House on Fire

House on Fire

  A different kind of love story

  by Andy Mather

  Thirteenth Edition, 05/05/2016

  This is a fictional story. The resemblance of any character or situation to reality is purely coincidental.

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  Prologue

  Even at eleven I knew a lot about people in love. The sparkly glance, the brush of a hand, the subtle smile that can’t hide the desire behind it. The way one drops what they’re doing when the other comes home to their embrace. My parents were passionately amorous.

  And yeah, sometimes they were noisy at night. The next morning she’d hum and he’d whistle. Gross to think about, but comforting in a way – kinda like insurance. Spaz’s parents broke up and it made him miserable. I knew my Mom and Dad would never get divorced.

  Mom told me they were married in their hearts long before exchanging vows in a church. She said it was love at first sight. I thought that was just a saying – until it happened to me.

  It was Friday after school, two weeks before Thanksgiving. Gray clouds hung low over Detroit, and a cool breeze scraped brown, dry leaves across the concrete yard. Others, bright yellow and red, clung to the wet grass by the high chain link fence. The smell of damp leaves always reminds me.

  I’d wandered away from Mom and Dad. There were tons of kids on the playground; strangers with hard faces, alien. Some laughed, but it seemed sharp and mean. I was just watching. I didn’t belong there; I was the alien.

  One girl stood out. She sat on a step, twirling a plastic rose, really just a green stick with some faded purple petals. Her skin was like coffee when you pour in cream, and her hair was long and black, but not zig-zaggy. I’d never seen anyone like her. Why did she seem so familiar?

  That’s not what I mean, though; she was alone, as if nobody else could see her. An outcast even among orphans. She glanced at me with a flash of what might have been recognition, and then quickly away. I took that as an invitation and sat next to her on the step.

  “I’m Cory. What’s your name?”

  “Jessica," she whispered, and turned to me with just the flicker of a smile.

  That’s when it happened. It was like I could see into her, right through her eyes, and knew that we were connected in ways that I couldn’t begin to describe. It made my whole body shiver; I felt thrilled and terrified – like when your rollercoaster goes over a hill and the world falls out from beneath you.

  “You new. Y’gotta to stay here, too?” Her voice was high and sweet. A strand of hair blew across her face and she brushed it away. I tried not to stare, but couldn’t help myself

  “Um, no, Mom and Dad want to adopt a baby.” The idea of getting an infant sister wasn’t exciting, but Mom got dreamy-faced whenever she talked about it. It seemed like they’d been filling out papers for months.

  “Oh.” Jessica looked up at the gloomy sky. “You ever pray?”

  “I guess.”

  “I do. I prayt real hard las’ night.”

  “Why?”

  Jessica glanced at a group of teenage boys by the steel fence. They were glaring at us and she looked away.

  “They’ the ones.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “The ones who hurt me.”

  The way that she hugged her knees pulled back her jacket sleeves, and I noticed bruises on her thin wrists.

  “Last night?”

  She nodded, and after hesitating, “Lotsa nights.”

  I wasn’t stupid, and understood what she wasn’t saying. Without even looking I could feel the big kids’ stares.

  She gazed down at her feet. “I prayt for a garden angel.”

  Our eyes met again and it was electric. That scared feeling washed over me, this time more like panic. It twisted in me; I was way out of my depth and wanted to be back at the picnic table with Mom and Dad and the social work lady. I didn’t know any angels, but I knew a force of nature. Reaching over, I took Jessica’s hand.

  “Come with me – I gotta talk to Dad.”

  Mom and Dad were sitting close and hugging. They were always so mushy. Jessica climbed right up next to Mom and leaned in, showing her the flower. Mom looked surprised, but then she put her arm around the little girl and got that dreamy look.

  Dad’s face was usually hard to tell, except when his forehead looked annoyed, like it was then. I tugged on his sleeve until he finally leaned over. His neck smelled like Old Spice, and his beard tickled my cheek as I whispered in his ear. Dad’s forehead got angry, bad as I’d ever seen it. But he just nodded, and went back to listening to the social worker. She was explaining how children should only be raised by a family of the same heritage.

  “My great-grampa Laine came from Finland,” I said, but she was busy talking. I wondered if any of the orphan babies there were Finnish. Probably not.

  Slow minutes passed. Maybe Dad forgot. Should I tell him again? But then he said, “Jessica, Cory tells me that the older boys hurt you at night. Is that true?”

  Jessica looked at me. I knew she was asking if it was safe to tell, so I nodded.

  Her voice was very small. “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you show me where they hurt you, Sweetie?”

  She looked back at me, so I nodded again. She pointed down where they hurt her. Mom made a weird sound.

  “Jessie! Why didn’t you tell us?” the lady gasped.

  “They made me scared.”

  Dad suggested that they head inside and talk to the director. A different woman from the orphanage took Jessie to the hospital. A policeman came and asked me to point out the boys through the office window. The first lady gave him their names. I told the officer about the bruises. He wrote things down in his little notebook.

  “My Dad’s a policeman, too,” I told him.

  The day before my twelfth birthday we got dressed up and went to see a judge. We had to wait a long time for our turn. Somewhere in all the boring talk, the judge said yes. And that’s how Jessie got to be my sister.