Page 49 of Right in Front of You

CARTER

My flesh burned. Monstrous flames seared the kitchen and family room downstairs. Though on a different floor, I could feel their heat inching upstairs, where the rooms were filling with black smoke.

“Mackenzie! Mac!” I screamed. From my experience, unless she was nearby, she wouldn’t hear me over the roaring blaze. I’d already checked both floors, and the only remaining room was the attic, where the fumes were the thickest. I looked up at the ladder, letting my instinct carry me up the rungs. The room was already filled with smoke when I heard a quiet cry. I got down on all fours and searched over the floor, praying that Mackenzie had remembered to stay low. Thank God I’d taken her to the firehouse, where we took pride in teaching kids about fire safety.

“Mac? Honey, where are you? We need to get out of here.”

“Uncle Carter?”

My eyes were beginning to water. Trying to make it out of the house with this girl secure in my arms was becoming more impossible with every passing second. I wasn’t sure how I’d do it, but I knew that I’d die for her, and I wouldn’t give up until my lungs filled with soot only for hers to breathe fresh air again.

Focus, Carter.

“Mac?” I heard Nick’s voice from downstairs. Stupid ass must have run into my burning house behind me! Didn’t he know this place was a death sentence? I’d hoped that the flames would scare him enough to keep him back. I yelled for him to get out. Mackenzie’s father, of course, didn’t listen. I didn’t have any kids of my own, but I knew that I wouldn’t have listened either.

When I’d found out that Mackenzie was missing this morning, I interrupted Nick and Jo’s rendezvous by banging on his front door. It was my responsibility to watch their daughter, and I failed. I’d never forget the look of disappointment in Jo’s eyes when I told her that Mac was missing. And then the smoke billowed over the horizon, and we all hurried back to this house.

It was my fault that Mackenzie was in danger. Not only had I let her get lost, but I also hadn’t turned off the gas to a stove that was supposed to be fixed. I definitely wouldn’t be getting firefighter of the year award for that one. Instead of turning the gas off and fixing the stove, I’d decided to visit Daisy at the cemetery, and then went drunk to Molly’s. I played out the scene of my stupidity at Molly’s over and over again, in my mind. Three long days of regret later, my house was burning down, and I had no time to think.

Both Jo and Nick would never forgive me if anything happened to their little girl. Hell, I wouldn’t forgive myself.

“Uncle Carter, it’s hard to breathe,” I heard.

“Stay low, Mac. I’m almost there.” I crawled on all fours to where I heard her voice, my palms searching the wooden floor, slivers embedding into my desperate fingertips, until I finally reached her. Mackenzie threw her arms around me, coughing.

“I’m scared.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Mac. The best firefighter in town has you now, okay? What do you say we get out of here?”

“Yes.”

“Put your face into my shirt, and try to hold as big a breath as you can.”

“Okay.”

She snuggled into me, holding my shirt tight with her tiny hands. Under the pressure of her hold, the collar dug into my throat, nearly strangling me. I stayed close to the floor and kept my eyes closed. The smoke was so thick that it was pointless to keep them open. There was no other exit up here, and I wondered whether I’d lost my bearings. When I finally felt the threshold at the opening to the attic, a second-long relief washed over me. Then I heard Nick’s voice.

“You found her!”

I did, but my lungs were beginning to ache. Despite holding my breath and sucking in air through my shirt sleeve only when I needed, I could feel that the smoke swirling in my lungs was beginning to deprive my body of much-needed oxygen.

“Nick, you gotta take her and get her out of here.”

I handed Mackenzie to my friend and prayed that they’d find safety. Once they were gone, I concentrated on my own escape. Feeling like a blind man, I turned around and took the first five steps down the ladder when something cracked underneath me.

Shit!

The fire had spread too quickly. The ladder gave way to the flames and collapsed underneath me. It felt like my body was in free fall for a long time. Too long, in fact, and I didn’t even remember hitting the floor. I realized that more fire must have been fed by a gust of wind. And then I saw Daisy. It must have brought her ghost, here from the cemetery. She was wearing her favorite daisy-print dress, white with blooming yellow flowers. Her hair was different than I remembered – flowing and lighter, almost angelic. She looked as beautiful as the day I’d fallen in love with her. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that she couldn’t be here, and the smoke must have knocked me right out. If that were so, I was either dead, or about to be burned to a crisp.

Still, her presence forced me to focus on her, and I felt at peace.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I miss you as well, Carter, but you need to move on. Give yourself permission to be happy again.”

“I want to be, but it’s not easy.”

“Life is not easy, but it’s life.”

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