Chapter 16: Eleven Winters

The garage was still burning when we got there.

Jesse's house sat at the end of a gravel lane off the lake road, a small tan ranch with a detached shed behind it.

Orange light poured out of the shed windows, and the roof had already started to go.

His neighbor stood in the yard in his pajamas with a garden hose, and the stream wasn't reaching.

Jesse was out of the truck before it stopped.

I ran after him and caught his jacket at the shoulder.

"Don't go in."

"My father's tools are in there."

"Then you carry them out after the roof's down. Not through a fire."

He turned and looked at me, and I had never seen his face open that wide.

I held on.

The roof came down at ten past three with a long groan and a column of sparks.

The bike was somewhere underneath it.

We stood in the yard until the volunteer truck came and hosed down what was left, and Jesse never spoke.

At five the sky was gray over the lake, and the shed was black bones and wet ash.

He sat on his porch step with his hands hanging between his knees.

The backs of both hands were blistered where he had pulled at the hot door.

I had seen him do it, and I had not been fast enough to stop him.

"Hold still," I said.

I took the first aid kit from under his truck seat and knelt in front of him on the cold boards.

He let me take his left hand.

The old scar ran white through his thumb, and the skin around it was angry and red.