I’m not a block from home when thunder explodes in an otherwise quiet night, when the rain—cold, thick rain—begins to drop from the sky. A band of clouds rolls in across the city like a cinderblock wall. I break into a jog, aware that the temperature has begun to plunge, as well, a fifty-degree day morphing into a thirty-degree night.
What kind of monster would I be if I sent this girl off into a monsoon? That’s what Heidi would say, I think, as I climb the steps to our home, shaking the rainwater off my coat and hair.
I come in to find the girl on the couch, the evil black cat on her lap. Heidi and Zoe are at the kitchen table, discussing probability. Probability of simple events. Probability of overlapping events.
What is the probability of another rainy night during the wettest April on record?
Heidi has not gone to work for two days now in a row. Two days. It was me who, days ago, forbid her from leaving that girl alone in our home as my eyes roved from personal files to jewelry boxes to various electronics, pointing out all the things she was liable to steal. Heidi had eyed the forty-inch TV perched on the wall, imagined the girl walking down Fullerton with that in her hands, and asked, “Really, Chris?” pointing out what a pessimist I could be.
And I had said, “Don’t be so naive.”
But she has used this to her advantage, as an excuse to stay home from work rather than kick the girl to the curb as I had hoped she’d do. She said she couldn’t leave Willow alone for fear she’d steal something, the forty-inch TV or her father’s wedding ring.
The baby is on the floor, sound asleep. There are weathermen on the TV, talking about the string of storms set to pass through the city during the night, the type of storm system, they say, that produces tornadoes, causing widespread damage. If you live in the towns of Dixon or Eldena, take cover now. The storms are headed our way from central Illinois, from Iowa, red and orange blips on the Doppler radar that the weathermen flash on the TV screen.
Heidi asks, “Raining again?” as I hang my saturated coat on a hook by the door and slip out of my shoes, her voice elevated over the thumping sound of the rain. I say that it is.
“Just started up,” I say. “Getting colder, too,” as a clap of thunder rattles through the sky, shaking the building and everyone inside.
“Going to be a doozy,” says Heidi, about the storm, her eyes set on Willow across the room, stroking the cat with the palm of her hand, staring vacantly out the blackened windows. Lightning brightens the sky and she jumps, withdrawing into the sofa cushions as if she’s trying to hide.
I kiss Heidi and Zoe on the cheek, and take my leftover dinner, the plate on the countertop, tucked beneath a paper towel, to the microwave to reheat it. I peek under the paper towel and see pork chops.
Maybe this girl isn’t so bad after all.
The cold air disseminates through our home, through the breaches in the drafty windows. Outside, the wind howls and the trees sway. Heidi rises from her chair, crosses the room and flips on the gas fireplace to warm the space.
It’s then that I see, out of the corner of my eye, a look of dread that overtakes Willow, as she springs to her feet, the black cat plummeting to the ground. Her eyes are fastened to that fireplace. The fire glowing orange among the artificial embers. The flames, how they dance dramatically behind the mesh screen, coaxing the cats, enticing them, the both of them, to the warmth of the fire. They sprawl out beside it, oblivious to Willow’s distress.
“Fire,” she says, her voice shaky and subdued. She’s pointing. At the black fireplace with its black louvers on the white wall, surrounded by built-in nooks and crannies that house Heidi’s knickknacks: her snow globes and vases, a collection of vintage jars. “Fire,” she says again, and I’m reminded of cavemen discovering fire for the very first time. Her eyes are glassy, like marbles; her face has gone white.
It’s a knee-jerk reflex when Heidi flips the fireplace off.
The flames disappear. The gas logs return to their hand painted, blackened state.
“Willow,” she says, her voice as wobbly as Willow’s when she said fire. But there’s a calmness in Heidi’s voice that the girl doesn’t possess. A hint of reason. The rest of us in the room, we’re silent. The cats stare at the fireplace, growing cold.
“It’s okay, Willow,” Heidi declares, “it’s just a fireplace. It’s safe. Perfectly safe,” and her eyes stray to mine, begging to know what in the hell just happened. My shoulders rise and fall as Willow settles back down on the sofa, shaking the image of that fire from her mind.
I eat my dinner and excuse myself, into the bedroom to make a call. A work call, I say so that I won’t be interrupted.
But it isn’t a work call at all.
I’ve been doing my own research on Willow Greer, hitting one dead end after the next. I’ve widened my search to more than a Google search. In every spare second of downtime, I’m on my laptop, searching for the girl.