“I’ll be down in a few,” she said, muffled behind the door.
“You want breakfast?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine,” she said, agitated.
Sean backpedaled. He couldn’t get into her head. Since the move—since she met him—it had been a nonstop parade of strange behaviors. Before the move, she would have never spoken to him with that tone. He shook his head and took his wife’s advice: cut her some slack.
He crept down the stairs, watching the room below come into view. It was petty, but he wanted the choice to go back upstairs if he saw Michael in the living room. The best course of action was avoidance.
Seemed to be Michael’s goal, too, because Sean poked his head below the plane of the ceiling and found nobody there. The blinds and the drapes were undrawn, leaving the room with a sulky, depressing ambiance. The only bright light came from the kitchen. He descended the remaining steps, looked around the railing into the kitchen, and watched. A few seconds later, his wife walked into the frame of the door.
“Morning,” she said with a smile that looked like it took effort. “What’re you doing?”
Sean chuckled and came into the kitchen. “I don’t know.” He kissed her cheek and then leaned in the dining room doorway. Past the table and off to the side, the guest bedroom door was clamped shut with a halo of yellow light surrounding it. Michael and Kelly were awake.
“They haven’t come out,” Elise said.
He looked back at her, trying to act natural. “Hmm?”
“Come on, Sean,” she said and pulled the coffee pot off the percolator. “Want some?”
He nodded, his eyes drifting back to the door, trying to redirect his gaze, convincing himself it was okay. If Michael came out, Sean would skirt to the other end of the room. He would act civilized. No reason to not be peaceable.
A cup of steaming black coffee floated in his peripheral. “They’re not coming out,” she whispered, tapping his arm, holding the cup out to him. “Well, at least Michael isn’t. I told him last night that he better stay out of sight or I’ll shoot him.”
Sean smiled and grabbed the cup. “I knew there was a reason I married you.”
She let a few seconds pass. “He was way out of line.”
“I know.”
“I really want you to know I’m on your side.”
“I know.”
“It was completely inappropriate for him to bring up Gracie like that—”
“Elise, please. We don’t need to talk about this right now.”
She curled a few loose strands of hair around her ear. She had always reassured him, even right after the accident, that she didn’t blame him. Never had and never would. He appreciated it, though sometimes he wished she had. And that she wouldn’t bring it up so much.
She wrapped her arm around him and squeezed. A second later, she returned to the stove. “I just think the sooner they’re gone, the sooner I can forgive him.” She sighed and grabbed a carton of eggs from the fridge. “Want some?”
“Sure,” he said and took one last glance at the guest bedroom. “You burn something earlier?”
“I left some toast in too long.”
“Smelled it upstairs.”
“I’m surprised it carried that far.”
Elise scooped up a dollop of butter with a plastic spatula and smacked it into the pan. Sean walked toward the window, blinds still closed. “Did it stop snowing?”
“Don’t know. It seemed so dreary outside, I didn’t want to look.”
Sean’s fingers wrapped around the cord to lift the blinds when he heard a scream.
“Mom!”
Aiden’s voice, shrill and frightened. Sean and Elise’s eyes met, and panic spread across their faces. Sean dropped the coffee cup, the glass shattering as they darted into the living room.
Aidan stood in the middle of the room, arms drooped to his sides. He was dressed in his snow pants, boots, and a heavy jacket, the hood pulled over his head. His gloves lay at his side. Everything had gray soot on it like he had been rolling in a spent campfire, except where his gloves had covered his skin. Sean and Elise knelt in front of him. Tears streamed down his cheeks, leaving clear trails through the soot. His chest heaved like he couldn’t get any air. “I’m getting his inhaler,” Elise said and rushed into the other room.
“Calm down, bud. Relax,” Sean said, his hands resting on Aidan’s shoulders. “Breathe deep.” He looked him over. “Did you climb in the burn barrel or something?”
Elise reappeared with a white inhaler in her hands. She plopped back down on her knees next to Sean and extended it to her son. Aidan, shaking, grabbed it and squeezed a puff of medicine into his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said between trembling sobs. “I’m sorry.”
“Just calm down. Breathe,” Sean said. He pulled back his hands from Aidan’s shoulder and looked at his palms and fingers printed with a gray film that smelled of fire. He looked his son up and down and stopped at his feet. A trail of small, ashy prints in the white carpet led to the garage. Aidan’s footprints. “Aidan, what happened?”
The boy sobbed. Through his broken words, he said, “I w-w-wanted to p-play in the snow.”
Aidan wasn’t supposed to be exerting himself, trudging through the snow. It wasn’t the first time he was playing outside without permission, but other times he hadn’t come back inside covered in ash.
“Did you burn something?” Sean asked. Maybe the shed? Or a part of the house? His heart beat faster.
“I s-snuck outside,” Aidan cried.
“Why are you covered in ash?”
“I don’t know,” he stuttered.
“Did you light something on fire?”
“No!” His sobs grew louder, his words becoming incomprehensible.
“Aidan,” Sean said, looking him in the eye, “I need you to be honest with me. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he shouted.
Kelly stepped out of the guest bedroom. Dressed in a pair of long pants and a button-down cardigan, she pulled her clothing closer to herself, crossing her arms. “What’s going on?”
He wished she would stay out of it. “We don’t know.”
As soon as she saw Aidan, she rushed over to him and got on her knees like the others. “What happened?”
Aidan, probably thinking his mom and dad would punish him, sought safety with Kelly, and wrapped his arms around her. Despite him being filthy, she returned the hug without hesitation. “It’s okay, little man,” she whispered.
Kelly raised her eyebrows as if to ask what was going on. Sean put a hand on his forehead, the sound volume of the room shrinking, Sean hearing nothing now, not even his son’s sobs, his eyes tracing Aidan’s steps back to the garage entrance. He pushed himself up and followed them. Each footstep wasn’t a perfect print but had a tail like a comet where Aidan had dragged his feet. Sprinkled around them were specks of gray.
He threw the door to the garage open. A cold, bitter wind wafted toward him. He walked through the breezeway and onto the concrete floor of the garage. The backdoor was wide open. He crept toward it.
He shoved his upper arm against his lips.
The air stunk like sulfur and smoke. It couldn’t be wildfire. Too much snow. Yet, out of the sky white snow floated with what appeared to be gray ash and spent embers, the tones intermingled and contrasting. He stepped closer.
A gust kicked up, Sean shielding his face. He bent down toward the settled snow, careful not to step into it. Grabbed a handful. The white and gray juxtaposed with one another in his hand, the white fading as it melted leaving a wet, black residue in his palm. He rubbed his fingers together and smelled them. Burnt wood. Even as he pulled his hand away, the odor lingered in his nose.