Melissa had had an email from Carson, wanting to know if she was all right, and she had answered briefly, thanked him, and said she was. She was grateful for his concern. The fire was bringing back the people and memories of the past.
On the third day of the fire, Rochester and Buffalo sent them additional firefighters, and they finally managed to get the fire sixty percent contained. There was no question by then that it had been arson. The fire chief had confirmed it. Three hundred homes had been lost, and nearly two thousand people were crowding in shelters that had been set up in local schools.
The day after the fire had been mostly contained, they showed the arsonist on TV. He had been apprehended at his mother’s home. He was seventeen years old, and he looked like a frightened little boy when they arrested him. They said that he and his mother had been homeless for a while, and people who were interviewed said he had shown signs of psychiatric problems, after being bullied by his classmates in school. They had recently moved again. Given the severity of the crime, and his age, he was going to be tried as an adult. Melissa sat watching him on TV with hatred in her eyes. He had nearly robbed her of her home.
She and Norm spoke about it when he came by to see how she was. It struck her as she looked at the arsonist that he was only a year older than Robbie would have been. She couldn’t imagine anyone disturbed and vicious enough to start a fire the way he had. The report said that he had started small fires before. He seemed terrified in the brief footage they saw of him.
“I hope they send him to prison for a long time,” Melissa said angrily when she and Norm talked about it during his visit.
“He’s just a kid,” he said, feeling sorry for him.
“How can you say that after what he did? Think of all the homes that burned.”
“He belongs in a psychiatric hospital, not jail,” Norm said compassionately. Melissa had no pity for him, with so many homes lost. They had said on TV that his mother was in a rehab facility, and couldn’t be reached for comment. And he had been living alone at her home, which looked like barely more than a shack.
“Someone should have picked up on how sick he was a long time ago. It’s a failure in our system,” Norm said quietly. “It sounds like he’s had a terrible life.” There had been no mention of his father, and the boy’s life sounded tragic.
“Other people are victims of the system, they don’t go around setting fires.” There was no mercy in her voice.
“Have you heard from your sister again?” he asked, to change the subject, and Melissa shook her head.
“She wants to come and visit. I haven’t decided what I want to do about that yet.”
“Maybe the two of you could make peace with each other,” he suggested gently, as Melissa looked off into the distance, thinking about it. It seemed too late for that, after so many years. And too painful to try.
“We have nothing in common anymore. Maybe we never did. We were always different. She was much more outgoing than I was, which made it seem even crazier when she decided to become a nun. She always wanted to be an actress, and just when she started to get the right breaks, she ran away.”
“Isn’t that what you did when your son died?” he asked her, and she looked shocked for a minute, and shook her head.
“That was different. Our whole world fell apart. Hattie was just beginning. She was young, good things were happening for her. She had no reason to run away. It was sheer cowardice, to seek refuge in the convent, instead of dealing with life.”
“Not everyone is as brave as you are, Melissa.”
“I’m not brave, and you’re right, I ran away too.”
“What kind of work did you do before?” It was the first he had heard of her career when she said she had given up her work.
“I used to write. Articles, books. I ran out of words after my son died. Everything seemed so irrelevant after that, so small compared to him.”
“Do you miss writing?” He was curious about her now. She had shown him pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole, which had whetted his appetite to know more.
“Not anymore,” she said. “It was part of another life. My husband was my agent, that’s how we met. He’s still active in New York. His wife is a moderately successful mystery writer. He keeps busy with her. He tried to get me to start writing again, but I couldn’t. I’d rather work with my hands now. I have no desire to write again. My books were pretty dark. It was another time.” He had a suspicion that she had talent. She was well read and very bright. There was a look of determination in her eyes when she spoke of not writing again. She had chosen a different path.
“Would I have read any of your work?” he asked, curious. “Did you write under your name? Fiction?”
“I wrote under my maiden name, Melissa Stevens. It was the truth thinly veiled as fiction.”
He looked shocked. “That’s you? I read a few of your books. They were very upsetting and haunting. We’ve all felt like that at times, enraged by the injustices done to us, and helpless to avenge the past, or forget it. You spoke for all of us, but were brave enough to say it. I read two of them twice. They were beautifully written. You’re a big deal, Melissa,” he said, impressed.
“It felt important to me to say it. But what’s the point? The people I was angry at are all dead. My mother was a bitter, angry, mean woman. My father was weak and a drunk who wasted his life. There’s nothing left to say.”
“It’s a shame to bury a talent like that,” he said kindly, and she shrugged.
“I have other things that I want to do. It’s painful, stripping yourself naked like that.”
“But it must be healing too, a kind of catharsis.” She didn’t answer. She just nodded. It was obvious that she didn’t want to discuss it. He left a little while later.
He thought of their conversation on his way home. There was a mysterious side of her that fascinated him. She wasn’t just an interesting woman who had opted for a quiet country life. She had run away from a husband, a life, a career, fame, success, a city, even her own family ties by avoiding her sister. He could tell that she was a woman who had been deeply wounded, maybe by more than just the loss of her son. And as the author of the books he’d read, he knew that her youth and childhood had been a nightmare of emotional abuse by a cruel mother.
Her fury at the young arsonist seemed extreme to him. Her reaction was visceral, pure rage. It seemed out of character for her. She was so distant and cool and uncommunicative, but she had never seemed that angry to him before. The boy’s youth and obvious problems didn’t mitigate the crime for her. He had jeopardized the home she loved, and she hated him for it.