CONTENTS
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Excerpt from Black Out
One
About the Author
Back Ads
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
THE POLICE TOLD MAMA THERE wasn’t anything that Celia could have done. The other driver never tried to put on the brakes, and even if Celia had been looking in her rearview mirror there was nowhere she could have gone—the light in front of us was red, and traffic was heavy.
I don’t remember the accident. I don’t remember anything but sitting in the car and talking. We’d been saying something about getting Slurpees, and how Celia wanted to go out to Lake Mead and cannonball into the water. I remember imagining us both stripping down to our bras and underwear and plunging into the cool lake.
The first memory I have after the accident is lying in a hospital bed, my neck in a brace, asking what happened to the other driver. They wouldn’t tell me anything. Celia was in the bed next to mine, but she wasn’t in a brace—she was sitting up, a bandage around her head and some blood on her clothes.
I wasn’t in pain, and I remember thinking that was strange, because I felt broken. It was the meds, of course. I was on some kind of painkiller that made everything slow and muddy.
Mama was praying over me, sitting in a chair between my bed and Celia’s. Papa was standing in the doorway, his face in a frown that was sad and . . . something else. Angry?
What little energy I had was focused on the ceiling tiles. It strained my eyes to look at anything else, and straining my eyes made me feel like I was going to throw up.
Mama pressed something into my hand.
“It’s my Saint Christopher medal, Krezi,” she said, and she began praying again.
The patron saint of travelers. That seemed like closing the barn once the horse had escaped, but I didn’t say anything to her. I held the medal and stared at the ceiling.
They did tests on me. There must have been something wrong with my face, because each new nurse that came in stared and made a comment like, “It looks like you’ve had better days” or “Did they already get you some pain meds, honey?”
I dozed on and off, but I don’t think it was really sleep—it was just unconsciousness. Blank and empty.
After what felt like days, but was probably only hours, I was awake and sitting up. The doctor announced that I didn’t have a spinal injury, and Mama praised Jesus and Our Lady. I was too drugged to feel anything, good or bad.
I had a concussion, the doctor said, and a broken nose. And I had a fever of 102, which seemed to worry everyone most of all. They made me stay in the ER for a long time, even after they’d released Celia. But once I’d endured several more hours, another scan, and another wait for another doctor, they decided that the fever wasn’t related to the concussion. It was the flu, or a cold, or something else. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I was thinking about the black circles forming around my eyes and nose, and about how awful I’d look when school started next week. By then the bruises would be a sickly yellow green. A perfect way to start high school.
It was nighttime when I got released, but the ever-present heat of August in Las Vegas still hung in the air, adding to my nausea as an orderly wheeled me out to Papa’s waiting minivan.
I cautiously took a few steps across the asphalt and climbed into the backseat. The medicine was wearing off, and I could feel a heavy pressure in my face, like my nose had been stuffed full of tissue. My head didn’t hurt exactly, but I was dizzy and still felt—I don’t know. I felt off.
Papa drove quietly, and Mama seemed to have tired herself out praying. Papa was probably thinking about the hospital bill. Maybe Mama was, too. I know I was.
But that turned out to be the least of our problems. Because when we went home, I got in bed, and then burned the house down.
TWO
CELIA WAS ALREADY HALF-ASLEEP, BUT she opened her eyes when I came in. She reached for the lamp on the table between our beds and turned it on.
“Krezi,” she said quietly, “are you okay?”
“She’s got a fever,” Mama answered for me. “Santa Maria, bless us.”
I walked slowly to my dresser and found my pajamas. I was okay when I didn’t move my head quickly, so I tried to just stare forward, not tilting my head up or down, or left to right.
“A fever with a concussion? What does that mean?” Celia asked, sitting up. She was four years older than me, only a few months out of high school, but she’d always seemed more responsible than anyone else in the family—even my parents.
“It means she’s sick,” Mama said, “but the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
I carefully pulled off my bloodied T-shirt. “It’s not serious,” I told Celia. “They don’t think the fever has anything to do with the concussion.”
My mama’s voice was loud enough to wake the rest of the house. “It’s not serious, she says! My baby has a fever of one hundred and two degrees and she says it’s not serious!”
I ignored her and finished changing clothes.
“You pay attention to her tonight,” Mama said to Celia. “I should probably come and sleep in this room.”
“I’ll be fine, Mama,” I said, trying to ignore the pain that was pushing through the dwindling haze of the medicine. “I just want to sleep.”
“The doctor said she needs to rest her brain,” Mama told Celia. “I don’t know if she’ll be able to start school.”
“Mama.” I turned and felt a wave of dizziness. “The doctor said I should be fine by the time school starts.”
She raised her hands to heaven. “The doctor doesn’t even know what’s giving you a fever!”
“The doctor told me to sleep,” I said, sitting gingerly on the bed. “That’s all I want to do.”
Mama pointed a finger at Celia. “You keep an eye on your sister.” Her eyes softened, and she crossed to Celia and hugged her. “And you take care of yourself, too, my baby.”
I lay down, pulling a sheet over myself. Our swamp cooler kept some of the desert heat out, but it was still a hot night—and my fever made me feel even warmer.
Mama kissed me lightly on the forehead and turned off the lamp. “Good night, Lucretia. Remember to say your prayers.”
“Good night, Mama.”
It seemed like it took me a while to fall asleep, but I was too incoherent to know for sure. I tried to get comfortable, but every time I moved, the room would start to spin, or pain would zap through my face and skull. I was sweating, and I took off the bedsheet, but then I got chills and pulled it back on, along with my blanket.
Celia stayed awake for a while, watching me through half-closed eyes, but eventually I heard her breathing turn slow and steady.
I found myself imagining the accident over and over again, or maybe I was finally remembering what had happened. I was sitting next to Celia, and a massive blue-green car from the 1970s came roaring up behind us. I flew forward in slow motion, the dashboard getting closer and closer. The fake leather was cracked and dusty, and I noticed every detail—the chip in the windshield, the dead fly by the front vent, the corner of a receipt sticking out of the glove box. And then I smashed into the dash, felt my nose breaking, felt my brain ricochet around my skull, felt blood gush out my nostrils.
I gripped the door handle as tight as I could, my eyes squeezed shut as I fought against the shock and pain in my face. Shattered glass exploded around me, peppering me with tiny crumbling shards. Celia was screaming.
And I felt so hot. The warm blood on my lips and chin. The heat of the
Nevada desert shining down through the open windshield. My hand on the sun-baked vinyl door handle.
My hand was so hot.
And Celia was screaming.
I opened my eyes.
I was in my room, my right hand gripping the leg of the bedside table. It was engulfed in flames.
Celia leapt out of bed, yanking me free from the burning wood.
A chunk of charcoal came off in my fingers, and I dropped it on the carpet.
“We have to get out of here!” Celia screamed in my face, but I just stared at the fire, too stunned to react. The flames were racing up the wall, spreading across the ceiling like dancing snakes.
She slapped me, and lights exploded through my head.
“Come on!” She pulled me by the arm and thrust me through the door.
I was running now, throwing open the door to my brothers’ room and yelling at them to wake up. I picked up Cesar, my youngest brother, and ran into the hall, colliding with Papa.
“Get out of the house,” he yelled, and pushed past me toward my bedroom.
I darted down the stairs with Cesar, nearly tripping on a pair of discarded shoes, and tore the front door open.
I hadn’t realized how much smoke was in the house until I was outside in the still, warm August night and I could finally breathe clean air.
“What’s going on, Krezi?” Cesar asked sleepily.
“Everything’s okay,” I told him, turning to look back at the fire. My bedroom window was glowing and flickering, flames eating up the curtains. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Celia and the other boys came outside, herded by Mama, and then finally Papa. Smoke was billowing out the front door now, and Mama made us move into the street. I could see flames in my brothers’ window.
Cesar clung to my neck. I felt like I was in a bubble, things happening frantically around me as I stared at my house—the only home I’d ever known—burning down in front of me. Papa was pacing as he shouted into his cell phone. Mama was hugging the two other boys, and Celia was holding my hand.
She wasn’t just holding it. She was looking at it, shining the light of her phone onto it.
I wasn’t burned. My hand had been in the middle of the fire, clutching burning wood, and it wasn’t even blistered. There wasn’t a mark there at all.
It didn’t make any sense.
But Celia didn’t spend too much time checking on me. She squeezed my unharmed hand, kissed Cesar, and then moved to Mama, talking and gesturing wildly as she described the fire. My hand was the least of her concerns. I stared down at it for a minute, and when Mama came to take Cesar from me I looked at it more closely, stretching my fingers and tightening them into a fist.
I was in a daze. I don’t know if it was from the fire or my concussion, but I just wasn’t connected to the world around me. I should have been huddled with everyone else, gazing painfully at the life that was being eaten up in the blaze. But instead I stared at my hand and thought of the charcoal, remembering the red-hot coals that had fallen from my fingers and ignited the carpet.
And I felt cool. My fever had broken.
THREE
FIREFIGHTERS CAME. THE STREET WAS a mass of sirens and people and flashing lights. All the neighbors watched as water was blasted through our broken windows.
By the time most of the flames were extinguished, our aunt was there to take me and Cesar to her house. The other boys and Celia were going to various neighbors’, but Mama was worried about my concussion and about little Cesar being away from family. I climbed into the front seat of the car as ashes—wispy pieces of my old life—settled gently onto the windshield.
We pulled away from the crowds and the emergency vehicles, and I finally started to cry.
When I wiped my cheeks, black soot smeared onto my hand.
An inspector from the fire department visited the next morning. He was a short, stocky man, with biceps as big as my head. He had a metal clipboard and he made a note as he sat down in the recliner across from me. I was on the couch, wearing clothes that drowned me—my aunt didn’t have any kids, and she was probably six sizes bigger than me.
“The fire seems to have started in your bedroom,” the inspector said. “Can you tell me about anything that was plugged in?”
My head was aching and my fever was back. Talking to him seemed like too much work. “Uh, we had a lamp on the table, and Celia had an alarm clock—just a little clock radio.”
“Candles? Incense?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“Cell-phone chargers?” I said, trying to think. The doctor had told me I wasn’t supposed to think too hard because of the concussion—he wanted me to get “cognitive rest”—but I’d spent every minute stewing over the fire. And my hand in the fire.
“Were they plugged in at the time?”
“I don’t remember.” I didn’t have my phone—that I knew for sure—but I wasn’t certain if I’d left it in my room or maybe lost it in the car after the accident.
“Do you recall if any of the cords were frayed, or kinked or cracked?”
I shook my head and the pain flared. “No. I mean, no, I don’t remember. I have this concussion. But I don’t think so.”
“I heard about that,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll just be another couple minutes. Your sister said she thought you came in contact with the flames.”
I started to nod and then stopped myself. “Yeah.” I reached out my hand. “It looked like it was right in the fire, but the paramedics checked it out and they said I was fine.”
He glanced at my palm for just a moment and made a note.
“Is that normal?” I asked. “That your hand can be in flames and not be burned?”
“It’s definitely not normal. You’re a lucky girl.”
“What would explain it?” I pressed. “I mean, what if I was really sweaty? Would that have anything to do with it?”
“Sweating may be a part of it,” he said, scrunching up his face into an uncertain frown. “They say that’s part of the reason people can walk on hot coals. But if I were to take a guess—and I don’t mean to discount anything you’re saying—I’d say that you have a head injury and didn’t see things exactly as they happened.”
“I saw my hand in the flames,” I said, suddenly feeling defensive. “I was holding a piece of burning wood.”
“When you’re in the middle of a stressful event, everything seems to go a lot slower than it actually is. You probably were in the flame, and you probably were touching the wood, but it was just for an instant. It’s impossible to do what you’re describing and not be burned, so you must have been seeing—misinterpreting—things.”
I knew that was wrong. I looked down at my hand again.
“Our best guess at this point,” he continued, “is that there was faulty wiring in the outlet behind your table. It doesn’t appear that any of this was caused by you or your sister. We’ll wait and see what the more detailed inspection shows.”
“Okay.” It was good news, of course, even if something felt wrong. I flexed my hand, and then rubbed my face and forehead. I was sweating, even with the air conditioner running.
“I’ll show myself out,” the fire investigator said, and I realized I’d been in a daze for maybe a full minute, ignoring him.
He left, a puff of heat coming in from outside as he opened the door and then closed it behind him.
They said we hadn’t started it. But what about my hand? I’d been there in the fire, touching it.
Had I started it? Of course I hadn’t. How could I have?
On the third day after the fire, I wandered the seven blocks back to my old house. I wasn’t supposed to be exercising, but walking hardly seemed like exercise.
It was scorching outside, and I wished I were wearing one of my tank tops instead of an oversized T-shirt. I looked awful, but at least I wasn’t going to see anyone. Besides, with my nose in a splint and my face black and blue, I doubted anyone would re
cognize me.
I was burning up and sweating like a horse when I got to my block. I was getting used to the fever now and I kept a small blue-and-white plastic thermometer in my pants pocket. I took my temperature as I walked.
102.
My mama probably would have freaked out and taken me straight to the doctor, but she was busy with the other kids. I was in the care of my aunt, and to her a fever was only a cold. Hardly something to worry about when my whole life had just burned to the ground.
Besides, it had to be at least 110 outside. I bet everybody in Vegas had fevers all summer long. The heat was normal. It was awful, but you got used to it. Even on this rule-breaking walk to the house I’d been smart enough to bring a bottle of water. I was prepared.
I wasn’t ready for the destruction of the house, though.
The front wall was still there, but the roof was gone. Looking through the windows, I could see that the back wall was partially collapsed.
My room, the place where it had all started, was just . . . nonexistent. The hole for the window was there, up on the second floor, but through it I only saw blue sky.
Yellow emergency tape had been strung from one end of the yard to the other, blocking off the whole lot. I ducked under it and walked to the front step.
The door was missing, and in the empty entryway was a pile of rubble smothered in the black slag of wet ash. It looked like the flows of volcanic rock I’d seen in shows about Hawaii. The sludge clung to everything, dripping out the windows and down the porch.
I couldn’t go in. There was nowhere to step, and it was clear the house was a total loss. I had hoped that something would have survived. But everything was gone. Every picture I’d ever taken, every note I’d ever written. It was all gone, and even though I told myself they were all just things—that’s what my aunt kept saying, “It’s all just things, and you can replace things”—I felt like everything I was had burned into nothingness.
A horn honked and I jumped, pain dancing around my brain.
“What do you think you’re doing?”