Decisions,Decisions

A house that once stood strong and proud, had been reduced to such low depths, it now soaked deep into soil, ash in the ground. To think that everything could have been avoided if one gas range had slept as silently as the people living in the house with it.

The fire department had gotten the call early morning, as the sun rose. I’d seen plenty of fires burn ablaze but this one was one of the worst. By the time the sun had risen, the fire had already casted heat into the sky.

Thankfully, the family living within it had survived.

“I haven’t seen a fire this bad in this community since maybe ten years ago,” spoke the fire captain, Dennis.

“There’s barely anything left,” I concurred.

“It’s a shame too, cause I heard the owner built it himself. Built a lot of the homes in this community actually.”

I took in the scene with even greater disbelief.

“Reminds me of that old story with Blucifer and that artist who created him, what was his name again?”

“Luis Jimenez,” Answered Dennis.

“Right him. It’s crazy. Dying or almost dying by what you love.”

“Couldn’t agree more Gunnerson, but I’ll be right back, gotta go take this call. It’s the Mrs’.”

I watched as he left before I turned back to the rubble. Something seemed to catch the light from above. Just for a split second but my eyes had been trained to notice it.

I went to retrieve it and noticed it was just a small, black notebook. I felt invasive touching it but something about it seemed peculiar. I wasn’t sure how it had survived without so much as a scratch. I flipped through the pages. It was empty.

I put it in my pocket while we dealt with the rest of what we could from the rubble.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I finally got home myself. Opened the door and set the keys on the table.

“Dad,” my son called out to me.

“Yeah, it’s me Wyatt,” I said as I grabbed an ice cold beer from the fridge.

I heard the wheels on his chair hit the hardwood floors as he came over to me.

“Now don’t tell me you’re gonna drink alone pops.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I joked and handed him one.

We sat there for a while, him and I. I was still getting used to having him back. To have anyone here at all even.

When Wyatt had left for basic training, I wasn’t sure of when he’d be back. Yet here he was, drinking a beer with me and I couldn’t help but feel simultaneously grateful for that and unsure of how to start knowing him again.

“Anything exciting at work?” he asked.

“There was this crazy fire actually. Dennis said it’s the worst one he’s seen in about ten years over in that area.It’s a pretty expensive community by comparison to most of the other communities around here. Newer. Actually, the guy who owned that house is a big part of those developments.”

“Wow,” he spoke, “Did they survive?”

“Yes they did thank God. Nothing else but them actually.”

And then I remembered that little black book.

“Oh and this,” I said as I placed the book on the table.

My son looked at it in disbelief, and laughed.

He picked it up.

“This little black book survived that great fire? And you stole it?” He chuckled.

“No no no. I put it in my pocket for safekeeping and forgot it was there, which is quite different.”

“Right..” He agreed.

We sat there laughing along till the nighttime came and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Did the doctors get back to you on those prosthetics you’re thinking of getting?”

Wyatt’s smile faltered a little and I felt like cursing myself for asking but I had to ask.

“Yeah they said it could be anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 if I want the newer products.”

“Well don’t stress too much about it. We’ll figure it out if you want to try them.”

“Dad I could never ask for-”

“You’re not asking Wyatt, I’m offering. I’m so proud of you and I will help you anyway I can. Plus that way you’ll stay for a bit and keep me company.”

He smiled and started to head back to the bathroom. He rejected my help every time so I let him go on his own.

“You really need a girlfriend, dad, Or boyfriend if that suits you” he called out.

“Yeah you say that while you roll away like a chicken.”

“Well chicken’s walk dad,” he joked.

I opened the notebook again as I sat there waiting for Wyatt.

It was then that I noticed something strange; writing that wasn’t there before.

I opened the notebook up to a page that read, “Fireworks.”

A few pages after that was another note, which read, “10 pm.”

I would’ve forgotten about those two words if not for the loud boom that ricocheted through the air just then and the crash that followed. I ran over to the door of the bathroom, where Wyatt had just exited from.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“Yeah that just startled me a bit. I’m ok but what was that?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll go check,” I said.

Wyatt grabbed onto my forearm, but let me go after a moment’s pause.

The neighbors said that their kid had set them off as a prank, and included that he’d be punished appropriately.

I would’ve forgotten those two words if I didn’t check my phone as I entered my house again. Sure enough, it was 10 pm.

The days following that one consisted of my checking the notebook often and confirming that it could in fact predict things that were to happen.

At first, simple words would appear but if I asked it questions and waited, they would reveal an answer.

I had had my fun for a few days but then I started wondering why this seemingly supernatural book survived the fire and about how it was probably connected. Something about the book was magical, and I would have scoffed at the notion of magic a few days previous, but I had seen too much to deny it then.

Imagine my surprise then, when the book spelled out “$20,000” and “fire” , to be followed by “safe” the next. A fire did occur the next day, and it wasn’t too bad but the owners were evacuated. A library sustained the worst of the damage, and I did indeed see a broken safe, only it looked like a book.

Inside this book safe lay $20,000. That is, used to lay, until I moved it into my house.

That money could change the world for my son, whereas it was just chump change for the people living in that house. They were millionaires I’d heard.

I wasn’t taught to steal, quite the opposite but it seemed that this money was meant for me and even if it wasn’t, I figured I’d atone for it somehow, after my son got his prosthetics.

I justified it to myself many ways but still, all I could feel on me throughout the day was a stare on my back, burning through worse than some flames, and I would know what those felt like, after all.

All I could think about was the disappointment my son would look at me with if he ever found out the truth, and somehow that seemed worse than anything else I’d experienced, and I had experienced a lot.

I kept the book away from me, not wanting anything else to do with it. I questioned if it would lead me to more but I honestly didn’t want to know the answer, or the price.

I was angry.

This damned book was surely some kind of test from the great beyond. That same great beyond that took my wife from me, and almost took my son.

Yet still, every time that I thought about that great fire that led me to the book in the first place, I thought about how the owner never asked for the book back. I figured he knew it was magical. I even wondered if it was the reason he was loaded in the first place. When all was said and done, I’m sure all he thought about was his family. Not the money, or the prospect of more.

Maybe life had taken a lot from me but I still couldn’t be wholly angry, because it had given me love too. It had given my wife peace in her final moments, and a brave son who made the days tick by with laughter.

In the end I guess somehow I just knew, we’d be ok, so I returned both.

I told the owner of the money the truth and he somehow sympathized and told me he wouldn’t say anything.

When I returned the book to its owner, he looked at me with a knowing expression and then, to my surprise, he simply threw the book away and said, “You did the right thing, trust me.”

That’s how the mystery of the book ended.

I had made peace with the fact that the story was over, when out of nowhere, a couple months later, a black limousine pulled up to the curb of my house as I chopped wood for the fireplace.

I watched as an obsidian heel touched the pavement, contrasting with the ever-white snow. Everything else I could see on this person was out of place in the environment of my humble home and red, which was fitting because she was much like the cardinal having once flown from the nest, now returning home.

“Ciaran?” I called out to her.

“Hi Gunnerson, I’ve come for an impromptu visit!”

Her voice was as sharp as it had been. As kids it had gotten on my nerves more times than not as she scolded me, but for some reason now, it brought me a sense of happiness.

I didn’t know it back then but she was always destined for that future she seeked out, the one she left us all behind for. It’d been years since we talked, let alone saw each other.

“How’d you find me?” I asked her.

“I can find anybody. You were easy to find though. Believe or not I always keep tabs on my younger brother,” she said.

We stayed up, drinking for a while, driving a hole through my beer supply, as she and I caught up. Wyatt saw her for the first time since he was a kid and was impressed, asking her questions about her life.

After a while she let us know that she wasn’t just there to catch up but because somehow, she had learned about Wyatt’s accident. How she knew she didn’t say. She said her life was a bit different than when we were kids, apart from the obvious increase in money and then, she pulled out a checkbook and wrote an amount that made both Wyatt and I blush.

I refused of course but she said she hoped it started to make up for all the birthdays she’d missed and for not being there when my wife passed.

I asked her what made her come back after all those years but all she said was that something ignited her desire to seek out the warmth of family recently, and while at first, the possibility seemed distant, she decided to listen to the call after all.