“Thanks for letting me know,” she said politely.
“Do you need help? Are there children in the house, animals in the barn? You can let the livestock loose, and you’ll have to let them fend for themselves.” Several people in the area were panicking about their horses, but the fire was moving too fast now to get them into trailers and drive them out. Some homeowners were refusing to leave until their horses were safe.
“I don’t have kids or animals,” she answered. “Just me.”
“Well, get out fast. Do you want us to drive you anywhere? The main road is still open, but the smaller ones are closed.” As she looked over their heads, she could see the bright orange glow of the fire in the night sky.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured them, and they left as she closed the door.
The decision she had made on the spur of the moment was that she wasn’t leaving. She didn’t want to evacuate. She was staying, to do whatever she could to save her house. She didn’t care if she died trying. She had nothing that she cared about to lose now, except her home. It was all she had, and the only thing she loved. And she hadn’t worked that hard for four years in order to abandon it now. She wasn’t afraid of the fire itself, or getting hurt, only of the damage it would do. It would have been different if Robbie had been there with her. But he wasn’t. She only had the house to worry about, and was responsible only for herself.
The fire seemed to grow minute by minute as she watched from her windows, and the air was filled with smoke and ash, which made it hard to breathe. Her truck was covered with a thin film of ash. She went out to hose down the roof again, coughing in the acrid air, and was intent on dousing the whole roof when Norm drove up a short time later. He looked unhappy to see her there, and shouted over the sound of the hose as he walked toward her.
“Haven’t they evacuated you yet? They evacuated me an hour ago.” She nodded but didn’t say more, and concentrated on what she was doing as he picked up another hose. “You’ve got to get out, Melissa. There’s nothing else you can do here. It’s headed your way. There’s no time to lose.”
“I’m not going,” she said firmly, her eyes fixed on her roof to make sure she wet every inch down.
“Don’t be crazy. You can’t risk your life for a house. If the worst happens, you can rebuild.” She just shook her head, and he could see that she meant it and wasn’t going anywhere. He had been on his way to volunteer to help the firefighters who, so far, had been unable to control the blaze. But he didn’t want to leave her. There was something terrifyingly determined about the way she looked. He knew how much she loved her home, but this was insane. He grabbed her arm, and the water from the hose sprayed them both. Her shirt was wet as she looked at him.
“I’m staying, Norm. You can go.”
“I’m not leaving here without you.” He tightened his grip on her arm and she shook him off with a look that said she would fight him if he tried to take her away. “Come on, Mel, be sensible. It’s too dangerous for you to stay. If the fire gets here, you could be trapped, or hit by a falling tree or part of the house.” An old Victorian, wooden structure like her home would go up in flames within minutes.
“I don’t care. This is all I have now. And if I die in the fire, no one will miss me.” As she said the words, she knew it wasn’t true. Her sister, Hattie, would miss her, she knew that her sister still cared, even if their lives were far apart now. Hattie was faithful about reaching out to her a few times a year. She initiated contact, Melissa never did. “All I have is a sister who’s a nun, and she believes all that crap that if I die, I’ll be in a better place. I haven’t seen her in six years.” Norm could tell there was a lot more to the story there, but this wasn’t the time to ask, and Melissa probably wouldn’t have told him anyway. She had never mentioned her sister before.
“I believe in that crap too, and I have no desire to wind up in that better place with you. I’m not leaving until you come with me, so you’ll be responsible for killing me too, if we stay.” They were both coughing in the smoke by then, which was being carried for miles by the wind.
“Leave me, Norm. I’ll be fine.” And if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter to her. He could see that now, for the first time. He had never realized before how determined she was to be alone, and how little she cared about her own life. Whatever had happened to her before had made her indifferent to whether she lived or died. It made him sad for her.
“You’re a stubborn woman,” he said, and she didn’t deny it. They walked into the house then to get away from the smoke, and saw on a news bulletin that the fire was two miles from her house and advancing at a furious pace.
“I’m going to lose the house,” she said in a grim voice, pulled a pillowcase out of a closet, and then rushed into the living room and started throwing the photographs of the little boy into the pillowcase, as he watched her with a question in his eyes he didn’t put words to. She glanced at him, and continued what she was doing.
“He’s my son. He died of a brain tumor when he was ten, six years ago. It destroyed my marriage, that’s why I’m here,” she said matter-of-factly in a flat voice. She had never said that to anyone before. The pillowcase was heavy and full when she finished, with all the silver frames with photographs of Robbie in them. Norm looked sad for her as they walked back into the kitchen to check the TV again, but the image had changed dramatically when they saw the weather map again. The wind had turned at a ninety-degree angle and was heading north, taking the fire with it, which was bad news for the people who lived in its path, but it meant that Melissa’s home had been miraculously spared. She looked at Norm in disbelief. His home would be safe now too, unless the wind changed direction again. “If I still believed in God, I would think it was the answer to prayer, but the people in its path are in big trouble now. I feel sorry for them.”
“I still believe in miracles,” Norm said quietly, and finally found what he wanted to say to her after what he’d seen her do in her living room and the look on her face. “I’m sorry about your boy, Mel. I never knew who the child was.” He had seen the photos many times while working on her house. He was a beautiful little boy with dark hair and big eyes like hers.
They sat down in the kitchen for a minute. Her legs were shaking with relief that the wind had turned and her home was safe. She didn’t even care that Norm knew about Robbie now. It had been a naked moment when he had seen more of her than he ever had before.
“It changed everything when he died,” she said in a soft voice. “It almost killed me, and actually, it did kill a lot of me. I’ve been half dead ever since. I gave up my work, my life, my marriage. None of it made sense anymore without him. The only thing that has made any sense and kept me alive since then is this house. And if it burned down, I’d go with it. It’s all I have to live for now.”