Page 43 of A Better World

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, Gal rigged it.”

“Rigged it?” Linda’s stomach caved in on itself. She felt undone and reversed.

“Those houses on that side of town are wood. They’re slated for rebuilds. Apparently, it went up in a snap.”

“The kids? Is everyone okay?”

Daniella squeezed Linda’s knee. “They’re alive.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“She gave a statement. Gal, that is. Apparently, she planned to go up in the fire. Kids, too. But once the fire started it got too smoky and she ran out. Just, instinct. You’re in a burning building, you leave it. And then, she ran back in and dragged them out, too. One at a time. Wrapped them in blankets so they didn’t burn. She burned, though. Lloyd called from the scene. When he got there, the kids were laid out on the lawn, two separate bundles.”

“How bad?” Linda’s voice cracked. She was crying, eyes wet and chest heaving.

Daniella gave her a steely look. “Don’t you cry, or you’ll get me going.”

Linda tried to stifle herself, crossed her arms like a containing gate. Daniella waited. “Sorry.” Linda sniffled, looking at the crown molding in the ceiling, the gold wallpaper trim that was maybe pretty, maybe tacky, maybe both.

“It’s my own problem. I hate crying. But please stop doing it.”

“But the kids, are they okay?”

“They’re in the ICU,” Daniella continued. “Or maybe critical care. I’m not sure I understand the difference. Whatever it is, Lloyd spoke to your Dr. Chernin. They’re expected to survive.Fully recoverwere Chernin’s exact words.”

“Oh, thank God,” Linda said, her breath hitching, but the crying done. “And Gal?”

“She’s hurt.”

Linda pictured Gal as she’d left her, a furious husk of a woman. “How hurt?”

Daniella shook her head. “I don’t know. Third-degree burns? First? Whichever the worst kind happens to be.”

“Third,” Linda said, so full of emotion that she was standing. “Should we go see her?”

Daniella pulled her back down. “PV takes this kind of thing very personally. She and her children will be cared for by people who know them.”

“I can’t believe this. I was there. I was in that house,” Linda said. “It was cold. I asked her if her solar system needed repair.”

“What did she say?” Daniella asked.

“She said she was going to hurt people. She was going to break this town.” Linda remembered the messy house. The worship totems. The medicines.

I’m you. Let me be you?

“There wasn’t a babysitter,” Linda continued. “The kids were alone the whole night. Nothing was packed, even though they were supposedly leaving town. She said she was going to turn up the heat. I thought, figuratively. She was going to get even more aggressive with you all. But she meant literally. She turned up the heat and set her own house on fire.”

Daniella picked up a donut, held it by her thumb and index finger. Everything she did was graceful. “It’s not your fault. Who would imagine that?”

“Me,” Linda said. “It’s my job. When I suspect something wrong in a home with minors, I’m legally obliged to report it. At least, I was obliged in New York. But I was so tired, and I’d been drinking so much.”

Daniella took a bite. “I never eat these. The sugar,” she said, without looking into Linda’s eyes. “Feeling bad doesn’t fix anything. There’s no point.”

Surreptitiously, Linda wiped her eyes. “But why would she do such a thing? Why hurt her kids when this town and the ex-wife are the things she’s mad at?”

“Spite,” Daniella answered, and Linda thought it was the meanest, worst word she’d ever heard.Spite. Spite. Spite.

---