I WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD when my father left home. My sister was eight and Mom was thirty-two. I remember things about him, like he smoked Camels. He worked in a machine shop and Mom would sweep up metal shavings that he tracked into the house on a daily basis. I’m not sure why he walked out. I don’t think it was another woman because he didn’t remarry. For a while anyway. I remember he smelled like tobacco and he’d bring home red-hot candies and we’d eat them until our mouths burned.
James was six months older than I, and I leaned on him as much as a twelve-year-old can lean on another twelve-year-old. I didn’t go home from school because the pain was too much to bear. I’d go to James’s house and Mom would end up calling, wondering where I was. I think she was glad I had a home away from home because it made life easier for her. One less problem in her life.
James was the brother I didn’t have, the best friend that everyone should have, and an inspiration that encouraged me to reach farther than I probably would have. James was always there. Always.
“Skip, I’m sorry. So sorry.” Em slowed down and pulled into a deserted parking lot a mile from the fire.
“How the hell could a day turn into such a catastrophe? A little side venture, some extra money.”
We could still hear the sirens in the distance as more engines came to the rescue. An orange hue lit up the sky and plumes of smoke climbed into the night, drifting over the neighborhood. I could smell the acrid odor in my clothes and hair. The ’Bird would smell like smoke for some time to come. I tried to push James from my mind, but it didn’t work.
“We’ve got to go to the cops.”
I nodded.
“If Vic was in that building-” She trailed off.
“If James was in that truck-”
“And that’s why we’ve got to go to the police. Skip, this is my fault. I should have talked you guys out of this.”
I gave her an icy stare. “Get over yourself. You couldn’t have talked him out of it if you’d tried, and I’d pretty much bought into it myself. You had nothing to do with it.”
“James.” She rested her arms on the steering wheel, gazing out the windshield at the darkness. “God, I could have tried harder. I could have had a little more understanding, compassion.”
“Born in the USA” chirped in my pocket. I grabbed the phone and flipped it open.
“Skip?”
“Oh, my God. James!”
Em grabbed the phone from my hand and yelled into the mouthpiece. “You son of a bitch. Goddamn you to hell! Where the hell have you been?”
So much for understanding and compassion. James was alive and things were back the way they had been.