“I know. But I will.”
She was about to argue but, in the dark, close interior of the pickup’s cab, she saw the resolution in the hard set of his jaw. There was no talking him out of it. Besides, she didn’t have the energy or the time.
She glanced at the house again. She couldn’t put off the inevitable. “Do you mind if I use this again?” she asked, still clutching his cell phone.
“Go ahead.”
She dialed quickly, punching out the numbers. Just after the second ring her mother answered. Maureen’s voice was groggy, but still there was an edge to it, as if she’d woken from a deep sleep and, realizing it was late, knew that no good news was coming over the wires. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mom, it’s Shannon.”
“Shannon? What’s wrong?” Her voice was sharp now, alert. Full-blown worry edging each syllable. From the truck Shannon witnessed the upstairs window of her mother’s bedroom illuminate as Maureen snapped on a bedside lamp. “Are you feeling all right? Your head okay?”
“I’m here at the house. Let me in.”
“Ohmigawd, what happened?” Maureen asked and through the blinds Shannon saw a silhouette: her mother getting up and reaching for the robe she always kept draped over one of the tall posts at the foot of the bed.
“Just open the door, Mom, and I’ll explain.”
“Oh, Lord, what now?”
Shannon hung up, handed Travis his phone and opened the door of the truck. By the time she’d crossed the lawn, the porch light was switched on, locks and latches clicked open and the front door, behind a screen, swung inward. Her mother, small and frail, red hair covered in some kind of net, a worn chenille robe cinched around her waist, stood on the other side of the screen door. “What happened?” she demanded, fear crowding her features as she fumbled with the hook that latched the screen door.
Shannon had practiced what she was going to say. “It’s Mary Beth, Mom. There’s been an accident.” She slipped inside the house where the odors of dust, Pledge, bacon grease and onions lingered. She was instantly awash with memories of growing up with all of her loud, boisterous older siblings: Shea and Robert sliding down the banister; Aaron surreptitiously seated on the back porch, his pellet gun aimed at the bird feeder; Neville and Oliver building a tree house in the apple tree out back, only to abandon it for a fort upstairs in the attic. And Shannon in the thick of it all. Though her mother had tried to interest her in cooking and quilting, gardening or even writing, she was the one begging to be the next in line to sit in a box at the top of the stairs as her brothers pushed it forward to bounce down the wooden steps, or to engage in water-balloon fights in which she inevitably commandeered the hose.
How often had Maureen described her home as a “madhouse”?
Now the place was tidy, not a book out of place on the shelf. The only noise came from the cuckoo clock mounted in the front entry hall as it ticked off the seconds of what remained of Maureen’s life.
“What about Mary Beth? Is she hurt? What?” Maureen demanded.
This was the bad part. “She’s dead, Mom. An accident.”
“Dead! What? No!” Shock drained all the color from Maureen’s face.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s true.”
Maureen began to quiver. She braced one thin shoulder against the door frame. “But I just saw her…Oh, Lord…What happened?” she asked as the truth sank in. “The kids?” she asked as a new panic invaded her.
“Elizabeth and RJ are fine. With Mary Beth’s sister, Margaret.”
“And—”
“Robert’s okay.” A lie. Physically he was fine, Shannon knew, but emotionally he was a wreck.
“But what happened?”
“A fire.”
“Saints preserve us!” Maureen’s bony hand flew over her chest and quickly she made the sign of the cross. “Another fire?” she whispered, spitting it out as if it was an epitaph. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she said, then unconsciously, with quick movements, making another sign of the cross. “It’s the Flannery curse.”
“There is no such thing, Mom.”
Maureen narrowed her red-rimmed eyes on her only daughter. “Tell that to Mary Beth.” She headed stiffly into the kitchen, snapping on a trail of lights in her wake. Shannon followed in time to see her mother rummage in a catch-all drawer for the pack of cigarettes she kept for emergencies. Maureen had quit smoking during each of her pregnancies, taking the habit up again once each baby had reached the third month of his or her life. She finally quit for good when Shannon was five, but, whenever a crisis developed, Maureen was quick to find the pack she kept “just for emergencies” and light up with the matches she hoarded for the same purpose.
Now, fingers shaking, she unwrapped the cellophane, shook out a filter tip and managed to strike a match. “Tell me what you know.”
“Nothing yet,” Shannon admitted.