Sweet Water(105)

“I think so,” I say, because I don’t remember ripping it out, but I’d forgotten all about it, because the vines grow over it.

Shielding the executives’ homes with their leafy veils and climbing green vines.

“Do you think the boys could be inside?”

I know why he’s asking.

“Yes,” I say.

“Sarah, is he mine?” Josh asks.

And I can’t be sure, but I am sure. I’ve always known. It’s a memory I colored differently because it was the shade I wanted to see. “Yes,” I say.

Josh gently rests me on the ground and dashes to the side of the house. “No, Josh,” I try, but I’m too weak to protest or stop him from saving his own son.

I would have told Josh about Spencer, but when the doctor gave me my due date after I was already married, I dismissed our brief encounter. It’s probably the moment in my life when not having a mother hurt me the most.

I would’ve given my ring back, had the marriage annulled if I’d figured it out sooner. If someone had made public notice of the fact that pregnant women are actually with child for about ten months instead of nine. I would’ve had a serious talk with Martin about what had transpired during our brief time apart and let him decide if he still thought this marriage was a good idea.

Now it’s a memory I mark in black, so dark I can’t see it—until someone comments on Spencer’s green eyes, not blue like mine or brown like Martin’s. Mary Alice pointed out that brown is usually the dominant trait, and it’s amazing how the light color pulled through.

But the fact is, it didn’t. Finn’s eyes are brown because they are a true by-product of mine and Martin’s. But Spencer’s are green—just like his biological father’s.

I was also reminded of Josh when Spencer played that piano effortlessly with little to no instruction. No one else in the family had a lick of musical talent, and Spencer just happened to be able to sit down and play. Spencer looks like Josh too. Taller than both Martin and Finn, wider shoulders.

My beautiful boys! Are you in there? Burning?

I roll on my side and try to watch Josh, smelling the scorched skin on my feet, the excruciating physical pain of my wounds secondary to everything else I’m feeling. There’s no way Josh has a chance of entering the second floor and living to tell about it, but I’m still hopeful that maybe he can and will find my father. I can’t even stomach thinking that the boys are in there too, a loss I couldn’t manage.

I can barely focus, but out of my peripheral vision, I can tell Josh is climbing up the side of my house as it burns down. I’m fighting not to pass out, my breaths shallow, my lungs burning with lack of oxygen and fear.

Am I to lose Josh too? Will the boy with the guitar return to his home for good?

I hear the fire trucks struggling on the road, their gears grinding on the gravel, their sirens loud and urgent, but they must be stuck. There’s a tight turn in the path where the trees seem to droop over and make a tunnel, and sometimes the hood of Dad’s pickup would get scratched if the trees weren’t trimmed, and I can’t remember the last time Martin had them trimmed. Someone might have to cut them down for the trucks to pass, but it will be over by then.

All over.

This is what I’d always wanted—a house so tucked away, a world all my own, my personal fairy tale. The only problem is that I was so tucked away, no one could reach me in a hurry, and now my fairy tale has turned into my personal Hell as my family burns, trapped inside.

I open my eyes briefly, and I see the stars, and they are bright tonight. “Mother, please? If you’re up there, don’t take them,” I whisper. “Don’t take them from me. Don’t take my boys.”

The most important men I’ve ever met are in that house because of me, and I’ll never forgive myself if they don’t make it out.

I feel the oxygen mask first, and my eyes snap open second. I see three of them as I’m hoisted into a vehicle with blinking red lights. Somewhere in between my thoughts of life and death, Martin has arrived. I’m on a stretcher, and my sons are on each side.

My sons. Thank you, God. They’re alive.

I’m overcome with emotion and reach out, but they all tell me to lie down. Martin climbs inside, and the medic closes the doors, and I try to talk, but everything goes black.





CHAPTER 28

The oxygen mask is still on my face, but Martin is gone. My lungs ache, and my throat is so dry, I want to cry. I immediately push the nurse button for water. Both my feet are wrapped in white bandages, and I can’t remember exactly what happened to them, but I kind of do.

I went barefoot into a burning building.

That’s right.

Luckily, I can’t feel the pain from my injuries yet. My feet are completely numb from whatever painkiller they’ve given me, and my brain is fuzzy.

The nurse arrives, and she seems happy I’m awake and calls more medical staff into the room to check on me, but none of them are the people I want to see. A man in scrubs grabs my arm and fastens a black cuff around it to check my blood pressure, but that’s not important to me right now either.

Is my dad alive? I need to know.

Did my boys make it? I need to make sure I didn’t imagine them before I passed out in the back of the ambulance. I need to ensure that they weren’t in that blaze, because I blacked out on my lawn insisting that they weren’t.