Temporary Father

She jumped at his hand instead.

He grabbed her and dropped to his knees, still hugging her. With his head close to her ear, he said it. “I set the fire.”

They all thought it was lightning from the storm that day, but Lucy knew the truth. He confessed to her at least once a day, and she loved him anyway. He only half believed she didn’t know what he was saying. Telling her made him feel better for a few minutes.

His mom thought he was upset because she’d left his father two years ago. Sure he wanted her and his dad together. Except he could do without the yelling. His dad’s yelling—and then the horrible sound of his mom whispering to his father to keep his voice down.

He couldn’t figure out why he was always madder at his mom.

Eli buried his face in Lucy’s silky ear. She nipped at his hand. She never bit—just held his fingers in her mouth. He burrowed deeper, smelling Lucy and sunshine. He didn’t want even her to see him cry.

In the darkness of her fur and his closed eyes, he saw the cigarette again, a white tube with a glowing red top. The blackened match he’d thrown in his garbage can. It must not have been out.

The night before, his mom had been ranting through a news report about kids his age smoking. Sometimes the high school kids came by the lodge and tried to buy cigs. His mother threw them out. She could guess any guy’s age.

A lot of kids smoked at the middle school. After his mom had blown up like a maniac, he’d scored one from Billy Thorpe, and then he’d tried it in his room after school.

It had made him throw up. At the time, he’d been grateful for the lightning and hail and thunder that had covered the sounds.

He’d come out of the bathroom to find his room on fire. It had to have been that match. Or the cigarette.

They said a lightning strike had set the fire, but he couldn’t remember where he’d left the cigarette.

Sometimes that night happened all over again in his mind. He rubbed his hands as flames jumped at them again. The fire had eaten his blanket when he’d tried to smother it. It had flown across the papers and books on his desk. He hadn’t been able to make it stop.

As he’d turned, flames had already started on his DVD player and his video games. Black smoke had wrapped him as fast as he could move. He’d started for the door, but pictured his mom standing out there, waiting to hate him.

He’d jumped out his window, slid across the green tin porch roof and then dropped onto the grass. Trying to hide from another clap of thunder, he’d yelled for his mother and run back inside, where Lucy was barking at the smoke that hovered, waiting to attack from the top of the stairs.

“Get out, get out,” his mom had shouted from the landing.

“I can’t.” He couldn’t leave her to fight his mess. He’d gone up and dragged her back down. They’d both hauled Lucy out by her collar.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, they’d all been covered in black soot, he and his mom hugging each other in the rain. Both crying, though she’d never cried before or since.

No one had noticed his burned hands that day. When his mom had grabbed him by both of them the next morning, he’d said he’d burned himself going back for her.

Guilt had made her face different—like she hurt. Maybe that was why something had been chewing on his guts ever since.

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