good. Dana pictured April with her back arched, Jimmy's blond head turning between her thighs.
A
T
THREE THIRTY
Bryan came home. Dana pretended to be asleep, listening to him undressing with great care in the dark, sliding gently into bed next to her. His arm crept across her waist. She felt a gentle kiss on her shoulder. He was still sorry.
Wake me up
, she thought.
Touch me.
But he didn't. He curled next to her, and soon he was snoring, his arm limp and heavy across her hip.
In the hospital in Denver, Dana had insisted on sitting next to Bryan, after the doctors cleaned and bandaged him. She was told at first she wasn't allowed, but one of the paramedics who brought them in had told the story: that this man was a hero. Dana heard the nurses whispering to each other about it. Dana, bandaged herself, wouldn't let go of Bryan's good hand. His right arm was bandaged thickly to the shoulder. His hair was burned on one side; his right cheek was blotchy and blistered. He stank. A nurse put her hand on Dana's shoulder, and said, He'll be under soon. We're giving him painkillers.
Can I stay until he sleeps? Dana had asked.
Bryan watched her with glazed eyes, murmuring senselesslyâthey'd given him plenty of drugs already.
After a long sigh the nurse said, All right. She bustled around the dark room. Bryan closed his eyes, let out a long, whistling breath.
Then Dana saw the nurse was looking at her, smiling hopefully.
Is it true? the nurse asked. What he did?
It's true, Dana said. She wasn't surprised when the nurse embraced her.
When the nurse had gone, Dana leaned over and kissed Bryan, pressing carefully, softly, against his swollen lips. Bryan murmured again. His breathing was so gentle she had to keep very still in order to feel it. She uncovered his good arm from beneath the sheet and traced it with her fingers. She whispered to him that she loved him. She told him about the wedding they would have, the names of the children they would have. She let herself go, into every dream she'd ever dared have.
When that car burst into flames, she and Bryan each had time for one decision, one thought. Bryan, in a second, had dived forward; he had saved the woman's life. That was the sort of person he was. Dana had thought about this at the hospital, her hand on Bryan's wrist, her mouth close to his earâand had decided what
she
was, too. She hadn't cared if the woman in the car had lived or died. Her thoughts, the entire rest of her life, had reached out and attached to Bryan, followed him twice into the burning car, until her future depended on whether he came out again. And he had.
But what had Dana done
tonight
, with Jimmy? What had she chosen? She had kissed Jimmy, had pushed him away, had kept his cardâand these actions seemed not to have come from any conscious thought at all.
She thought of Jimmy's number, crumpled in her purse. The flat muscles of his stomach under her palm. The way he'd looked at her.
More and more these days she was remembering: when the fire started, she'd had one
other
thought.
Her heart had gone to Bryan, yes . . . but just before that, for a long moment, she had thought of nothing, seen nothing, but the flames. They'd bloomed across the underside of the car: deep black, then a lovely shifting blue, then curling orange.
And she was the sort of woman who could be filled up by them, whose body could sway to them. Because they were so strange, so beautiful. Because, in that terrible wind and cold, she had been so grateful for their heat.
A
N HOUR AFTER THEY BREAK INTO THE CABIN
, B
RAD SITS
with Mel on the edge of the porch, his arm across her shoulders, watching wind blow across the lakeâis it Hummingbird Lake? Gopher Lake? They saw the name on a sign coming in, but now neither of them can remember, even Mel, who's been here before. Whatever it's called, the lake isn't that big: maybe a quarter-mile across, a little more than that in length, its shores choked with cattails. Just a puddle compared to Lake Superior, ten miles to the north. Kind of ugly, Brad thinks. But private. Theirs.
Lake Inferior, Mel says, shading her eyes. Poor little baby lake.
We'll keep it company, Brad says.
The cabin behind them is inferior, too. It's not so much a cabin, in fact, as it is a fishing shack, two rooms wide, without electricity or running water or even a fireplaceâthe last time she was here, Mel told him, there'd been a generator parked in the little shed out back, but it was gone now. The only furniture is a card table and two metal chairs, and a small cot folded around a thin, moldy mattress. It's not even close to the love nest Brad's spent the entire drive trying to imagine.
But a quiet hour on the porch with Mel, watching the sun glint off the lake water, smelling the piney breeze, has chased away most of his disappointment, brought back a little of the looping excitement that gave him the idea for this trip in the first place. He's still with Mel, after all, and they're alone.
Man, he says, it'd be cool to live in a place like this.
It's peaceful, Mel says, then scoots closer. But we'd definitely need better furniture. And heat.
Though the sky is sunny and clear, and the breeze warm, every once in a while they've felt an unexpected chillâa reminder that, despite the summery temperatures lately, this is October. Yesterday in Chicago he and Mel were walking around in shorts and sandals, and even though they knew the Upper Peninsula would be cooler, they only packed light jackets for the weekend. Mel told him on the drive up that she's not even sure she remembered to bring socksâshe's got only her ratty old black Chuck Taylors, the ones with the holes in the sides that show her bare feet.
He moves his hand to her lower back, spreading out his fingers to see how much of her he can cover. Which is a lot. He lowers his mouth to her ear and says, I guess we'll just have to use body heat.
She doesn't answer himâshe's been strangely quiet, in fact, ever since they got here.
He gives up. Want to tell me what's wrong?
Mel sighs. I'm okay, she says. It's just hard to relax, you know? I keep thinking we're going to get
caught.
We're cool, he says. No one's been down this road in a month.
Which is an exaggeration, but not much of one. They drove the entire eight miles of gravel road from the highway to the cabin without seeing a single car. Brad did catch glimpses of a couple of other cabins on the way in, but all of them looked a lot like this one: tiny shacks or trailers, locked up for winter. Even so, Mel urged him to park the truck near the lakeshore, where the cabin will hide it from view of the road.
Let's go be alone
, he'd told her, back in Chicago, and now here they are: about as alone as two people can get. There's nothing around them except miles and miles of forest. Brad saw it from rises along the gravel road: an endless sweep of shadowy green hills, broken by patches of brown and yellow and gold. A sea of dirty water blown into gentle swells, beautiful and a little disturbing, all at once.
Maybe I'm just nervous, Mel says. And that sucksâyou know? I mean, this is just what I wanted. I have to be able to trust my fucking happiness.
And this is another reason Brad loves herâsometimes it's like Mel is listening in on his thoughts.
Trust it, he says. We're going to be fine.
I will, she says, and lights a cigarette, then squeezes his knee. I do.
And by the time Mel's done with her cigarette Brad knows she's better, because she's started to talkâshe's telling him,
hands fluttering, about something she heard in one of her psychology classes, about people who live in solitude. Eskimo tribes, cosmonauts, Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands. He drifts away from her words, but keeps listening to her voice, which is beautiful, low and husky and sly. That she'd tell him any of this makes him feel smart. And proud, that she's talking with
him
, that she's agreed to show him this place, and that here they'll both be happier than they've ever been.
O
NCE THE SUN SETS
âthey watch it from the porch, glowing orange and red through the pine branches woven together above the cabinâthe temperature drops quickly. Brad and Mel move inside the cabin, lighting their way with a flashlight Brad found in the glove box of the truck. It's not much warmer inside. Brad bends down and holds his palm flat above the floorboards; cold rises through the wide cracks like smoke. He doesn't even want to stand still in here; how are they supposed to sleep?
Mel looks warily down at the cot and mattress, her jacket pulled tight around her.
We can still go get a motel, she says.
Which Brad doesn't want to admit he's been thinking, too.
No, he says. We came all this way, we're going to figure something out.
They go hunting, opening the cabin's few doors. There's an old bucket in the back room that Mel tells him has always been the toilet. In the only closet they find a couple of ratty sweaters, smelling of mothballs, and so enormousâAndy's dad, Mel says, making a face; He's such a fucking fatassâthat even Brad can wear one like a nightgown. There's a quilt folded up in there, too, stinking of mold. In one corner of the
main room is a basin with cabinet space underneath, full of tackle boxes without tackle and half-empty boxes of dish soap. A long roll of tinfoil. A shoe box with two candles in it, and matches. Large, unconcerned spiders.
In the small shed out back Brad finds a propane camping grill, barely knee-high, and a squat little tank of fuel, the size of a football, which feels full when he lifts it. He brings them both inside.
See? he tells Mel, as she shines the flashlight at him. I'm a genius.
In the center of the cabin's front room they make a tent. They unfold the thin mattress onto the floor, between the legs of the card table. At the head and foot of the mattress they arrange the two chairs. Brad drapes the moldy quilt across all of it; it's just large enough to reach the floor. They place the grill on a sheet of the tinfoil underneath one of the chairs. Then they crawl under the table. Brad starts the grill burning with his lighter, and immediately heat spills out into their tiny space.
They brought a blanket of their own, which Mel digs out of her packs and spreads over their legs. Okay, she says, curling next to him. This is pretty cool.
And you wanted us to go to a
motel
, he says.
No! Mel slides her arms around his neck. No, this is better.
They hold pieces of lunch meat over the fire and eat them between slices of bread. Brad opens a can of pop.
To home, he says, lifting it.
To home, she says, and leans against him.
They sleep in spurts. They agree not to leave the stove running. Just watch, Mel says, that thing'll spring a leak, and they'll find a couple of skeletons when spring comes. But Mel sleeps
too deeply, so Brad ends up captaining the grill all night. He doesn't mind. He likes the whoosh of the fire starting, and the way Mel looks, sleeping in its glow. Even so, he always pauses before he spins the propane knob back down to zeroâbecause the darkness that rushes in then is absolute. Their bodies blink out of sight, like neither of them ever existed.
But he loves what happens just afterwardâhow they feel their way toward each other; how Mel, even when she's asleep, burrows closer.
Even after two months with her he's still surprised by the joy he feelsâthe gratitudeâin knowing that Mel needs him, and needs him close.