Pyro (2 page)

That makes us both start laughing all over again.

“So what else you doing this weekend?” I ask Jeff.

“I'm seeing some of the guys I used to hang with. I'm having breakfast tomorrow with Terry. You remember him?”

“Big guy? Kind of full of himself? Used to call me squirt?”

“That's him. Did you know he joined the volunteer fire brigade? He's aiming to get a job with the Montreal Fire Department. It's all he talks about. The guy's obsessed.”

“Pretty cool!” I say. I don't tell Jeff what I'm thinking-how his old pal Terry and I have something in common.

Chapter Three

Jeff sticks around to check out my new skateboard. “Everything okay around here, little cuz?” he asks when I walk him to the door.

“Sure.”

“Your folks seemed a little…well, strange with each other.”

“Nah, everything's fine.”

“Listen,” Jeff says, punching my arm. “If you ever need to talk, you can always call.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

I'm sprawled out on the couch, chilling. If it wasn't July and hot and dry out, I'd build a fire in our old brick fireplace.

I shouldn't have told Jeff he was a bad influence. He wasn't the one who got me hooked on fire. I was hooked way before the corn-chip and spray-can tricks.

Dad got me hooked. Mr. Mayor himself.

My first memory of fire has to do with this fireplace. I used to love watching Dad start a fire. Dad is the kind of person who's always on the go. Even when I was little, he'd head off to one meeting or another. Or he'd be on the phone doing city business. But when Dad made a fire, he was one-hundred-percent present. It was the only time he wasn't distracted.

I'd sit right here on the couch (in those days the couch was maroon-now it's got this kooky cupcake fabric Mom picked out). Dad would be on his knees in front of the fireplace. He'd tell me exactly what he was doing. “First you gotta scrunch up newspaper—like this. You payin' attention, son?” Dad would show me the balls of newspaper. “If they come undone,” he'd say, “they're no good.”

“Can I try?” I used to ask him.

“Fire's a powerful thing, Franklin. It creates, but it destroys too. You're not big enough yet to light fires,” Dad would tell me. “But how 'bout you scrunch up some of that newspaper? Nice and tight, okay?”

I'd try so hard to get the balls of newspaper right.

“This one's a little loose, Franklin. Really scrunch it up.”

Mom would be on the couch, reading a romance novel. Every once in a while, she'd look up from her book and smile. I think she liked to see us bonding. Dad wasn't the mayor yet. He was just a city councilor, but already he was away a lot.

“Next you need to make a teepee with the kindling.” Dad would pile kindling into a small teepee. After that, he'd add some small logs, laying them against the teepee, but not so hard that the teepee would fall over.

And then…my favorite part. Dad would light a long match, toss it in and slam the glass door of the fireplace shut. I'd press my face against the glass and watch as all that newspaper would burst into a giant blue-and-orange flame. I'd never seen anything more beautiful.

It wasn't just the appearance of the fire I loved. It was also the sound. I loved the crackling as the fire spread, especially if the wood was damp. And the smell, the delicious aroma of wood smoke.

“It's getting smoky in here,” Mom would complain from the couch. “The smoke detector's going to go off. And I'm not putting down my book to deal with it.”

“You and your romances,” Dad would tease her. “You'd let this house go up in flames if you were reading one of those books. Aren't I romantic enough for you?”

I remember other fires too. There were the bonfires Dad and Uncle Ron made when our families rented a cottage together in the Laurentians. Sometimes, usually after they'd put away a couple of beers, Dad and Uncle Ron would let us use bulrushes to light the bonfire. Man, that was fun! Nothing beats a flaming bulrush!

Mom and Aunt Lena would pack potatoes and corn in tinfoil, and we'd roast them over the fire pit. Jeff and I would spend the whole day hunting for just the right twigs for roasting marshmallows. They had to be long but not so thin our marshmallows might fall off and disappear into the flames. To this day, nothing tastes better to me than roasted potatoes and corn, or a marshmallow charred black on the outside, hot and gooey inside.

Mom says when I was little, I spent hours watching the fire in our fireplace or in those fire pits. She says it used to relax me.

The funny thing is, it still does.

I'm surprised when Dad's truck pulls into the driveway. What's he doing back so soon?

“Hey, Franklin,” he says when he sees me on the couch. “The meeting broke up early. Where's your mom?”

“Still out walking, I guess.”

Dad sighs. “She's been taking an awful lot of walks lately, hasn't she?”

For the first time, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—Dad isn't as out of it as he seems.

Chapter Four

I was right about Dad.

I'm upstairs when Mom gets in. It is nearly 9:30 by then. The argument starts almost instantly. Then it builds in intensity the way some fires do.

“What the heck's been going on, Moira?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I thought you had a council meeting.”

“Don't go changing the subject. Moira, you've gotta level with me. There's someone else, isn't there?”

I try putting my pillow over my head, but they're too loud. Besides, part of me wants to hear what she's going to say.

“That's not what this is about.”

“What's this about, then?” I can't tell from Dad's voice if he's angry or sad.

“We've grown apart,” Mom tells him. “That's what this is about.” She's using the voice she used with me when I was little and I skinned my knee. The I-can-make-it-all-better voice. Only she can't make this better.

“No, that's not wh…what this is about,” Dad sputters. “This is about you, Moira. It's about you cheating on
us
.”

When Dad says
us
, I know he means me too. I wonder if Dad's right. Has Mom been cheating on me? Is that how it works when you have a kid?

Mom doesn't say anything. She doesn't say she hasn't been cheating, or that this is a terrible misunderstanding. That she'd never cheat on
us.

I wish she'd say something, because her silence is only getting Dad more worked up. “You know what you are, Moira? You know what you are? You're rotten to the core!”

I sit up in my bed when he says that. It's occurred to me lately that my mom might not have the best character, but
rotten to the core
is going too far.

You'd think Mom would object, but she doesn't. Maybe she thinks it's true.

One of them is crying now. It could be Dad, but I can't tell for sure. I've never heard him cry before—not even when Grandpa died two years ago.

“I'll leave,” Mom says. “If that's what you want.”

I hear gulping. It is Dad who's been crying. Now his voice is hard as steel. “You will not leave, Moira. Not until after the election. What would people think if the mayor's wife—?”

Now Mom does something I wouldn't expect from her. She laughs. “What would people think?” she says in a decent imitation of Dad. “Don't you see that's what's wrong around here? If you cared more about the people you live with—about me and Franklin—I might not have fallen in love with someone else.”

My chest hurts when she says that.

“And, by the way, I'm not just the mayor's wife. I'm my own person. Which is something else you've lost sight of, Mr. Mayor.”

Now Dad is howling like some half-dead animal. I want to tell him to stop. I want to tell him she's not worth it. But I can't bear the idea of seeing the two of them right now. And I definitely can't listen to any more of this crap.

I need to get out of here. I need to forget everything I just heard. I grab my black hoodie and head for the back stairs. Dad's howling is louder when I reach the ground floor. Mom is telling him something in that make-it-all-better voice, but I won't listen anymore.

In my head, I'm thinking
la la la
,
la la
la
. Really loud. Get me out of here. Now.

I push open the back door and take a deep gulp of summer air. That helps. It's as if I couldn't breathe inside. I've never heard Mom and Dad fight like that. Usually they let things smolder. Maybe this is what happens if the smoldering goes on too long.

The crickets are singing. I could go over to Jeff's, but then I'd have to tell him what's going on.

No, I'll keep walking till my head clears. I'll try to relax.

Who am I kidding? There's only one thing that'll help me relax—and it isn't a walk.

There are hardly any lights on inside the houses I pass. Montreal West isn't exactly full of night owls. So many of the people who live here are old. I'm getting close to Elizabeth Ballantyne, my old elementary school. I spot a metal trash can at the edge of the schoolyard. Perfect.

The wind picks up, carrying with it some brochures someone dropped. I reach out and catch them. It's as if the wind wants in on my plan. Wind and fire make a powerful pair.

I reach into the front pocket of my jeans for matches.

Though the only light is the pale yellow from the streetlamp, I can see there's stuff inside the trash can. Cigarette packets, more brochures, plastic water bottles. I scrunch up the brochures the wind brought me. Just like Dad showed me.

Then I light a match—oh, that feels good—and toss it into the trash can. I take two steps back without lifting my eyes from the trash can.

There's a
whoosh
as the fire starts, then crackling as it spreads inside the trash can.

A light goes on in the back room of one of the houses that borders the school property. It's time for me to get out of here.

I shuffle sideways, keeping my back to the wire fence that surrounds the schoolyard. I keep away from the streetlamps.

I don't go far. Fire starters never do. We don't want to miss the show.

Smoke billows from the top of the trash can now, but no flames.

I hear the sharp whine of the fire engine's siren in the distance. Whoever spotted me must have phoned 9-1-1.

The volunteer fire brigade will be wasting its time. This fire is going to put itself out.

Not all of them do.

Chapter Five

When I get home, the lights are out. Dad's truck and Mom's car are both in the driveway. Could they have sorted things out?

But I know nothing's been sorted out when I take the back stairs and hear Mom whispering in the living room. She's on her cell phone, probably filling Honey in on the latest developments.

Upstairs, Dad is in their bedroom, also on the phone. I can hear him bellowing from the hallway. He must be talking to the volunteer fire chief. I hear him say, “You're sure, then, that everything's okay out there? No damage? What about clues? Did you scour the area for clues? Hmm, that's interesting. All right, then, let me know if you need me. Call at any hour.”

For a man whose wife has been getting it on with some other guy, Dad sounds pretty good.

Somehow, I managed to fall asleep and stay asleep till morning. When I first wake up, I don't remember how screwed up my life is. The sun is coming through my blinds, making stripes on the bedspread. It's Sunday. I have no gardens to weed.

Then I hear shuffling noises coming from the hallway where the big closet is. There's a loud
clunk
, and Mom says, “Oops.” Now I hear her dragging what has to be her suitcase out of the closet.

I consider staying in bed and never getting up again. But I have to pee. Badly.

I walk right past her. I keep my head down so I don't have to make eye contact.

“Franklin, honey,” she says, but I keep walking. “We need to talk.”

“I need to pee,” I mutter.

“Then afterward.”

When I leave the bathroom, she's standing in the middle of the hallway, blocking my way. She's got one hand on her suitcase. “I'm leaving, Franklin,” she says, as if it's not a big deal. “It's just temporary. Till your dad and I can work things out.”

I know that isn't true. Not with Honey in the picture.

“Okay,” I tell her.

Mom's eyes are red-rimmed, like a rabbit's. Maybe she's been crying all night. If she has, I don't feel sorry for her. She's the one who's leaving.

Dad is in the kitchen, toasting himself a slice of whole-wheat bread the way he does every morning. “Morning, son,” he says, as if nothing's wrong. As if his wife isn't upstairs packing her suitcase.

“Morning, Dad. Was there another fire last night? I thought I heard the fire engine out there…when I was, er, dozing off.”

Dad catches his toast in midair as it pops out of the toaster. “Yeah,” he says, without looking at me, “there was another fire. This was small bones though. Trash can fire in the schoolyard at Elizabeth Ballantyne. Good news is a lady who lives nearby got pictures of the punk who did it.” Dad rubs his hands together. “First big lead in the case.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “That's good.”

I can hear Mom upstairs opening and closing her dresser drawers. Dad doesn't say anything about Mom leaving. “If we can catch this wack-job before the election, it'd be good news for me.” Dad rubs his hands together again.

Mom must be done packing, because now I hear her suitcase thumping down the stairs.

A minute later, she is standing at the kitchen door. Her eyes look even redder than before. “I'm sorry,” she says, looking first at me, then at Dad. “Really I am. I just don't see another way. Franklin, I'll phone you later. We'll get together for supper sometime this week, okay?”