Chapter Fifty-Four

Back at Braden’s place, he pours a bourbon for each of us.

I take a sip, letting the smoky liquor burn my throat. It’s a good burn. A burn I need at the moment.

My heart is still thumping from having a gun pointed at me.

I always thought I could imagine what that might feel like. I was wrong. It’s terror. Sheer terror. Your life doesn’t flash before your eyes. All you see is fear. Fear with its ugly black-and-red head, laughing at you in a satanic, mocking way.

I don’t want to experience that again any time soon. Like ever.

“I’ll always protect you,” Braden says.

“I know.” And I believe him. I know he’ll always try. And I know doubly that if he ever failed, he’d never forgive himself.

And with that thought, I know something about his mother.

“You blame yourself,” I murmur. “Not just for feeling repulsed by her scars when you were a little boy. You blame yourself for her death.”

“Yes. I do. I always will.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I don’t know what happened, but already I know it wasn’t his fault. Braden was six years old. Braden could never be at fault. I know that as well as I know my own name, Skye Margaret Manning.

“She survived the fire,” I say. “She was strong.”

“She was. She made sure Ben and I got to safety.”

“Any mother would save her child first.”

“I know. But she was never the same. Even though she was still beautiful.”

“I’m sure she was, if she was your mother.”

He simply nods.

“You don’t have to tell me, Braden.”

“No. I want to. It’s time.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never told this story to anyone.”

I smile. “Then I’m honored.”

“I haven’t even told my therapist.”

“I’m doubly honored.”

He draws in a deep breath. “She and my father stayed together, and he did get sober. He tried, but he wasn’t cut out for marriage, really. In his way, my father loved her.”

I nod.

“But she was never the same after the fire. She fell into depression.”

Oh God. I know where this is heading, and I don’t want to hear any more.

But as he continues, I widen my eyes. This path leads to an unexpected place.

“We kept her going. Ben and I.”

“She loved you very much.”

“She did. And she loved Dad, for all his faults.”

“You love him, too, don’t you?”

“In my way. But I’ve never forgiven him for what he cost me.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

He stays silent as time seems to suspend itself. I don’t push. If he’s done talking, that’s okay. Oh, I’m wildly curious, but it can keep. Braden and I have all the time in the world.

“She got sick,” he finally says. “One of the burn wounds never healed properly, and it got infected. She developed a bad strep bacterial strain. The one they call the flesh-eating bacteria.”

“Oh my God. Streptococcus A.”

“That’s the one. I had just started high school, and Ben had just started middle school.”

“And you lost your mother.”

He nods, his eyes heavy-lidded. Still, no moisture pools in them. Braden doesn’t cry. I have the feeling he hasn’t cried since that day.

If he even did then.

“Why is this so difficult for you to talk about?” I ask. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

“Braden, it’s not. Blame your father if you want. I at least get that. But not yourself.”

“You don’t understand, Skye. That day… That day of the fire…”

“What? What happened the day of the fire?”

“I didn’t want to leave my room,” he says. “I didn’t want to leave my precious comic books to get burned into ashes. She’s yelling at me to get out. She’s got Ben in her arms, and she doesn’t have an extra arm for me. So she finally leaves, gets Ben to safety, and then she comes back for me. She lifts me up and I drop the handful of comic books. I yelled at her, Skye. I told her…”

“It’s all right. You told her what?”

“I told her I hated her for making me leave my comic books.”

“Oh God…” I gulp.

“That’s right. She got me to safety, and then she went back in to get the comic books. But they were already ablaze, and that’s what…” He shakes his head.

“That’s what burned her,” I say monotonously. “The fire from your comic books.”

He doesn’t respond.

Finally, “Maybe. I don’t know if it was the comic books or not. But she went back in, and she got dragged out by a fireman with third-degree burns on the left side of her body.”

What can I say to him? It’s a horrific story. But he was a kid. Just a kid. And kids have silly ideas about what’s important. Surely he knows that.

Do I go to him? Take him in my arms? Kiss his lips? Embrace him?

“Tell me,” I finally say. “Tell me what you need right now.”

He takes a sip of his bourbon. “No one knows that story,” he says. “Not even Ben or my dad. She told him she went back in to get our baby books.”

“Have you considered that maybe that’s the truth?”

“No. She was in my bedroom when the fireman dragged her out.”

“So your father knows, then.”

“He knows she was in my bedroom. He assumed that’s where my baby book was. It wasn’t. The baby books were in a cedar chest in the living room underneath some quilts.”

“And Ben doesn’t know?”

“He was only three. He had no idea where the baby books were.”

“And you did.”

“Yeah. Sometimes Mom and I would look at them together. I liked looking at my first lock of hair.” He shakes his head. “I haven’t let myself think about this in so long.”

Again, I’m at a loss for what to do. But my hand, seemingly of its own accord, reaches out and touches Braden’s cheek. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. It’s never been okay, and it never will be.”