Smoke signals (Cai, Faye, Roe)
The Finches had a money plant. It sat in the hallway on the second floor, a little way along from the door to the kitchen, under a window where its dry papery leaves could glow in the sunlight, could shine gently in the streetlights at night. It had been a gift, Cai thought, though he’d never wondered who had given it to them because it had been sitting in the hallway, in its thrift-shop ornate pot, for years. Just part of the familiar backdrop of their lives. Cai remembered collecting the leafy coins to use as money with his friends, so long ago that he didn’t remember who the friends were, just other kids from church, names like Keiran and Amy, people he hadn’t thought of in years. Definitely not since Danny and Zoe and Rachel, who were vivid in a way that other friends in his life had not been vivid.
Cai couldn’t picture himself old and unable to remember every tiny detail of their lives. It seemed unfathomable that memories of Zoe or Danny or Rachel would fade like memories of childhood friends. They weren’t background, like the money plant. They were the real thing, layered and troubled and funny.
Still, it only took one little twist to bring the background hurling to the foreground, to make everything change.
The money plant was on fire.
“NONNIE?” Cai yelled, the call bursting out of his mouth automatically. He stood at the top of the stairs, having just emerged from his bedroom, one hand flat against the wall because he felt a little like the ground had been pulled out from underneath him. They money plant had never been on fire before. It took Cai a moment to work out what to do.
Other than scream for his grandmother, which was a reflex, apparently.
He belted down the short flight of stairs to the second floor, and stopped just in front of Roe’s door because it was open, and Roe was standing in the doorway. She’d been watching the plant, but moved her eyes to him as he hit the bottom of the stairs. “Roe,” he said, “What did you-“
Roe stared back at him. He couldn’t read this look. There didn’t seem to be any guilt in it, but no denial of guilt either.
The lace curtains above the money plant caught.
Faye appeared in the corner of his vision, at the other end of the hall, the one nearest the bathroom. She was carrying an empty fishbowl, one that she used to display her collection of pretty stones, but now it was filled with water, more and more of it sloshing over the edges as she ran. There was enough in the bowl to make a decent hiss as it killed some of the fire, but it wasn’t enough to stop all of it, or the curtains. Faye stood in her bare feet on the threadbare rug that had been in the hall as long as the plant, holding her dripping bowl, looking at the plant in despair. She looked very, very small.
It jolted Cai into action, and he lunched forward and took the bowl from her hands. “Faye, get outside, okay. Take Roe and just get outside.” He turned to look at Roe, who was still in the doorway. “NOW!” he hollered, loud enough to make both girls jump, fierce enough to surprise even himself. “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.”
Faye looked at him in terror, but there would be time for comfort later. Cai bustled Roe out of her doorway, a hand hooked around her arm. He was rougher than he should have been, and there wasn’t an excuse for that, but the money plant and the curtains were on fire and if they all just continued to stand there they could lose the house. Cai shoved his hand against Roe’s back as he pushed her toward Faye. Faye jumped away from Roe like Roe was the one on fire.
There’d be time to think about that later, too. “Faye, call 999. Get outside and call 999, do you understand me?” his voice had lost its ferocity, but none of the urgency. “I need you to do this, Faye. Can I count on you?”
Faye’s head dropped into what he hoped was a nod. He had to take it as a nod.
Cai sprinted back into the bathroom and filled up the fishbowl again.
He didn’t think about it, he just moved. Dumped the water on the plant and ran back to the sink, dumped more water, this time on the lace curtains. Back a third time for the part of the curtain he’d missed the last time. Back a fourth time for the smouldering branch of the plant that had broken off and was sizzling on the carpet. Back a fifth time, but there were no flames left, just a skeleton of a plant, just a ruined mess of lace, just a soaking wet scorchmark on the rug, and the thick smell of smoke, and a sharp pain in his chest.
Cai threw the rest of the water on the soaked black bones of the money plant because he didn’t know what else to do, and then backed up, backed right up to the stairs and sat down, the fishbowl at his feet and the palm of one hand pressed to his chest.
This happened sometimes, when he ran too fast. First time had been after the shooting, and Dom had taken him to hospital because that’s what you did when your grandson has sharp chest pains whether or not he’d been shot in the chest a few months before or not.
It was just the bullet, the doctor had said, insomuch as anything can ever be ‘just’ a bullet. It wouldn’t do him any harm unless it dramatically moved from where it had buried itself, and that was a risk, yes, but a small one. Much smaller than the risk of surgically removing the bullet, due to where it was stuck.
It might be uncomfortable sometimes, a doctor had said. But it’s not worth worrying about unless you have breathing problems. Try not to get hit by any cars or fall from any great heights.
Neither Cai nor Dom had been sure about the doctors sense of humour, but it turned out he was right. The bullet rarely hurt. Just when he overexerted himself. Apparently intense panic triggered it too.
Cai knew he should go downstairs and get out of the house and meet up with the girls and call his grandparents. The thing was, he couldn’t take his eyes off the effects of the fire, as if the greatest risk was it catching again. He sucked in deep breaths through his nose, staining it with the smell of his house, burning.
There was smoke from his house inside his lungs. His house.
Case Rosa was supposed to be safe.
There might be any number of dangers in the outside world, from bad fathers to worse uncles to kidnappers to chicken killers, but bad things were not supposed to happen at home. Not in this home.
Somehow, Cai had really believed this.
But then Nonnie and Dom had put a lot of effort into making this house a place where children could believe they were safe.
Cai’s chest hurt, and his lungs burned. His next exhale was fraught with coughing, which somehow, above anything else, snapped him out of his shock enough that he could stand, and make his way out of the house.
He stepped out into the afternoon. The skies were clear. Faye and Roe were sitting in the shadow of his shed, Faye with the cordless phone in her lap. “Are you okay?” he asked her, turning his gaze to Roe at the end of his sentence to encompass her as well. Roe looked up at him for a moment before turning her eyes to Faye, watching her foster sister, either waiting for her to do something, or urging her not to.
Faye said “yes” in a very small voice. Cai knelt down in front of her, not facing away from Roe, just… not facing both girls. Just Faye. “Did you call the fire department?”
The movement of Faye’s head was infinitesimally small, but she shook her head, no. A jolt of fear dropped through Cai’s stomach. “Why not?” he asked, in a voice only slightly bigger than hers.
Faye looked to Roe; Roe looked at Faye. Faye dropped her eyes to the ground and shrugged,
Cai’s stomach was sick with fear and dread and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
He sat back on his heels. He wasn’t grown up enough for this and his chest hurt. “Can I have the phone?” he asked.
His first instinct had been right, after all. He needed to call Nonnie.