“Joan!” Ann’s voice grew more desperate and distant.
Her head spun as she looked around the small room filled with dark-gray smoke and coiling fumes. Beyond the door, popping sounds mixed with the roar of a spiraling wind.
Involuntarily, she sucked in a second breath, followed quickly by a new coughing fit. She raised her hands to her mouth as she swung her feet over the side of the bed. For an instant, she was back in the apartment with her father, and the fire was consuming the living room around his recliner as he slept.
The inferno’s pop and roar hissed louder as the gray smoke grew darker. She dropped to the floor on her hands and knees, taking refuge in a lingering pocket of breathable air. The smoke thickened and forced her to her belly against the blue shag carpet. Her eyes watered, and she sensed she had minutes to escape. She crawled faster.
Her fingers brushed the edge of a door, and she stood and twisted the knob. She expected to see her living room but instead found herself in her closet. Sweat beaded on her brow and between her shoulder blades. Inside the closet, she sucked in the last of the fresh air and then moved to the door to her right.
Rising again, she reached for the door handle and immediately recoiled as the metal, now molten hot, burned her palm. The pain rocketed through her body and sent a surge of adrenaline, clearing all traces of brain fog. She glanced back toward her bed, thinking she could wrap her body and hands in a coverlet, but the smoke now enveloped her and the bed.
Grabbing the edge of her shirt, she twisted the handle with her left hand. The heat immediately burned through the worn cotton fabric, blistering her skin. She accepted the pain and kept turning the knob. It gave way, and the door swung inward.
Joan gasped at the first sign of the inferno eating through the room and their lives. She looked toward the front door and saw Gideon carrying his sister, Ann, outside. She tried to follow, but the heat held her back.
“Don’t leave me!” Joan gasped.
Neither looked back as they rushed out the front door. She dropped to her hands and knees, desperately searching for another pocket of air. The carpet radiated more heat as wallboards crackled and groaned beneath the fire thundering over her head. When she lifted her gaze, the door had vanished in a cloud of black smoke. Desperate, she crawled back to the closet in her room, choking until finally her head spun, and she passed out.
The plane came to a stop, and the steward announced the local time. Joan waited as the passengers grabbed their bags from the overhead bins, and when it was her turn, she yanked her backpack free.
Checking her watch, Joan knew that if Ann was as punctual as she had been in college, she would be at baggage claim now. As she made her way through the terminal, she wondered what it would be like to see Ann again. It had been more than ten years since the fire, and though she and Ann had exchanged cards each holiday and had spoken on the phone a few times in the early years, they had not had any real contact in some time. They had been the best of friends during college and had survived a devastating fire. They should have shared a lifelong bond of friendship.
So many times, she had nearly called Ann, but each time she found a reason not to. Dismantling the past was much like poking around a burned-out building. Tug on one board or beam and you risked toppling what structure remained. Pushing through the door, she tamped down her apprehension and followed the sounds of a growing cluster of passengers gathered around the luggage carousel.
Joan’s gaze was drawn to a tall, lean woman wrestling a large bag, which she yanked free and pushed toward an elderly man.
Joan recognized Ann’s blond hair and compact, athletic body. The hair was shorter, but her body was as fit as it had been in college. Joan tugged her sweater down, remembering her broken promise to get to the gym before her flight today. As Ann turned, she spotted Joan. For a moment, they stared at each other, trying to gauge the other’s reaction.
Finally, Joan raised her hand, and they closed the gap between them. She hugged Ann’s thinner frame and felt the tension rippling through her body like a rubber band ready to snap.
“Long time no see,” Joan said.
“We finally got you back to Missoula. I’ve missed you.”
“Same.” Smiling, Ann shoved her fingers through her bangs, a habit Joan remembered from college as a sign of nerves.
To break the ice, Joan produced a red Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt and ball cap from the backpack’s side pocket. “Where’s your boy? I come bearing gifts.”
Ann held up the small T-shirt. “Thank you.”
Joan instantly realized her mistake. “Okay, how big is the kid? Any son of Clarke Mead’s has to be tall.”
“The top of his head comes up to my shoulder.”
Joan studied the T-shirt. “Tell me his head will still fit in the ball cap.”
Ann laughed, and some of the tension between them eased. “It will. Do you have much luggage?”
“Only the backpack. If I need a change of clothes, I have a brand-spanking-new Phillies T-shirt I can wear.”
“Is there a coat in that backpack?”
“It was eighty-five degrees in Philadelphia this morning.”
“It’ll be close to thirty here by tomorrow evening. I have extra jackets.”
“The daytime highs were in the sixties, but I forgot about the cold nights. Winter comes fast out here.”
“Yes, it does.”
They crossed the terminal and stepped outside into the crisp air. Joan drew in a deep breath, her gaze lingering on the puffy white clouds hovering in the blue sky above the mountain chain
