Chapter Twenty-Four

I’m sorry about the awful way I treated you,” Kyle said, earnestly. “I wish I’d known better.” Margaret was amazed and gratified to hear her stepson’s change of heart. It wasn’t really a change, however, for she had known all along that Kyle’s true character was loving and good. He had simply been a boy seeking his father’s approval.

Since he had never received such an accolade, he tried what any child might: to become a replica of his father in the hope that this approach would succeed in his winning at least a compliment now and then.

And so the cycle between Devin and his father, and probably between Mr. Browne and his father, had repeated between Devin and Kyle. With ever more dire consequences.

“I appreciate knowing that,” Margaret said, “particularly now. It gives us, this family, a chance to start with a clean slate. I’m mostly glad for my daughter’s sake, though. I couldn’t stand it if you treated her like your father treated me.”

Kyle looked at Amy shamefaced. She had closed her eyes during the last few minutes, but he knew that she was listening to every word.

She gripped his hand and cried out. The contractions were starting again. Anthony returned with a pan of water and towels. He smelled like smoke and was choking. He whispered to Margaret, “I hope that baby comes soon. I don’t think we have a lot of time. The house next door is in flames.”

Amy weakly lifted her head from Kyle’s lap. “What did you say?”

Kyle and Margaret shook their heads subtly to signal Anthony not to answer.

A waft of smoke seeped in around the edges of the attic’s hatch door. Anthony, Kyle, and Margaret glanced at each other with alarm.

“What’s the matter?” asked Amy, and again received no reply.

Margaret tore a square of cloth from an old cotton dress she’d found in one of the trunks, and dabbed the perspiration from Amy’s face. “Try not to worry about anything right now,” Margaret said. “All we want you to concentrate on is bringing that baby into the world.”

“He or she must have heard you,” Amy said. “Because I think the wait is over.”

For the next ten minutes Anthony and Margaret worked as a team, while Kyle did all he could for Amy.

Their unified effort resulted in a miracle — the birth of a healthy baby boy. “Oh Amy, you have a son, and he’s so handsome,” Margaret said, and placed the baby in the towel Anthony was holding open. “But, he’s got a little brother or sister, coming right behind him.”

“What?” Kyle said, looking at Amy who was pushing again. “You mean, twins?”

He had to wait a few minutes for his answer, but when he heard, he was all smiles.

“Yep, twins, it is,” Margaret said at last, and then held up the second child. “Mommy and Daddy, meet your gorgeous little girl.”

“I can’t believe it,” Amy cried, this time with happiness. “Kyle, we’re the parents of twins.”

“Yeah, they’re both beautiful and I bet brilliant, exactly like their mother,” Kyle said proudly.

Anthony quickly handed the boy baby to Amy and Kyle, holding open a towel for Margaret to lay the baby girl in, but Anthony was having difficulty seeing. More smoke was escaping into the attic and causing his eyes to tear. “I’m telling you,” he reminded Margaret as she wrapped Kyle and Amy’s little girl, “we don’t have anymore time. We’ve got to get out now.”

Margaret nodded, clearly understanding, then handed Kyle and Amy their second baby. For a brief moment the new family, Kyle, Amy, and the two babies, were the picture of bliss.

“We’ve decided to name them Jake and Iris,” Amy said. “We talked it over in the car. We had chosen both a boy’s name and a girl’s name since we didn’t know which we were having. Good thing, I guess.”

Kyle was doting on the babies already and just grinned in agreement.

“Well then. Hello, Jake. Hello, Iris. And welcome,” said Margaret, trying not to inhale more smoke. “And now, we have to take you on your first trip. We’re going downstairs, then outside.”

The instructions were really for Kyle and Amy. As Margaret expected, it took them a moment to break from staring and cooing at their children, but they, too, began to realize that the attic was filling with smoke.

“Here man,” Anthony said, “hand the babies to me. You and Margaret can help Amy.”

Kyle quickly complied. The babies looked like little dolls in Anthony’s arms.

Now Amy was choking as well. “Anthony, please go ahead. Get my babies out of here.”

She was very weak and had to put her full weight on Margaret and Kyle. Margaret needed assistance also. Her injured leg had swollen and the pain seemed to be branching throughout her entire body. She managed not to let on though, and put an arm around Amy’s waist to help steady her as Kyle lifted her to her feet. Anthony was waiting for them with the hatch open.

A spit of fire was creeping along the quilt Amy had just gotten up from. There was creaking overhead. Suddenly, a ceiling beam fell and nicked Anthony’s shoulder.

“Oh, no, my babies!” Amy screamed, but the babies and Anthony were fine.

The real problem was that the beam now blocked the hatch door. They were trapped and smoke was pouring in through the floorboards. Flames began to snake up the wall Kyle and Amy had camped against.

“Get back,” Kyle shouted, and rushed over to shove the beam off the door. It was heavy, but finally budged.

He reopened the hatch and ran back to Amy. Only, as he reached out to touch her, his foot dropped through a weak spot in the floor.

He tried to wrest his foot loose, but when he did the hole expanded. The impact of falling to his knees was more stress than the floor could withstand. Kyle disappeared into the pit of fire below.

“Kyle!” Amy shrieked. Only it was too late.

Margaret turned Amy’s head away from the gaping hole, and yelled over the sound of the crackling fire beneath them. “Anthony,” she said. “Go! We’ll be right behind you.”

She hoped he’d heard her. She could barely see him through the voluminous smoke.

He yelled back, “Just watch where you step.” Then, still cradling Jake and Iris in his arms, he carefully descended the attic stairs.

Margaret slapped out the lick of fire on Amy’s skirt. “Come on, precious, we can do this,” she said and steered Amy toward the hatch. They crossed the attic floor together, as tightly bound as two can be without mashing into one. And they almost made it, until Amy’s ankle twisted, and she, too, fell hard onto the weakened floor. It couldn’t take the pressure, and caved in around her.

Her legs dangled into the heat below as she fought to pull herself back up into the attic. She cried out to Margaret, “Mama, help me.”

Margaret fell to her knees and grasped Amy’s arms. “I’m right here, precious. Just hold on,” Margaret cried back to her daughter, even as the weight of Amy’s body was pulling them apart.

“I can’t. I can’t. I’m too …”

“Oh, yes you can. I can’t lose you now. Amy, please don’t let go. I’m begging you,” Margaret wailed, although her grip on Amy had already slipped from Amy’s arms to Amy’s wrists. Then she had her only by the hands, then only by her fingertips.

“Mama, Mama!” Margaret heard her daughter cry a last time… and then she was gone. Forever.

“Amy! No, no, no, no no! Oh, Amy! My precious, precious child.”

Margaret’s own life suddenly felt sucked out. Fire was nipping at her skin, but she was numb. She balled herself into her stomach and rocked. Everything ached. Her head. Her body. Her heart. Especially her heart.

“Oh, my precious child. My baby. My baby,” she repeated over and over, oblivious to her own peril.

Someone was calling her. She didn’t understand. What could they possibly want? Didn’t they know that her daughter, her beautiful, precious daughter, had just …

She cried out again in pain.

“Margaret,” Walter called, reaching for her, “those grandbabies of yours are going to need you. You’re all they’ve got now,” said Walter as he lifted her into his arms. “And I need you just as much.”

“But … Amy?”

Walter didn’t have the chance to reply. Another ceiling beam crashed onto the exact place on the floor where Margaret had lain only a moment ago.

He carried her down the attic stairs then down the main stairway to what used to be the house’s living room, but was now just a charred mess.

A fireman met them and led the way outside. Two minutes later, Aunt Euphrates’ home was completely ablaze. An hour later, a crowd of onlookers had gathered.

A total of four houses on the block had been destroyed, including one across the street.

Margaret was dazed, however, except for her leg, was doing remarkably well. Dr. Ford examined her and made Walter promise to bring her into the office, just blocks away in her home parlor, first thing in the morning.

Margaret leaned against Walter’s chest and gazed blankly at the various faces. Euphrates, and her daughter, Lee Dora, brought the babies over to Margaret. She was much too weak to hold them, but it was a great relief to see that they were safe and unharmed. Already, she loved them dearly.

She noticed Anthony at the front of the crowd talking with his parents. She wondered if Dwight knew that his daughter had died tonight. His sudden change of expression—from detached curiosity to horrified shock—at something Anthony was telling him, told her that he did.

She wanted to feel sorry for him, this man who had been her first love, yet a deep-seeded feeling prevented her from extending him any sympathy. After all, he had allowed her father to bribe him and had helped her father put Amy up for adoption. Did he feel any regret or remorse now?

She couldn’t believe the two others that had the nerve to be there. MacDuff and Spud were gawking and talking loudly, showing utterly no respect.

“Hey boss,” she heard Spud say to MacDuff, then something about a payday.

But MacDuff knocked the boy in the head, and yelled at him. “Learn when to shut up, will ya.”

The people nearest them turned to look at them. MacDuff revolted Margaret as much as ever. She decided then and there not to let his type win.

Walter nodded and cupped his hand under Margaret’s elbow as the coroner’s assistants came out of the still-smoking house with two stretchers, each bearing a white sheet over the bodies.

Margaret realized what she herself was still wearing, the dress-up version of a white sheet.

Silently, she vowed to her daughter and to her stepson, to strive toward that day that every white-sheet-wearing man, woman, and child, would disavow such garb, and all that it represented… most specifically, the destruction and pain that it caused to individuals and communities.

A man in the back of the crowd was arguing for his right to get through. Margaret recognized his voice immediately. It was Devin.

“Walter,” Margaret said, “Devin’s here. I’d like to speak with him, alone, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Walter said. “I need to talk with the fire chief. I’ll be just over there if you need me,” he nodded in the direction of Fire Station Three’s group of exhausted firefighters, all of whom were Negro.

As Walter walked away, Devin approached. Devin began to say something vile to her, but was struck silent as the medical personnel carrying the stretchers neared.

He extended his arm, palm open and fingers up, signaling the men carrying Kyle to stop. The men halted.

Devin started to lift a corner of the sheet covering Kyle, but Margaret delicately pushed Devin’s hand away, and peered into Devin’s eyes.

With her gaze, she guided Devin to look at the boots sticking out at the opposite end. “I’m so sorry, Devin,” she said, while also nodding to the men carrying the two stretchers that they may go on.

Devin stared at Margaret, his face revealing the innocent boy she had once known, and loved.

Suddenly he let out a spiteful laugh. “Not as much as you’re going to be,” he responded to her pity. “You’ve humiliated me, Margaret and you know I don’t take that sort of thing well.”

“Don’t threaten her, Devin,” said Walter, startling Margaret with his presence.

“It’s all right, Walter. He doesn’t scare me anymore.” She glanced around to find Lee Dora and Aunt Euphrates.

“Devin, look over there. Those two women are part of my family. The babies they’re holding our grand-children Jake, and Iris, two precious, innocent babies, of our own flesh and blood. For their sakes, if not our own, let’s find a way to live in peace with each other. The past is the past. We have to bury it with our children, but their children can live free of hate. “

“You don’t get it, do you, Margaret? The Brownes don’t have mongrels. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t even have a son. As soon as possible, I won’t have you as a wife.” Devin turned on his heels and walked into the night.

Margaret watched him go. How tragic, she realized, that even after all of this he’d rather continue hating than love. She saw a colored woman grab Devin by the arm. The woman and he appeared to be arguing. The woman slapped Devin. He yanked loose of the woman’s hold and slapped her back.

Margaret suddenly recognized the woman. It was Rowena. “Walter, I have to speak to someone,” Margaret said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She hurried over to Rowena. Rowena was crying almost uncontrollably. Margaret embraced her.

“Let’s get through this together,” Margaret said, “in honor of Amy and of her family.”