Page 53 of The Rancher's Wedding

Ohhhhh,Estelle thought, feeling her cheeks go red as she laughed at herself.

She moved a bit to the left and saw that Michael had been talking to Jacob, who was standing behind the tree.

Estelle wasn’t sure she could approach Michael now even if she wanted to—it was far too embarrassing—but she held back so she could hear the conversation between the two brothers.

***

It was a difficult conversation for Michael to have, but it was going well. He wished he had made more of an effort to talk to Jacob years earlier.

“I realize that it was unfair to blame you,” Jacob said, “but sometimes the heart works differently than the mind does. You don’t know what it was like in there.”

“I have some idea,” Michael said. He had, after all, run back into the burning house after he’d already made it out.

“You think you do, but you don’t.”

Michael felt a bit of fire within him at his brother’s dismissive comment. “I was there, too, Jacob.”

“No, you weren’t,” Jacob insisted, “and let me explain it to you, because I don’t think you understand.” He took a deep breath and Michael let him talk.

“The thunder woke me up,” Jacob began. “I remember that. But then I tried going back to sleep, on account it was only thunder. Then, things started getting real warm and real bright inside and I didn’t know what was going on.

“I got out of my room and I’m sure you’d already left by then, but one whole side of the house was on fire, so I rushed into Ma and Pa’s room, and they were stuck in bed. By the time I got them out, the fire was spreading into the hall and we were just trying to get out of the way. It got us into a corner and all three of us were huddled there, blocked from the stairwell, knowing full well and good we weren’t going to make it.”

Michael knew that his family had been inside the house as it was burning, but he hadn’t ever stopped to consider what that must have felt like, knowing they were going to die. That those would be their last moments on Earth.

“You know the weirdest thing?” Jacob said. “It was hot, but no hotter than standing close to a bonfire. The scariest part wasn’t the heat, it was the not being able to see or breathe. My eyes stung, and I kept on coughing. Every breath I took in seemed to only be smoke and I realized, no, the fire wasn’t going to kill me, the smoke was.”

Death by suffocation. Michael had to remind himself to breathe even listening to Jacob tell the story.

“Ma and Pa had passed out,” Jacob said. “Maybe they’d already died.”

“What?” Michael said. Could it be that he was too late to save his parents, even if he had gone back for them?

“It was too much for them. They’re older, I guess, and had a harder time breathing. So, I was sitting there, in the corner, knowing I was about to die while my arms were wrapped around Ma and Pa, who very well might already have been dead. And I started praying to God, telling Him to just make it quick. Asking Him to give me the strength to get through the next few minutes so I could join Ma and Pa up and heaven, but He didn’t do that, did he?”

“No, I suppose not,” Michael said.

“No, He sent you instead. I was ready for death. In my mind, I’d already died. And I was okay with that, because at least I wouldn’t have to miss Ma and Pa for long. But you took that away from me. You came in and told me to jump.”

“You didn’t have to jump,” Michael pointed out.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if I didn’t jump, you would have stayed there until I did and you’da been just as dead as the rest of us. You think you saved my life.” Jacob shook his head. “That’s not how it went. I saved your life.”

Michael didn’t respond. He had always assumed that Jacob resented Michael for saving him and not being able to save their parents, but he’d never thought of what would happen to him if Jacob hadn’t jumped.

“I didn’t understand why I jumped until recently,” Jacob said. “I didn’t want to, but I felt compelled to. It was only through writing to Megan that we figured it out. And I thought I should share it with you.”

Michael got up from his stool and hugged his brother.

“We saved each other,” Michael said.

“You’re too good a person,” Jacob told him. “You would have burned to death before leaving that house without me. I should have told you that you couldn’t have saved Ma or Pa. I only wish that you could have said goodbye to them, as I had.”

“Did they say anything before they passed?”

---