Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men (33 page)

“Minutes...”

“I think she’s gone.”

I stood up and shook his hand. He gave me a hug.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’ll never forget this.”

“I’m glad you came to me, Lanny. I’m glad we could help her.”

I didn’t understand why he was so damned glad about everything.

I just felt lost.

We brought the hearse onto the ferry out of Horseshoe Bay; I tried to ignore the stares from camera-toting tourists.

We drove her to MacMillan and the giant fir trees at Cathedral Grove. We waited until the sun had set and the lot had emptied.

We took out the casket made of cardboard and cloth, and together Callum and I carried Kara into the woods. We found the place, that large Douglas Fir far off the trail, with a hole in its trunk just big enough to bury the love of my life.

After Callum had gone and come back with the shovels, we dug a little place for her in the earth that lined the floor of the hole, digging it deeper and deeper until there was no dirt left, and the shoots of the trunk came together again.

We took her out of the casket and laid her there, curled into a ball and wrapped in several sheets of plastic. We covered her with a couple feet of dirt and layered over the area with needles and some wayward leaves and grass.

I had a feeling she’d be safe there, away from the trail, buried on an island that had no coyotes to dig her out. Buried there until she lives again.

I wonder if by then they’ll have found a way for someone like me to live forever; Kara wouldn’t have wanted that, but that’s because she’s always been alone with that life, the one and only phoenix in all the world. She’s the only one to have lived on for what seems like forever after losing everyone who mattered.

Maybe the next time she wakes up I’ll be here waiting for her. And there will finally be someone else who understands just what that’s like.

There was a moment right after the fires went out when I thought Fiona and I were the only people left for a thousand miles around. It looked as though the whole world had burned, the air around us so hot that it felt like even the water of Lillabelle Lake was close to boiling. I had trouble imagining that anyone else could have survived.

She was laying beside me on the beach, where the rocky sand was still hot like a stovetop from the fire. Her eyes were open but she didn’t really seem to see me; I think she was still in shock.

I didn’t know her name then. I barely remembered Fiona and her parents from the sea of faces at the town meetings, back when the sky was dark night and day and it felt like we were all just sitting around and waiting to see the sun again, back when I was the big man around here for some reason. I didn’t know how sweet and smart and funny she is; she was just some pretty fourteen-year-old girl who reminded me of the daughter I’d lost, and who was now just as alone as I was.

That was the moment when I promised the universe and Cassy that I’d take care of Fiona, no matter what. I thought I might be the only person left in the world to take care of her.

But it didn’t take long for us to realize that we weren’t the only ones left out here; we weren’t even the only people who climbed out of Lillabelle Lake that day.

That didn’t make my promise any less important.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.reganwolfrom.com/after-the-fires-went-out/

Regan lives in Winnipeg, Canada with his wife, two children, and enough animals to bleed through six layers of carpet.

You can find out more about Regan at his website:
www.reganwolfrom.com