As I Lift Up My Hands 2/8

[keire_ke]

June 2006

The bedroom turns dichromatic as lightning splits the sky. Jacob doesn’t wake up, but the lightning still registers, manifesting in his dream as a white flame that sucks the red out of everything. He is puzzled by the sudden shift of colors, but as he is aware he is dreaming and he attributes the change to a burp of his unconscious mind. The dream, though bizarre, is relaxing, and Jacob is therefore puzzled when he wakes up. The bedside clock tells him it’s just short of four a.m., which is more or less three and a half hours before his usual wake up call. He wakes all the same and finds Tim staring at him, his little hands tangled together so tight Jacob worries they won’t come apart again.

“What’s wrong?” he asks and sits up.

Tim shakes his head and Jacob puts his hand on the boy’s forehead. His temperature doesn’t seem to be up. “Rachel is crying,” Tim whispers eventually. He says nothing more but his hands are tightly wound and the weariness on his little face is obvious. Jacob lifts the boy, cradling him against his chest, and gets up.

“Let’s go calm her down, okay?” he whispers, careful not to wake Deborah.

Rachel’s voice is loud in the corridor and Jacob wonders how he slept through it. Then again, with the storms raging throughout the county recently and the need to get a decent night’s sleep, it was no wonder he didn’t hear a baby’s cry, when there are so many louder noises in the vicinity.

Rachel is hiccupping now, tears hanging to the corners of her eyes. “What’s wrong?” Jacob asks, leaning over the crib. She looks up at him and miraculously calms down, gurgling her opinion on the life and her place in the universe. “Sneaky little devil,” Jacob mutters. Tim is drooling on his shoulder, his breathing slower and deeper with each passing second.

Jacob wonders when the kids will stop being such attention hogs. He carries the boy to his bed, and tucks him in. “Goodnight,” he says. “What’s left of it,” he adds under his breath. He hates waking up in the middle of night. Going to sleep afterwards is a nightmare. He goes back to bed anyway, and wraps his arms around Deborah. She mutters something indistinct, and elbows him in the stomach. Jacob drifts in and out of sleep until morning, comforted by Deborah’s warm weight in his arms, even if he isn’t truly resting. When the dozing gives way to wakefulness the first thing Jacob’s mind comes up with is the need of caffeine.

“Coffee?” Deborah asks when he walks into the kitchen at eight thirty a.m. Jacob fumbles with his tie and shoots her a grateful look.

“Thanks.” The coffee is hot and caffeinated. It should last him long enough to drive to work and get another one. Jacob downs it as fast as its temperature allows, kisses Deborah and the kids goodbye, and hurries out of the house.

The storm spared his car, though the trees along the alley and Mr Wilkins’ car across the road haven’t been so lucky. Jacob winces in sympathy. Mr Wilkins usually parked in the garage, which he neglected to do the previous night. Shame he didn’t think to park it away from the tree, at the very least. It’s a tragic oversight, considering that the storms have been getting more and more violent lately.

Jacob tries to recall whether Mr Wilkins had a policy with their company. With the size of the town it seems more than likely.

No matter. Jacob gets into his car and backs out of his driveway. The storms are making his life so much more difficult these days, with the amount of damage-related paperwork they seem to be blowing onto his desk through the window.

“Hello, Mr Lake,” says the secretary, beaming at him from behind her desk. He smiles at her. She is young and bouncy and today her red curls are piled on top of her head and held in place by a green bandana. Jacob isn’t up-to-date where fashion is concerned, but he has to admit it suits her.

“Hello, Nancy,” he replies politely. “Any good news? Tree didn’t fall on anyone, or anything, and I can spend the day slacking off?”

“Sorry.” There is just too much contrition in the single world. Jacob feels a stab of dread. This means something unpleasant is in store for him. Nancy hands him a folder and he resists, with great effort, banging his head against the desk once he reads the brief summary.

A goddamned cow. Killed by a falling tree. Which went right through and out the other side. Jacob wonders if his face is as green as he feels. “Are you kidding?” he asks weakly.

“Afraid not. We already called the veterinarian, Dr Burns will meet you at the scene half past twelve.”

“What? Where?” The time is apt for panic, apparently. “I have to go there?”

“Yes. Sorry, Mr Lake.”

Standing in the office, filled with desks and people bent over papers, Jacob thinks he might be sick. Then he walks out into the field, following the veterinarian to inspect a thoroughly skewered cow, which was in no way a poetic metaphor for a kebab. The sight is bad – cows are by nature decently sized and the tree this unfortunate animal was standing under had pointy branches. When the lighting struck a good portion of the tree fell, pinioning the animal to a ground like a pin does a butterfly, without the aesthetics. The branches are massive, so their substantial weight and the tree’s momentum carried them all the way to the ground, cow notwithstanding. Jacob looks away, but the dead animal captures his attention all the same. When his brain finally registers the sweet smell of decay and half-digested hay, he is sick all over the nearby fence.

“Sorry,” he manages looking up. His knees feel week. He grabs onto the fence to keep his balance, as the farmer and the veterinarian look at him, the farmer with his eyebrows raised, the veterinarian with pity and some amusement.

“Better?” she asks, handing him a tissue.

“Not really. Okay, I’ve seen the cow. It’s definitely dead. Can I just sign the paper and go?”

“Just a moment.” The vet is laughing silently. Jacob can tell she is, even though she tries to hide it, probably to spare his manly pride. She snaps on a rubber glove and kneels next to the animal. Her next words aren’t quite so inspiring. “Damn.”

“What?”

“I think the cow was already dead when the tree fell on it.”

Jacob turns halfway, so that the carcass is on the edge of his vision. It doesn’t help much, as his brain extrapolates and the image is already burned into his retinas. “What?” he asks again.

“Definitely. For a short while, likely, but the circulation had stopped.”

“Great. Now what?”

“I need to take it.” Jacob thinks another “what” isn’t necessary. “No obvious cause of death, not that I can see from here,” she corrects herself, considering the ton of cow meat shish-kebabbed with a tree.

“Aside from the fact that it’s impaled on a tree?”

“I said it was dead before the tree fell. When did this happen, Mr Jones?” the vet asks the farmer.

“Could have been any time last night.” He shrugs and stuffs his hands down his pockets. “The pen had been broken; she must have wandered out on her own. I didn’t notice she was gone until this morning.”

“Stolen?”

“If I were to steal one of my cows,” the farmer says thoughtfully, “I would have picked better. But yeah, could be.”

Jacob takes one more look at the dead animal. Its eyes are still open, staring at him with an expression of hazy satisfaction. She must have been a well-adjusted cow. He bends over and loses the rest of his lunch. “I hate my job,” he manages, thinking of hanging himself on the fence with his tie.

“You think yours is bad?” the veterinarian turns to him and flashes a smile. “I get to take this cow apart. And let me tell you, with an animal this huge, I’m gonna have to walk in, literally.”

Jacob has the time to roll his eyes, thank her for the mental image and bend over again, before he heaves up the last of the food he’s consumed today, and something that tasted like yesterday’s dinner. “Just kill me now,” he mutters wiping his chin with the vet’s handkerchief. “I am never touching a hamburger again in my life.”

“Vegetarianism, despite what they say, is healthy,” the vet says, grinning. “Seeing as you are no longer a growing boy.” She turns to Mr Jones. “I will need to get it to my place, I have equipment there. But I’ll need a truck and some help loading it.”

“Can I go now?” Jacob asks, hoping she reads his desperation from his voice.

“Hm? Yeah, no problem. Go. I’ll email you my report when I’m done.”

Jacob barely listens to the email part. He is halfway across the field already when his mobile rings. “Jacob Lake,” he says without looking at the caller ID.

“Mr Lake, it’s me. Again.”

Jacob stops and looks back. The vet is waving at him. He waves back, uncertainly. “Yes?”

“Since there is also the possibility of the cow having been stolen, Mr Jones is calling the police. I don’t know what you’ll need.”

“A copy of the police report, if you’d be so kind.”

“No problem.” Jacob sees her cover the mouthpiece with her hand and turn to Mr Jones. Muffled, but the sound still carries through, “Mr Lake will need a copy of the police report, along with mine.”

He sees the farmer nod. Jacob nods back and disconnects. At the moment he hates his job, with a passion worthy of a better cause. Also, he is cold. He wraps his thin coat around himself tightly and starts walking to his car. The crispy air is dealing with his nausea, fortunately – there is a good chance he’ll manage to drive back to the office with his car and head intact. He stops along the way once, at a gas station, to get a pack of chewing gum, ice mint. On second thought he also grabs a toothbrush.

There are no more pressing cases that day, luckily for the poor souls who might need the insurance money. He is in no shape to read any reports. He hopes the vet will be kind enough to abbreviate her findings and deliver them in a concise, non-disgusting way. That’s what he hopes for. What he suspects he’ll get is a hundred pages with pictures and videos. He knows Dr Leticia Burns, he’s called for her expertise a couple of times already. She has an iron stomach and countenance to match, but her sense of humor is defective, in that she tends to forget other people don’t share her disposition. Bottom line – he is going to be forced to stomach pictures of the dead cow, inside and out. Which was altogether more than he feels he can handle.

“I need a new career,” he tells Nancy on his way in.

“Oh? Was it that bad?”

“Worse.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Strong, black tea, if you’d be so kind.” He all but falls into his chair, remembering at the last minute about the toothbrush.

The tea is lukewarm when he emerges from the bathroom. Nancy is hovering by his desk, concern all over her face. “Are you okay, Mr Lake?”

“Yes, right now. Thank you.” Lukewarm or not, strong tea is just what he needs at the moment. “At least until Dr Burns sends me her report, which I’m sure will be a delightful read.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nancy agrees, nodding. She can still remember his reaction to the previous case in which Dr Burns’ expertise had been necessary. Nancy didn’t know all the details, and in Jacob’s opinion was all the happier for it. His experience contributed to weeks of restless sleep and a firm resolution never to let his children drive, when there was a chance of cattle being in the same county. Actually, never let them drive, period. “Still, that means you have a couple of days of relative peace, right?”

“I can only hope.” Truth be told, the past few weeks have not been easy. The weather has taken a turn towards vicious, wreaking havoc on the city. Even if Dr Burns doesn’t hurry, Jacob is willing to bet he’ll have another potentially revolting case on his hands, sooner rather than later. “What time is it, anyway?” he asks picking up his wristwatch. “Huh. That late?”

“I was about to head home,” Nancy admits. Jacob takes that to mean he looked horrible enough to warrant a baby-sitter.

“I’m okay, don’t worry. Goodbye.” Jacob nods in her direction and starts gathering his own things. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Goodnight, Mr Lake.”

Jacob emerges from the office with his coat tucked tight around his neck. Before he makes it to the car he is carrying it in one hand, along with his briefcase. The weather is not on his side, obviously and of course, his mobile would ring when his coat is hanging over his arm, requiring a balancing act to extract it.

“Hey,” he hears, the voice of his wife accompanied by background gurgling of a content toddler. “Would you mind picking up Tim from preschool? We’re stuck in the supermarket, a tree branch gave way or something and they won’t let us out until the fire brigade rescues us all.”

“Yeah, no problem. I was just heading home.”

“Great. See you.”

Jacob drops the mobile on the passenger seat, along with his coat and starts the car. Main Street would still be blocked; the uprooted trees caused more trouble than anyone anticipated. He groans to himself when he realizes the only way to pick up Tim is to drive halfway around the city, right past the pastures. With cows.

Tomorrow cannot come soon enough.

By the time Jacob gets to the preschool Tim is already waiting outside, waiting for his turn on the slide. Jacob waves and Tim runs to meet him, breathless and flushed. “Hi daddy!”

“Hey there. How was your day?” Jacob asks, picking up his son. “Did you make anything cool?”

“We drew animals. I drew a cow.” His voice is a little subdued and Jacob sympathizes. At this point he would sympathize with anyone unwilling to ever see a cow again. He’s had quite enough.

“How did it turn out?”

Timothy gives him a solemn look and shakes his head. “Not so good,” he admits.

“I feel your pain.” Jacob puts Tim on the ground and pats his head. “I saw entirely more of a cow today than I ever wanted.”

“You saw a cow?” Trust a child to pick up on the uncomfortable subject.

“Yes, I have. A dead cow, to be precise.”

“Wow. What happened?” Tim keeps staring at him, his brown eyes huge and curious, as Jacob fastens his seatbelt.

“A tree fell on it. It really didn’t look good.” Though considering what happened to animals in the cartoons Timothy sometimes watched, Jacob was willing to bet a tree falling was tame in comparison.

“Did you see it fall?”

“No, thank God.”

“Can I see the cow?”

“Absolutely not!” Whoever thought children were innocent little creatures, obviously never tried telling them a story with any kind of a fight in it, or showing them a dead cow, for that matter. They’d be on it faster than the flies, poking for the squishy bits. Jacob shudders and leans his forehead against the cold metal of the car. He definitely needs to stop imagining things in vivid detail. Also, he needs a new job. Something nice and peaceful, like accounting . Maybe the school needs an accountant. That ought to calm his nerves.

“Can we have burgers tonight?” Tim asks, and Jacob groans once more. He wishes it was Friday and he had a legitimate reason to vehemently refuse. Children are insensitive little monsters, and he doesn’t care what anyone else says.


Jacob walks through the front door of his house preceded by the excited little boy. He finds Deborah and Rachel in the kitchen, cooking dinner. It isn’t beef, he is relieved to note, but some very colorful vegetarian stir-fry. Bless Deborah and her sixth sense.

“Hey honey.” She turns to kiss him, before returning her attention to the pan.

“Mom! Why can’t we have burgers?” Tim asks, staring at the vegetables with disgust as only a little boy can.

“I’m sorry, I know I said we would have burgers, but I really couldn’t be bothered after the supermarket fiasco. They said the storm has wrecked some of the wiring, or something, because first the door wouldn’t open and then there was the tree falling. I have no idea how it managed to stay upright for as long as it had.” Deborah stirs the contents of the pan one more time and gives Tim a thoughtful look. “Go wash your hands.”

“I had to look at a dead cow today,” Jacob announces sitting at the table. In his mind that trumps being locked up supermarket. Obviously that isn’t the case with Deborah’s.

“Really? How did it die?”

Jacob looks at her in a way that he hopes conveyed all of his incredulity. “It was a dead cow. Half a ton of a dead cow. Skewered by a tree.”

Deborah has the gall to laugh at him. “Sorry.”

“You cannot tell me, in all seriousness, that a huge dead animal wouldn’t bother you. A huge dead animal, staring at you, while being skewered by a tree.”

“You threw up, didn’t you?” Deborah is once again amused and Jacob loses his winner’s spot. “I’m sorry. Yes, it would probably bother me.” Deborah is just a thumb’s width shorter than he is, and has yet to lose all the excess weight carrying Rachel added to her naturally curvaceous figure. She is solid, and strong and, overall, she has the look about her that says she wouldn’t let a dead cow bother her.

“But not that much.”

“I grew up on a farm, dear. I’ve seen plenty of dead cows before. I killed chickens with my own hands.” The image is there, trying to assemble itself, and for a moment Jacob thinks he almost has it, though he honestly doesn’t want to.

“You monster.” Jacob feels defeated. It seems like the whole world is okay with animal guts hanging around the place, except for him. He looks at Rachel, happily gurgling in her high seat. “You didn’t kill any chickens recently?” he asks her, in all seriousness. He ignores Deborah’s indignant cry. “You won’t grow up to be a chicken killer, like your mom, will you?”

“You know, I resent that. Killing chickens is a perfectly acceptable profession, as long as it’s for food. I never killed a chicken that didn’t end up on the table.” Deborah bops him on the head with a spoon. “Except the crazy old one. But he was disturbing the hens, and he was old. And even then the dog ate him.”

“Suddenly I think I’m either not hungry, or a vegetarian,” Jacob says. “I’m not sure which.”

“Well, your indecision isn’t completely unfortunate, as we aren’t having meat tonight and you will have to eat the vegetables so that Timmy knows they are not poisonous. Go wash your hands, I’m almost done.”

Jacob returns to the kitchen in time to set the table and pour water into the jug. Timmy has settled himself in his chair, and looks at him expectantly. “Do you want to say grace?” Jacob asks and the boy nods. He folds his hands on the table and stares thoughtfully at his plate.

“Bless us, Lord,” he starts, brow furrowed in concentration, “And Your gifts which we are about to receive from Your bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Jacob enjoys dinner. There are no dead animals on the table, discounting the jar of baby food, which allegedly contains chicken. Since it is about the same color and consistency as the pear dessert Rachel had the day before, Jacob doesn’t let it get to him. They are probably the same thing, both far removed from clucking and feathers. It probably ought to bother him, the thought that his infant daughter is consuming food whose contents are pretty much unknown. Then again, since Rachel is happy to have it on her clothes, in her hair and on every available surface in reach, the contents are irrelevant, as so little of it ends up in her mouth. Jacob grins when the latest spoonful he feeds her ends up on the table, three feet away.

“I think she’s dying for a bath,” Deborah says, popping the last piece of carrot into her mouth.

“I’ll do it,” Jacob says, picking up the baby. He holds Rachel as far away as his arms would allow, mindful of the fact she still have plenty of ammunition on her hands.

“Can I watch TV now?” Timothy asks, swallowing with great self-sacrifice the final piece of vegetable from his plate.

“Go ahead,” Deborah ruffles his hair and starts picking up the plates.

Jacob emerges from the bathroom wetter than Rachel. “I swear, I wonder sometimes which one of you is taking a bath,” Deborah says, holding out a towel for Jacob to dry himself with.

“You know she likes to share the joy.” Rachel’s brand of sharing the joy is spreading all that she was given in an even circle around herself.

“She does.” Deborah steps in and presses a kiss to his cheek, before taking over preparing Rachel for the night. Bath and diapering Jacob can do with no problem at all, but he has yet to master the subtle art of tucking an infant in so that it doesn’t cry for attention the moment he leaves the room.

By the time Rachel is wrapped in her blankets and snoozing in her cot, Jacob is barely holding in his own yawns. He dreads the next few hours. Going to bed would be pointless, as he won’t fall asleep at this hour anyway, but he is too tired to do anything constructive.

“Tim, go and wash up. It’s time to go to bed,” Deborah says, leaning over the five-year-old dozing in the huge armchair.

“I’m not sleepy, mom…”

“Yes, you are. Now go and wash up.” The boy trudges upstairs, weary and disillusioned. A few moments later there is the sound of water running, then a few minutes of silence, water again and then a slam of the bathroom door.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Tim yells.

“Don’t yell; the baby’s sleeping!” Deborah calls back.

Tim is too tired, if not too young, to appreciate the double standard.

“I’ll go tuck him in,” Jacob says getting off his chair.

“You do that.”

Tim, for all his grumbling, is already in his pajamas and looks ready to fall unconscious as soon as his head hits the pillow. But he doesn’t climb into bed just yet, waiting until Jacob seats himself down on the bed, to kneel next to his father and fold his hands on the green bedspread. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” Tim starts reciting, his eyes wandering between his father and the crucifix high on the wall. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Dear Lord, protect me through the night and wake me up with morning light. Amen.”

“Goodnight, Timmy,” Jacob says, pulling back the covers and letting the boy scramble into bed. “Sleep well.”

“Goodnight, daddy.” Jacob leaves the door open enough for the room to be maneuverable at the darkest hour of the night. Before he goes downstairs, he looks in across the hall, finding Rachel sleeping soundly in her crib.


Downstairs, Deborah opens a bottle of wine. “I figure you deserve to relax, after a whole long day of guts and gore,” she says, grinning. Alcohol is not a good idea. Jacob is certain they’ll end up talking about the cow, which is not what he wants to think about, not when he is drunk. That is the last thing he needs, a comprehensive picture of a bovine abdominal cavity with a tree branch adorned by green leaves piercing the entrails.

“Oh God, yes. Alcohol,” he says, reaching out for the glass.

“Isn’t someone a little desperate,” Deborah says, a little less humor in her voice, watching Jacob down half a glass of wine in one gulp. “It’s wine, not vodka.”

“I really hate cows,” Jacob tells her.

“Yes, thank you. I gathered. Don’t drink that fast.” Deborah switches the TV on, to some romantic comedy Jacob normally would run from. Since it is the only movie that night that he is certain wouldn’t contain cows, he doesn’t say a thing. Half an hour into the movie he moves to the couch, to lean against Deborah and doze through the clumsily executed attempts at the heroine’s part to appear convincing. He opens his eyes wider when she starts kissing her love interest, right before the credits start rolling, and finishes his wine. Their wine, as it turns out, because Deborah has abandoned her glass a while go. The movie ends and Jacob sits up, holding on to the back of the couch for dear life.

“Mommy?” Jacob turns his head. Tim is at the bottom of the stairs, staring at them. His eyes are puffy and red, a fact all the more alarming in the bluish light of the TV. He is breathing unsteadily, trying to choke down the sobbing.

“What happened, honey?” Deborah picks him up and the little boy wraps his arms around her neck. “Did you have a bad dream?” Tim nods and Deborah rubs his back comfortingly. She starts to walk upstairs, leaving Jacob to switch the TV off and lock the front door.

He brushes his teeth, holding on to the sink. He is still pale, his reflection reveals, even after the wine. “I really need another job,” he tells himself. Luckily, the cheesy movie has done its job and his mind is comfortably replaying the heroine’s struggles to hold on to her bikini in the clear, Mediterranean water rather than dwelling on the misfortunes of any animal. Perhaps he could get one of those bikinis for Deborah, for when they go to the beach during the summer. That would be the day.

Jacob laughs to himself, rinses his mouth and stumbles into the bedroom. Summoning the presence of mind for the evening prayer isn’t easy, so Jacob settles for muttering right through “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” real quick, apologizing for the haste to the Lord. By the time he hears Deborah curl next to him his eyes are drooping, and his head feels like it is made of pure solid gold. “Goodnight,” she whispers and Jacob smiles in reply.

He is really disgruntled when he wakes up an hour later, his bladder demanding a trip to the toilet. Jacob gets up with a muffled curse, and navigates through the dark bedroom, out into the hall and into the bathroom. He closes the door before he turns on the lights. “What the…” he mutters, when the light bulbs flicker simultaneously. Puzzled, he taps the nearest one with his finger. It flickers again. Jacob stretches his neck and makes a mental note to inspect them in the morning. He washes his hands and switches the lights off. He looks into Rachel’s nursery on his way back. To his surprise, the baby is moving in her cot – she’s rolled onto her stomach and is attempting to crawl to the headboard.

“It’s the middle of the night, Rachel,” Jacob tells her, turning her over once again. “Time to sleep.”

She gurgles at him. Jacob smiles and then frowns. Tim’s bedspread is lying on the floor, next to the sofa along with his pillow. “Tim?” Deborah would have mentioned it, if she’d put Tim to sleep in Rachel’s room. Jacob wracks his brain but he cannot remember. Perhaps she had, and he just didn’t register. The bigger question, however, is where is he? Jacob turns to Rachel and tickles her chin. “Where’s your brother, hm?”

Her head turns towards the ceiling and as the shadow on the pillow shifts Jacob sees a dark spot on the pale yellow pillowcase. It is wet. He looks up then and sees Tim.

It takes him a long time to concentrate, for his brain to realize what he is seeing, for the knowledge to spread in his mind, finally for him to attempt to understand it. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand, he is certain – in that short moment he is certain there is no way he ever could. Because his son is lying on the ceiling, like there is no such thing as gravity, like the rules of physics don’t matter. His eyes are wide-open and terrified and hurting, most of all, and the little boy is staring at him, asking for answers, asking for anything that would explain the unbelievable reality of what is happening. Jacob swallows and his eyes are drawn to the dark spot on Timmy’s blue pajamas, spreading across his stomach. More spots start appearing on the covers around Rachel’s head. A drop lands on her nose and she starts crying. The baby’s cry breaks the silent spell – Jacob opens his mouth and screams. In that moment fire blossoms around Tim, spreading all over the ceiling, latching onto the curtains, the pictures on the wall, the wallpaper and Jacob just stands there, among the flames, his head craned towards the ceiling and screams, and screams and screams.

“Jacob!” he hears Deborah’s voice from the corridor. Without ever looking down he picks up Rachel, turns and runs from the nursery, following his wife out the front door just as the fire takes over the upper floor of their house.

“What happened?” Deborah asks him, breathless and terrified. Their house is ablaze, illuminating the whole street and they are standing too close, because it is burning them too, scorching their skin with heat and the pain of knowing their home is up in flames.

But the pain doesn’t register, not until Deborah looks around and, her face pale as death, raises her eyes to Jacob’s. “Where is Tim?” She doesn’t wait for the answer, but starts running back towards the open door, towards Hell on Earth. Jacob has the presence of mind to wrap his arm around her waist and hold on, balancing between holding a crying baby on his shoulder, his frantic, screaming wife and his breaking heart.

“Deb, no!” he manages at last, though his voice is thick with tears and unrecognizable. “No.”

“Tim’s in there!” she yells, still fighting though Jacob knows that she knows she cannot walk back in – they are standing on their front lawn and the heat is too great already.

He is aware of the humming noise of the arriving neighbors, of the terrified whispers and cries and silent horror. They are all there, on the fringe of his consciousness, as he sinks along with Deborah to the ground, pulling her close against himself. “Deb,” he says, again and again, until he is certain he knows no words other than her name.

The fire brigade arrives then, rolling through the neighborhood with the sirens blaring, waking everyone who lives within a mile. Jacob doesn’t really notice. Rachel is crying again, and her voice drowns out the blazing of the fire and the wailing of the signals. He holds her tighter and hides his face in Deborah’s hair. Someone is kind enough to drop a blanket on the both of them, though it’s needless as far as the cold is concerned – neither he nor Deb feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. Neither he nor Deborah feel anything, except for the debilitating grief.


It takes an hour before the fire is finally wrestled under control. By then there is little left of the house, nothing to suggest that only an hour ago this was a home. There is nothing left.

Nothing left of their five-year-old boy.

“Mr and Mrs Lake?” a fireman walks over to them and Deborah looks up.

Jacob cannot see her face, but he knows how expressive she can be. He doesn’t envy the man who has to look into her eyes and tell her the house is too badly damaged to allow a glimmer of hope for the survival of her son.

“Did you find him?” Deborah asks standing up.

“Find who?”

“Timothy, our son. He’s five.” Jacob looks at the ground, pulling the blanket around himself and Rachel. Now that the fire is gone he is cold. It is as if his body only now remembers he is kneeling on the ground in nothing but his pajamas in the middle of the night.

“Where was he when the fire started?” the fireman asks.

Deborah opens her mouth and closes it in horror. “He was in the nursery. With Rachel. I put him to sleep there, he’s been having nightmares.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to ask – where did the fire start?”

“I’m- I don’t know. I woke up when Jacob started screaming,” she says, looking at Jacob briefly. Their eyes meet but he cannot bear to hold the connection.

“The nursery,” he tells Rachel, who is dozing off on his arm. “It started in the nursery.”

“Wasn’t Tim there?” Deborah asks, turning to him fully. “You were in the nursery when it started, weren’t you?”

Jacob looks at her and lies. “I didn’t see Tim,” he says, though the image of his son of the ceiling is more tangible at the moment than that of his wife, standing in a thin nightgown on the lawn. He is amazed how easy the lie is, how smoothly it passes through his lips. He wonders if it’s because he cannot believe what he knows he saw. He wonders if it’s because he knows it cannot possibly be true.

“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am, sir,” the fireman says. Deborah freezes as he leaves, standing barefoot on the grass, staring into space without seeing. Eventually Jacob collects himself enough to stand up and wrap his free arm around her. He barely notices Mr Wilkins approach and offer his condolences. His presence only registers when he feels a gentle, but firm, hand on his arm and realizes he is being led to the house across the street, Deborah and Rachel in tow.

“Stay here. Call whoever you need,” Mr Wilkins says gruffly. “I’ll make you some tea.”

Jacob isn’t sure if he’s emotionally prepared to handle the concept of tea, but as it turns out his body craves a mug of something hot. He cradles the cup in his hands, savoring each mouthful of the heat and bitterness. Later, he realizes that is the only sensory experience other than sight he salvaged from that night, the taste of feel of strong, black tea. Everything else would fade, leaving behind a vague impression of pain and terror.

He won’t remember which one of them called Anne, Deborah’s sister. He recalls her being frantic and terrified; he recalls Deborah saying she ought to calm down and under no circumstances get into a car that night. He recalls her tone of voice as scary.

He remembers Rachel waking up and demanding food, loudly, unconcerned for her brother’s death. He is so numb the thought doesn’t even make him angry. How can it, when he cannot allow his mind to believe it? Deborah eventually asks Mr Wilkins for some weak tea and works magic with a spoon, feeding the baby. She falls asleep quarter of a cup in, and Deborah cuddles her close and curls up on the couch. Jacob doesn’t move from the armchair.

Anne arrives early in the morning. Jacob realizes belatedly no one told her where would they be, because she gets out of the car and stares at the ruins of their house, bustling with firemen sifting through the wreckage. She’s hyperventilating, which is all too obvious even when her back is turned. She’s driven all the way, despite Deborah’s explicit orders not too. Jacob smiled to himself. Deborah should have known better. He only realizes something is wrong when she starts to look around frantically, as if expecting them to walk out of the morning mist as if nothing happened, to convince her it was a joke. Jacob walks out the front door and calls her, from across the street. In a flash Anne is there, squeezing the life out of him.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs, clinging. Jacob pats her back awkwardly. “Are you okay? Is Debbie okay?”

Jacob forces a smile onto his mouth, however insincere it may end up looking and nods, though the action is painful. He is not okay and neither is Deborah. “We are safe,” he says. “Deb is sleeping on the couch, with Rachel.”

“Thank God,” Anne whispers. Then looks up, alarmed. “What about Tim?”

Jacob averts his eyes. They are standing in a spot that allows him a full view of their house. “They didn’t find him yet.”

“Didn’t find him?” Anne starts hyperventilating in earnest. “You mean you think he’s…”

Jacob cannot bring himself to say he’s sure. He settles for a tight nod and averts his eyes. He leads Anne into the house, where she wakes up Deborah with another wail and gets yelled at for her trouble. Deborah doesn’t appreciate having her sleep interrupted any more than she appreciates having her explicit orders ignored. “Are you out of your mind?” she asks, crowding her little sister in the corner of the room, hissing through her teeth, because she is a mother and will not wake up her child any sooner than necessary. “You could have driven yourself into a tree, you idiot!”

“Oh, that’s rich, you calling me an idiot right now. I was worried about you! You call in the middle of the night to tell me your house burned to the ground! What the hell did you expect me to do, sit back and knock a Martini?”

“Yes! Find a goddamned driver, if you were so eager! Use your brain, for Heaven’s sake. Fat load of good is college education doing you, if you can’t be assed to learn anything!”

Anne bites her lip in an effort not to say something she’ll regret as soon as she finishes uttering the last syllable, though the effort is considerable. They glare at one another and Jacob is mentally ticking off the seconds until they start hugging. It takes just seconds, and then Deborah is shaking against her sister’s shoulder. Jacob picks up a blanket and wraps it around her – the room is cold and she is still clad only in her nightgown.

“I’m so sorry,” Anne whispers.

Rachel picks that moment to wake up. She wails loudly, signaling the fullness of her diaper and the emptiness of her tummy.

“We don’t have any baby food,” Deborah realizes, letting go of Anne. She picks up the baby and hugs her to her chest. “We need to go shopping.”

Jacob doesn’t remind her that all their credit cards went up with the house, along with everything else. He sits down on the couch, and covers his face with his hands. He doesn’t notice Anne leaving the house and returning a short while later with a change of clothes for them both. He almost misses it when Mrs Wilkins offers him a cup of coffee. He drinks it gratefully and allows her to push him gently towards the shower. He changes into the clothes Anne acquired, and returns to his perch on the couch.

He thinks he might have seasickness. He has trouble moving, each steps requires concentration to fall in front of the previous. Either he is insane or the house is swaying in the ground, determined to upset his balance. Jacob has to admit it’s doing a swell job.

Around midday there is a knock on the door. Jacob looks up at the man Mr Wilkins allows into the living room.

“Mr Lake?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve found your son’s remains,” the man says. Unspoken are the words they had to sift through the ashes for them. Jacob has been on an arson case with fatalities once. He asked for another assignment as soon as he opened the folder containing photos.

Jacob diverts his eyes to the floor. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jacob doesn’t move from the couch. Not until Deborah gets back, Anne and Rachel in tow.



Part One :: Master Post :: Part Three