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“Okay…” I coaxed.
“Well, there was a bad fire, sort of like the fires you see in California.”
“Yep, we’ve seen our share of smoke-filled skies around Sacramento, for sure.”
“Firefighters were working for days trying to stop it, which led to weeks. The fire had been far from us, so we weren’t worried, but then the wind shifted.” Halting, she drew in a breath as if processing how to proceed.
Her eyes flitted from me to her wine, the fireplace, and then the windows, like she was trying to remember what came next. Her voice and expression were void of feeling, almost like she was retelling something she had seen on the news. It struck me as oddly detached.
“The fire,” I prompted, willing myself not to react to the conditions around me, to only focus on extracting the story from her, somewhat like the feeling when I’d played football in the pouring rain and could only move the ball so much. The players had to focus with patience while inching down the field, ignoring everything else.
“It went from something far away that we weren’t worried about at all until it started to creep up on the ranches around us, so my dad insisted my mom and I leave, get out, but he wouldn’t come with us. He wanted to try to save the ranch, well, the livestock. He’d stayed…” I flinched when she choked down a sob. “He had assured us he would be right behind us. I remember my mom jumping in the car, yelling for me to get in, but I didn’t want to leave. He squeezed me, reassuring me it would be okay, then guided me into the car. ‘Kells, just go, it will be fine. I will meet you and Mom in town,’ but I could see the black and red sky behind us. It was something out of one of those movies, when you know, you just know that within minutes, everything will be gone.”
Listening to her, my chest cramped, constraining my breath. It was like I could see flames approaching my parents’ ranch; I imagined the panic that must have ensued. Her dad had called her Kells—I remembered Matt and Jonathon chanting that at the karaoke bar.
“My mom didn’t talk the whole drive. Even when I’d asked her, ‘Is Dad going to be okay?’ she was silent.” Rakell pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, her jaw twitching like she was mustering all her power to stave off the wave of grief that would come with the next line. “I could see how angry her face was when I’d asked that question. Like I had no business asking. I knew then that nothing would ever be the same. Somehow, I knew that she was gone, too.”
The weight of her words hit my sternum, my brain rewinding. Didn’t she say her mom had called her? Didn’t she say…wait, what?
“Dad didn’t make it out. He died trying to save…” Robotically, she bent her head as if she were studying the color of the yellow liquid in her glass.
“Rae-kale…” I scooted on the couch, closer to her chair, my hand reaching toward her. She glanced at my open palm stretching toward her but didn’t take it. I watched her throat convulse.
“Sweets…” My outstretched hand was motionless, hanging in the air, waiting. Her pain was so tangible I was sure it would manifest as a black cloud, one I prayed I could wash away with my love for her.
My eyes followed a silent tear as it slipped over the apple of her cheek, plopping into her wine as her mouth opened to talk.
“When I hugged him goodbye, I begged him to save my horse, Snowbird. I, I…” Another tear dripped into the yellow liquid, then another. “I begged him like some little kid and…he promised me and…he died trying. He burned to death because I begged him, ‘Please, Daddy, please save Snowbird, please,’ knowing he’d do anything for me, anything.” Her jaw trembled as the tears spilled down her face. “Such a fucking selfish teenager. I wish I hadn’t…”
I stood, taking her wine glass from her hand, then setting it on the table before bending to pull her to me. I enveloped her in my arms wishing I could absorb some of the agony emanating from her, fighting back my own tears as her self-loathing became evident, so well buried under a defiant façade. Her prickly, defensive exterior decomposed before me. Her fragility glared as she spoke. Her words were lost to sobs as I gently tugged her toward the couch, bringing her onto my lap, turning her face into my chest as she wailed uncontrollably…words, encapsulated in gulps of tears…
“If only…”
“I killed him…”
“My mother hates me.”
“She will never forgive me.”
“He was my world. My everything.” A teary hiccup left her mouth.
“He died because I was a daddy’s girl.”
“He’d do anything for me.”
“I took him from my mom.”
“I lost both of them that day.”
“Our ranch, my parents, every…everything…”
“I loved my horse but not more than my…” Another wail lunged from her throat, guttural agony writhing its way to the surface.
Stroking her back as I gulped down the chord of ache constricting my own throat, it felt like a belt was tightening around my esophagus. Yet, I hadn’t lived it. She had. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t imagine the gutting loss and how that would have changed the trajectory of my life. “Sweets, you do know that it wasn’t your fault.”
“Nooo, I’d begged…” she shrieked into my chest. “You don’t understand. I made him promise that Snowbird would live, but it never struck me that it would cost his life. I loved him more than anything.” Her voice grew thinner when she said, “It’s no wonder she hates me.”
Nurture took over as I moved my hands up and down her back. “You did what any young girl would do. How old were you?”
