Just Breathe

“Sure I did, Jack. I bought the thing, remember? The title’s in my name.”

“It was a gift, dammit. You gave it to me.”

“Boy, you sure know how to scold a girl about a car,” she said. “I’d like to hear what you have to say about something really bad, like…oh…infidelity?”

He didn’t bother responding to that. How could he? “I wish I could take back what I did, but I can’t. We have to move on, Sarah—together. We can heal from this. I need a chance to make it up to you. Please come home, sugar-bean,” he said, using his pet name for her in a voice that used to beguile her.

Now it just made her queasy. With a curious feeling of detachment, she stared at the scene in front of her—a sleepy seaside town. Two women chatting on the sidewalk. A shy-looking mongrel flashed around a corner, furtively looking for scraps.

“I am home,” she said. Birdie had explained that there was an advantage to initiating the divorce from California, a community property state. She had warned Sarah that Jack’s lawyer would probably fight it tooth and nail.

“What about everything I gave you?” Jack reminded her. “A beautiful home, anything you wanted or needed. Sarah, there are women who would kill to have those things…”

Jack was still talking when she turned off the phone. He just didn’t get it and probably never would. “Those things were worthless.” Her hand shook a little as she fitted the key into the ignition. Nerves, she thought. Rage. She knew enough about divorce to realize she was in for the entire painful spectrum of emotions. She wondered how and when they would strike. Would she be smacked down as though hit by a truck, or would the pain creep up on her and lodge like a virus under her heart? Now, for the first time, she fully understood how Jack had felt before undergoing his first treatment. The absolute terror of what she was about to do was excruciating.

She sat and watched the only traffic signal in town turn from yellow to red. At the main intersection, a school bus lumbered to a halt and its stop signs cranked open like a pair of large ears. Sarah suspected it was one of the same buses she had ridden all her life. The sides were stenciled West Marin Unified School District. Judging by the ages of the kids who emerged from the bus, this was from the junior high. She watched a group of schoolkids with back-packs walking down the streets, pausing in front of the candy store to dig through their pockets for change. Some of the boys were smooth-cheeked while others sported a five o’clock shadow. The girls, too, came in a variety of shapes and sizes, their manner ranging from awkward to cool.

One of the cool ones—Sarah could spot them a mile off—was a self-possessed blond demigoddess who made a big production of lighting a cigarette. Sarah flinched, wondering where this girl’s mother was and if she knew what her daughter was up to.

Once again, Sarah told herself it was a good thing her quest to get pregnant was over. Kids were a constant challenge. Sometimes they were downright scary.

The last to emerge from the bus was a remarkable-looking girl. Small of stature, she had shining jet-black hair, pale skin and the perfect features of a Disney princess. There was a flawless, other-worldly quality about her that made Sarah want to stare. The girl was Pocahontas, Mulan, Jasmine. Sarah half expected her to burst into song at any moment.

She didn’t burst into anything, of course, but walked over to the fire department pickup truck. The driver was talking on the phone or a radio. The girl got in, slammed the door and they drove off.

Sarah was a watcher, not a doer. She’d always been that way, watching others live their lives while she lived inside her own head. And it struck her—hard and against her will—that even though she was the wronged party in her marriage, she wasn’t blameless for its demise. Ouch.

The black-and-white dog feinted away from a group of boys horsing around, and darted out into the street. Sarah jumped out of the car and dashed toward the mongrel. She shooed it back onto the sidewalk. At the same moment, she heard the thump of brakes locking up. She froze in the middle of the roadway, a few feet from the chartreuse pickup.

“Idiot,” the driver called. “I almost hit you.”

Embarrassment crept over her, quickly followed by resentment. These days, she was bitter about all men and in no mood to be yelled at by some tattooed redneck in a baseball cap. “There was a dog…” She gestured at the sidewalk, but the mongrel was nowhere in sight. “Sorry,” she muttered, and headed back to her car.

This was why she was a watcher and not a doer. Less chance of humiliating herself. Yet now, thanks to Jack, she had discovered that there were worse things than humiliation.

Chapter Seven

Flames leapt at the face of Will’s daughter. Each individual golden tongue seemed to illuminate a different facet of her pale skin and shiny black hair. The overfed charcoal fire roared at her, seeming to lick her eyelashes.

“Jesus, Aurora,” he said, running to the patio to clap the lid on the barbecue grill. “You know better than that.”

For a moment, his stepdaughter merely stared at him. Since coming into his life eight years before, she’d owned his heart, but when she did things like this, he wanted to shake her.

“I was firing up the barbecue,” she said. “Did you pick up the stuff for the Truesdale Specials?”

“Yes. But I don’t recall saying it was okay for you to start the grill.”

“You took too long at the store. I was sick and tired of waiting.”

“You’re supposed to be doing homework.”

“I finished.” Her eyes, lavishly surrounded by dark lashes, regarded him with reproof. “I was only trying to help.”

“Aw, honey.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I’m not mad. But I figured you knew better than to start a fire. Think of the headline in the Beacon if anything happens—Fire Captain’s Daughter Goes Up In Smoke!”

She giggled. “Sorry, Dad.”

“I forgive you.”

“Can we still make Truesdales?”

The burgers were their special meal, and theirs alone—mainly because no one else would touch them. They were made of SPAM, Velveeta and onion forced through a meat grinder, then grilled and served with a sauce of tomato soup. Heaven on a bun. Aurora was the only person Will had ever known who would eat them with him.

He lifted the black dome of the lid. “No sense letting a perfectly good fire go to waste.”

Over the years, of necessity, he had learned to cook. Round-the-clock shifts at the firehouse gave him plenty of time to learn the craft. He was famous for his fluffy pancakes, and his savory beef stew had once won a fire district prize. For someone who’d once expected to be drafted by a pro baseball team, firefighting was an unusual career choice. And for a single stepfather, it was risky, but for Will, it wasn’t even a choice. It was a calling. Years ago, he had discovered that rescuing people was what he did best, and risking himself was simply part of the job. And when it came to keeping himself safe, Aurora—his heart—was more powerful than body armor. Failing to come home to her was not an option.

With the burgers sizzling on the grill, he and Aurora worked side by side, putting together a macaroni salad. She chattered about school with the kind of breathless urgency only a seventh grade girl could convey. Each day was packed with drama, rife with intrigue, romance, betrayal, heroism, mystery. According to Aurora, it all happened in the course of a typical day.

Will tried to follow the convoluted saga of someone’s text message sent to the wrong phone, but he was preoccupied. He kept mulling over the barn fire, trying to figure out why it had been set, and who had done it.

“Dad. Dad.”

“What?”

“You aren’t even listening. Geez.”

She was getting too good at catching him. When she was little, she didn’t notice him zoning out. Now that she was older, she had a well-developed sense of when she was being ignored.

“Sorry,” he said. “Thinking about a fire today. That’s why I nearly missed picking you up at the bus this afternoon.”

She quickly turned, took a jar of mustard from the refrigerator and set it on the table. “What fire?”

“A barn up on one of the branch roads. Deliberately set.”

She carefully folded a pair of napkins, her small hands working with brisk efficiency. “By who?”

“Good question.”

“So are you, like, totally clueless?”

“Hardly. There are tons of clues.”

“Like what?”

“Footprints. A gas can. And some other stuff I can’t talk about until the arson investigator finishes his report.”

“You can tell me, Dad.”