Page 60 of Score
Aunt Roz’s voice breaks. She squeezes her eyes shut and covers her mouth. “She ain’t moving.”
“It was in the walls,” Daddy mutters, his forehead pressed to Mama’s. “It was in the walls. I fixed it, Bernie. I fixed it for you, baby.”
The ambulance arrives first. Every time the EMTs try to get near Daddy, he growls and snarls and covers Mama with his body, not letting them close.
“Will, now you need to let them look at her,” Aunt Roz snaps, but there’s so much sympathy in her eyes when she sees him on the grass holding Mama like she’s the last thing tying him to the world.
He carefully lays Mama’s head on the grass and steps away, watching as the EMT workers swoop in to check her.
“No pulse,” one of the guys says, casting a worried glance at his partner.
They continue working on Mama, but the minutes go by, and she still won’t breathe. And the house keeps burning. There’s only one fire truck for our small town, and tonight it seems to be taking its sweet time. The firetruck finally speeds into our driveway, but by now, our tiny house is fully engulfed in flames. The firefighters pull out their hoses, but just as they start to spray, Daddy stands and looks down at Mama.
“Bernie, baby,” he cries. “I’m sorry.”
He looks at me, and for a moment, there he is. My father, the gentlest, sweetest man. His eyes are clear and, as angry and confused as I am, even with this all being his fault, I want to run into his arms.
“Daddy?” I ask in a choked whisper.
It’s a question I think I know the answer to, even though I never get to ask. Before anyone can stop him, Daddy takes off toward the house.
“Daddy, no!”
I run after him, but Aunt Roz grabs me around the waist and snatches me up.
He doesn’t turn at the sound of my voice. Doesn’t hesitate at the threshold of a raging inferno.
He runs straight inside like the flames are open arms.
Movement Three
“What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.”
—Nina Simone,I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone
NINETEEN
Verity
Twenty-Three Years Old—2016
“Verity, open your eyes.”
Dr. Palmer’s soothing professional tone has guided me out of nightmares before. Some waking and some buried in my subconscious, but none as painful as what I just relived.
I blink open slowly, allowing the light back in; allowing in the present. Shaking off the shadows of the past, I take in the spacious office decorated in cool tones of icy green and blue. I’m not that little girl standing outside chilled, an indifferent moon strung up in a scar-pocked sky, watching my life and all I love burn. Instead I sit in the serenity of a Brooklyn spring day, sunshine pouring in through wide windows with curtains drawn back. Diplomas and family photos paper the walls of my therapist’s office, evidence of success and happiness I’m sometimes not sure I’ll ever attain.
“That was a lot,” Dr. Palmer says, her brows knit, the concern shining from her dark eyes. “How are you feeling?”
I breathe deeply, waiting for the scent of fresh flowers—the hydrangeas Dr. Palmer keeps in her office—to replace the acrid smell of smoke and burning flesh.
“I haven’t talked about that night in years,” I admit. “Hell, I haven’t talked about it muchever.”
“I’m glad we’ve reached the point where you trusted me with it,” Dr. Palmer says. “Thank you.”
“To this day, I still have questions about what happened that night. I assume Daddy used Mama’s candles to set the house on fire when I ran toAunt Roz’s. Whatever he heard in those walls burned along with everything else.”
“Let’s talk about the voices your father was hearing. From your account he was incredibly agitated in the last days of his life.”
