He Waited for Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 11 of 48
Chapter 11: The Calendar
We watched until the first fire trucks came screaming down the dead-end road.
Then Nicholas started the engine and drove us away with the lights off until we reached the highway.
Neither of us said a word for ten miles.
At a red light in Jersey City he finally spoke.
"Okay," he said.
That was all.
He didn't let go of my hand until we reached my street.
On Wednesday morning the fire was on every local channel.
My father watched it in the kitchen in his bathrobe, coffee going cold.
"Forty years of records," he said. "Thank God it's all digital now."
My mother looked at me across the table.
I hadn't told her anything.
She knew something anyway.
At eleven the fire marshal called my father.
My father put him on speaker.
"The fire started in the old records cage," the marshal said. "We found an accelerant. Somebody poured gasoline on those shelves, sir. There's no question."
My father set his cup down.
"Who would want to burn a bunch of old paper?"
"You'd know that better than me."
When he hung up, my father sat looking at the phone.
"Dad," I said. "Get dressed. I need to show you something in Queens."
The storage unit was ten feet by fifteen, lit by a single bulb.
Boxes were stacked to the ceiling.
Nicholas was already there, sitting on an overturned crate with the box marked 2011 open at his feet.
My father stopped in the doorway.
He looked at Nicholas.
Then at the boxes.
Then at me.
"You took these out of Secaucus?"
"Monday night."
"Monday night. Before."
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