Belonging (42 page)

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Authors: Nancy Thayer

BOOK: Belonging
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She focused on her work, but felt blocked and stalled. It seemed that motherhood had plugged the channels of her brain with molasses; she knew the good ideas were there, waiting in the crevices of her mind, but it took her true labor to force her way through the sweet muddle and laze of her head to find anything. She needed more coffee. Even if it
did mean encountering the Snows.

Hurrying downstairs, she entered the kitchen and was surprised to find it empty. She looked into the sunroom. It was crowded with equipment: sawhorses, a tool chest, sheets of plywood, a new roll of carpet. But Doug and Todd weren’t there. She’d heard them come in only a few minutes ago. Where were they?

She went back into the kitchen, picked up her mug, took a carton of skim milk from the refrigerator, poured, and stirred. She put the milk back in the refrigerator and lifted her mug to her lips. Outside, the white sky had become tinged with an ominous gray and the ocean was leaping and frothing.

A thunderous boom split the air, shaking the entire house.

Beneath Joanna’s feet the floor moved, throwing her to her knees. Her mug flew out of her hand and across the room. She threw her hands out to catch herself as she fell. The noise was so tremendous she thought a jet had fallen from the sky, through the roof, and into the house. Through the kitchen door she saw the hall floor burst open, its golden boards cracking apart and flying upward. One wall of the kitchen groaned and shuddered and broke open, flames flashing up from beneath the floor.

For a split second she knelt, stunned. More explosions roared through the air. Her mug lay shattered on the floor, the coffee spilled in a wide black shivering puddle.

Her mind jumped forward and signaled: Fire. Danger. Christopher.

Stumbling, she pushed herself up and raced out into the hall. A jagged hole yawned in the middle of the wide boards, and from it tongues of fire leapt upward. On the other side of the hallway, the living room was crashing inward, part of the second floor above it was groaning downward, and she could see part of the attic as the fire twisted up to the sky. Bits of flaming rubble, timber, burning wood, shot up as blast followed blast through the roof. Black clouds of smoke billowed through the house. She ran along the margin of the hallway, past the fiery hole, up the stairs, into the nursery.

Christopher was in his crib, screaming with fear. Joanna grabbed him up. She took a precious few moments to cradle him against her shoulder, murmuring, “There, there, darling baby, it’s all right, Mother’s here, it’s all right.”

She stepped back out into the hall, then stopped, trying to think. The center of the house was consumed with flames. More of the house was giving way as she watched, walls and floors cracking, screaming, as if the fire were eating off chunks of it, chewing it down into its burning belly. The back of the house was now a fiery pit, and the front
stairway was rippling with flames. Oily smoke obscured her vision, rolled over her face, smothering her, making her cough. The noise was terrifying, as if a train were passing over them. Christopher screamed and thrashed in her arms. Heat blasted toward them.

She ran back into the nursery and with shaking hands swaddled her baby in blankets, taking care to cover Christopher’s face, but not too tightly. She pulled another blanket over her head and shoulders. She was moving as fast as she could, but already the air in the nursery was hot and thick with smoke and she was coughing spontaneously, continuously. She took time to look out the window: no. She and the baby would not survive a jump from this height. She had to face the fire.

Now flames were billowing up through the hall as if blown by the winds of hell. Wood crashed around her, bits of ceiling and draperies fell or floated upward on the inferno’s breath. But the front stairway still held, although the inner wall was a sheet of fire. Just a few feet farther down the hallway, the antique mahogany trestle table, with its silver bowl filled with white letters to be mailed, and its orange and blue porcelain vase of dried hydrangeas, tipped and slid and disappeared in the flames. Then the lopsided coatrack, one of Joanna’s treasures from the dump, fell. Soon the stairs would go.

She had no choice. Coughing, her eyes weeping from the sting of the smoke, she tightened the blanket around her face, leaving only enough room to see out of, and clutching her baby tightly to her breast, she plunged down the steps. Flames grabbed for her. She felt a searing pain as the hand holding the blanket over her head was scorched by the heat. Each breath was agony, as if she were swallowing glass, and she was dizzy, and the walls around her were sagging and bending so that she couldn’t see clearly.

She reached the bottom of the staircase. Between her and the front door a wall of fire raged. The house roared as it was ripped apart, crashing into the central core of the fire. Frantic, she looked behind her, but saw only fire. The heat was intense. Desperate for air, she took a few steps back up the front staircase toward the remaining front hall and bedroom where the fire hadn’t completely taken over. She looked helplessly down at the inferno. She couldn’t go through the flames. But she had to; it was the only way out. Without realizing it, she’d sunk to her knees, and kneeling, she coughed racking coughs, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs. She couldn’t think clearly. She was too dizzy to stand. She couldn’t get back to her feet. A smothering sensation came over her, she felt her eyes bulge, and she tried to crawl forward on one elbow, holding her baby with the other arm.

A figure loomed toward her through the oily thick smoke. Madaket was crashing toward them through the flames. Joanna felt Madaket’s arms embrace Joanna and Christopher, she felt herself and her baby being dragged through the flames. They were in the fire. Then they were going out the burning front door to safety. She fought not to lose consciousness, but her nose and mouth burned and it hurt to breathe.

It felt like the end of the world. She was aware of lying on the ground, on the gravel. Her arms were still around Christopher, her body curled over his. She could feel the heat and hear the crackle of burning wood, the scream and crash of falling lumber. Beneath her cheek the driveway was gritty and cold. It scratched her skin. Christopher was crying. Her breath burned in her throat. Someone near her was keening shrilly in pain. Then the noise stopped.

“Joanna, oh my God, Joanna.” June Lathern was there, weeping and babbling, her voice shrill with hysteria.

“The fire department’s on its way. An ambulance is coming.” Morris Lathern’s voice was calmer. He rolled Joanna onto her back, and loosening her hold from the baby, took Christopher from her arms. Christopher screamed.

“He’s all right, Joanna,” Morris said. “June has him now. He’s perfectly all right. Can you breathe?”

Joanna tried to say yes, but made only a hideous sound that felt as if it ripped apart the tissues of her throat.

“I’m going to carry you now,” Morris said. “Just a little ways, to get you away from the heat.”

Joanna felt herself being half lifted, half dragged, and she heard Morris grunt with exertion, and felt the effort and strain in his chest and arms.

“Go back to the house and get blankets to cover them,” he said to his wife.

Joanna heard Christopher’s crying subside and then dim as June went away.

A hideous stench, a smell like that of cooked meat, assaulted Joanna’s senses, filling her with terror. “Madaket,” she cried.

The word was unintelligible, but Morris understood. “I’m going to her now.”

Joanna lay on the ground on her side. Above her something large and black flew across the sky, dipping and flapping. The air roiled and trembled with fiery cannonades of thunderous sound, as if all the devils in hell were doing battle. Wrenching her body
around, she faced her house. It was writhing with fire. Flames flared from the roof and poured out the windows. Great black clouds of smoke billowed up into the sky. Black flags of burned material floated upward on waves of hot air.

An enormous crash shook the air, followed by a pandemonium of sounds as beams, furniture, ceilings, walls, and floors collapsed in the fury of the fire. Sparks flew upward like brilliant orange birds, and instantaneous explosions ripped the air.

She was aware of the scream of sirens slicing through the air as a red fire truck, enormous and gleaming, raced into the drive. Behind it came another, and then an ambulance. The earth shook beneath her.

The fire chief, bulky in his black and yellow slicker and helmet, jumped out. She could not move anymore; she felt her consciousness fading, melting in the waves of heat.

The fire chief yelled, “What happened?”

From somewhere nearby Morris shouted back, “I don’t know!”

“Anyone else in there?”

She didn’t hear the answer.

She was aware of being strapped on a stretcher and slid into the ambulance. Gardner was there. June was there, with Christopher. The last sight she saw before they closed the ambulance doors was her house, now completely transformed into a towering frenzy of orange and black and purple flames. Huge sails of black smoke lifted off and swept toward the ocean.

Later, she understood she was in the hospital. Her throat was on fire. People moved around her and pricked her arms.

She awoke in the late afternoon. Pat was sitting on a chair with a book. Immediately she came to the bedside.

“What happened?” Joanna asked, but to her horror, only a croak emerged from her painful throat and mouth. A scream swelled in her chest.

Pat leaned forward. “You’re okay. Christopher’s okay. The smoke burned your throat and respiratory passages, but you’ll be okay.”

Where’s Madaket? Joanna asked, mouthing the words, beseeching with her eyes and her hands.

“Madaket’s alive,” Pat replied. “Now close your eyes. You have to rest.”

They brought her the baby to nurse at some point in the evening. She was thirsty,
but could have nothing to drink. Tubes in her arms gave her necessary liquids.

She fell asleep, and woke in terror, screaming, thinking that it was happening again. The nurses came and gave her more shots.

She woke again in the late morning. She was in a hospital room. Milky sunlight poured through the window. In a chair near the bed, Pat sat reading a magazine.

“Hey, there. You’re awake,” Pat cried, looking up.

“The baby—” Joanna croaked. Her throat was sore and parched.

“Right here.” Pat gestured to a portable crib. Christopher was there, wearing an unfamiliar white garment, covered with a light blanket. He was on his tummy, bottom in the air, sleeping peacefully. “He’s okay. Not the tiniest part was burned. I’ll tell the nurse you’re awake.”

“No, wait. Pat—”

But Pat hurried away, shutting the door behind her.

Joanna looked around, looked down to see her right hand wrapped and taped with white gauze. The hand that had held the blanket closed around her and Christopher. She felt her face with her good hand. It was smooth and unbandaged. No pain. Because of the blanket around her, she’d come through the flames intact.

Pat returned, followed by Gardner. He looked terrible, pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes, and tired, and somber. But he smiled as he approached the bed.

“Good morning.”

“Gardner. It hurts to talk. It hurts to swallow.”

“You inhaled smoke, hot air, soot, and it burned your throat. You have minor tracheal swelling. But we didn’t have to intubate you. We’ll keep you on liquids; you’ll heal fast.” He came close to the bed, took her wrist in his hand, and took her pulse.

“You’ll be fine.”

“And Madaket?”

His forehead creased. “She’s in Boston. Intensive care. Mass General Burn Center.”

“Oh, Gardner!”

“She’ll live. She’ll be all right.”

“But was she—”

“She sustained severe burns.”

“How severe?”

“What you would know as second-degree.”

“When will she be back on the island?”

“Not for a month or two. We’ll see. She has to be isolated for a while—burns can easily get infected.”

“Is she in pain?”

He paused. “She’s on pain medication.”

“Gardner. I have to know. How bad—”

Gardner hesitated. “Her face sustained full burns. Her hair—is gone. Her scalp was burned. Her hands were burned. About eighteen percent of the rest of her body sustained partial burns.”

Joanna moaned with pity. “Dear God.”

“But she was lucky,” Gardner continued. “Her jacket and all her heavy wool clothing protected most of her body.”

“Think how much she loves you,” Pat said, her voice husky with wonder. “Joanna, she saved your life. And Christopher’s.”

“Yes.”

“She went right into the fire to get you out.”

“What about Wolf? And Bitch?”

Gardner shook his head. “I suppose there’s a chance, if they were outside … If they were inside, their bones will be buried in the rubble.”

“What happened?” Joanna asked. “Does anyone know?”

Pat looked at Gardner, who nodded. She took Joanna’s unbandaged hand in hers. “Doug and Todd Snow used dynamite.”

“Dynamite!”

“The fire chief talked to Mrs. Snow. Doug’s brother is in construction work. Doug got some dynamite from him. Doug and Todd told Helen that they’d found part of Farthingale’s treasure in a room underneath the screened porch. They thought there was more.” Pat looked questioningly at Joanna.

So that was it. Closing her eyes, Joanna admitted, “It’s true. When they began work on the sunporch, Doug and Todd found a trapdoor leading to a cool cellar beneath the porch. Todd and Madaket went down. They found a room with brick walls, and a small old metal chest with a lock on it. We opened it together, the four of us, Todd and Doug, Madaket and me, and we found a pouch with two rubies in it.”

“Are you sure they were rubies?” Pat asked.

Joanna nodded. “I’ve taken them to Boston. To a jeweler’s. I sold them.”

“So you really did find the Farthingale treasure.” Pat shook her head in wonder.

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Pat. I didn’t tell anyone—I was so tired, and worried about continuing the pregnancy to term, and I wanted to avoid publicity and all that fuss. The others agreed to wait until I was ready before telling anyone else. And in all honesty, I had so much else going on I just didn’t think about it. But I did let Todd and Madaket explore the tunnel.”

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