Chapter Twenty-Three
Selena had spent two days with Evan after seeing her mother off. She’d managed to put all the fears and the what-ifs out of her mind for the most part. She didn’t know if it was talking to her mom that enabled it or if she was just in denial. Evan had been off work, so it was easy to pretend they existed in their own little danger-free world.
This morning he’d left her bed to make it to the station by seven. She’d spent the morning painting, trying to catch up from having taken two full days off. After showering, she was warming up a frozen dinner in the microwave.
Her cell phone, plugged in to charge on the kitchen counter, rang out with a bluesy riff that made her heart skip a beat. She hadn’t heard the tone for weeks but her body reacted with adrenaline anyway.
“Tom?”
“Yeah, Leenie,” her brother said. “It’s me.”
“Oh, my God, what’s wrong? Are you okay? You’re talking, so you’re not dead.”
“I’m okay. I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”
Her battery had been dead, and then the phone had been two stories below her. “You must still love me if you’re spending all that time trying to get through,” she said lightly, over the moon to hear his voice again after so long. Even if she’d been the one to cut him off.
His hesitation registered then and foreboding nearly choked her. “Tom? What’s wrong?”
In the two seconds it took him to speak, she thought she would pass out.
“It’s Mom. She had an aneurysm last night, Leenie.”
She fell onto the sofa, jaw gaping, staring out at the waves but taking no notice of them.
“She died, honey.”
“No.” She shook her head. “She was just here with me, Tom. She was fine. Perfectly healthy. No way.” Her head still shook from side to side, as if she could change the truth if she denied it hard enough.
“Lola found her when she didn’t show up for breakfast, but it was too late. She’d apparently passed hours before.”
“Oh, God. Poor Lola.” Lola was the cook who’d been with them for several years and lived in the guesthouse in the backyard.
“Selena, are you okay?” Tom asked over a static-filled connection.
Was she okay? Her chest tightened until she felt as though a boa constrictor had a hold of her and was seconds from squeezing the life out of her. Tears pricked at her eyes like a thousand tiny pins.
“Mom is … gone?” she said, her voice wavering. “We just … just started getting along better. We talked, Tom. For the first time…”
“I know, Leenie. Look, we have to plan the funeral. I’ve been on the phone with a funeral home a couple of times, but there’s only so much I can do from here.”
“Where’s here?”
“I can’t tell you, exactly. But it’s remote and hours and hours away from home by plane.”
“When will you get home?”
“By the funeral, I hope. I set it for Wednesday. That gives me four days. You need to get a ticket home right away. Do you think you can handle things until I get there?”
She wasn’t a helpless spoiled girl anymore. Selena straightened and nodded. “I’ll fly out today.”
“That’s my girl.” He had her jot down the name and number of the funeral home. “I’ll be there soon, Leenie.”
“Bye,” she managed, disconnecting the call before dropping her head into her hands.
Unable to face her sadness, she picked the phone up again, saw that it had charged more than halfway, and dialed Evan’s cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she left a semi-coherent message, telling him about her mother and that she needed to talk to him as soon as possible. Then she grabbed her purse and went out the door, away from the suddenly stifling beach house. Macey worked at the Shell Shack today. She’d make her flight reservations from there, after she calmed down.
oOo
“I’ll close the bar and come with you,” Macey said when Selena had finished blubbering all over her shoulder. “I’ve got a travel app on my phone. We can reserve the flight.”
Selena shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.” She sniffed loudly, not caring that the handful of lunch customers had witnessed her breakdown. Some of them had moved to the patio, either to give her and Macey privacy or to get away from the scene she made. “There’s no need for you to go. But thank you so much for offering.” She tried to smile, her vision still blurry.
“I mean it, Selena. I can go.”
“My brother will be there.”
Macey studied her from the stool next to hers. “All right. But if you change your mind…”
“Turn the TV on,” a middle-aged guy said as he rushed inside. “There’s a big fire on the mainland. Looks like a news helicopter is covering the action.” Macey hopped off the stool, and Selena tried to recover from the terror she’d felt at the word fire. If it was on the mainland, though, Evan wouldn’t be involved.
“Channel Six,” the guy said, as all of them stared at the TV mounted at an angle from the ceiling behind the bar.
When the picture finally appeared, they could see a building engulfed by flames on one side, with so much smoke it was impossible to tell much about where it was.
“It’s a school,” Macey said. “I’ve seen that place.” The other customers inside joined them at the main counter from their previous spots around the outer perimeter of the shack.
“Lord have mercy,” an older woman said.
“Anyone know what happened?” a man next to her asked.
Macey shook her head and turned the volume up.
“…four-alarm fire here, folks. Departments have been called in from surrounding areas to help. These guys have a long day ahead of them trying to get this fire under control…”
Selena tuned out the rest, stuck on “surrounding areas.” She met Macey’s eyes over the counter and could see her fear. They were thinking the same thing. Derek was working too.
The camera panned to what looked like a city park down the block from the burning building. Scads of elementary children were there, along with shell-shocked parents and teachers.
“How’d you hear about it?” another customer asked the man who’d delivered the news.
“Saw it. You can see the smoke from here, and the helicopter.”
As the camera panned back to the fire, it passed slowly over the fire trucks, including a big red rig with San Amaro Island Fire Department on the side.
“Oh, God.” Selena swallowed down the bile that threatened to choke her. The lights seemed to dim, and all sound around her disappeared, as if she’d slipped into a big bubble. Her mouth was completely dry. Her head spun and it suddenly took all her effort to remain upright on the stool.
Macey put her arm around her and pulled her tightly to her side as they were transfixed by the nightmare on the television screen.
“What do we do?” Selena croaked out. “Should we go there?”
Macey shook her head. “We’ll get more information here. Trust me, it’s chaos there and we don’t want to distract anyone.”
“We can’t just sit here and watch.” Without thinking, Selena put her hand over her abdomen.
“They’ll be okay,” Macey said. Her face was so ashen, though, Selena knew she was trying to convince herself as much as Selena.
They clung to each other for the next hour. Selena couldn’t drag her eyes from the TV.
“Macey.” Kevin, one of the shift managers for the bar, hurried in and crossed to her. “I came when I saw the fire on TV. Is Derek on duty?”
She nodded. “Thank you. I could use the help.”
The number of customers had doubled, most of them there to get an update on the news.
“Sit down,” Kevin said. “Take a break.”
“Did you ever eat lunch?” Macey asked Selena as she slid a vacant stool closer.
Selena tried to remember. Then it hit her that her mother had died. God. She’d almost forgotten in the terror of the fire. “No.” She felt shaky, as if she could collapse at any second. She held her hand out in front of her and saw it trembling.
Macey sprang into action, but Selena paid no attention. Her vision blurred, and this time it wasn’t from tears. There were no tears left inside her — only cold, black fear.
“Come on,” Macey said, gently taking her by the arm. “We need to get out of here.”
“I need to watch,” Selena said, everything swimming in her vision.
“No. Trust me, sweetie. We need some air. I’ve got you.”
Macey pulled her off the stool and firmly propelled her to the doorway on the beach side. Selena didn’t even have a chance to look back and check the TV again.
“What if something happens while we’re out here?” Selena asked as Macey pulled her closer to the water.
“Then it happens. You looked about to pass out in there. Drink this.” She shoved a large plastic cup at Selena.
“I don’t want anything.”
“It’s water. Your body needs it. For the baby if not for yourself.”
The baby who could be fatherless. Selena leaned over and threw up into a patch of sea grass.
“Oh, sweetie, come here.” Macey led Selena a few steps away and they sat on the chilly sand.
Selena no longer had the strength or the will to stay upright, so she lay back on the beach. “How do you do this?” she asked Macey hoarsely.
“I tell myself everything will be okay. Over and over again.”
“Do you ever believe it?”
Macey was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes. I think I do. I know Derek is good at what he does. Evan is too.”
“Accidents can happen to good firefighters.”
“Sure. But you have to believe they’ll do everything they can to handle them.”
Selena didn’t respond. She bent her knees toward the sky and closed her eyes, her hands burrowing through the sand. Her chest ached and her neck and the base of her skull felt as though someone had repeatedly taken an ax to them.
Macey looked down at her and rubbed her hand over Selena’s sandy one. “Try taking twenty deep breaths. It helps with the panic.”
Selena was on inhale number four when they heard a gigantic boom in the distance. It was like a cannon but twenty times louder. She shot upright and Macey whipped around, trying to figure out what had happened.
Macey swore as she hurried to her feet and held out a hand for Selena.
“What? What was that?”
“Maybe an explosion. Come on.”
“Oh, God.” Where she found the energy to run back to the bar, she didn’t know, but they got there in time to hear the news announcer on the TV say that an explosion had rocked the school building.
“The last we knew, there were rescue personnel inside the building still attempting to get people out. We’ll keep you posted as we get answers. A lot of questions and unknowns here, folks.”
Kevin came up to them and put his hands on Selena’s and Macey’s. “You girls holding up?”
Selena couldn’t answer aloud, but no, she wasn’t holding up at all, thank you very much. If something happened to Evan…
“Could you get her something to drink?” Macey asked. “Nonalcoholic, please. She’s pregnant.”
If Kevin was surprised, he didn’t show it. He filled a cup with Sprite, stuck a lid on it, and slid it in front of Selena.
“Drink,” Macey said.
“We have confirmation that two rescue personnel are being taken to the emergency room with injuries,” the man on the TV said. “We don’t have word on the extent of the injuries yet. Stay tuned.”
“Let’s go,” Macey said, grabbing the Sprite with one hand and Selena with the other. “Kevin, could you hand me my purse? It’s in the drawer in back.”
They made their way to the door closest to the parking lot. Kevin met them there with the bag. “Call me, Mace.”
She nodded and they hurried to her car.
oOo
It took more than two hours for them to find out that the men brought in were firefighters but not their firefighters. One was in critical condition and the other was expected to make it but had severe burns. They were both from the department on the mainland, not San Amaro. Selena and Macey didn’t know the men or their families, but that didn’t diminish the bone-deep sorrow Selena felt for those involved. Still, she was relieved, at least for now, that Evan and Derek weren’t the men in the ER with a whole team of doctors working on them.
A wave of exhaustion nearly brought Selena to her knees as they walked out to Macey’s Corolla. “I think I need to go home.”
“You look like you got dragged by a train.”
“That’s better than I feel.”
“Want me to stay with you?”
Selena fell into the passenger seat and considered it. “I love you for offering, but I just need to go to bed.”
“I’ll call you when I hear something.”
“Please.” Though if it was any more bad news, Selena didn’t have a clue how she would survive it.