In my drugged confusion, I picked up the phone by my bed and listened as a somewhat familiar voice told me that my in-laws’ house was on fire.
“What?” I stammered, my head foggy from the Nyquil I’d taken a few hours before. The three kids and I had gotten in late, after a hectic week of skiing and the long drive from Colorado to Dallas. Somewhere around Denver, I noticed I had a slight headache. By the time we reached Texas, my sinuses were packed, my head pounding, and I had a fever.
“Who is this?” I asked, not quite sure if I was awake or dreaming.
“I’ve already called 911,” she said.
In the darkness, I sat on the edge on my bed. The digital display on the clock radio read 3:24 a.m. A little more awake now, I recognized the caller—Bonnie, my in-laws’ next door neighbor.
“Did you say the Reese’s house is on fire?”
“Yes. Yes, their house is on fire.”
“Okay. Okay, okay,” I said, standing up and moving away from the bed. “Okay, Bonnie. I’m on my way.” I took a deep breath with a slow exhale.
I was calm. A fire at my in-laws’ was just one more thing. Just one more thing I had to deal with. It had already been quite a year. My husband, Lou, had been incarcerated on October 1, 1992. His mother, Pete, had been dead for several years by then, and his father had passed away two months before Lou left for his three year stint in federal prison.
For most of my adult life, I’d been busy and productive, but also content and comfortable. A mom, a wife, and Girl Scout leader, I’d served on boards with worthy missions. I’d organized field days, Halloween carnivals, and bake sales at my kids’ schools.
My new life was almost unrecognizable. With my in-laws gone and Lou in prison, everything fell to me. In the last six months, I’d gone from stay-at-home mom to a working (essentially single) mother— manager of my husband’s real estate company, therapist to our three kids, constantly on the lookout for any signs of trauma, and most recently, interior decorator and project manager responsible for getting the Reese’s house ready for market.
Structurally, the house was solid, but cosmetically, every room was dated. I’d ordered white subway tiles to replace the 1960’s Pepto-Bismol colored, hexagon tiles in the bathroom. I’d arranged for old appliances to be hauled away and new ones delivered. The kitchen countertops were updated, the linoleum flooring replaced, and right before we left for Colorado, I had all new fixtures installed.
As quickly as possible, I put on the clothes I’d thrown over the back of a chair the night before. I woke Katie up, gave her a quick explanation, and put her in charge of her sleeping brother and sister. The key to the Reese’s house was on my key chain. It had been there for many years by then.
Their home on Royal Lane wasn’t a particularly grand home, but it’d been an important hub my entire married life. That’s where I first met his mother, Pete. Invited for Sunday dinner, Lou and I arrived and found her standing in the kitchen, arms folded across her barrel chest. She was much taller than I’d expected. Her graying, ash blond hair swept up in a French twist. She was wearing a utilitarian housecoat that snapped up the front. The vertical stripes of primary colors accentuated her height.
Lou had warned me that Pete had disapproved of all his previous girlfriends. No one ever good enough for her only son. For some reason I never fully understood, I got Pete’s endorsement from the very beginning. Perhaps she was just ready for grandchildren to start coming. We didn’t always agree on things, but I respected her, and she respected me. Pete taught me the old-timey, country cures for every ailment. Hot water with lemon, honey, and bourbon to ease a cough. Vicks VapoRub on the soles of the kids’ feet inside wool socks when they went to bed with a stuffy nose. Duct tape for warts. She told me I had a lot to learn about proper housekeeping. She was right about that. She also told me I was a wonderful mother. She was right about that too.
Before Pete got sick, Lou’s sister, Daisy, still lived in Dallas. With her three kids plus ours, we had a stair step of kids from age eight down to age three. Most Sunday afternoons, we’d gather on Royal Lane. The Reese’s neighbor, Bonnie, frequently walked over to enjoy time away from her husband. “Mean as a snake,” she’d often say about him, which made me wonder what kind of glue held marriages like hers together. Pete’s younger sister, Nutty, usually came too, perched cross-legged on the kitchen stool, always a plastic cup of gin in her hand.
The four granddaughters liked to hole up in the guest bedroom, making up silly plays to put on for the grownups after dinner. Pete kept a closet of old clothes and a plastic tub full of garish costume jewelry, all saved for just this purpose. The two boys delighted in pestering the girls.
In the summertime, we sat on the shaded red brick patio, lathered up the kids with sunscreen, and watched them swim in the pool, climb the backyard trees, and practice cartwheels on the lawn. Big Lou, my father-in-law, fussed with the grilled steaks he’d marinated in bottled oil-and-vinegar salad dressing. The kids took turns cranking the handle of the old-fashioned ice cream maker when Pete bought Texas Hill Country peaches for the ice cream on the menu.
Big Lou was a champ at deferring to Pete when it came to the grandchildren. When they were babies, Big Lou bounced them on his knee for hours, singing a little song he made up as he went along. Once they were walking and rambunctious, he was more likely than Pete to lose patience. Pete had a secret stash of Barbies, and yo-yos, and My Little Ponies, which she doled out frequently but unexpectedly. She made sure she had the kids’ favorite snacks—most often treats she knew they were denied at home. Fritos, Oreos, chocolate milk, Hershey’s Kisses.
Pete made each grandchild feel like they were the favorite. Big Lou on the other hand expected manners, good behavior, and lots of minding. He adored them all, always willing to add another steak on the grill. But if he’d had his way, he probably would’ve had Pete to himself a little more of the time.
When Pete started to slow down, I took over as hostess for Thanksgiving. Before then though, we gathered around the perfectly polished, walnut table in the Reese’s dining room. Big Lou, at the head of the table, ceremoniously carved the beautifully browned turkey, piling moist slices on the platter. Ambrosia always—one with shredded coconut and one without, to appease the coconut-haters. An apple pie for Daisy, a cherry pie for Lou, a coconut cake, Pete’s fudge, and Nutty’s Divinity on a silver tray.
It felt strange to get into my car in the middle of the night. My head felt somewhat clearer with the Nyquil fogginess dissipating. Pete and Big Lou’s house was only a few miles away and there were no other cars on the road. Driving down Preston Road, I remembered another time I’d made this trip in the deserted darkness. Big Lou had called late that night, trying to hide that he was crying. Pete had been confined to her bed with her nasty cancer for months, and Big Lou was scared because he couldn’t make her comfortable. I’d never heard panic and fear in his voice before. I opened the front door with my key. The house was silent and almost completely dark. The only sliver of light came from the doorway on my right. Once through it, I took a left and walked down the narrow hallway to the master bedroom. Big Lou, slumped over and looking defeated, sat by the bed in a wooden, straight-backed chair. The glow from the small lamp on the bedside table behind Big Lou made an ethereal silhouette of his profile, a crown of light around his head. Big Lou didn’t seem to notice I’d entered the room. He just sat there, by the hospital bed, holding Pete’s hand.
Pete’s once generous frame was now a fragile shell holding what was left of her. Her dignified French twist now a straggly ponytail plastered to her head with sweat from the pain. Her cancer had moved quickly those last few months.
Earlier that same year when Lou and I brought dinner over for Big Lou, Pete had called me into her room. She sat propped up in bed with a mound of pillows, her light pink bed jacket over her matching nightgown.
“Sit here with me for a bit, Susan,” Pete said, patting the space next to her body on the bed. “Tell me how everyone’s doing. All the kids doing good in school?”
For the first time I noticed that Pete’s skin was now paper thin, and she had bruises on her arms from repeated blood draws. Her robe opened a little past her neckline, and I could see the odd tattoo on her chest made by the radiation oncologist to mark the precise spot for her weekly treatments. The bedroom was beginning to have a slightly sour smell of a sick room.
“Everyone’s doing good. Lou’s coaching Beau’s soccer team again this year,” I said.
“Lou’s a wonderful father, that’s for sure,” she said proudly.
“He sure is. Katie spends lots of time with her two best friends, spending the night with each other most weekends.”
“And what about that little toot, McKenzie?” Pete’s face lit up. It always did when we talked about McKenzie. When Lou and I found out our third baby would be a girl, we named her after Pete. Pete’s birth name was Theta McKenzie. Even at two and a half, our McKenzie echoed her namesake. Sturdy, wily, smart, and stubborn. Six months later when I spoke at Pete’s funeral, McKenzie stomped her feet and demanded she be allowed to go up to the pulpit with me. The relatives who came in for the service from the Texas Hill Country thought this very disrespectful. For them, funerals were a somber, adult affair. Children had no place there with their silliness and their fidgeting. Anyone who really knew Pete knew she would never have wanted McKenzie to be reprimanded and left behind in the cold, hard pew. Decades later, McKenzie would again honor her grandmother, naming her first daughter Theta.
“She’s a little toot all right,” I said. “Just like you.”
“And what about you and Lou? I know it’s been real stressful, and that kind of worry can sure take a toll.”
“Honestly, we’re doing okay all things considered.”
“Can Big Lou and I do anything to help?”
“Not that I can think of. This whole thing could drag on for years. Lou keeps reminding me it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Pete asked me about the meeting Lou’d had with the criminal attorney a few days before. She, like me, wanted to know everything. Every step of the way. The good and the bad.
“Just trying to stay ahead of things, I think,” I said. “Lou hasn’t been indicted. Not yet anyway. So that’s good.” I reassured her that we would come out the other side of this, as a family, whatever happened.
I stood up and bent over to kiss her damp forehead. As I turned to leave, Pete took my hand, pulling me a little closer. She tightened her grasp, and as seriously as I’d ever heard her speak, she said, “Susan, don’t ever forget who you are.”
I turned onto Royal Lane, half expecting to see flames leaping into the sky from the house two blocks away. But I didn’t. Instead, the entire street was deserted and still. The houses were dark. Looking up through the windshield, I could see a half moon and a sprinkling of stars. Within sight of the house, I saw Bonnie in the front yard, nervously pacing and clutching the opening of her blue, quilted bathrobe.
Bonnie walked toward the car as I pulled into the circular drive. We shared a quick hug. I was relieved there was no smell of smoke, no broken windows, no flames billowing from the roof—only a faint orange glow coming through the large paned windows along the front of the house.
“Doesn’t look too bad, does it?” I asked.
Before Bonnie could answer, we heard the faint sound of sirens. We looked west, both of us mesmerized by the changing scene. Two fire engines—lights flashing, sirens screaming—raced toward us down Royal Lane. They turned onto St. Michaels, the side street next to Pete and Lou’s house, and cut the sirens. The lights continued to flash as the firefighters leapt from the trucks and expertly went to work. They unloaded the hose and ran the heavy, metal end to the hydrant on the corner just a few yards away, straightened the hose, and stretched it toward the house.
One of the firefighters was still sitting in the cab of the truck. I could hear the loud, static sounds of the two-way radio as he jumped from the truck. It was clear by his commanding presence he was of higher rank than the others. He walked toward us, giving me time to notice the impressive gear he and all the other men were wearing. Heavy, hip-length overcoats with wide yellow stripes around the hem. The same reflective stripes on the ankles of their pants.
“Do either of you live here?” he asked. His huge helmet had a badge-shaped emblem with Station 41 proudly displayed directly in front, right above his eyes.
“No, sir, this is my in-laws’ house,” I said.
“Are they still in the house, ma’am?”
“Oh no, no, no. They’re both dead.”
The fireman nodded, turned from me, and walked back to the fire truck. “We have an empty house,” he yelled to his men. “No residents inside.”
Bonnie and I watched as the chief had a brief conversation with his team. And then, in the eeriness of the still night and the flashing lights, a brawny, young firefighter with axe in hand went bounding toward the front door—the brand new front door. He barreled past me, so close I could see the fervor in his eyes.
I struggled to keep myself from running after him and grabbing the axe from his hands. This house had a whole life in it. Lou and Daisy had lived here until they went off to college. Our children knew every nook and cranny, every hiding place in this house. Lou and I had honored our promise to Pete and Big Lou that they could die there in their home. All the holidays. All the chaos. All the love.
“Wait, here’s the key!” I yelled, following behind him.
“Ma’am, you have to stand back,” the zealous fireman ordered. “I’m going to break down the door.”
“No wait! I have the key right here in my hand.”
“Take a position of safety, ma’am. I have to remove the door.”
I knew arguing was pointless. I dutifully backed up toward the driveway and stood next to Bonnie on the grass. By this time, it was obvious to me that this beefy, handsome young man had looked forward to this eventuality ever since he signed up for firefighter school. His moment of glory had arrived. He would not be denied. Oddly, it made me a little happy watching this tableau, knowing there was one ecstatic firefighter who would one day boast about the time he took his axe to the door of a house engulfed in flames.
As the huge axe struck the door, I thought about the three times Lou and I had come over to Royal Lane to tell Pete and Lou that another grandbaby was on the way. The many times I’d dropped my kids off for a sleepover with their cousins. All the fun the kids had jumping from one twin bed to the other in the guest room. Pete had hated that, but she never tried to stop it. She always said she’d rather risk a broken arm or a cut lip than be the grandmother who said no.
I stood there with Bonnie, watching the firemen climb through the splintered door into the empty, lifeless house. A thought occurred to me for the first time. “Bonnie, the Reese’s fire alarm was disconnected. How did you even know the house was on fire? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Well, I don’t sleep too well these days. I got up to get a drink of water, and when I looked out the kitchen window, there was a flicker of light coming from that little window in the attic.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Good thing I woke up, I guess.”
“Yeah, guess so,” I said.
“I’m tired as a dishrag now, though. You okay for me to go?” Bonnie asked, already moving toward her house.
“Sure thing. Thanks, Bonnie,” I said.
In less than an hour, electrical fire in the attic extinguished, I was allowed to go in, mouth covered to repel the acrid odor. Smoke damage appeared to be the worst of it, but the chief recommended I have a structural engineer inspect the charred rafters to make sure they were still sound.
Once outside, I looked back at the ruined front door. Two firemen were walking toward the house, carrying rolls of plastic sheeting and heavy duty tape to secure the door. They would be covering the dark hole leading to an empty house. Not a home anymore. Just a house.
I felt exhausted now that the excitement of the past few hours was over. As I headed to my car, I passed the fire chief who was writing on a clipboard.
“Officer, do you need me for anything else?” I asked.
“No, ma’am. I’m filling out the necessary paperwork now. I’ve got what you need for the insurance company right here.” He tore off the top sheet and handed it to me. “I’m just glad no one was in the house and that the damage isn’t too bad.”
“Me too. And thanks so much for all your help,” I reached out to shake his hand.
As I pulled away from 7107 Royal Lane, I made a mental list of tasks to be done. Let Daisy and Nutty know about the fire. Call the insurance company. Call Servpro – they could handle fire and water damage. Find a structural engineer. Get a painter to do any touchup necessary. Have an electrician check the wiring.
It was a lot. There was a lot to arrange and then manage, but for me, it was just one more thing. It was all just one more thing.
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash
