shoulders flushed the color of broken seashells. She pulls back her hair, then treads easily as her clear blue eyes search mine.
“I want you inside me.”
I shake my head.
“I love you, Penn. I always have. I just didn’t have the courage to choose you.”
Her words are like needles thrust into my heart, triggering emotions too intense to withstand, much less interpret. Caitlin’s warning on the plane sounds in my head: She could really mess you up-
“You don’t have any right to say that, Livy.”
“I know. I won’t say it again. But I had to let you know.”
I roll away from her and swim back to the fallen tree that leads to the shore. As I climb onto it, I turn and see her perched on the cypress knee where she left her bathing suit, slipping on the white lycra as gracefully as she does everything else.
“Where next?” she calls across the water, making no attempt to cover herself.
“I think it’s time we got back.”
“Home? But the day’s not half over.”
“I need to check on Annie.”
She nods somberly. “I understand.”
I turn and make my way carefully along the slippery log. For any other woman I would wait, but Livy Marston can take care of herself.
As I swing the Fiat back onto Highway 61, I realize with a dull shock that guilt is not among the torrent of emotions rushing through me. A moment’s thought tells me why: my past with Livy predates my life with Sarah. Intimacy with Livy is not a new experience. It’s like walking through a checkpoint to a country I visited long ago and to which I now return, older and-hopefully-wiser.
She doesn’t speak as the Spyder thrums northward in the afternoon sun, but I feel her eyes upon me, trying to penetrate my thoughts. What really brought her back to Natchez? Caitlin’s belief that Livy has returned to persuade me to leave her father alone is not impossible. But Livy would not declare her love for such a cynical reason. That is the one gift she’s reserved through the years, if indeed she has given love to anyone. She certainly must have said the words more than a few times, probably while trying to believe them herself. But why did she want this reprise of a perfect day twenty years past? And why does she think she loves me? Is it some strange analogue of a man wanting to marry the only girl who wouldn’t sleep with him?
As we pass St. Stephens Preparatory School and join the traffic heading into town, Livy touches my knee and says, “After you check on Annie, let’s do something else. We still have our picnic.”
Her voice is calm enough, but I sense anxiety beneath it. She is reluctant to let this day end. Tomorrow things will not be so simple. It’s one thing to pretend for a few hours that we can evade the past, as this town somehow evades the future. But it will be quite another when I insist on asking the questions she didn’t want to hear today. And what will happen after I tell the world that her father ordered the murder of Delano Payton? When I commence my campaign of attrition against him? How will she feel then?
“I think we’ve done a lot to think about already,” I say evenly.
She bites her lower lip and looks away.
The whine of a siren overtakes us from behind, and I glance at the rearview mirror. Traffic is parting on the highway behind us. We’re at the turn for my parents’ neighborhood, so I swing right off the bypass, clearing the way.
“Penn?” Livy says, her voice tinged with fear. “Look.”
A column of gray smoke is roiling out of the treetops in the distance.
“Penn, that’s a fire.”
I hit the accelerator hard, knowing that a neighbor could be in trouble. Most of them are older now, and it doesn’t matter whose house it is: I’ve probably known the family all my life.
“Where is it?” she asks, her voice tight.
“Close to my parents.”
I press harder on the gas, roaring up the street, with every yard becoming more afraid of something my brain does not want to consider. It couldn’t be our house burning. It couldn’t be.
Fifty yards from the corner, I see that it is.
CHAPTER 26
I drive the Fiat right into the yard, where my mother stands with Annie and a dozen neighbors, all pointing helplessly at the burning house, all in various stages of shock. I jump out of the car, run to my mother, and take Annie from her arms.
“Daddy, the house is on fire!” she cries, more amazed than frightened.
“The fire engine’s right behind me,” I tell Mom. “Is everybody okay?”
She grabs my arms, her eyes wide with terror. “Ruby’s in there! We heard a boom and then smelled smoke… when we saw the flames we ran but Ruby fell. Penn, I think she broke her hip. I couldn’t drag her out. I brought Annie out, and by then it was too bad to get back in. But that off-duty policeman-Officer Ervin-he went in anyway. He went after Ruby, but he never came out!”
“How long ago was this?”
My mother is close to hyperventilating. I put my hands on her shoulders and squeeze hard enough for her to feel pain.
“Five minutes… maybe more. I don’t know.”
As I stare at the house, a runner of flame races up the roof shingles. That’s no kitchen fire. The whole house is burning. The house I grew up in.
“Where was Ruby when she fell?”
“By the back bathroom.”
There’s no exterior door anywhere near that bathroom. And going through the front door would be suicide. I wouldn’t even make it to the bedrooms before being overcome by smoke. I hug Annie and pass her to Mom, then kiss them both.
“When the firemen get here, tell them to look for Ervin.”
My mother blanches. “Penn, you can’t go in there.”
“I’m not leaving Ruby in there to die.”
Livy grabs my arm from behind. “Penn, it’s too late. Wait for the fire truck.”
I yank my arm free and sprint toward the garage before either of them can say more. In the garage I grab a shovel, then race around to the back of the house. As I near it, I begin smashing windows, trying to give the trapped smoke as many outlets as possible. I may be feeding oxygen to the blaze, but if I don’t get some smoke out of there, I’ll never reach Ruby alive.
The back bathroom has no window, but the adjacent bedroom does. A high, horizontal one about five feet wide and eighteen inches tall. I smash the glass with the shovel and stand back as thick gray smoke explodes through the opening. After thirty seconds, the plume thins a little, and I put my hand through the window. The heat is intense, but when I stand on tiptoe and put my face to the opening, I see no flames.
Taking off my shirt, I soak it in water at the outdoor faucet, then tie it around my face. I am scraping the window sill clean of glass shards when the scream comes. The sound is an alloy of animal terror and human agony, a child’s wail from the throat of an eighty-year-old woman. An eighty-year-old woman who showed me more love and kindness than anyone but my mother. I feel like someone stuck my fingers into a 220-volt socket.
“Ruby! Ruby, it’s Penn! I’m coming to get you!”
Hooking both hands over the sill, I swing my right leg up into the window and pull myself into the frame. The smoke that looked thin from outside instantly scorches my eyes, throat, and lungs. Breathing is pointless until I get my face down to the floor. I roll off the window frame and drop to the carpet.
There’s air here, but the smoke is still too thick to see through. Before I lose my nerve, I shut my eyes and crawl around the bed toward the door that leads to the hallway. If I hadn’t lived in this house for fourteen years-and
