Chapter 19: Fire

They saw the glow from the highway.

Ronan drove the last mile with his hand on the horn.

At the gate of Pinewood Estates, two fire trucks were parked sideways across the lane.

Hoses ran down the gravel.

Cora was out of the car before it stopped.

Pearl's single-wide stood at the end of the row, and half of it was fire.

The roof Ronan had patched in the rain was gone.

Flames came out of the kitchen window where she had eaten dumplings every night of her life.

"Pearl!" she screamed. "Pearl!"

A fireman caught her around the waist.

"Ma'am, you can't go in. Ma'am!"

"My grandmother is in there!"

"No, she isn't," said a voice behind her. "Cora, honey. Turn around."

The old man from lot nine stood in his undershirt and slippers, his face black with smoke.

Behind him, on his own folding chair, sat Pearl.

She wore a neighbor's coat over her nightgown and a foil blanket over the coat.

She had a paper cup of water in both hands.

She was small, and gray, and alive.

Cora dropped to her knees in the gravel and put her face in her grandmother's lap.

"You scared me to death," Pearl said. "I was just going to bed."

"I thought-"

"I know, baby."

Pearl stroked her hair with a hand that smelled of smoke.

"The boy saw it first," she said. "From the mailbox."

The eleven-year-old stood a few yards off in his pajamas, with a stick in one hand and a phone in the other.

His cheeks were streaked, and his chin shook, and he was trying to look as though he was not crying.

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