Kate was getting ready for school. It wasn’t until she looked in the mirror that she noticed she was wearing a distressed ombre flannel. Why did it look burnt? Why did the rust orange and parched yellow look like flames? Why did the faded plaid look like scorched door frames?
Why did she suddenly feel hot. Why couldn’t she undo the buttons, why were they bolted shut. Why was the dye suddenly flashing violently. Why was the shirt getting taller and longer…now at the neck and to her knees. She couldn’t pull it off. She couldn’t breathe. Her tongue swelled as her throat tightened. Gray dots covered her periphery. She dropped to the ground. Her shirt had lost its shape to the flames— it was all fire now. Rolling frantically, she yanked the shirt off and threw it across the room.
She lay on the ground crying tightly.
And then the panic passed.
She lay on the ground not thinking or feeling. She let a few minutes past just like this, listening to her heart, hands lightly resting on her chest and stomach, hearing birds and cars from outside, letting herself rest.
When she heard the front door bell chime, she knew she had to get up. She delayed it for a few more moments, then got to her feet, she threw on the same blue oversized hoodie she wore yesterday, and joined her Mom and her younger brother, Sean, downstairs. Mom was doing a hundred things at once, in auto mode. Packing Sean’s lunch while serving his breakfast while going over today’s pickup plan (“Remember Kate, Sean will be at the athletic center at 3:30pm for pickup”). Sean was on his phone, probably catching up on snap stories. Kate didn’t bother to engage with either of them.
She took a chocolate milk and apple from the fridge and a granola bar from the snack drawer, threw it in her bag and left for school.
She was a senior at Westfield. She was going to University of Michigan next year, got in early decision. She was finally getting out of Westfield. She should be more excited. She should join the incoming class FB group, connect with Jacqulyn and Omari, the two other kids from Westfield going to Ann Arbor in the Fall. She should, but she didn’t.
Instead, she wore headphones between classes and spent free periods wandering outside. She’d walk past the school building and to the athletic fields, where she’d sit at the midfield line for an impromptu picnic, and stare through the grass at the soil. Not eating or even thinking really, just staring.
For Kate, everything was foggy, heavy, and vacant. Like the remains of the burnt house. Charcoaled and thick-looking, but where were the rooms? Where was the family gathering for dinner at the kitchen table? Where did the old singer sewing desk go? What about his favorite bed? And what about him.
Her mind always went there, those Last Moments. There were no good versions of those Last Moments.
He was old and struggled getting up on his own (once someone lifted his back legs up he was able to walk a couple feet before slouching back down). Was he lying down when the fire caught him? Kate imagined he tried to get up on his own, but end up moving around laterally on the floor until he backed into a corner. It was always sad to see him struggle like that. His back body anchored put, his front half fighting so hard. He’d never make it to his feet that day. No one was there to pick him up.
He was also blind. As a puppy he had smiling brown eyes that showed his every emotion. In his old age, he had cloudy eyes, likely because of cataracts, but they were still childlike. Lighting up when he heard ‘car ride’ or a cannonball into the pool. Confused and getting his bearings when he woke up from his naps. Serious and alert when we walked down Murphy Ave past the home with the two barking dogs. Always gentle and never judging…
Kate was aware that she was forgetting parts of Sam, like what the spots on his muzzle looked like. But it was impossible to forget his eyes.
Anyways, he was blind. He frequently leaned his head into Kate’s cupped hands for behind-the-ear scratches. He followed alongside Kate on walks, only going forward when she did. Even then, he would test the ground ahead with one paw, like someone dipping a foot into water to check a pool’s temperature.
Kate imagined what he saw in those Last Moments. Maybe he saw the blurs of flames, too bright and fast to be anything manmade. His last sight was probably not flames, but, because they were all around him and on him at that point, of an ocean of fire, flaring Northern Lights. He probably wasn’t observing at that point, but feeling pain. Seeing pain, smelling pain… dying from it. He was always so cautious and protective of himself, he was scared of exactly what happened.
Although he might have, Kate couldn’t imagine Sam barking for help. He was a quiet guy, never resorted to some shrill ego-announcing. He had the intelligence (emotional?) not to need a voice. He didn’t need to get the whole world’s attention. He only participated in the language of actions and being. A passive lexicon that was spoken through his body; tongue-out smiling after walks, tucked tail and trembling when there was thunder, and of course, all the messages he told with his eyes. There was no doubt that in the end his eyes yelled for help.
I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I’m sorry you were alone and scared and helpless. I’m sorry you died without someone by your side, without someone to hold your body through the fear and pain until you made it to peace. You were a good boy through it all.
Kate shifted her vague focus from the soil to the sky. She felt a gentle wind and was grateful for nature, which had become for her a magnificent urn for spirits, alive and passed, to be together again. Atoms and ashes catching up for a while before moving separate ways.
She moved both her hands over her heart. She pressed deeply and this is how she lightened the pain. There was no going back, what happened happened. Sam, Kate’s fifteen year old border collie, died in a house fire while the rest of the family was at a track meet. Kate had heard sirens that day, but her heat was next up. She came in third.
C’est la vie. C’est la mort.
It is what it is. But to be perfectly clear, no one is immune. Something will happen, you will understand what it feels like for someone you love to be gone. You won’t be the same. And then, like everyone else, you’ll have to find your own way to deal with it.
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