Page 40 of Smoke Season

“I’ve really got to leave,” she said. “I’ll just say goodbye to Astor.”

But a minute later, when the two of them entered the office, Astor lay curled into Sam’s desk chair like a snail in its shell, fast asleep. Her cheek pressed awkwardly into the armrest, puckering her lips into an open-mouthedO, and a soft little snore escaped on every exhale. For the first time in days, she looked so childlike, so at peace, that Sam had to stifle a pained sigh.

Mel came to a halt just shy of rousing her. “She never falls asleep this easily.”

Sam agreed. It could take Astor hours to settle down on a bad night, and how was tonight anything but? “We should let her rest.”

They locked eyes, for the moment in sync again. The nagging doubt faded, and Sam felt just as he had when Mel stepped through the door of the Eddy this evening, enfolded in the comfort of their partnership. It felt right, but ... “I guess we do have to—”

“I’ll stay with her.” They both turned at the sound of True’s voice; she shifted from foot to foot in her grimy river sandals. “That way you can get back to Annie, Sam.” She turned to Mel. “And you can get to the station.”

The gesture, so typical of True, snuffed out the lingering uncertainty Sam had felt earlier. He’d been wrong, of course he had. True was as TrueBlue as always. Stepping up once again as a crucial part of their family’s team. He nodded as Mel did the same. “If you’re sure you’ll be okay?”

True’s eyes flicked to his, and she didn’t reprimand him for trying to play the “knight in shining armor” card this time. On the contrary,her gaze entreated him ever so briefly before flicking away again. For a moment, he thought she was about to ask him something. But then the stalwart woman-against-the-world confidence that he’d learned to expect from her since their Forest Service days returned, and she straightened her shoulders. “Yeah, of course. Just need some shut eye, same as the rest of us.”

Near 10:00 p.m., he finally made his way back up Highline through the dark, the flow of traffic that had been trickling down in the afternoon now eerily absent. Anyone who’d planned to leave already had, and anyone remaining would be settling in for the duration, taking comfort in the Level 1 order. AllSamwanted to do was to get home now to his younger daughter.

He walked in the door and set down the heavy power cube to see Annie still on the couch, cradled by Claude.

The old man held out a hand in greeting. Or maybe in supplication. “Now, don’t worry,” he said, “but ourkleines fräuleinisn’t doing all that well.”

The little miss. Sam’s heart always gave a little lurch of tenderness at Claude’s use of his favorite nickname for Annie, but now it walloped with instantly ramped-up anxiety. He should have been home hours ago. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to get distracted, not even by Mel. Because Annie looked an ashen shade of pale blue ... the telltale sign of an impending tet spell.

He rushed over despite Claude’s continued assurances, tugging Ingrid’s homemade quilt down from her body to assess her. She protested weakly, popping her thumb out long enough to ask, “Where is Astor, Daddy?”

“She’s with True, peanut.”

“ButIwanna be with True,” Annie protested.

Of course she did. And thinking of True made Sam’s heart lurch again, though it was hard to tell in which direction. That happened to him sometimes; familial obligations and promises entangling hopelessly. He leaned in to kiss Annie’s forehead, stealthily attempting to listen for any rasp to her breathing at the same time. Rapid.

She was coughing, too. He did his damnedest to not flinch every time, but it was a losing battle. Had been, actually, from the very first time poor air quality had wreaked havoc on his daughter’s fragile respiratory system, several years ago during the Briggs Fire. Watching a three-year-old nearly hack up a lung wasn’t a sight Sam wished on anybody, and that fire hadn’t gotten within fifty miles of Highline. Tonight was worse. Far worse.

“Maybe we should get the hell out of here,” he said to Claude in an undertone. Because doubt gripped him, per usual when it came to this parenting gig. Should he evacuate? Had he made a mistake leaving Astor at the Eddy? At what point did the risk of lung damage outweigh the risk of travel?

“Maybe tomorrow,” Claude countered softly, with a pointed look at Annie’s pulse oximeter on the side table. His message was clear: Annie’s vitals did not warrant a road trip. At least not tonight.

But Sam had to see for himself. How else could he possibly make the impossible decisions that were thrust at him every waking moment during this fire? With a nod of understanding, Claude turned the oximeter on and waited for the beep that would indicate it was ready to measure Annie’s oxygen levels again. Opening and closing its little jaws, he made a path through the air toward Annie’s finger while Sam paced the living room, trying to peer out the windows.

“What do you think? Should we let Pac-Man gobble you up again?”

Annie giggled, a weak little sound. When the oximeter beeped again, he turned around.

Claude shook his head. “As I said.”

Please,Sam thought,don’t let this turn into a tet spell.Though if it did, they had power to run her O2 here at the house, he remindedhimself. They still had refrigerated meds and syringes. And now they had the Goal Zero. Claude was right. Keeping Annie here, where all her medical gear stood at the ready, remained the right move.

Annie coughed again, right on cue, and Claude retrieved the N95 mask she hated so from the table. “When she’s not on the O2, this should help some,” he said, still frowning.

After he fit it on her little face, Annie stared back at them with wide brown eyes—her mother’s eyes.

“Better, right?” Sam asked, and Annie nodded gamely enough, offering a clumsy thumbs-up. She was such an obedient, optimistic kid. Even while fighting for breath. Even at midnight. Did all the surgeries and doctor’s visits instinctively cause his younger daughter to be more pliant, Sam wondered? Take the smoother path? Choose the least resistance? Sam scoffed at himself—what a bunch of psychobabble—but still, overhearing so much gloom and doom, even though he and Mel tried to keep it from her, had to impact a five-year-old’s malleable psyche.

Claude doled out Annie’s prescriptions and helped her swallow the syrupy liquid while Sam eyed the remaining medication left in each plastic bottle. They were due for a refill, but when he’d noticed earlier this week, he hadn’t called it in. No point in asking for refills when you couldn’t pay.

“Cuddle with me, Daddy,” Annie interrupted, offering him a corner of her quilt.

Sam exchanged one last pointed look with Claude, then leaned down to scoop her up.

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