I dove into my coloring with the same enthusiasm my mother had when she washed the kitchen floor, even though she had washed it only an hour earlier and no one had walked on it. But coloring was never a chore or just a way to pass time for me. It was part of my art class she conducted. Mama said I had artistic talent. It was always fascinating to bring something more to life. From the moment I could hold a crayon until now, I was very good at keeping within the lines and choosing interesting or just proper colors for the object I was coloring. I never painted black canaries or yellow crows or purple monkeys. My project before the tragedy was to create my own coloring book. Mama had actually suggested it.
At one point while I was sitting at the station, I looked up and realized that while I had been coloring, many people had walked past me in both directions, and although I had barely noticed, a few trains had gone by, some stopping and then going. I wasn’t worried about that. None of them could be the right one, because Daddy hadn’t returned yet, and he knew the train schedules. He had them in the top pocket of his coat.
However, I also became aware that it had grown colder, and the light-blue cotton jacket I was wearing was not very warm. Daddy should have bought me a heavier coat before we left. Mama would have insisted, but he was in too much of a rush, and it wasn’t as cold that day when we did what he called “survival shopping.” I really didn’t know what that meant. I mean, I knew what the word survival meant, but how did you shop for it?
Of course, he’d had to buy me something else to wear under my jacket. What I had been wearing reeked of smoke, and washing it at the motel didn’t matter. I helped him pick out the two-piece top and pants set I was wearing now, another blouse, and some socks and underwear. I had something similar to this top and pants in my dresser drawer, washed, neatly folded, and ready to wear, but Daddy had said that everything we had, everything we all owned, in closets and drawers and rooms, had gone up in smoke. It was as if the Magician of Fire had said, “Poof,” and it was all gone. He had told me that there was no point in ever going back to look for anything. When he had rushed into my room that night, he was already dressed and had scooped up some clothes for me to wear. I hadn’t heard him dashing about my room until he had shaken me awake.
“Hold this tightly, embrace it,” he had said, and put everything in my arms before he had lifted me into his. “There’s no time to dress. You’ll put it on over your pajamas to keep warm as soon as we’re outside.”
“Outside?” I knew it was the middle of the night. No wonder it seemed like a dream for so long afterward. “I can walk,” I had said.
“No time. There’s only one way out. We can’t afford a second or a mistake.”
He didn’t say anything more. It had been some time since he had carried me, even on his shoulders. With me in his arms, he hurried down the stairs. There was already so much smoke. I started coughing, and he told me to keep my mouth shut tight and stop breathing. The flames were coming out of the kitchen, but they looked like they were in the living room, too. He was probably right. There wasn’t much time, and I would surely have been confused about which way to go.
“Mama,” I had said, looking back up the stairs. Why wasn’t she right behind us?
“I couldn’t wake her,” he had said. “It was either carry her or carry you, and I had to get you before it was too late. The fire’s been going too long.”
I really hadn’t understood what that meant. Why couldn’t he wake her? Why would he have to carry her, anyway? Surely, she would know how to go or just follow us.
“Mama!” I had screamed, but the smoke was burning my eyes.
I couldn’t think or remember much more detail about the fire while we were fleeing. The flames had looked overwhelming, and there was so much smoke that I had to bury my face against my father’s chest. All that would come later, but as soon as we had shot through the front door, I wondered if Mama was already outside. Maybe she had told Daddy to get me and then left, confident he would.
When we had rushed from the house, he had brought me to the street before he set me and his briefcase down. I had looked everywhere but didn’t see her. People on our street were coming out of their houses, and a fire engine could be heard rushing toward us with police cars ahead of and behind it.
“Get your clothes on,” Daddy had said, and I had started to dress. I remembered being hypnotized by the flames leaping out of the windows and now the front door. I hadn’t even felt cold. I knew which windows were in Mama and Daddy’s bedroom. I had heard the glass explode and seen the curtains turning into blazing shapes dancing gleefully.
“Mama,” I had said again. “Where’s Mama? Why didn’t she wake up?”
He had put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t think about anything but tomorrow.”
How could I think about tomorrow? What about Mama? I had wondered, and turned around looking for her. There wasn’t a tomorrow without Mama. Someone out here must have been helping her, I thought.
Daddy had stared at the fire, the flames lighting his face, making his eyes look like blue stars. Then he had started to button his shirt calmly as people rushed in around us. Everyone had stepped back away from us when the fire engine arrived. They seemed more frightened of us than they were of the fire. No one spoke to us or asked questions.
I had turned to press my face against my father. I didn’t want to look at our house on fire, my room in flames, and think about Mama still sleeping inside.
He had put his hand on my shoulder again.
I was sure I had heard him whisper, “Tomorrow,” but I think he was talking more to himself. Later, I had to go with him to a police station to answer questions about the fire and especially about Mama. I was so tired that I kept falling asleep, even when someone was talking to me. I didn’t want to think about Mama sleeping in the fire, much less talk about her, anyway. Everyone had been nice about it. No one had wanted to speak loudly in front of me, but I heard a policeman say something about the gas stove being left on. “These older houses have no sprinkler systems,” he had added. The house had been burned to the ground. There was nothing retrievable. Raking through the ashes had produced nothing, not even any of Mama’s or Daddy’s jewelry in any decent condition, since they weren’t kept in a safe. Nothing was worth the effort, I heard Daddy say. It was going to be easier to bulldoze it all away and put the land up for sale.
Later, while Daddy was talking in an office, I had sat with a young woman who had short black hair and dimples in both her cheeks. She looked like she was going to start crying but sandwiched my hand in hers and kept telling me I’d be all right. I hadn’t cried then and wasn’t crying now. Someone had told my father in a hallway that I was still in shock and would need more tender loving care.
“Don’t we all,” I had heard my father say and then promise he would take care of me. Right now, that seemed a long time ago; it was like looking back through a tunnel and hoping you don’t see what was at the start of your journey through the darkness.
After coloring an elephant dark gray, I looked up and down the train platform, but I still didn’t see him. I wondered if I should go look for him or stay where I was, because if he returned and I wasn’t here, he might go off looking for me, and we’d never find each other. How would I even know the right direction to take once I went around the corner, anyway? The sign on the station read “Hurley,” but I had no idea where we were. I could barely see past the lighted area, and to my right there were trees and no houses, and to my left it was the same.