Authors: Carlene Thompson
The man returned a moment later. “Help is on the way, but we have to move your car and make room for the emergency vehicles,” he shouted. Diana nodded and reached for the ignition. No keys. She’d dropped them when the house exploded.
“Scoot over.” Diana did so without a thought. He jumped into the driver’s seat, bent down and retrieved the key chain from the floor. “I saw it when your interior lights came on.” Without looking at her, he said, “My name is Tyler Raines, by the way.”
“Diana . . . Sheridan.”
He started the car and pulled forward to the third house beyond Penny’s. Diana again swiped at her tearstained face, then opened her window and peered out. An overweight fortyish man wearing baggy sweatpants and holding a beer can stood on his porch, gaping at the fire.
“Where’s everyone else?” Tyler Raines yelled to the man as he leaped from the car. “Where are the people who live on either side of that house?”
Sweatpants gaped a moment longer, then said, “House on the right’s vacant. Just an old lady lives on the left. Miz Hanson. Got rheumatoid arthritis.”
Mrs. Hanson.
Clarice Hanson
, Diana thought. Penny’s friend and frequent babysitter for Willow.
Tyler Raines began running toward Mrs. Hanson’s house. Sweatpants squinted at Diana. “Wha’ happened? Will fire get my house?”
By now Diana had managed to remove herself from her car and stood clutching the door for support, her stomach in a knot, although she’d finally stopped crying.
“Hey!” the man yelled blurrily at her. “I asked if the fire will get my place.”
“I don’t know!” Diana snapped. The beer he held was clearly not his first. Probably not even his fourth or fifth. “If you have a family, get them out!”
“But my
house
. . .”
Diana didn’t need to argue anymore. A woman and an adolescent girl ran past the man on the porch, nearly knocking him down. He rocked unsteadily before his wife yelled, “For God’s sake, Clyde, to hell with the house! Or do you care more about it than us?”
The man frowned as if he were pondering this dilemma, continuing to weave and peer at Penny’s blazing house. Diana also looked toward it, feeling sick as she pictured Penny and Willow inside the inferno. Something else in the house had caught fire and shot another column of smoke toward the night sky, throwing sparks as it rose. The breeze turned into a sudden gust of wind that caught a piece of burning debris and sent it flying to Mrs. Hanson’s house.
Fire began eating the old shingles, creeping across Mrs. Hanson’s roof. How fast could that tiny line of fire burst into a blaze? Diana’s heart beat harder before she saw Tyler Raines carrying a woman from the house. He headed toward Diana’s car. She opened the door wider and he set the woman on the front seat, positioning her body straight ahead, directing her gaze forward, away from the fire. Penny had told Diana that Clarice Hanson was just over seventy. She had small, delicate features and amazingly clear, violet eyes, huge in her pale, horrified face. “My lord, what happened?” she quavered.
Diana crouched, enfolding the woman’s frail hands with their swollen joints within her own larger hands. “Mrs. Hanson?” The woman nodded. “We don’t know what happened. Penny’s house just caught on fire.”
“No, Penny’s house
exploded!
” Mrs. Hanson’s chin trembled. “I didn’t have my draperies drawn shut. I saw it!”
“The fire trucks will be here any minute.” Diana looked at Tyler Raines over the roof of her car and mouthed, “Her house.” His vivid blue eyes shot in the direction of the house from which he’d just emerged. He glanced back at Diana and nodded.
Suddenly, Diana heard the blessed sound of sirens. She thought of the irritation she always felt when sirens awakened her at night, and knew she’d never experience that irritation again. Lights flashed in the night as a fire truck screamed its way toward them.
“Oh dear.” Mrs. Hanson’s voice wavered. Tears brimmed in her eyes. With shaking hands, she fumbled in the pocket of her much-washed flowered cotton dress and withdrew a dainty handkerchief. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I haven’t either.” Diana realized her own voice sounded thin and old. She wrapped her arm around Clarice Hanson’s narrow, trembling shoulders, holding her firmly, blocking her view of the fire. “Everything will be all right, Mrs. Hanson.”
“How can you say that when Penny and that sweet little girl—”
“Shhh.” Diana tightened her arm around the woman. “We don’t know anything about them yet. Maybe they weren’t home.”
“Yes they were.” Mrs. Hanson stopped dabbing at her tears, her voice suddenly vehement. “Willow’s room faces my house. Willow’s light was on and I saw Penny come in and kiss her good night. Willow just got out of the hospital today. Penny wouldn’t leave her alone. Penny is a good mother.”
Penny wouldn’t leave her alone
. The words tolled in Diana’s head.
Penny is a good mother
.
Of course Penny and Willow had been in the house. Where else would they be while Willow recovered from surgery? While Penny anxiously waited for Diana to come? Diana tried to draw a deep breath, failed, and mechanically patted Mrs. Hanson’s shoulder. The woman buried her face in her handkerchief, and Diana turned to watch the firefighters leaping from the truck, yelling, connecting a huge hose to the nearby fire hydrant and sending a powerful blast of water at the blaze.
An emergency service van pulled in just ahead of the
fire truck. Mrs. Hanson lifted her head from her handkerchief-covered hands and whimpered, “I wonder if they’ve found Penny and Willow.”
“I don’t know.” Diana frowned in frustration. “I wish Mr. Raines would come back and tell us what’s going on, but he seems to be helping the firefighters. I don’t know what he’s thinking—he doesn’t even have on protective gear.”
“Oh dear, he doesn’t, does he?” Mrs. Hanson sounded tearfully resigned and yet admiring. “It’s foolish for him to be helping, but men are so brave.”
“Some of them are brave.” Diana looked at Sweatpants finally stumbling away from his house, clutching his beer can as he passed in front of Diana’s car. His wife and daughter were long gone. “Others don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Mrs. Hanson glanced at Sweatpants. “Oh, you mean him,” she said scathingly. “I’m so glad that blond man came along to help us. Mr. Buckner, the drinker, is a waste of space, as my Henry would have said.”
Mr. Buckner, who was more worried about his house than his family. Diana was surprised he hadn’t gone back into his house for another can of beer to tide him over until he could safely return home. He was indeed a waste of space, Diana thought, and suddenly remembered Penny saying that he was the laziest man she’d ever known, although he always found enough energy to make passes at her. The other man, Tyler Raines, was a different breed. Diana wondered how she and Mrs. Hanson had been so lucky to have him appear at the exact moment when they needed him.
Mrs. Hanson said weakly, “You’re Penny’s friend, Diana.”
“Yes. I was coming to visit.” Her throat tightened. “I was late.”
“Then thank the lord, child. Otherwise, you would have been in that house.”
I would have been in that house
. The full impact of the
realization suddenly hit Diana with dizzying shock. She felt sick with horror. If she’d exited her car one minute earlier . . .
Mrs. Hanson looked up at her, and obviously seeing Diana’s stricken expression, she reached out, gave Diana’s hand a squeeze, and quickly changed the topic. “Pardon me for being nosy, but is the blond man who’s been helping us your . . . admirer?”
“You . . . You mean my boyfriend?” Diana said slowly, trying to focus on Mrs. Hanson again. “No. I’ve never seen him before. He said he’d just pulled onto this street to turn around when the house caught fire. His name is Tyler Raines.”
“Tyler Raines. I’ve never heard the name, although he looks vaguely familiar. . . . At least I thought he did at first. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Thank goodness he was here. I’ve been having a bad bout with my arthritis this week and I need my walker. I was shaking so much, though, I turned it over and I was standing there wavering back and forth, ready to fall on the blasted thing, when he swooped in and picked me up, as if I was no heavier than a little bird, and carried me out to you. If he could have only gotten to Penny and Willow. . . .”
Mrs. Hanson broke off, her hands trembling violently. “Oh, dear heaven, that little house simply blew up! We both have gas furnaces. Could her furnace have exploded?”
“Penny wouldn’t be running the furnace in the summer. Maybe it was the water heater. It was gas, too, and in the basement as I recall. It could have been leaking all day and Penny didn’t notice. All it would have taken was one spark to set off all that gas.”
“A spark from what?”
“A frayed electrical cord or the water heater flipping on or a pressure valve malfunction or . . .” Diana glanced helplessly at Mrs. Hanson, who was looking at her expectantly. “I’m not an expert. I’m just speculating.”
The woman’s shoulders sagged. “Knowing the cause won’t help Penny and Willow anyway. Oh, my lord, those
poor things.” Mrs. Hanson’s voice shivered. “That explosion even made
my
house shake. My daughter makes beautiful ceramics and she gave me a figurine that looks just like Willow. She said it was the best thing she’d done. It fell from the curio cabinet and I know it shattered. It’s like a sign from heaven.”
The woman suddenly began to shake and sob, again raising her drenched handkerchief to her face. Diana, still crouching, stretched into the car and enfolded Mrs. Hanson in her arms, making comforting sounds that she would to a child.
Diana continued to rock and croon absently while keeping her gaze on the uproar around Penny’s house. Emergency workers had hooked up giant lights that somehow made the scene look almost artificial, more like a movie set than Penny’s familiar and very real house—or shell of a house. The right side had completely collapsed, and only two-thirds of the left side remained standing, drenched in water sprayed from the giant hoses. From where Diana stood, the insides of the house were black and glistening. The back of the house disappeared into darkness.
A few small fires still burned inside, and three firefighters entered, dousing the flames. Beyond the destroyed right wall, Diana could see that the three men walked along the inner left side of the house, taking small steps and repeatedly looking downward. She realized most of the living room floor must have collapsed, and the men were peering into the basement. They looked upward, too, dodging charred boards and shingles crashing from the roof. The men were obviously scanning the ruins for survivors, Diana realized. She closed her eyes. How she longed to hear one of them yell, “We’ve found a woman and a little girl and they’re not hurt!”
No one said anything about a woman and a little girl, though. They simply moved slowly and silently through the ruin that half an hour earlier had been Penny’s cozy little house where Willow had lain recovering from surgery, and her loving mother had hovered over her.
They had extinguished the fire at Mrs. Hanson’s house, although Diana couldn’t judge how much destruction the structure had suffered. The woman still didn’t know that the conflagration had reached her own home. Diana dreaded telling her or letting her see it, no matter how minor the damage. The shaken woman seemed as if she couldn’t handle more bad news. Still, someone had to inform her.
Diana took a deep breath and strove to speak as calmly as possible. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m afraid the fire got to your house. Or rather, to a small part of it.” The woman gasped, but Diana smiled reassuringly. “A chunk of burning debris hit your roof. The firefighters immediately started spraying, and I think they’ve completely put out the fire,” she said quickly. “Still, if you wouldn’t mind sitting alone in the car for a few minutes, I’d like to see how much damage was done.”
Mrs. Hanson clutched her arm. “Oh, no, Diana! You mustn’t leave the protection of this car. It’s dangerous out there. My house is just a little old thing, not worth getting yourself hurt over.”
“I’ll be extremely careful. Mr. Raines hasn’t come back for a while. Maybe they’ve found . . . something.”
“You mean
someone
,” Mrs. Hanson said dully. “And if they’d found Penny and Willow, I’m sure that young man would have rushed right back to tell us.” Her throat worked as if she were choking back a sob. “Oh, I just can’t bear it,” she blurted.
“Maybe Tyler Raines is helping and he couldn’t come back. I have to know
something
, Mrs. Hanson. That’s why I need to go check for myself. Will you be okay if I leave for a few minutes?”
Mrs. Hanson drew a deep breath and said with feigned strength, “Certainly I’ll be okay, dear. My joints are swollen but my heart is in good shape.” She patted Diana’s hand. “You go take a look if you want. I’ll sit here quietly.”
And cry
, Diana thought as she stood, her legs cramping slightly from the crouching position she’d held so long. She closed the car door, hoping to shut Mrs. Hanson away
from some of the noise and smoke. She wished she could just as easily block out the sight of the ruined house.
She glanced back and saw that she needn’t worry. Mrs. Hanson held her head high and firm. Diana was certain the woman was gazing straight ahead with her lovely eyes—eyes that apparently didn’t need glasses even though she was in her seventies, Diana thought as she tucked her thick, windswept hair behind her ears and tried to walk steadily toward the burned houses.
“What are you doing?”
Diana jumped at the sound of Tyler Raines’s razor-sharp voice. She’d been trying to keep her mind off Penny and Willow by thinking only about Mrs. Hanson. She hadn’t even seen Raines striding toward her. She drew herself up to her full five-foot-six frame, but she had to look up at least another six inches to glare at him. “I want to see Penny’s house.”
Tyler Raines stood firmly in front of her. Sweat streaked his dirty face, soot had settled into three shallow creases across his forehead, and his light blue T-shirt had turned an indeterminate shade of gray and stuck clammily to his wide chest. His damp, longish hair had parted unevenly in the middle and hung below his high cheekbones, almost to his earlobes.