Page 8 of Up In Smoke

To either side of her she could see the black streaks that climbed the outside walls of the house. No bit of her cheap vinyl siding had been left unscathed. It would all have to be replaced. But in most places the walls had held.

Through the window, she could see the charred and black interior—furniture crumbled, curtains missing, rough edges lined with soot. What had once been her home was now ruined.

Maybe they'd been right. The old thoughts about ‘they’ entered her head, unbidden but still there. Maybe shehadbeen too prideful of what she'd accomplished.

But when she’d walked away, she told herself that she didn't believe that anymore. And if she didn't believe it, she had to not believe it.This wasn't a punishment.

“Are you ready?” Luke asked again. There was no change in his tone, just the repetition as though he hadn't even said it the first time.

“Yes.” She offered the one word with conviction, though it was conviction in tone only. She didn't feel it.

It had been three days since the fire, and she still wasn’t prepared to look at the damage. Luke had volunteered on his day off to walk her safely through, so she could make a plan. So that B-shift wouldn't have to lose a firefighter to help her.

As he opened the door, she looked at the hollowed out black shell. Large patches of drywall were missing and the studs she could now see were blackened and cracked. The ceiling was soot from corner to corner, and the smell was overwhelming. It must already be starting to mold.

Luke's arms came around her before she even realized she was crumpling to the dirty floor and crying.

There was nothing left.No way this could be salvaged.

“It's okay,” he told her. “It's okay.”

But it wasn't. Forcing her legs underneath her, Ivy stood of her own accord. With her voice having returned, she simultaneously thanked Luke and pushed him away.

“May I?” She pointed toward the center of the room and waited until he nodded.

“That's why we had to wait so long to get you let in. But it’s all been cleared. The floor is safe.”

She nodded resolutely, not looking at him as she stepped inside. She was being crushed. She couldn't breathe. And when she did, she inhaled the after-effects of smoke, flame retardant, water, and a hint of something volatile.

Stepping gingerly into the room, Ivy made her way past the wooden frames and shriveled synthetic tufts that had once been her prized chairs. Comfortable and fluffy, they’d looked like the ones she'd always wanted when she was a kid and snuck the magazines out of the mail. Another loss.

She moved quickly past the carcasses and into the kitchen. She didn't have much. She'd been brought up in a simple life and once she was on her own, the small number of things she had still seemed a bit excessive to her. It wasn't that she was trying to make her life small, it was simply that she'd realized she didn't need all of the extras. So it hurt even more to lose what she had decided to keep.

The kitchen was an odd mosh of death and life. Some of the cabinets retained their shiny, glossy coating, while others were blackened. One charred door hung by the lower hinge, hinting that it would clatter to the floor at any moment. Turning away from what she couldn’t bear to look at, she hoped Luke couldn’t see her tears as she headed down the hallway.

There was black around the doorframes, but she turned the handle to the odd little pair of rooms that she had cobbled into both a storage and an office space. But as she stepped inside, she gasped.

“Amazing, isn't it?” Luke’s voice startled her. He must be right behind her, but she’d been lost in her own grief.

She stumbled back into the hard wall that was his chest. His hands came up to grab her shoulders and steady her, but in a moment she was back on her feet and walking across the carpet.

The room was practically pristine.

“We opened the windows and let it air out.” He was following her inside, explaining despite the fact that she wasn’t absorbing any of it. “You'll need to air it a little bit more. But a good carpet cleaner can take care of it.”

She almost laughed. Why should she get a good carpet cleaner service for what had never been a good carpet? It was old and beaten. When she’d bought the place, it was already faded. The combination of the little house being all that she could afford and it already having a personality of its own was enough for her. Ivy had promised herself she'd upgrade as she went along, but now she was going to have to fight just to get back to the status quo.

Heading into the second room, she was stunned to find it much the same—pristine and almost clean. Her laptop still sat on the desk under the window. It was easy to see where she’d sat looking into the small backyard. When she looked out, she saw her hibiscus was still in bloom.

Small wonders.

But it wasn’t, she reminded herself. The fire couldn’t be a punishment for pride or how would her garden still be so lovely?

She almost laughed. It had likely gotten watered to hell and back the other night. Hitting a key on her computer, Ivy watched as the screen came to life. Nothing was missing in here, even the tech seemed intact. As the system filled in every icon and opened her documents a huge sigh of relief fell out of her. Then her internet browser restored all the information she’d been searching when she’d fallen asleep in here.

While she was glad her router hadn’t burned, she wondered how many people had been through here and seen what she was searching? Her history was probably now part of the investigation.

Turning around and ignoring those possible ramifications, she pushed past Luke and practically ran into the bedroom. Aside from the hallway, this whole part of the house was mostly intact.

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